Of letters and stories

"Don't kill me for the late reply; I ran out of my special envelopes and stamps! But let me tell you all that has happened in all this time," a friend's letter began.

This was 22 years ago and we cared about special envelopes and stamps then too. She then went on to describe, event by event, every single thing that had happened since her last letter to me. “Event no. 1,” she wrote, “I attempted to make a vegetable sandwich all by myself. I sliced the tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions (this is the most I’ve cried in a year!), borrowed cheese slices from the mess kitchen, borrowed butter too. But as it turned out, the bread I had stored from last week went all green and mossy! So all this prep was for nothing! Well, not nothing – I ate the veggies as a salad, with pieces of cheese in it and I used the butter as a dip. It wasn’t the worst. Event no. 2…” And the letter went on until all the events were thoroughly covered. Stories about school and teachers, friends and roommates, crushes and crushers, books and comics, flowed through the letter. We took our silliness very seriously. I thoroughly enjoyed her funny narrations of mundane things. I would reply with equal enthusiasm about the mundanity of my life and would ask curious follow-up questions about the events she described. And the conversation would go on.

Isn't this what letters are all about? Slow, patient communication, the anticipation of a reply, the endearing apologies, and the micro-sharing of all things that make up the genuine little moments we call 'life'. We become narrators of stories as we commit pen to paper and begin to share pertinent things about impertinent matters. This is such an act of commitment – we make our thoughts tangible and demand from ourselves, an unsaid responsibility of truth. This is what makes letters so powerful. A commitment in communication.

I’ve written letters ever since I learned how to write. I wrote to friends and family. I even wrote to myself. I learned over time that I can communicate better in postcards with some people. I made greeting cards for some others. And I wrote long letters to a few others. The changing format also showed a change in relationship. The exchange and type of banter varied from person to person and that decided the format and length of my letters.

The one thing I absolutely love about letters is the fact that we’re capturing a moment of time in our life and sending it to someone who is so interested to be a part of that moment, even if it is as an observer. They share that feeling, encapsulate it in their reply and send it back to us, adding their own moments from life to it. And the exchange continues, as we slowly become a part of their world, and they, ours. This mindful stepping in and out of worlds is what keeps the bond alive. And then, physical distance doesn’t feel too distant.

I learned proper letter writing etiquette as a child. You try to reply within a week of receiving a letter. You write in good, legible handwriting. You do not forget to greet the person at the start of the letter. You answer the questions asked in the previous letter and add to it with follow-up questions. You ask about their friends and family and wish them well. You end the letter on a friendly note.

Handwriting also plays such an important part in this exchange. I found one of my grandmother’s letters recently, written in 1998. It is missing a few pages, but seeing her round, curvy, heavily spaced out handwriting gave me goosebumps. It kept a part of her alive and tangible. For a doctor, her handwriting was quite neat and graceful. It wasn’t sloppy or chaotic, just rushed. She wrote about how she was reading a book – gifted by a friend – about parents who find out that their daughter isn’t their own, and how they begin a journey of finding her real family. The book made her reminisce about her difficult past with her own family. The letter ended on a positive note about how her childhood was wholesome and nurturing and she didn’t feel any kind of lack in her life. This is what she held on to for her remaining days.

We fumble and digress in speech. But our thoughts are weighed and measured in writing. Tell your story with a thoughtful letter. And let it live on in the archive of someone else’s life.