A post office (තැපැල් කාර්යාලයක්) is a building where letters and parcels •are received for despatch and from which letters are delivered. From any post office in the world for less than four annas you can send a letter to any other place in the world where there is a post office. From your own post office in India you can send a letter to any other place in India for one anna. The cost is the same whether you send the letter to a shop in
your town, or to a friend over two thousand miles away.

In every post office there is a counter at which you may buy stamps, If you have a valuable letter or parcel to post you may register it. That is for three annas extra the postmaster or a clerk will give you a receipt for the letter. Then you can feel sure that the letter will be treated with special care until it is delivered. Registered letters should be sealed with sealing-wax.

You may also send money from a post office. You have to write on a special form your own name and that of the person to whom you wish the money to be sent. The postmaster sends that form to the nearest post office to where the person lives who is to receive the money. When the form arrives the money is sent by a postman, and he pays it to the proper person and gets a receipt for it. That receipt is sent to you by post and so you know that the money has been received.

Some post offices are very small, with only one man or woman in charge. Some are very large, and employ hundreds of clerks and postmen, with motor vans to take the bags of letters to and from stations or ships or aerodromes.