Catching the last post
N. KALYANI
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The world’s last official mail tonga?
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Surviving time: The mail tonga
The horse-driven cart mail. Is it still being carried on somewhere in this day and age? Bhubaneswar-based noted philatelist Anil Dhir’s documentary, “The Last Post”, answers in the affirmative. “And it is the only official mail tonga in the whole of India and the world,” says Dhir. “The Last Post” captures the life, work and activities of the horse cart puller, Nila Nayak, in Jeypore, a sleepy, picturesque town in Orissa. “Ju
st three weeks after the completion of my film, Nila Nayak passed away,” reveals Dhir. But Nila’s son, Padmanabh will carry on the tradition. Tradition? Yes, for this was the job that Padmanabh’s great-great-grandfather was recruited for by the king of this princely state in 1920. And the job has come down from one generation to the next.
What was he paid by the post office? A paltry sum of Rs 90 per day of which Rs 70 was spent by him for the upkeep of his two horses, Budhoo and Sania.
Nila points out in the film that when his cart goes into disrepair, thanks to it always being overloaded with mail bags, he incurs Rs 240 for it to become serviceable again. Besides, when the postal department hires the services of a rickshaw on the day Nila’s cart breaks down, he has to pay the department Rs 200! towards the expenditure incurred in hiring the rickshaw! It is such days that Nila and his wife, Chanchala, who has a temporary job as a water-carrier in the post-office, dreaded.
Destiny?
But why at all did Nila, the adivasi living in penury in a slum on the outskirts of Jeypore, have to continue this job? “This is my destiny…I have to bear it… It is my karma. Now it has become my dharma,” says Nila in the film. But Nila never faltered in his responsibility over forty years, with the reputation of never having lost a bag and of never having deposited a mail bag with its seal broken. Is that why the post office too did not dispense with him? Yes. Besides, it was only a pittance that had to be paid to him. Taking on a new contract would have meant at least a doubling of the daily payment, reveals the Jeypore Sorting Room Officer, Purnachandra Limai.
Of course, with Nila’s steadfast decision to stick to his job, it was on humanitarian grounds too that his contract was renewed each time. Interestingly, the townsfolk too want the tradition kept alive.
Does the 19 minute documentary that won a silver award at the INPEX (India National Philatelic Exhibition)-2008 have a message? Well, the postal department needs to adopt some kind of parity in remunerating such workers. Dhir says,. “A week after the film was released and the postal department had watched it, Nila’s daily payment was increased immediately to Rs 150. The income now of Padmanabh is to be increased to Rs 250 per day.” Dhir’s film priced at Rs 100 has already seen 200 buyers. “And the sale proceeds have all gone to Nila’s family,” says Dhir.
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