some day........

yesterday i was at the post office-Yeshwanthpur RTO branch ...
the regional transport office (RTO) is a hectic scene of activity.
it houses the driving license issuing offices ,various property doc related offices ,a bangalore one center-an integrated facility that will cater to various needs .

tucked away in the second floor corner of this building is our post office.the lift goes only to the third floor,so we have to go to the 3rd floor,take the stairs down and reach our p.o .

now yesterday the lift was in perfect condition but its usual occupant-the lift operator with his creaky broken plastic chair seated inside the lift,(taking up a good amount of space in the lift) was missing .my mother refused to get into the lift citing the poor condition n blah blah.the actual reason-the lift has another lift adjacent to it which is not functioning from almost a year,they have started the repairs around a month back and it is still going on. so worried for her dear life,my mother suggested we take the stairs .

i have no problems with stairs as long as there are no rogues pushing you around the railings,driving license touts running around with documents bumping into people all the time and serpentine queues of people waiting for their license tests .add to this ,the chaos of some more people desperately looking for directions to a govt office and people looking baffled when the lift does not stop at the second/first floors but shoots up like a rocket to the third..well,the p.o is all this and much more .the staircase has been thristy for years ,forget domex/dettol/any cleaning ingredient,it looks like the stairs haven't even been washed with good old plain water for ages though there are occasional fresh marks on the "spitters hall of fame" all throughout the building right from the entrance sometimes even on the steps ! aargh.

as we entered the p.o,cobwebs greet us from all directions. a shutter settled completely with dust has a notice pasted on to it saying all posts and parcels lying at tumkur p.o,nh road ..
there is a public coin box which serves as good humour ,once a notice says "STD working ,20 seconds-1 rupee" but you look closely and the receiver is dangling and the notice below it says "not working-out of order " . the po was recently upgraded with some decent furniture which is the only plus point i can think of . some shiny black chairs and a neat wooden huge desk for interacting with customers,like a teller's at the bank have been added . though there is an antique desk smeared with glue all over reminding that things haven't yet changed completely .

as my mother got into the queue to await her turn,i could see that it was quite crowded for a Friday morning ,usually nobody withdraws money on friday's,lakshmi et al being reasons . so most of the people were there for deposits .

the p.o provides a range of financial services for the common man,ranging from savings bank accounts to kisan vikas patra among others.they provide a low amount of interest compared to any big-wig bank but the common advice among elders in the family is that investing in a p.o is extremely safe- courtesy the numerous lessons learnt from relatives by investing in xyz chit funds or fake financial companies for the greed of a higher interest . hence my regular trips to the p.o with my mother .

as i waited for my mother to finish up her work,i saw a woman,in her late thirties,helpless and confused enter the surroundings . she seemed disheartened at the length of the queue and started talking to a middle-aged woman seated next to me asking her to fill up a form for her . the middle aged woman said she had to leave and was in a hurry and said she couldnt do it .
then the woman approached one more person who pointed towards me ,i was coughing and sniffing by then and was pretty tired since was unwell.

the lady came to me and said "please form fill maadi kodi " i agreed but warned her that this form was new to me and she would have to help me out with her details,she immediately produced another filled up form and waved it in front of me and said "idu hale form,pls same fill madi,only date change maadbeku" .i was struck by her clever thinking and filled up the details in the same manner but only changed the date . she thanked me and joined the queue.by then,my mom was back and we departed home .

this set me thinking ,if the woman had ever got a chance to go to a school,learn how to read and write ,it surely wouldn't have made her helpless for the 20 min that i saw her in the p.o but also probably would have made her a successful person ,she had enough sense to get an older form for convenience sake ..it really made me wonder ,what miracles could such people achieve if given proper education ?

our country has celebrated 60 years of independence and today i got to see two sides of a coin majorly disturbing me ,
1.illiteracy
2.poor state govt organisations

now both problems are better solved in the election manifestos of various parties (simply on paper) rather than reality,i just hope that some day i can proudly show off my local p.o as a place known for its impeccable neatness ,efficiency and see a long queue of literate women handling businesses there ......

might be a far off dream but some day,maybe some day............