Post office and Rabindranath
Chinmay Prasun Biswas :
A locked red letter box hanging against the wall or standing fixed on ground outside – post office is a very familiar place to us.
There was a time when post office was the only medium to communicate with others living away inside the country and abroad and to send money.
Along the flow of time courier service has captured a major portion of postal services.
After that e-mail has made correspondence easier without going to post office or courier office. Just a mobile phone or a computer is sufficient for it.
According to Wikipedia, the first modern postal service in this sub-continent was introduced by Lord Clive at the initiative of East India Company in 1774.
Apart from these, post office has a good place in Bengali literature.
Tarashankar Banerjee has written a very famous story name Daak Harkara (the Mailman). Postmaster by Rabindranath, is another famous short story. Sukanta Bhattacharya has written a poem named Runner.
Tuned by Salil Chowdhury and recorded in 1945 with the voice of Hemanta Mukherjee, it is still a very popular and appealing song also. Rabindranath has written a play named Daak Ghar (Post Office).
The play Daak Ghar is based primarily on Rabindranath’s self-death sentiment. In 1915 he delivered a number of lectures to the Ashramiks (resident students in Shantiniketan) on the subject matter and perspective of his plays.
In one episode he talked about the play Daak Ghar that all of a sudden, in his mind, a call to get out of the walled familiar world, was beckoning him; He used to feel the call of running towards death or extreme liberation while spending idle hours.
As a poet he realised that if he could express any hidden feeling in his mind, he could find some peace. Rabindranath has transformed pain, tenderness and joy of knowing the unknown into a story.
Worldly knowledge, relevance of living, joy of observing and feeling the beauty of the world – all these have been arranged inAmal’s life-experience.
From Amal’s conversation with his relative and guardian Madhav Dutta, we can also know the happiness of Amal’s perception of life: mingled with light and darkness.
The boys invite him to come out, play with them. Amal, unable to go outside, requests them to play in front of the window so that he can enjoy their game.
In this play there is no climax but a happy ending. Amal, sitting beside the window, is just like a post box under lock and key.
His eagerness to go out of the house is like letters inside the post-box waiting to be delivered. As the postman opens the box and takes the letters out, the royal physician also suggests to open the doors and windows.
As the letters come out of the post-box, Amal’s sickness goes out of his body.
He becomes free from disease. He feels the pleasure of freedom which is an inherent desire and right of every human being.
(The writer is a former
Commissioner of Taxes).
