GOODBYE REGISTERED POST—A SILENT FAREWELL TO AN ERA

GOODBYE REGISTERED POST—A SILENT FAREWELL TO AN ERA

11-AUG-ENG 14

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

ARA-----------------------------When the registered postal service of India Post will be formally discontinued on September 1, 2025, it will probably not be printed on the front page of any newspaper, nor will it be discussed in detail on any news channel. As normal as this news seems, it leaves a deep impact on the generation who started their day for years by listening to the bell of the postman's bicycle. Who lived relationships through letters and waited for communication by standing in queues at the post office.

Registered post was not an ordinary service. It was a testimony to those days when we used to engrave our feelings with ink on paper. When an envelope contained many unsaid things, long waits and countless emotions. When a letter, whether it was from a family member or a government document, was not just a piece of paper, but a symbol of faith – that it would definitely reach, in the right hands, at the right time.

Registered post was the bridge that connected the village to the city, mother to son, lover to lover, and citizen to the government. It was not only a medium of communication, but also a guard that kept the relations safe. Its specialty was that it did not get lost, it did not wander. Its registration was its security, and the acknowledgement of its receipt was a kind of emotional satisfaction.

There was a time when the postman was not just a messenger, but a familiar face of the house. Everyone awaited his voice, his bicycle bell and the envelopes hidden in his bag. Be it a government letter, a money order from an uncle, news of a son living far away – everything used to reach through registered post. And when the letter was received, it was felt by touching it before opening it – the thickness of its paper, the depth of its color and the smell of the ink on it – there was a sense of belonging in everything.

But now times have changed. Technological progress has completely changed our ways of communication. Today, mobile phones, instant messaging services, social media, and the internet have almost eliminated the traditional letter system. No one waits anymore, everything is sent and received in a jiffy. At such a time, India Post's decision to formally discontinue registered mail and merge it with speed mail is timely and necessary, but also emotionally painful.

Speed mail is undoubtedly a better service to suit modern needs. It has speed, monitoring, technical expertise. But it does not have the intimacy that registered mail had. That intimacy, that slow but reliable communication, that simplicity - will now become history.

The end of registered mail is not just the end of a service, it is the end of an era. An era in which words were treasured, when one waited for weeks, not days, to get a reply. When a reply had layers of love, respect, and emotions. Today, we may communicate in a single click, but that communication lacks permanence and depth. We send messages, but not emotions. We read, but do not understand. Registered post was the last symbol of that era, when communication was not just a matter, but an emotion.

Even today such letters are found in our old trunks – yellowed paper, letters filled with ink, the imprint of time on the edges and everything inside that was once priceless. Those letters are now just memories, but registered post has delivered them safely till today. This is its greatest success – that it has made words immortal.

With the closure of this service, an emotional thread will be broken. This was the service, which had made distance a bond. Which had connected everyone – from the mother's lap to the son, from the eyes of the beloved to the lover, from the teachings of the teacher to the student. Now speed post will come – fast, convenient, modern. But it will not have that halt, that patience, that waiting which made registered post special.

Today, as much as we have become technically capable, we have also become emotionally hollow. Communication still takes place, but there is no soul in it. Registered post was not just a letter, it was a document of the soul. Now that it is bidding adieu, it is not just an administrative decision — it is the closing of a page of our cultural heritage.

Registered post, you did not just deliver letters, you delivered relationships. You taught us to connect — with words, with emotions, with waiting, and with faith. You may now formally close, but you will always live in our memories, in our old boxes, in our hearts.

Today, when we are bidding you farewell, it is not a farewell, it is a salute — to that era, to that simplicity, to that patience, to that closeness, which you carried on your shoulders for years. Now even if the post offices change, postmen become digital, letters become history — but you, Registered post, will always remain immortal for us.