For years, the thump of the postman’s bicycle resting outside your gate signalled a surprise — a money order from a relative, a letter of appointment, or a rakhi sent by your sister from another city. No matter what the letter carried, it was always sealed and stamped with the reassuring red mark of registered post. 

Reliable, traceable, and oddly intimate, it was the service India turned to when something simply had to reach the recipient. By September 1 that chapter will quietly close, a few of its features merging with the Speed Post service. While the new promises efficiency and speed, the old carried something harder to quantify: trust.

India Post has promised that speed post will be trackable and faster, and will take over some functions of the discontinued service. But speed was never the point of registered post. It was the ritual, the unspoken promise that your words would arrive in due course — sealed, signed for, and carried with care.