As we say goodbye to India Post’s iconic registered post service, we speak to post enthusiasts about the sweet, and endearing ritual of writing letters
Ashwin Tahiliani, founder of ATLASkeeda with postcards he has received in the last 10 years in his office at Goregaon. PIC/SATEJ SHINDE
For years, the thump of the postman’s bicycle resting outside your gate signalled a surprise — a money order from a relative, a letter of appointment, or a rakhi sent by your sister from another city. No matter what the letter carried, it was always sealed and stamped with the reassuring red mark of registered post.
Reliable, traceable, and oddly intimate, it was the service India turned to when something simply had to reach the recipient. By September 1 that chapter will quietly close, a few of its features merging with the Speed Post service. While the new promises efficiency and speed, the old carried something harder to quantify: trust.
India Post has promised that speed post will be trackable and faster, and will take over some functions of the discontinued service. But speed was never the point of registered post. It was the ritual, the unspoken promise that your words would arrive in due course — sealed, signed for, and carried with care.
The letter carrier: Pankaj Ramkrishna Devare
Postman at Aarey Milk Colony Post Office, Pankaj Ramkrishna Devare has spent over 15 years in uniform; he says the change is bittersweet. “The new service will also be good. And, changes need to come,” he says reassuringly, adding, “People usually inform that they are expecting a registered letter, so we always keep a check; and when we deliver it, you can see and feel their happiness.”
Devare’s father was a postman as well, but passed away while still on duty. Three years after his demise, Devare also got a job as a postman and has been delivering letters to people around Aarey Colony ever since. “I go on my delivery route daily, and people are happy to see me, as they would have been waiting for a letter to arrive. In their happiness lies my happiness,” he says about his job.
Delivering letters imbued in him the habit of keeping moving, Devare says. On Sundays, when he’s home, it’s boring. He says, “When meeting people, my day goes by easily. On Sundays, when I sit at home, it feels like there’s no one to talk to,” and proudly adds, “A courier service will not reach every corner and lane. But a postman does.”
Postman Pankaj Devare with Mumbai Region’s 2023 award for outstanding service, which was circulated among post offices including the one where he works
The attachment and trust that has developed with the India Post service is so strong that people extend help. Devare remembers an incident where he fell down the stairs while delivering letters in a building. The frustrations of the job came over him but it was the love from the people that reassured him to stay on. “They rushed me to the hospital, would call every day to check on me, and still ask me if I am better, as the injury had put me out of work for over a month,” he says.
There are several such instances that Devare remembers, including one where, after receiving money from the Ladki Bahin Yojana, some women came by their post office to bless everyone for helping them fill forms and delivering their money to them.
Postcard archivist: Ashwin Tahiliani
For a generation raised on WhatsApp blue ticks and instant delivery updates, the importance of the service might be hard to imagine. But to those who lived with it, registered post carried a peculiar emotional heft. Ashwin Tahiliani, founder of ATLASkeeda, is an avid postcrosser, practising postcrossing (an online initiative that facilitates the exchange of physical postcards between random individuals worldwide) as a hobby.
Over the last decade, he has collected over 200 postcards. “It’s a way to make friends across the world. I started at the age of 25, and now I’m 35. And, you can mention in your bio on the postcrossing website what kind of postcard you want to receive,” he explains. His first postcard, though, was one that he sent to himself from Ladakh. It took 20 days to reach, and he was already back home in Goregaon by then. “But that excitement and happiness of receiving it was special,” he says. Tahiliani has often used registered post, so news of its discontinuation did feel upsetting, but he says, “It makes business sense; I understand why they may have taken that decision.”
Postcards that Ashwin Tahiliani has collected. PIC/SATEJ SHINDE
As someone who works in design, Tahiliani has felt postcards to be worth collecting, too. He remembers that in 1993, India Post launched ‘Competition Postcards’ after the runaway success of the television show, Surabhi, telecast on Doordarshan and hosted by Renuka Shahane and Siddharth Kak. Viewers were required to send quiz answers on these special cards, which cost Rs 2 instead of the 15-paise ordinary postcard. Later priced at Rs 10, the cards were a staple for television, radio, and press contests. Initially issued in a separate colour for Surabhi, they soon found their way into cookery shows and soap operas too, turning into a steady revenue stream for India Post.
For Tahiliani, though, it was more special to see his design on an India Post postcard. In 2023, India Post asked for design submissions for postcards, and Tahiliani sent a design commemorating the Chandrayan excursion by ISRO.
Letter advocate: Minal Bhatia
During the pandemic, Minal Bhatia spent time at her second home in Lonavala and went further than most to keep the postal spirit alive. She installed a bright red post box right outside her home, becoming something of a local postal watchdog. “There was a Pradhan Mantri Yojana encouraging school kids to write letters to the prime minister around 2021-22. As an English teacher, I was helping out at the government school right across my home in Lonavala and decided to encourage the kids there to send letters. They didn’t know what a postcard was, so we started there. Eventually, they sent letters to their friends and family, too,” she says.
The postbox installed by Minal Bhatia in Lonavala
The post box installation gave the kids easy access to send letters, but Bhatia also wanted to help them discover the world through postcards. “It’s a means for them to escape their normal life,” she says, explaining how postcrossing has changed her world too. “I don’t travel much, so postcards are a way for me to get to know the outside world.”
Minal Bhatia with schoolchildren and their postcards in Lonavala
Bhatia has also managed to install a post box in a rural village in Maharashtra and prompted the revamp and repair of the Kaivalyadham Post Office in Lonavala. “The staff were very happy and they even came home to thank me,” she says. Speaking of the registered post service, Bhatia thinks change might be a good thing, although she does miss that anticipation of receiving letters. “As kids, Sundays were our letter-writing days. My siblings and I would write letters to our relatives in Kolkata. So my attachment with India Post has been a long one,” she says.
Keeper of the postal feed: Vitesh Shah
Vitesh Shah
Making the post popular digitally is no easy task, but Vitesh Shah, CEO of Ventures Integrated Communications, managed to make India Post cool. Shah’s company took care of India Post’s social media accounts and digital campaigns for over two years. Shah reminisces about the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign during COVID, when the post offices delivered the Indian flag to everyone. His personal experiences with postal services are poignant. “We used to receive our exam results via the post. I would dread that time. So, of course, it was a positive feeling only when I fared well,” he laughs.
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