As the country celebrated the National Postal Day on Monday, the railway town of Shoranur fell back on nostalgic memories of a 75-year-old post office functioning in a shed on a tiny hill at Shoranur.
The Ganeshagiri Post Office functioning on the railway’s land is still in a shed, though the Postal department claims modernity.
Thousands of railway employees who worked in Shoranur in the last seven decades will have lots of memories to share about this post office that had once represented India’s cultural and demographic diversity.
“There was a time when you could see India from Ganeshagiri,” said P.K. Ramachandran, veteran cultural activist of Shoranur. Ganeshagiri represented India’s demographic diversity, as people from almost all States used to live in the railway quarters there.
Until the arrival of diesel locomotives, Shoranur used to be one of the busiest railway towns in the country. With people from across the country living at Ganeshagiri, the post office there used to be in constant touch with almost all parts of the country. But not any longer, as the railway infrastructure at Shoranur has shrunk in recent decades.
It was in 1957 that Ganeshagiri Post Office started functioning as a branch centre on Muthukurissi Hill. In 1972, when the country introduced postal index number generally known as PIN, Ganeshagiri Post Office was upgraded as a sub centre, and it became Shoranur-3 with the PIN 679123.
It was Shriram B. Velankar, an additional secretary in the Union Ministry of Communications, who introduced the world-famous PIN system on August 15, 1972. The first digit of the PIN marks the region. The second digit denotes the sub-region. The third digit marks the district. The last three digits show the post office under which a particular address falls.
The Muthukurissi Hill got the name Ganeshagiri in the 1950s after a Ganesha statue was discovered from the hill during excavations made for building a water tank for the railway. “Sivaramakrishna Iyer, a telegraphist with the Railways, and his tenant Subramania Iyer installed the idol by conducting some religious rites. The hill was renamed Ganesha Hill and later Ganeshagiri,” said K. Prasad, a researcher in Shoranur’s local history.
“This post office has given us many moments to cherish, as India remained the country with the biggest postal network in the world,” said Narendran K.S., a senior social worker at Shoranur.
He demanded that the Postal department considered shifting the post office to a better building and save the institution from falling into oblivion.
“It is a matter of concern that our new generation does not care for the post. But the authorities should do things to not only help the youth understand the historical importance of the system, but also entice them with modern technology,” said Mr. Prasad.
Sub Post Master V. Safiya currently heads the Ganeshagiri Post Office. Three other employees are working under her. Ganeshagiri has a branch centre at Kerala Ayurveda Samajam shortened as KA Samajam.
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