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BG Verghese (left) and Karan Singh at the book launch. |
Sher Singh’s job is to carry mails
between Raksham and Chitkul, villages situated at 11,150 ft in the
mountains of Himachal Pradesh, where nobody asks, “Do we still have
Dak-Runners?” Across India, on landscapes where no wheel will turn,
Dak-Runners such as Singh strap mailbags to their shoulders and stride
towards remote settlements. Chitkul, for instance, is the last village
on the Himachal Pradesh-China border. Singh, 49, was in Delhi — his
first time in the Capital — for the launch of journalist BG Verghese’s
book, Post Haste, which is dedicated to “the Dak-Runners of India, who
still connect us contemporaneously and with our past”.
“I never see what is in the mail but I
expect there are several job letters and exam roll numbers. I know there
are people waiting for these and this keeps me going,” says Singh, a
day after the launch, at the offices of Tranquebar-Westland, publishers
of Post Haste.
Even in Delhi, Singh wears his uniform
of khakhi shirt and trousers, paired with thick leather shoes and pink
woollen socks. Outdoor, the sun is blazing but the Dak-Runner isn’t
breaking into a sweat. “These shoes and socks never become hot in summer
or cold in the snow. I can wear them in Delhi, Mumbai, in the hills,
anywhere,” he says. Singh had the shoes and socks made for the job,
while the uniform is a postal department issue.
There are no roads on his beat, informs
Singh, only paths made by animals and a few humans. “It is 12 km from
Raksham to Chitkul and takes three hours to cover. I hand over the
mailbag at the post office in Chitkul and carry a fresh bag back to
Raksham,” he says. At Raksham, he exchanges mailbags with a Dak-Runner
on the Sangla-Raksham stretch. Singh has mastered the Dak-Runner’s walk.
“One doesn’t speed up or slow down, we maintain the same pace all
through,” he says.
The Himalayan ranges beyond Kinnaur
district, is home to thick forests in which landslides are as frequent
as sheep, yaks, goats and leopards. “I came across a cheetah twice. If I
had run, the animal would have chased me, so I stood still. I could
hear my heart hammering. I was sure I would be killed,” he says. At
other times, he has come across bears and had leopards leaping across
his path on their way to the khuds below or the forests above. “During
winter, when the snow is up to my thighs, I watch out for footprints
before deciding my course,” he says, adding, “I have a staff but I am
all alone so have to be alert.”
Singh has an erect posture and an
unsmiling, focused look. The only time his voice charges up is when he
recalls the story of the legendary Dak-Runners of India. A primary
school pass-out, Singh has never read the history of Dak-Runners, but
the buzurg (elderly people) at home would talk about men who would “walk
in such a way that everybody stepped aside.” “These were the dakiya,
now called Dak-Runners, and they walked night and day. There were
ghungroos tied to their feet and on the staff in their hands so that
everybody knew 10-15 km ahead that a dakiya was on his way. Even snakes
moved out of their path,” he says.
According to Post Haste, such messengers
were called harkaras and the Mughal empire had a network of 4,000.
Verghese says nobody knows how many Dak-Runners still exist in India,
though the postal department apparently puts the number at 150-200. They
operate in mountain regions of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and the
Northeast.
Singh, son of a farmer, still practises
farming in a five bigha land in his ancestral village of Bhabhanagar,
where his family, which includes his six children, live. “It is 120 km
from where I work, so I visit on Sundays,” he says. No, he doesn’t walk
the way, he takes a bus.
Source : http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/ive-got-mail/99/
