A Postmaster, Milan Kundera and Nietzsche

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air.

The caption is as the cliché goes is like chalk and cheese. Not so really as I realised. It was those strange times when one comes across people almost from forgotten little towns that many a time never ceases to amaze one. It was a professional trip I was taking to a southern town in a day time train. The chair car compartment looked pretty cramped filled to capacity. The afternoon was humid and to my misfortune I had the middle seat.  I was cursing myself for not getting a more comfortable a/c chair car. To divert myself from acute discomfort with frequent sips of water I fished out some dailies I was carrying and started to read and do crosswords. A little later my eyes fell on an eldery man sitting next to my seat neatly dressed was holding a book ‘Immortality’ by Milan Kundera. He broke the ice by asking me if I was a Professor of English. As I replied in the negative. Now it was my turn to ask him if he was one. And his reply took me by surprise. He said that he was a retired postmaster from a small town called Ammapettai where there was no railway line and only half a dozen buses pass through it during the day. I became curious about his background. He then told me that he was from poor agriculturist family and after finishing tenth standard in the local government his education ended and he was helping his father. Then he came to know that his village one man post office was vacant and on the advice of his uncle he applied and got the job. For the rest of his life till his retirement for about three decades he worked in the post office as a clerk, postman and delivery man all rolled into one. I was surprised about his familiarity with the likes of, not just Kundera, but with numerous others from Bacon to Tolstoy to Gandhi to Nehru to Khalil Gibran. He even began to quote some interesting passages. His knowledge of Tamiz literature too was astounding. Right form sangam poetry to the great epics to bhakti poems, all self-taught.  By now I was completely bowled over then to cap it all he fished out from his bag a book on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. By now I was feeling totally inadequate to continue the conversation with the old postmaster.

The most interesting was that the postmaster makes it a point to read The Hindu that one or two people bought in his village every day and notes down author’s name that he was not familiar with. And whenever he visited nearby town or Chennai he would try and buy those books. By now he appeared to have collected a fair amount of books. He also said that he would read “know your English” column assiduously and improved his language skills. Most of his pension went to augmenting his library with books and as a policy he also donates everyday a particular sum to some needy person. His only lament was that his children don’t read any of the books. I hardly could interrupt the torrent of thoughts that was pouring out of him. As his station approached we exchanged the phone numbers and the retired post master profusely thanked me for having spared my valuable time and apologized if he had disturbed me.  After he got down he came near the window of my seat and bid goodbye in chaste Tamiz and wished my journey be a safe and happy one. I just mumbled a thank you as the train picked up speed and pierced into the growing night that I may not soon forget as Thomas Gray lines came to my mind and in fact I cannot think of any one more deserving than the retired Postman of Ammapett to grace the yearly Lit fest that is held in fancies locations.