Papers are Passѐ

My doorbell rang. I wondered who it could be at that late morning hour. Was it a neighbour?

`Kaun hai?' I yelled from my hall. And managed to decipher only the word`....hai' from a man behind the door. I opened the door anyways to find the courier guy. For a change, he looked more like a company executive, not a starved employee who struggled to ride in hot sun.

I picked the envelope from him. The norm, is that courier guys instantly hand out stapled log sheets that I fight against signing. I don't like mentioning my mobile number on those precarious papers either. In style, this courier personnel flashed a palm top and asked me to sign in with the stylus! For a second, it made me the customer look small with its maze like feel.

`Yeh to modern ho gaya ji!'

`Haan madam, abhi yehi dete hai,' he said, almost apologetic.

I took the stylus and tried pressing it against the touchscreen. Not all of the strokes would show.
He hit `clear' and let me sign again. Better this time.

`Press karna madam.'

Technology does not necessarily mean convenience. This time I asked him to make do with my signature that looked 90 per cent complete. So he requested me to write in my mobile number with that signature.

Personal safety trick you may say. But I avoid listing my number. My husband's number turned saviour.

`Kitne ka hai?' My curiosity would not let me shut my mouth up.

`Ek Laakh ka hai madam!' He said this with the look of that huge burden of responsibility in safeguarding it.

His company did not mind paying it. The gait was different. Polished compared to other courier deliverers.

As I shut the door, my thoughts swung from - will my signature be misused, to why a company would allow such expensive gadgetry to be used by these employees.

If something were go wrong with the machine, they would be made to compensate. Was it just about style? Or clever ideas to get signatures and mobile numbers? Maybe courier delivery merely got techno-savvy.