About Delhi from Kol-Cal-kutta Or Something Like That

Kolkata is a proud town as it should be. The Communist Party. Eden Gardens and Taj Bengal. Presidency College and Jadavpur. Rabindranth and Sharmila. Tiger and Saif. Moon Moon and Imran. Utpal and Suchitra. Saurav and Saurav - he equals two people for being captain. Something for everybody. Heck Paris (the city), would be proud.

Growing up in Calcutta (yes dash it that's what it was when I was there - CALCUTTA - there I said it) it was obvious that the city took pride from art, culture, academic achievement, sport, and above all, righteous indignation at uncouth Delhi and capitalist Bombay. Back then, the Vindhyas were too far away and no one had ventured beyond them; we were therefore mostly unsure whether they had electricity down south. Naturally, in keeping with general Calcuttan mores of fairness, everyone below the mountains got a catch-all name -"Southees", a minor improvement over "Madrasees" which was the term used by the ignoramuses of the previous generation. Along with the name, we gave Southees the benefit of the doubt that they were most likely human. While Mukund Vasudevan, George Verghese and George Thomas gave us some emperical evidence that there might even be intelligent life down there, the doubters contended that since those three were in Calcutta it was unclear how bad the situation was post such brain drain.

In this city of joy I lived in a little hamlet called Park Circus, not unlike some Gaulish towns I had read about with a balanced ratio of bards, homeopathic druids and warriors. Park Circus has a post office called Jhowtala. In 1986, Jhowtala post office occupied 200 square feet with 4 service agents manning the counters and the general smell of rice-based gum, paper, and stale postal stuff. "Service agent" being a loosely employed term since there was little indication that their induction into the job included various training measures to teach service oriented skills, and "4" a charitable answer to the question "how many different people had been spotted over the course of a month behind any one of the iron rails in front of the line customers were supposed to stand in?" The probability they were there all at once to serve customers at any given time was as Mr. Adhikari would have said, asymptotically trending to zero. In front of the counters were three benches with the usual stacks of postal forms, some scraps of rice-glue, and the odd broken pen.

In 1986 I was 17. Not the pimply, unsure type of 17. Worse. The snot-nosed, sure-of-everything 17. The type of 17 that says "I am applying to undergraduate institutions of higher learning (yes probably in those words) and my mail is very important and please get out of my way if sending your mail takes too long". In other words the aggressive, lets-do-it type 17 surrounded by a system where demand of all kinds far exceeded supply, with only 2 available ladders one could climb and a third that pointed to the United States just emerging as more of a ladder-ette than a real ladder.

So here I was at close to 3.50 pm, 17 years old in Jhowtala post office with the clock 10 minutes away from the dreaded hour of 4.00 when all good post office workers disappeared, a period of time when those who walked in felt a little trepidation because their fate lay in the hands of a "service agent" who could on a whim decide at 3.56 that it was 4 o clock and tell you that tomorrow was another day when your mail could be handled equally well. And if you had to mail something out today because those chumps at some firangee school couldnt handle a tardy application for admission, well, heck thats the reason we threw the British out in the first place.

On the fateful day I speak of, the post office was empty but for two people. Behind the counter was the large, affectionate and Mrs. Doubtfire like-lady who I had grown to know and like over the last few years. I had seen her help customers with the zeal that many of her younger colleagues would have done well to emulate. In front, next to one of the benches with the glue was a gentleman who had clearly just come in after a session of prayer, his cap and manner betraying a peaceful soul, one who realized the importance of getting that letter in before the 4 oclock hour and one who, like me, knew better than to assume the government issued rice-glue was to be trusted unless applied in liberal doses. He stood there with stamps and letters neatly going about his business.

I had assessed the situation at hand and felt good about it. All I needed to do was go to Mrs. Doubtfire, ask her to weigh the admissions packet I was going to mail, buy said amount of stamps, go to the bench, apply the stamps and come back to hand in the letter. 90 seconds tops if that. Piece of cake.

So I walked upto the counter, my cheery self pushing the packet through the open alcove feeling a little Oliver Twist-ish as she weighed the letter, told me what it would cost, took my money and gave me my stamps. Nice. 45 seconds and I was almost done! I whirled around, doing my best Nadia Comaneci pirouette and headed to the bench with the glue.

This is when I discovered the fatal flaw in my calculation.

The issue at hand was that in assuming the 90 seconds completion time, I had neglected to set aside a buffer for the time that might elapse between when I got the stamps to when I would be able to apply rice-glue on them. In 1986, the stamps made available to the Indan masses were not self-adhesive, nor partially sticky so one could get away with a lick and enjoy the accompanying high. What was required was diligent application of rice glue, the type of which would have made Mao proud.

So what stood between me and task completion was a nice grandfatherly gentleman who was now upto letter number 6 in the stack of what looked like 15 or so mail-bound objects. I watched as letter number 6 was unwrapped, the flap opened and pressed down neatly on the surface of the bench, followed by a measured amount of glue taken onto a fingertip. What followed was a meticulous brain surgeon like move where the finger was very very slowly applied over the exact right surface of the envelope flap, with not a millimeter spilling over into the zone that might smudge the glue into unwanted parts of the flap when closed. He may as well have been performing non-invasive arthroscopy on an out of place meniscus.

And thats when it happened. The years of Salesian priest instilled self-control snapped. The thought of waiting while another 9 of these objects were dealt with in this manner and the horror of an extra seven minutes this might take was too much. I had things to do, places to go and the spectre of being told to come back tomorrow to mail my application was too disturbing. I rushed toward the bench and made a direct line for the glue. The nice old man sensed that something was afoot and literally moved a little so it seemed to me like he was shielding the glue! That did it. Impatience mixed with anger is never a good thing let alone in a situation like this, so I lunged forward like Michael Phelps for butterfly gold.

I missed. Instead, in a smart motion, the man had moved again, with an alacrity that would have made Ali proud. Avoiding man and glue, I landed headfirst with my hands grappling for balance and nowhere close to the glue, which he incidentally had shifted to the edge of the bench along with himself.

There is probably an appropriate thing to say in a situation where you have almost physically attacked a man three times your age and six inches shorter. Perhaps a smile, a Pierce Brosnan like calm followed by a "Cheers" or "Oh hi, I am an idiot. And you.. you must be Father Time". Strangely none of those words seem to quite find their way onto my tongue. Instead as I recovered, he stood two feet away across the bench, my sheepish smile met with a look of uncomprehending alarm. In better times I may have even asked him what he was thinking but for now all I managed was... "ugghh.. sorry er.. can I use the um.. glue please"?

He looked at me, calmly slid the piece of gooey paper across and smiled. "Go ahead. But beta, ek baat bataao (Son, tell me something)".... he slipped his wet finger over envelope lapel number 7.. "Dilli se ho? (Are you from Delhi?")