The Lost Moments of Nostalgia That Were Worth Cherishing
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The wooden letter box, once considered an essential for houses in Kolkata, now has become a matter of amnesia floats, unable to compete with the ever changing technologies of the modern world.
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With social media dominating conversations and other exchanges, the letter box continues to hang outside several old Kolkata buildings. This neglected box echoes a larger message of a lost cultural era in which the art of exchanging handwritten letters were valued and cherished.
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Apart from the cultural impact, the economic fallout of this lost tradition on the postal service cannot be ignored. Postmen and other personnel employed in the industry have been bearing the repercussions of the pace at which things are changing.
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The covid-19 pandemic has only added to their troubles. With many losing their jobs as a consequence of the virus, postmen are no exception.
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India's first General Post Office (GPO) opened inside the old Fort William in 1774. In the British era, the post office was built mainly for the purpose of sending letters to the East India Company.
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Soon, letter writing caught on with the public and post offices found a place in Bengal's colonial architecture. In 1864, a post office was built at a cost of six and a half lakh rupees. The post office was opened on October 2, 1868.
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More than a century later after the first post office came up in Bengal, the letterboxes lie dust, broken and forgotten in front of most of the houses in North Kolkata. It seems that the coming generations will get acquainted with these boxes only through the history books.
Image Credits :- Shashi Ghosh.
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