Keya Sarkar: The part and parcel of post

One of the not-so-enjoyable things about my current profession, working in textiles and other craft, is my dealings with courier companies. Since I am dependent on a host of my raw material coming from outside by courier and me sending out innumerable parcels to clients in India and abroad, I am in the clutches of these parcel carriers.

Each morning, I am either chasing a parcel that has not reached me or following up on one that I sent. The difference between the cheap and expensive courier companies, I have realised in my 10 years of dealing with them, is not in the delivery time taken but the quality of their web interface. Also, after you have sent the consignment, if the net tracking result shows "reached destination hub", "internal misrouting" or "out for delivery", calls to the customer care will still leave you ignorant.

A welcome revelation in all of this has been that the speed post is probably currently the best bet - in terms of value, speed and tracking convenience. However, when a new client from Switzerland suggested that I use India Post, I was surprised. Earlier, for international parcels, I had always used expensive courier companies.

So, I sent the parcel from the Santiniketan post office with minimum fuss and tucked the receipt in my wallet that carried the tracking number. As told by the post office official, five days later the India Post website showed the route that my parcel had taken, how many hubs at it had touched and also that the parcel wasn't delivered because the consignee was not at home. I emailed my buyer who contacted her post office and collected the parcel.

Last fortnight, I was sending her next consignment. This time, the postman who seemed helpful the last time, looked at the parcel and said it had to be redone because the consignee's address wasn't prefixed with a "To". I thought it was simpler to write a "To" in the space between the masking tape and address. The postman was happy, weighed my parcel, took the money and handed me the receipt.

I checked the website after five days. It said that the parcel had reached Kolkata airport. I thought I must account for the holidays on Muharram and Guru Nanak's birthday and check a few days later.

Two days later, the website said the same story. Meanwhile, my friends told me about parcels they had sent by international speed post that never got delivered. I feared the worst and made by way to the post office. I spoke to the gentleman who had accepted my parcel. He directed me to a man who sat in front of a machine with an internet connection. He made me wait till he finished feeding in the details of a bunch of speed posts. He checked and told me the parcel had already reached Kolkata airport.

It's possible that in a small town, many people who make enquiries do not have access to the internet and, therefore, this information might be helpful. But I was already privy to this information. My question was, what after Kolkata airport?

He directed me to the postmaster who told me this is all the information that can be shown. I told him that was not the case since only a month ago I was able to see a parcel's route to Geneva. How would it help me to know that the parcel had reached Kolkata airport? "That will tell you that it has been dispatched from here," he said.

And if I had any further queries, I had to write to the District Superintendent of Post who sits in Suri, the district headquarters.