The letterbox that went missing

ONE fine morning, I got up and looked out of the window to find that the letterbox outside our house was mysteriously missing. It had been there conspicuously for the past six-and-a-half decades, but it had left behind a hole in the pavement. I feared that it had been stolen and would surface in a foreign auction house along with a piece of furniture or manhole cover smuggled out of Le Corbusier’s city and sold at a princely sum.

For me, the red letterbox was a heritage item that had been a public receptacle of many a missive religiously cleared once a day for their onward destinations. It was an extremely useful facility that saved us the labour of going to the post office. We were so confident that this safe recipient of our epistolary communications would ensure the safe delivery of its contents once they were consigned to it. Whether they were postcards or carefully taped and glued love letters, the letterbox was the custodian of all the secrets entrusted to it.

I posed frantic queries in the neighbourhood to know how the disappearance had taken place in a securely guarded neighbourhood inhabited by some august members of the judiciary. My police instincts were soon put to rest by my neighbour’s gatekeeper, who confirmed that the letterbox was not taken away stealthily at night but had been removed in broad daylight by the postal authorities themselves.

As a follow-up action, an email was sent to the senior-most postal officer in a typical top-down approach. Not satisfied with this, it was soon followed by a phone call. The officer was a picture of courtesy and informed me that the letterbox was removed as part of the rationalisation process and was one of the few that were marked for discontinuation. The presumption was that since the sector we were living in had just a few dozen houses, it was perhaps not attracting enough post to be cleared on a daily basis. I requested him to restore it for its unquestionable utility as much for its presence as a fixture of heritage that this city is so jealously trying to protect. The officer was kind enough to realise the sanity and sincerity of my entreaty and promised to reconsider their decision.

Lo and behold, in a pleasant surprise, the letterbox arrived back at its original location a couple of days later with a fresh coat of paint. Showering my blessings on the officer and the letterbox, I promptly sent an email of gratitude. In the age of instant communication, this antique survivor is a sentinel of the dying art of correspondence. I am extremely beholden to the postal fraternity for its sensitivity to let this heritage relic be there in the vicinity. The day the letterbox came back will go down as a red-letter day in our lives.