Daakiyan dak laayi — story of a postwoman

while surfing net, I found an old story, I did on a post woman, in early 2000, in Patiala. Now there are few other post women but she was the pioneer. Plz read on:


Daakiyan dak laayi — the only postwoman of North
From Jupinderjit Singh
Tribune News Service

PATIALA, April 22 — Dakiya daak laaya — so goes a popular number. But in Beat -19 of the city’s Postal Department, it is the unusual ‘daakiyan dak laayi’ as the lone female ‘postman’ of the state and probably of the northern region cycles from door to door, delivering letters.

While the entry of females in many male bastions is a recent phenomenon, Mrs Bharawanwali is one of plunge early on.

While her female colleagues preferred the comfortable environment of the few exceptions who took the an office duty, this woman took the daring step of opting for field duty 10 years ago.

A chance meeting with her at the Head Post Office here today revealed the unique persona of the brave woman. Sifting through piles of letters, she seemed completely at ease with her achievement. “What’s so unusual? Women have ventured into space and I have only broken the male dominated area of delivering letters,” she says in modesty.

Explaining her unusual name she reveals that she was named ‘Bharawanwali’ as she had five brother unlike other girls in her Lohsimili village, near Ghanaur town. Though later she had six sisters, the ‘honour’ remained.

Driven by family circumstances and the urge to be on her own, Mrs Bharawanwali enrolled herself as ‘extra department agent’ — a daily wage worker in the village Post Office to support her studies. After passing the matric exam, she got the post of a branch postmaster, in 1977 and she was promoted to the cadre of a ‘postman’. Till 1990, she worked on the counter in the office, but then the job demanded her taking up the field duty. “I agreed immediately”, she remembers. Initially there was some opposition within her family, but her husband who is in the Army egged her on to accept the challenge.

Reminiscing her first experiences, she said people were shocked to see a postwoman standing at their door step. “They still do”, she said. Women in her beat area were impressed by her courage to move about in the streets in all kinds of weather.” I am quoted as an example by the young girls of the area”, she adds proudly. A mother of a boy and girl, she has never faced any adjustment problem in her duty or work. “The day begins early. I prepare food for the children and do other household chores. Around 10.30, it is time to collect the post and then distribute it in her beat around the Bus-Stand and Lahori Gate.

The postwoman is aware of her being the only postwoman of the state and claims she is the only one in the northern region also. Mr Ramnath, Assistant Post Master (deliver), seconds her. “As per my knowledge, there are post women only in Kerala besides her in the country”. She is a source of encouragement to her male colleagues as well, when she continues the hard job in spite of all odds.

Mrs Bharawanwali said opting for such a job was not smooth but her urge to be different from other woman kept her going on. She said if there was a policy of some special allowances for women then more females would be attracted to the job.