Inked

“Letters, they used to be necessary.” I said as I flipped another page of my copy of Pride and Prejudice. I was curled up in my blanket burrito and relishing my hot coffee with the ideal downpour that I witnessed through the little window in my room. It was almost as if mother nature gave me a surprise. The usual site of sunlight penetration became the bearer of mist and petrichor. Plus, rain in January in India is utterly contrary to what one would expect of the weather. 

At that point, learning HOW TO WRITE A FORMAL OR INFORMAL LETTER in the school curriculum seemed too absurd. Am I ever going to write a letter? No. I would rather write an email or text the person. Engaging in the obscure art of letter writing seemed so unnecessary. All these thoughts flooded my brain while I was reading about Mr. Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth about the sinister Mr. Wickham. However, my lack of analyzation at the time seemed to deviate my from the ulterior motive of flourishing the concept of letter writing. I continued with my novel and after a while went downstairs to my grandma’s room. 

And you predicted rightly, I engaged in a deep conversation about letters with my grandmother. Conjectures are not so bad after all. 

My grandmother was sorting some books for her school the next day and I approached her with a very legitimate question that had set the cogs of my mind running. 

“Did you write letters, Dadi(hindi term for grandmother) ?” I questioned.

“Yes, I did. Infact, I did for a while. How do you think I got your Dadu(hindi term for grandfather) to marry me?” She replied with a slight chuckle.

“But didn’t you have telephones for that?” my curiosity deepened.

“Oh, we did. Our house had one telephone, which was mostly occupied. And being a young woman of a marriageable age, I wasn’t permitted to use it. My father wasn’t as lax as yours.” She said.

“Oh, so you did write letters. I see. Was it delightful?” I asked.

“ Exchanging letters amid the thrill of getting caught, that too in an Indian household where we were married without getting know the groom, of course it was delightful.” She giggled softly.

“And who did this little dirty work of yours of bringing letters back and forth, Dadi”? I said, amusedly.

“ Ummm, I knew people. It’s best if I don’t take names.” She smirked slyly.

The hint of glimmer in her eyes made it evident that she lived her time graciously. 

“Dadi, was Dadu the only man you ever wrote letters to?” 

“Umm, I-.......”. Something told me that she had experienced her unrequited love and was still upset about it. 

“Arey, Tell me about it now. Don’t be shy.” I tried to persuade her into spilling the tea for another minute or so and she caved in.

“Well, it was before the partition. I was young and went to a co-ed school. The infatuation was there and ours blossomed into a crazy, stupid love (forgive me for using that reference). We exchanged letters for a while but then partition happened in 1947 and we had to flee. I left all our letters in my house at Lahore and forgot all about him when I met your Dadu.” She kept it brief.

“ Ah, tragic. Although, you have had your fair share of romance. This aggravates my curiosity, though. Now, I know this question is way beyond your time but did people actually use those pigeons for carrying letters as we’ve seen in animated movies?” I asked.

“Well, pretty much yeah.” She got up and went to the kitchen to make chai. I followed her like a cute little brown puppy with a sudden peeked interest in letters. 

“There was this breed of pigeons, called homing pigeons that were trained to be messengers. So, no it’s not fiction. It’s most definitely a real concept of olden times. Mostly, used by royals.” She replied yet again.

“Grandma, do you still write letters?” 

“ I most certainly do, my dear.” 

“Why? I mean, emails and texts are so much more convenient. You just type and send and then BOOM! Received. No loopholes there. A letter takes so much time to reach. Who do you even write to?”

“Ah, this brings me to my wise monologue. Letters! Where to start.... The wait, the feel of feeling the handwriting, the pauses, the nuances, that’s what I crave for. You may think granny is being childish, but that’s what everyone craves for eventually. The wait of receiving a response from your friend, pondering about what they think when they get your letter, thinking about their reaction on touching the white envelope with a freshly wrapped message straight from the horse’s mouth and not a number of internet protocols breaking them down into pieces and joining them back up to the receiver’s address. And it being carried from the hands of an actual human, a person who is as eager to deliver a letter and witness that jubilant or melancholic reaction on the receiver’s face, who is as ardent to keep the obsolete art alive and kicking, and who’s only hope is that one letter that I send to my friend. Opening the letter, reading the manner in which it was written, reading the pauses, breathing the feeling, caressing the crisp paper, experiencing, that’s what makes us feel alive dear. Not a little phone or computer. It goes beyond that, you won’t understand.”

“Granny, why don’t you just call?” I laughed heartily.

“Have you ever made an online friend, Nandini?”

“Umm yeah.”

“Somebody who’s voice you have never heard and probably don’t want to but you like talking with them. Just chatting?”

“Duh. Online friends are the best. I mean I don’t have to explain shit to them. I can rant whenever I want and leave them on seen for all it matters. It just doesn’t matter. But it works out so well.”

“ Did you get my point? It would be ten times better if you guys exchanged letters instead of chatting. Some things can’t be said and feel better when they don’t reach your ears. They are better if you just absorb them with you eyes and let the brain sink it in.” 

“ You are way too progressive for an Indian dadi, I must say”.

“Hahha. Now go, my chai is done. It’s time for me to read.”

“Yea , Dadi”. I left the kitchen and went upstairs. And then it struck me, that’s why Mr. Darcy wrote it in a letter rather than saying it out loud.

-Nandini