BLR Echoes - August '25
Bengaluru is a city of many hearts. Its rhythm is found in its food, festivals, languages, and everyday lives. BLR Echoes gathers those moments of culture, people, and stories, weaving them together to celebrate everything that makes Bengaluru feel like home.
Stamped in Time: The Postal History of Bengaluru
The city once spoke in slower ways. Stories came with a cycle bell, a khaki-clad postman, or the creak of a red postbox. These postboxes stood through rain and summer, carrying stamps pressed with care and blue inland letters tucked into family trunks. For many, the treasure was this: a letter, last touched by a loved one, words crossing distances to arrive in your hands with their warmth.
Long before red postboxes dotted every street corner, Bengaluru trusted in something slower still. In 1672, King Chikkadevaraja Wodeyar of Mysore established the royal courier system known as the Mysore Anche. Its lifeline was the harikaras, runners who carried news across towns like Bengaluru, Srirangapatna, and Chitradurga.
When the British arrived, they expanded this system. By the 1800s, Bengaluru had one of South India’s earliest Imperial Post Offices. On April 1, 1889, the Mysore Anche merged with the Imperial Postal Department, uniting old and new.
By the mid-19th century, Bengaluru had a new landmark: the General Post Office, built in 1862 within the former British residency. For over a century, its colonial facade saw love letters, telegrams, and money orders pass through. Though demolished in 1985, the new GPO on Raj Bhavan Road still stands with its Greco-Roman pillars.
Bengaluru has always had an eye for memory. It has nurtured philatelists, seeing each stamp as a story in miniature. The GPO’s philatelic bureau, renovated in July 2024, now houses a complete archive of stamps issued since 1947.
The city wanted a larger tribute to its love for letters. On Museum Road, in a heritage building from 1804, stands Sandesha, Museum of Communication. Once used by the British, it now preserves India’s communication history with telegraphs, postboxes, sorting machines and letters.
Even as it holds onto its past, Bengaluru continues to write new chapters in its postal history. In 2023, the city became home to India’s first-ever 3D printed post office, built at Cambridge Layout. Modern and futuristic, it stands in contrast to the red postboxes of the past, but carries the same promise: of letters reaching where they must.
Bengaluru’s oldest postbox, a cast-iron pillar from 1856 at Taj West End, still bears a royal crown and remains in use today.
The next time you walk past a red postbox, pause for a moment. Imagine the hand that slipped a letter inside, the heart that waited on the other end, and the city that once believed communication was not instant but intimate.
Do you carry a rare story of Bengaluru?
Every city has its legends, its hidden corners, and its forgotten tales. Bengaluru is no different. Beyond the glass towers and traffic, stories live in lanes, old houses, and memories at the dinner table.
We’d love to hear the rare story of Bengaluru, you know. It could be:
- A family anecdote from the past
- A forgotten landmark or custom
- A personal memory that reveals a hidden side of the city
Share it with us at blog@unboxingblr.com
These stories, no matter how small, are the threads that hold Bengaluru together.
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