Chithi na koi sandes

Jab ghar se koi bhi khut aaya hai

Kaagaz ko maine bheega bheega paya hai

The school bell went off at 1:30 pm, much to the delight of the virtual inmates caged inside. It was the last day of school before summer vacations arrived, back in 1991. I exchanged addresses with pals, and we promised to write each other letters during vacations. With a bouncy touch in my stride I rode back home. And in keeping with customs, I put my hand inside a big cavity in my home’s façade. Letters. I felt them on my hand, measured their thickness, and sheer number.

My joy knew no boundaries every time I got hold of letters belonging to me or my mother, occasionally my sister too, and with great sense of pride and ownership I carried them around the house. I had had enough letter-writing sessions with Ma and quite understood the value of a letter. Letters that used to come from far and not so far places carried in them compulsive assumptions, love, tears, nostalgia, remembrance, invoking much of the same inside the reader.

Telephone was still an uncommon commodity in the 90s which meant distances were greater than they actually were and everyone resorted to letter-ing.

Chores assigned to me during summer vacations in my early schooling life included writing letters to cousins and frequent visits to the vicinity post-office. I enjoyed buying stamps and posting letters in the red post-box, it was a substantial responsibility on young shoulders which swelled my chest, too, as a kid.

One of my fonder memories from letter-ing is writing a letter, as a 9-yr-old, to a cousin about Rajiv Gandhi’s death and the permanent loss to the nation. The letter brought tears in my mother’s eyes.

Till the end of the 90s letter-ing was a way of life for most and many popular Hindi songs captured the value of a letter in varied ways. Chithi aayee hai was one such creation. A song, so beautiful in words, for the émigré population, yet it rarely failed to send tears rolling down the eyes, even, of an ordinary Indian.

I always felt, still do, the profundity of emotions in letters is best explained by the craving for letters by soldiers in the army and their families.

As goes the once-famous song, ‘Sandese aate hain, humein tadhpate hain’

The summer vacations of ’91 were remarkable for towards the end my room was a plethora of letters, some of which I still possess. I continued letter-ing for many years till the email and mobile-phone revolution changed everything. As a teenager I had always wanted to grow-up and write letters to my mother from a different shore but that was not to be.

Today, I, am in touch with the farthest of relatives, have regained touch with old friends over the internet, but I feel robbed of a treasure considering the produce of emotions that could have been.

Like radio regained its flavor after a lull of many years I so wish that letters too do.