http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?266779
Oh, Runner...
No one will ever know of your pain or your plight/
Your story will be a secret of the dark black night
— from the Bengali poem 'Runner' by Sukanta Bhattacharya
Actually, it's a bright sunny day on top of a hill in the rolling, forested landscape of Ayodhya Pahar in Bengal's Purulia district, and 60-year-old Putuna Mura, a local tribal, seems only too willing to share her story with us—a runner's story. Putuna is a surviving relic of this virtually defunct institution whose roots lie deep in the country's postal past. In Bengal, the tribulations of these tireless messengers, traversing miles on foot, their bells jangling through the stillness of the night, delivering mail in remote regions and covering stipulated distances within strict timeframes, have for long fired the imagination of artists, writers and poets like Sukanta Bhattacharya. In Putuna's case, the story has a special twist, not only is she one of the state's three surviving runners—she is also the only woman known to have ever become a runner.
Explains Purulia division's assistant superintendent of post, Gautam Ghosh: "She was given the job on sympathetic grounds when her husband, Buddheshwar, who was a runner, died 20 years ago." At first, Putuna's life turned topsy-turvy. She had to suddenly switch from being an ordinary housewife who cooked, cleaned and looked after children to, in her own words, "a postman going from door to door delivering letters". But two decades on, not only is she used to the drill, hill folk too are no longer shocked at the sight of a woman in white—being a widow, she wears only white—sprinting across dense forests and deep rivers in rain and sunshine alike, to deliver mail. And sometimes in the moonlight too: "like a ghost", she says eerily.
Nightrunner of Bengal Putuna Mura, widow of a runner, covers a minimum of 20-30 km a day, often braving bandits and wild beasts (Photograph by Sandipan Chatterjee)
No matter how late she goes to bed, Putuna wakes up at the crack of dawn and leaves the house by 7 am sharp. She steps out of her little mud hut in Ayodhya village and hops across to the tiny post office beyond the dirt road. She reports to the postmaster, who scribbles the names on postcards and envelopes piled up on a table into his register, stamps the mail with his seal and puts it into a jute sack, which he hands over to Putuna. She places it over her shoulder, looks at the clock on the wall, mutters a "7:10 already" under her breath and struts out of the door and into the street. There are 22 villages across Ayodhya Hills, each a cluster of no more than 10 to 20 houses. But the villages are separated by long stretches of dense forests, deep rivers and wide valleys. Putuna walks a minimum of 20-30 km a day, often much more. If there are too many letters and too much distance to be covered, she leaves some of the work for the next day, but that is not encouraged—the mail could be urgent. "Today, I have to cover 17 destinations, and the distances between each are long," she says stoically, as she gets into her stride.
"Yes, I get scared sometimes," she admits, as she makes her way. "There is much to fear in the jungles and hills," she whispers. "Snakes, elephants, often even bears." For runners, the other source of terror, traditionally, has been bandits and dacoits. As the Ayodhya branch post master Bibekananda Mahato explains, the threat is accentuated because they carry money orders, apart from ordinary mail. "Many of the hill folk have relatives living outside who send money home. Runners could be attacked and looted."
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Indeed, Putuna is not the only runner operating in the region—there are two others. Sixty-five-year-old Kalipada Mura has been a runner since the death of his famous father, Khepu Mura. Khepu, a runner during the Raj, became a legend for his bravery in confronting dangers, be they wild beasts or bandicoots. Kalipada's colleague, 60-year-old Anath Sardar, is also the son of a former runner from the region, Dhananjoy Singh Sardar. But, unlike Putuna, these two don't deliver mail person-to-person or door to door, but lug their mail bags from postal point to postal point. Each of them walks 30 to 50 km per day to reach these outposts. While Putuna, being literate and able to read names and addresses, gets a monthly salary of Rs 6,000, the two men, illiterate like their fathers were, are paid daily wages—Rs 200 a day—for their labour.
So far the job seems to have been transferred seamlessly, from husband to wife, from father to son, but will future generations want to carry on this tradition? The answer, from the sons, daughters and grandchildren of all three runners, is a firm "no." "Too dangerous," is the common refrain. So how will the people of Ayodhya Hills get their letters after the current generation of runners is too old to carry on? That's a question for the authorities to mull over; the runners themselves are content to be a vital link with the world beyond. The more affluent villagers have begun to acquire mobile connections, but these are unreliable. And most villages don't have electricity—those which do have only a few TV-owning households. Letters, therefore, are vital. "I bring smiles to people's faces when I bring them good news," Putuna says proudly. It's true. Twenty-five year old Suchitra Hansa is delighted when Putuna hands her a much-awaited envelope. "It's from the state government. I've been called for a job interview," says this wife of a local school teacher. But 18-year-old Shidhu Soren, who has applied for a clerk's job, is still waiting for a reply. "Is there a letter from me?" he calls out to Putuna, when he bumps into her on her run. "Not yet," Putuna shakes her head. "But maybe tomorrow." That's mles away.
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