Question

a story on clue a postman come with a wide smile

Answer 1

adult life has revolved around the coming of the postman. Acceptances and rejections of my writing life, along with editorial correspondence, readers' letters, page proofs and author's copies come through the post.The postman continues to play a very real and important part in my life. He climbs my twenty-one steps every afternoon, knocks loudly on my door—three raps, so that I know it's him and not an inquisitive tourist—and gives me my registered mail or speed post with a smile and a bit of local gossip. The gossip is important. I like to know what's happening in the bazaar—who's getting married, who's standing for election and who ran away with the headmaster's wife. He deserves a bonus for the information.The courier boy, in contrast, shouts to me from the road below and I have to go down to him. He's mortally afraid of the three dogs in my building. But my postman isn't bothered by my dogs. He comes in all weathers—on foot except when someone gives him a lift. He turns up when it's snowing, raining, or when there's a heat wave, and he's quite philosophical about it all. He meets all kinds of people. He has seen joy and sorrow in the homes he visits. He knows something about life. If he wasn't a philosopher to begin with, he is certainly one by the time he retires.Of course, not all postmen are paragons of virtue. We once had a postman who never got further than the country liquor shop in the bazaar. The mail would pile up there for days, until he sobered up and condescended to deliver it. In due course, he was banished to another route, where there were no liquor shops.We take the postman for granted today, but a hundred and fifty years ago, carrying of mail was a hazardous venture, and the mail-runner, or hirkara as he was called, had to be armed. Letters were carried in leather wallets on the backs of runners who were changed at every eight-mile point. At night the runners were accompanied by torch-bearers and in the wilder parts by drummers called dugdugiwalas—to ward off wild animals.Tigers were a constant threat to travellers. Mail-runners often fell victim to these man-eating beasts. In the Hazaribagh district through which the Calcutta-Allahabad mail had to pass, there appears to have been a