Supermarkets, internet to blame for the end of postman in the west

Along with the milkman, newspaper delivery boy and the ice-cream truck man, the postman is now gradually walking into the sunset in the west too, with nary a tear shed, apparently. To an extent, supermarkets and the internet can be blamed for the gradual eclipse of these memes from the western world. But the depersonalisation of these services will certainly have an effect on future generations. Just as newspaper racks and rows of frozen desserts and milk cartons simply cannot generate the excitement of an ice-cream truck's musical arrival or a milk van's cheery advent, a ‘community mailbox' in some centralised no-man's land will never evoke the same emotions in mail recipients and their territorial canine companions, as the daily arrival of the uniformed postal employee.

Amid the angst over erratic delivery of water and electricity here when compared to their relative dependability abroad, it is time resident Indians count their blessings: homedelivered services they can still take for granted. That includes the newspaper boy, the vegetable vendor, the garbage collector and, yes, even the postman. And most of all, for the itinerant recycling merchant, a.k.a. kabadiwala, who implements that uniquely Indian cashback incentive for recycling that the west would do well to catch on to!