The lost art of letter writing!
Don’t let the beauty of letter writing die…
I believe that my love for letters started when I heard my parents share their memories of sharing letters with each other when they were young. The process of writing a letter by putting pen to paper, feeling that a piece of paper isn’t enough to share everything we feel, writing and rewriting it to include the most important thing you wish to say, regretting not mentioning that one thing you forgot to put in the letter after you sent it, and the slow burning expectation of getting the letter back addressed to you and only you!
Being a 90s kid, letters were still prevalent when I was young, when the phones had not pervaded every inch of our lives. It was common to get a letter from your grandparents who stayed far away, those greeting cards with popular actors for Pongal and Diwali from friends, and to get our annual exam results during our summer holidays.
But phones came along, where conversations happened immediately. You don’t have to wait to find their thoughts, you don’t have to check your postbox every morning looking for a reply, you don’t have to keep it safe and take it up whenever you want to read it through (thinking it’s just this once) and you don’t have to memorize the slant of the letters, the pause, the ink blots, the dot that is placed a little away from the “i”, the cursive and non-cursive, the three dots that swallow the thoughts and ask the reader to imagine what those words would mean, as there would not be enough space on the letter to convey all the things you want to tell them.
Luckily, when I had to stay in a girls’ boarding school for four years in my teenage years, I got back into writing letters again. Those old one-rupee coin phones were available, but they were always so crowded that if I needed to talk for a few minutes before going to school at 8 a.m., I had to stand in line from 5 a.m.
I was constantly homesick, and I hated that I didn’t have enough time to talk with my parents, and I hated the fact that I had to talk when I was surrounded by so many kids and that I didn’t have any privacy. So, I resorted to writing letters, and I used to write a letter every week for four years, pressuring my parents and brother to write me back. I used to check the post box every day in search of letters from my family. They must have been annoyed that they had to sit down and write letters, but those letters are some of the most treasured memories that we have now and bring a fond smile to my family.
Motivational lines from my father, letters in Tamil with a lot of love but a lot of spelling mistakes from my mother as she had gone to a Telugu medium school, and poems from my brother were like lifelines for me during those four years away from home. These letters made those small but beautiful mortal moments, a bit more immortal by taking up physical space and thus giving life to them.
As usual, time passed by, and I didn’t have to write anymore. With phones, conversations leave no trace of their existence as soon as the conversation gets over. There is no warmth or effort required for the Times New Roman/Open Sans font that pervades all the screens in our hands and you don’t have to feel the pleasurable pain of waiting for an awaited reply.
One fine day during the quarantine caused by Corona, while I was dusting my loft containing old belongings, my writing pad containing all those letters fell with a clack on the floor. I took it up and read through them with a watery smile and decided to write letters to all my close friends.
Writing those letters felt cathartic. Something about the pale blue inland letters made me vulnerable again, and I talked about how special each one of them was in my life, sincerely hoping that it would bring a smile to their faces when it landed on their doorstep out of the blue.
Vulnerability is terrifying. The courage it takes to reveal your heart is one of the most daunting…and yet rewarding experiences in your life. It’ll set you free.
- The Better Man Project
Do you have anyone in your life that you feel close to? If so, spend some time and send them a letter with your own handwriting that is oh so unique and oh so peculiar! Show them that they do matter and that you are grateful to have them in your life. It’ll be the best gift that anyone could ever give them!
Happy writing!
