Snail mails

 I met a friend at a get together recently. Our  conversation veered towards  the impact of Internet and  social media on the traditional postal system: a system providing a service which was popularly known as  `snail mails` as against the instant communication, across the world,  possible through emails and social media today.

Remember the times, not long ago, when all communication to your near and dear ones, staying near or far, was done through letters written by hand or typewritten on a self stamped  post card, or Inland letter  or postal covers. If we were   sending the letter in plain envelopes then we  had to buy stamps of different denominations  depending on the weight of the envelope and paste them on the envelopes using   some form of adhesive. Even grains  of cooked rice came in handy as an adhesive!. This  task was later made easy by the Post office  which provided  self adhesive  stamps and all that you had to do was to wet it  by using a wet sponge  or just lick it!.

We used the post card for open communication and Inland letters  or enveloped letters  for any communication which required some privacy. If we wanted to secure the delivery of letters or important documents we  had the facility of sending  them  by Registered Post ; with or without Acknowledgement  Due. When the electronic payment facilities or even basic  banking services  did not have the kind of reach it has today, Money Orders were the sure way  of sending money from one place to another. VPP was another service offered.

In the olden days, our elders believed in using  post cards more often with  information packed using every centimeter of space available in the post card.  It was not unusual to see sentences squeezed into the margins and even the address portions.   You had to wait patiently for letters from your near and dear ones,  living abroad,   sent by Sea Post.  They would take more than a month  to reach you. Later the waiting time  was reduced to a week when the letters started arriving by air mail.

The government in its wisdom has been providing this as a subsidized  service. India can proudly claim to have one of the best postal systems  in the world. We have 1,55,000 post offices to serve the 6,00,000 villages of India of which 1,38,000 are located in villages.  In many of the villages the Post Offices are located in the home of a prominent  resident of the village, even today. I have heard that my maternal grand father  was operating one such Post office from his home  in our  village in Tamil Nadu

With the growing popularity of Social media , when the Postal Department found reduced patronage for its services, making huge losses, it had to reinvent itself.  It had to think  of  non conventional services using its wide network  connecting the remotest villages of India. IPO has  one of the best distribution networks available in the country for any product or service. No wonder that Post Offices diversified into  offering services like Life Insurance, Postal savings . They even offer their Network to Corporates for selling their products.  The latest  is the Indian Post Payments Bank which promises to take Banking services to the doorsteps of households, especially rural households.

While Postal Department is trying its best to stay relevant, it is sad that a whole generation  of Indians  has grown without having any idea of the Postal services. The other day I was asking a school  boy if he has heard about Post offices. His response was `What is a Post Office!`

This article appeared in the Adyar Times issue dt  07-13, July,2019 under my column `Rajan`s Random Reflections`

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A simple RWH system leads to a turnaround

I am one of those who is managing to survive the current water crisis in Chennai  because of a RWH system I implemented in my  modest independent home in  a Sastri Nagar, almost 15  years ago. Let me explain.

Between 1982 and 1993 my home was blessed with a copious supply of water from the open well and some supply from the Corporation which was erratic and unreliable. Because of poor rainfall in the years 1993/94, when the well water began depleting at a fast rate, I sunk a bore well  which became the main source of water supply for the family. A friend suggested that I try RWH to recharge my well, by channeling the rain water collected on the terrace during rains into the well through PVC pipes, suitably filtered. That did not solve the problem. However during heavy rains my home, lying at a lower level than the road in front, would be surrounded by water one foot high. It would remain stagnant for almost a week. Because of the muck that came in with the water the whole place would stink and also became a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Very often we had to seek the help of the Corporation to pump out the water.

 In 2003, that the AIADMK government made RWH  compulsory for all household in Madras, my friendly architect/engineer came up with a  simple idea to harvest the water surrounding my home during the next  rainy season. He dug holes  on the ground  in the compound of  the house, 3 meters deep in which he embedded  PVC pipes of 6 inches diameter and  filled them with sand & broken granites. These  were placed three meters apart through out the length and breadth of the  compound which had  a concrete flooring. He also dug up a 3ft x 3ft, 3 meters deep shallow gutter covered with a perforated concrete slab in two places in the passage leading to the house- one  near the gate and another at the entrance to the passage from the road. The initiative cost me only Rs 15,000/- in 2004. When the next rain came inundating our  colony  I was pleasantly surprised to see the entire collection of water surrounding my home vanishing into the ground   within 3 to 4 hours. Obviously RWH system was working..In a couple of weeks I had another surprise. The open well which had gone dry for almost 10 years had got recharged and was full to the brim.

However, the total failure of the rains last year has made the open well go dry again  for the last six months.  While we are continuing to enjoy the supply from the bore well  for general purposes,  thanks to the RWH system in place,   we do buy tanker water once a month for our cooking and drinking needs. I am convinced that RWH by every household or building complexes is one of the  lasting solution to the water problem of Chennai, which normally receives adequate  rainfall which are not saved and allowed to drain into the sea.

This article appeared in the Down Town supplement of the Hindu issue dt. 7^th July,2019