Page 19 - Microsoft Word - Moons copy-latest

was the maximum permissible age limit and also my first
attempt by attempting 5 papers prescribed for Central services
examination and how the personality test in Madras centre was
a more manageable challenge, paid off!

A thousand moons-Chapter -II

I join Postal Service

It was anticlimax when I finally received the allotment letter
from the UPSC tying me and post office in a knot. My mother
sensing my disappointment at not being allotted to IAAS, IRS
etc services consoled me saying that the harmless postal service
was just the thing for people like me who might be lost in the
maze of cunning ways of the world. Here was no risk of being
trapped as scape goat for no fault of ours! One can spend
peaceful nights after the day’s work is done.But for a long time
the dingy interiors of post offices doing business haunted
me.This vexatious mood turned into a challenge to make post
office symbol of modernity.

My training with postal department

After a few days orders for my training in Mussoorie National
Academy of Administration were received. I packed clothes and
other essentials and armed with the transistor I left Madras by
G.T Express and after alighting at New Delhi took the Dehra
dun express. From there a bus took me and other prospective
trainees to Mussoorie and the bus travel negotiating hairpin
curves was quite an experience .When I left the bus stand with
the suit cases and holdall,etc I didn’t realize I forgot to collect
my transistor and until the tonga travelled about a kilometer I
didn’t recollect the missing luggage! When I suddenly
remembered my transistor I immediately got the vehicle take a
U turn and lo and behold the transistor was safe and sound and
remained in the same spot as I left it. So much for the honesty

of the Garhwali folk! I was lodged in a room to be shared by
two probationers in Chapelton.

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