Money Order

MONEY ORDER :

In those days, the postman with his khaki dress and a Nehru cap to sport used to get money order, the wait for the news of some money used to be a great anxiety for the people at the receiving end. Their entire month depended on that. My grandfather was always looking through his window, for the fellow to come over inside and give him the money. Telegram was a terror, people sent more for sorrow rather than good news, so someone passed away is a news people dreaded.

Even the letters made a snail move but still better late than never, so many from mother, brother, sisters, aunts and uncles, their arrivals from afar, people traveled more to meet in those day, there was always some athai patti or mama thatha,or perimma’s parents from trichy, who will drop in with some home made savouries like poruvilanga urundai and some payathama ladu, which is supposed to be very nutritious for the growing lot, some even made hand made murukku, and as my thatha was their mappillai, oh! Don’t ask how he used to revel on it with pride and great pleasure of all these relatives, who called him by his name, there were kunji patti, or ammayappan thatha, panangudi thatha, the length of name along with their place registered a firm memory to remember them.

Now coming back to the post-man, my thatha was very particular about how much he should be tipped,, in those days one rupee was very very generous and when thatha got a fat money order from father he would tip him well other wise, poda adutha masam paarkalam [we will see next month] would be the saying, so to get a rupee from thatha is a tough.

This practice of tipping was there for a very long time, even with telegram of good news, like a child is born, or somebody has excelled in exam, or a confirmation of job letter, or appointment and a widow getting some money from the government pension and so on, and they used to mingle sometime have coffee and talk about family. It looked like a small community then and all knew about everyone whether somebody had a odavakkare pullai, [GOOD FOR NOTHING SON], or marriage is nowhere in sight for the daughter, or who is a widower or widow, and the other gossips along.

Nowadays we have nice lady, who delivers with a smile, with a blue coat over her sarees, she enquires with my children, trying to keep a good relation, now that is a difference, I remember we had a chithi who was a widow and would travel extensively. Hardly available in town and so many fixed deposits my brother used to deposit for her. Now when the monthly interest used to come, the male postman used to give us the letter or cheques, he would say so many are coming and I don’t see her, once we explained about her, it took a long time with my brother visiting the post office and explaining about her, did he cool down and gave us the letters.

Nowadays to take a courier, u need to show your voter’s identity, or ration card, which we hardly have, or driver’s license, and so on for a credit card or any other magazines, because the courier guy is also changing very frequently.

Collecting stamps was fun, even the sweets used to come with an old stamp in it, we as children always collected coins to get them for collections, and what we had plenty we would exchange, a nice habit developed but I don’t see any of those types of innovation now. The first day covers, had a wonderful feeling attached that one had the latest in their collection, the various albums, my friend Rekha had a lovely collection, I loved her album more, they were very colorful from china, red fabric with intricate design in gold and royal blue very tiny floral and very attractive, with lined up thin plastic strips to arrange the stamps of different nations. I hear we can make our own stamp in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:country-region><st1lace>Canada</st1lace></st1:country-region>, and letters can be sent with your id in it. I had an uncle who would steal away my stamps, so that came to an end, with elder’s interference. Regards sunkan

 

hi,
thanks da, yes those were the community days i think, now none recognise anyone, and funny they ask u to get some identity to recognise u from inside, i tell him u come to my house and then u ask for id...sunkan

 

those days,
people waited for the khaki chattai which they used to call, vandano paru, yennada onnume valle, kadangaran yengeyavadu tholachuttano, funny these thoughts kept running in their mind...sunkan

 

not bad veda we seem to share a lot of hobbies too...sunkan