Singtam Heritage Post Box and its story

I was part of a beautiful concept brought by Roshan Prasad; our own popular philatelist from Singtam to re-install a neglected Post Box found lying near the old post office building at the heart of the bazaar.

In one of its kind events, the members of Sikkim Philatelic and Numismatic Society added a page on the map of the world’s postal history when we removed the neglected post-box, gave new colours, and had its permanent installation near the Water Fountain as a Heritage Post Box. An earlier Sikkim postal cancellation mark along with the establishment of the Post Office in Singtam in 1903 was written on the stone slab below the base of the Post Box. First of its kind in Sikkim and a proud place of being few in India and the world.

KN Rai, then Speaker, Sikkim Legislative Assembly inaugurated the Heritage Box at the event Inspire 2017 – A Hobby Fest. The event coincided with the 12^th anniversary of the formation of the Sikkim Philatelic and Numismatic Society. An exhibition on hobbies was held at Bihari Dharamsala, Singtam on May 30th, 2017- the first hobby fest of Sikkim. Inspire 2017- a hobby fest featured a display of stamps, coins, banknotes, antiques, matchbox collection, autographs, old newspapers, identity cards, and button flowers.

Three years passed by, we received numerous calls of appreciation; our photograph of the Heritage Post Box of Singtam got published at various philatelic magazines worldwide. We just wanted to have the name of Singtam on the world map. We succeeded today but this wasn’t as easy as it looked.

Two days ahead of the event, the place where we had decided to install the Heritage Post Box at the water fountain site; despite having permission from Area MLA, Singtam Police Station, and the Singtam Nagar Panchayat we were stopped to do so. We wanted passers-by to see the Post Box and feel proud of the century-old postal history of Singtam.

A huge section of the crowd came forward and alleged the ‘dustbin’ – the word used for our Heritage Post Box to be thrown away. In that mass, there were few good human souls who spoke for our cause. Finally, after a few hours of noise, we were forced to shift our structure to the corner on the back of a paan dokan. The crowd justified – the structure would disturb their wedding function on the way to Bihari Dharamsala. But today, on that much-chosen place we have a Police Sign Board of No Parking – and that very crowd was there to praise the efforts of the Police Station to have the No Parking Sign Board.