One challenge of being in transition between homes is that when I get some time or the mood strikes to write somebody a letter, invariably, the pens and stationery is sitting in the other house!! Finally, managed to get enough materials together to dash one more this evening…

My first executive admin – Vicky Cupit. Last time I saw her was in 2015 in a McDonalds attached to a gas station in a small rural town called Van Alstyne in Texas. She wanted me to write a letter to her.

So, here you go, Vicky!!

All the stationery and library set up has been moved to the new house together with all the pens and ink pots and writing pads.

This is the first letter from the new house (we have not moved in yet). This letter is headed Madhuri’s way to Singapore!

Of course letter writing is not just about fountain pens and personalized pads… it has include the whole wax seals to go with it!

Original plan was to use the downtime during year end to get all the handwritten letters that I still have neatly organized by person and in chronological fashion. Of course, Covid took my year end away. However, with the long weekend here, I finally got it done.

Some of the letters are from 1984! The “inland letters” of India are ready to just crumble up. Had to use a lot of caution to restore them. You can see some of the olden days “postcards” too.

The earliest letter is from my dad in 1984 followed by my best friend Avijit Bose’s. The latest one is from Madhuri Agrawal from Singapore from a few weeks back.

Some of the letters from my parents were too difficult for me to hold my tears back.

I told Sharmila about my project.

“I have organized the letters that I still have and some of the ones that I wrote”
“How do you have letters that you wrote?”
“Well, for international letters, I take a photocopy. Just in case they get lost, I email the photocopy to the recipient later.”

“How come you do not write any letters to me anymore?” was her next question.
“What?”
“You used to write to me before marriage. How come you write to others still but not to me?”
“Why would I write to you? We live under the same roof. Moreover, we are on talking terms.”

Apparently, that did not convince her.

Maybe that Covid-time realization on silence might be not too futile after all.

I can foresee a day when she would ask me “How was dinner?”
Vowed to silence, I would furtively pen a letter and mail it. (BTW, our new house is bang opposite the post office.)
She can open up the wax sealed envelope a few days later and read out loudly “Needed a little more salt!” Or something like that!!!

Two international letters today – one headed to Singapore and one to Doha.

Music and letter writing!

As if writing full page letters – on monogrammed paper and with fountain pens – and then sealing the envelope with wax and a personal seal was not nerdy enough, I think I have managed to take it to the next level of nerdiness. Now I have 24 different colors of wax beads, a formal set up to melt the wax (no more of the candle version – you actually heat up the wax beads in a small spoon over a tealight candle) and highlighter pens to accentuate the seal.

It is a sheer irony that to show you all these forms of archaic communication, I have to use the internet and social media platforms like Facebook 🙂

Okay, now I need all of you to call me for dinner or lunch at your place. I need to write a lot of thank you letters to try out all the different colors of wax!

Should have found this out long time back…