A little boy is stooped over an ivory piece of paper. Pen in hand, he quickly scribbles what is on his mind and finishes off with some embellishments — drawing hoops along the edges of the page with a red sketch pen. He is writing to his father. Right at the top, in big bold letters is written: I Love Dad (with a heart). His excitement of pasting the stamp on the letter knows no bounds. From afar, rolling by is a postman with a satchel, on his way in to garner all the letters from the post box.
At Daakroom, the lost art of letter writing gets a second chance, especially for the generation that finds the practice to be completely alien. The start was natural and slow, says the co-founder of the collective that shines a light on every aspect of letter writing including its ability to foster community and intimacy, Shivani Mehta. The idea for Daakroom was born at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad where Shivani and co-founder Harnehmat Kaur met.
“In 2013, we were witnessing the whole Blackberry revolution and advent of smartphones and wanted to do something that would simply spread some smiles. We came up with a design trick and intervention to make sure that people wrote on postcards and not just bought them. We gave them a monetary incentive [if they wrote] and free commemorative stamps. For those who used to write regularly, small things like licking the stamp to stick them on before posting was part of the whole experience. With time, the initiative sprouted wings to reach schools, in an attempt to design a letter writing curriculum for children, an offshoot of a series of workshops that introduced the children to the different aspects of letters. “As of now, we have engaged more than 1000 schools pan-India.” Says Shivani.
The idea of a carnival came up in 2016. The first edition took shape in Allahabad after a conversation with the Director General of Postal Services. What was suggested initially was a competition, but the collective wanted to stay away from the academic nature of this exercise. After all, the idea was to celebrate and make the experience of writing letters fun.
“It’s one of the closest things to our hearts,” says Shivani, adding, “because it’s everything that we champion about letter writing, coming together in one place in a celebratory format. It brings people of all age groups, and especially different generations within the same family. And conversations begin. We don’t have to nudge the kids to write, the stories do it.”
In its fifth edition now, the upcoming carnival in Delhi hopes to go an extra mile this time. There will be many zones : one is the writing and posting zone that will have nudges to write, a post box and even a postman that goes around doing a demo: the ideal postal experience. Another zone will be entirely dedicated to competitions (handwriting competitions, interestingly, are a crowd favourite, adds Shivani). Then there will also be a host of workshops including calligraphy and postal art, apart from what makes a carnival true to its name: food and games.
“Typically, it is a family affair and we ensure that there are enough things for parents as well. We also have performances like music, dance and street theatre. This time we starting a pen pal counter where you can voluntarily leave your postal details and write your first letter to a pen pal, then and there.”
Over the years, Shivani has chanced upon a few letters that warmed her heart. “One of the times, some children had written to army jawaans thanking them for their service. Once, we had them write to their role models too. We have also had some funny moments when people lick and stick the stamps. Diifferent age groups respond differently,” chuckles Shivani.
Children have always approached letters with a lot of curiosity, says Shivani. They love playing around with stationery, lending their own artistic touch. “We do get a lot of responses like ‘Oh, this is what my parents used to do; This is a thing of the past.’ But what they most appreciate is the tangibility of letters and the creativity it allows,” says Shivani.
Daakroom’s upcoming Letter Writing Carnival will be on October 29 from 10am to 6pm at Gandhi Darshan, near Rajghat, New Delhi.
