World Post Day: A 200-year-old heritage building in Bengaluru houses museum showcasing India's postal history

Bengaluru: A morse transmitter, telegraph, a hand cradle phone and stamps depicting the Indian freedom movement.

Objects that may seem like testimonials of a bygone era are in fact the prized possession of this museum in Bengaluru.

The aptly named Sandesh Museum of Communication depicts the evolution of postage and communication mediums in India.

The museum which was inaugurated in 2019 is housed in a heritage building that was built in 1804.

Maintained by the Department of Post, Karnataka Circle, Sandesh hosts artefacts including those from the British era, collected from post offices across India.

Among the most treasured items is a letter written by Subash Chandra Bose.

Dated 22 April 1921, then 24-year-old Netaji addressed the letter to the Secretary of State Edwin Montagu, in which he resigned from the Indian Civil Service to join the freedom struggle.

Other letters include those written by the first Indian director of the Post and Telegraph department Gurunath Venkatesh Bewoor and legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar.

One of the walls displays stamps that were released to mark the 150th anniversary of India Post in 2004. The first stamps that could be used for postage all over India were issued in October 1854.

Then there are stamps depicting the luminaries of cinema from Raj Kapoor to NT Rama Rao.

A clock that witnessed a tragedy

The exhibits also show the perils of postage. A mail bomb detector kept here was used to detect explosive materials being sent via mail.

In the room where postman’s uniforms are kept, a stopped watch stands out.

The clock which was kept on the first floor of a post office in Losur near Gokak in Karntaka’s Belgavi district stopped ticking at 11:18 pm on 6 August 2019.

That day floodwaters submerged the first floor of the building which had been evacuated. The clock which stood there is the testimony to the tragedy that claimed several lives.

Unsurprisingly, the artefacts leave visitors awestruck. But how they saw the items also depended on their interaction with postage.

Surabhi who had come to the museum with her nephews said that she could relate to the exhibits as she has been sending postcards to her dear ones since a long time.

“I collect stamps and I could spot some of the stamps I have, at the museum,” she said.

But for her nephew Arth, a Class 7 student who posted a letter for the first time on the day he visited the museum, the experience was all-new.

Speaking about the post boxes and postman uniforms on display, he said, “what’s best was that my aunt was around when these things were there so she told me about them in detail.”

Museum served as jail superintendent’s quarter under the British

The history of the structure housing the museum is as interesting as the exhibits kept there.

Located right next to the Museum Road Post Office, this building used to be the quarter of the jail superintendent during the British era.

It was converted into the Government Museum which was then known as the Mysore Museum in 1865. That’s how the road where it is located came to be known as Museum Road.

After the Government Museum was shifted to its current location on Kasturba Road in 1877, the building was turned into a bank before coming under the General Post Office.

The Sandesh Museum also called Bangalore Postal Museum is open from 10 am to 4 pm on all days except Sundays. Entry to the museum is free.

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