I have always liked writing letters—and of course, receiving them too. In fact, in a bygone era of snail mail, I was an inveterate letter writer. A letter writer par excellence, if you will.

Whom did I write to? Ahh! Plenty of people.

With father being in a transferable job, letters were written to friends one had to leave behind, albeit with a heavy heart. Later, when I was put in a boarding school in my tenth grade, and afterwards in a college hostel, I wrote to my parents. Sometimes, I wrote to cousins. Or uncles and aunts who needed to be thanked for a gift.

Not all the friends I wrote to kept up the good work by replying diligently. Only some, like Farzana, ever did that. And parents! Writing to them is not so much fun. They inevitably ask uncomfortable questions like how much I scored in some subject or other, chipping away at the joy of receiving letters. Besides, they weren’t interested in all you—a teenager—wanted to babble on about!

Luckily, those were the days of penpals. What better way to send and receive letters than to become one myself? So that’s what I did. Carefully, I went through magazine columns and chose some based on hobbies, reading topping the list. Letters started coming my way regularly, much to the envy of my friends, for you see, everyone loves receiving letters. Yes, even without writing any, the irony!

One day I made the mistake of sharing a photo with my mother of a penpal who had sent it along with the letter. A Tamilian boy from somewhere—I think it was Mylapore—in Tamil Nadu. Mother was livid. The letter-writing to penpals was grudgingly accepted by her. But a photo? She tore it to bits and told me, in no uncertain terms, to stop writing to the boy.

I obeyed her. No more letters to him, just as I promised. Yes, I was kind of a Miss Goody Two Shoes back then. But I was also someone else—someone who resented the injustice of it, saw no logic in the whole thing. I continued writing to penpals, but from then on, I stopped sharing, especially photos, with her.

The love for letters meant that the postman became an integral part of my life. Not in the romantic way, mind you. Not like Hema Malini ending up marrying the ‘Dakiya daak laya’ singing Rajesh Khanna in the movie Palkon Ki Chhaon Mein. Just that he (there were only postmen those days) became the one I looked forward to seeing every single day.

In the hostels, of course, the letters were distributed by either the nuns or one of the senior girls appointed for doing so. Hence, the postman was never actually seen. But at home it was a different matter. Roundabout the time the postman was expected to make the rounds of the colony, I’d be waiting in the verandah, restlessly. As soon as I saw his head bobbing outside the gate of my parents’ house, I would run to the gate to collect the mail.

Maybe precisely for this reason, my dog Simi—predecessor to both Goofy and Luci—disliked him. Or it could be the fact that he casually threw the magazines and letters over the gate and into the yard. Whatever the reason, she had it in for him. Not only did she bark at him nonstop, if she got to the gate first, she would run away with whatever post had landed on her side, making me run after her and try to pry it out of her mouth.

Those days are well behind me now. Well, not just for me; it is so for most of the world itself, with emails, cell phones, WhatsApp and others in the fray as tools of communication.

I too have moved with the times. Now, when the urge to write hits me, I make a beeline for my blog.

Hmm…. Come to think of it, my posts ARE like the chatty letters I used to write.

©️ Shail Mohan 2026