The day I bought a harmonica - Part One

Sunny day, last saturday was. I had a couple of errands to run so I left the apartment at around 11. My first stop was the GPO opposite the Hazratganj crossing. About 10 minutes by foot. It is housed in an old English, presumably very early 20th century building. It has a clock tower too. Picture perfect. People stood smoking at the gate and along the footpath surrounding it, amongst many others sat a certain kind of people I hadn't seen too often: typewriter scribes!

They sat on the ground, each with a placard that read 'hindi' perched against their ancient typewriters, reading out of a sheet of paper and typing into another. One of them had set up his office right next to the gate, and was typing away, stopping at times to twirl his moustache as the middle-aged woman who was dictating to him paused to think. As I approached the building I saw a dustbin placed next to one of the columns at the entrance. The dustbin was red on top. Not originally, I observed, but by community service. It had red lines coming out of it and onto the ground around it, like rays from the sun.

I walked into the great hall which had endless counters, and seemingly endless queues at them. As I tried to find my way around I saw a signboard that read 'A10 MONEYORDER/SPEEDPOST/INSURED->'. I went to A10, which had about five or six people in the line waiting to be served. I was talking to the old man with the salt-and-pepper beard who stood at the end, "Speedpost ki line yehi hai kya?"."Ji", he replied.

There was muttering. "Kitna samay lagaate hain ye..zyada packet bhejne ho toh alag subidha honi chahiye na. Alag se counter khol do yar..ab ye dekhiye time barbad kiye ja rahe hai humara toh ek hi speedpost hai". Apparently the man at the start of the line had 10 speedposts to send, which irked everyone else. I saw more counters with the same labels (MONEYORDER/SPEEDPOST/INSURED) and asked the old man why these counters were not functional.
"Neeche timing dekhiye. Ye bara baje khulte hain..sarkari naukar niyam ke pakke hain janaab!", he said with sarcasm and a smile.

At long last it was the turn of the old man. I took a peek at his staple-sealed envelope. He was sending it to some "Varisht Safai Adhikari, Jaipur". As he reached the counter, he gave the envelope to the clerk. The clerk threw it back at him: "Ye nahi chalega.. staple nikaliye" and asked him to step aside and seal it with glue. I panicked. My envelope had two pins stapled to it. Luckily, mine was already glued too. I hurriedly ripped the pins out, and handed it over. "Ye kahan..Goa bhejna hai?", the clerk asked. "Ji", I replied. "Pacchis rupaiye dijiye."

I dug the cash out of my pocket, placed it on the counter, took the receipt and left.