I had to go to the post office today to do a speed post. And suddenly an era that passed by stood before me. As I stood in the line, an old man asked me if I had a pen, when I was asked to write the name of the sender behind the envelope. He suddenly reminded me of the India, I grew up in, where people talked to each other. Where, when you stood in a line, no one kept staring on a gadget in their hands. It felt like a piece of home. We are the last generation that saw a telephone and saw how fast it transitioned itself to a smart phone. I have stood before the post office missing someone I never met, writing letters, to talking to people live whenever I wanted on my smart phone. Now we don’t miss people, we don’t imagine what they might be doing. We scroll through timelines, we know places they visited, friends they met and clothes they wore. We don’t long for people anymore.

The post office reminded me of a India, where the roads saw Ambassador cars, and trunk calls were made. A India where to talk to someone living in another town you needed to wait. Today, we have forgotten to wait. Everything has to be faster than the future. We don’t give people chance. We left and right sweep people. Just like the clothes we do on Amazon or Jabong. We move too fast, we understand too little.

Today that 5 minutes in the post office took me to a era, where people waited, talked and were given a chance. I suddenly felt so old. I have seen waiting in post offices to write a letter to someone, to dating on Tinder. I have always felt, I was very old. Older than my own body. I belonged to some place that I don’t remember anymore. As if I was a traveler who has seen things change, but I no more know, where I had to arrive.

As I returned back home, today I walked slowly and I kept thinking to myself these lines by Jorge Luis Borges,

“My name is someone and anyone. I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to arrive. “

First Published in 2018, as a Facebook Post

If my work has made an impact on you, you can buy me a coffee here. This will help me to keep writing and healing more. Thank you.