{"id":1296,"date":"2016-03-09T12:34:20","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T12:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=1296"},"modified":"2016-03-09T12:34:20","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T12:34:20","slug":"letter-writing-the-last-letter-writers-of-mumbai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=1296","title":{"rendered":"The Ink Fades for Mumbai\u2019s Last Letter Writers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S<\/span>ituated in South Mumbai\u2019s grand Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus area, the General Post Office is an imperious figure. The black basalt and yellow Kurla stone building looks like a forgotten heirloom, with its central dome dominating the surrounding skyline. The structure has been here since 1913, and one of its oldest friends, Sajal Nath, has been giving it business for the last 35 years.<\/p>\n\n

Nath is one of the few letter writers left in the area now. For a brief moment in time, people like Nath populated the streets around the post office, armed with their pens, helping the unlettered communicate with their families. They\u2019d write money orders to old parents with specific instructions on how to use it and where to store it; letters from daughters informing parents about an unwanted pregnancy; pained missives from longing husbands sent to waiting wives.<\/p>\n\n

Nath came to Mumbai in 1982, after he got mad at his parents. He then broke open his Amul ghee box, emptied it of all his savings and booked a ticket to the city. \u201cIn those days we had to wait for 10-12 days after booking to get a ticket. I stayed with a school friend once I arrived,\u201d he told me. Nath had completed high school and was able to write basic English, but his strength, and what gave him employability in the city of dreams was his ability to read and write Bengali.<\/p>\n\n

The man who was the voice of uneducated Bengali immigrants during a time when communication was analogue, now bides his days seated on a rickety wooden stool near a shop called Ashapora Travels. He sits with his supplies \u2013 a blue polythene containing a cutter, a large piece of cloth, tape, markers, wax, needles, and a solitary pen \u2013 in front of an empty wooden stool, where his customers once sat and poured their hearts out. <\/p>\n\n

In her book, The Lost Generation: Chronicling India\u2019s Dying Professions, Nidhi Dugar Kundalia references historian Hajaf Haidar, who traced back these letter writers to the kitabs (scribes) of the Mughal era. These men were among the few who could read and they wrote letters for royals and commoners alike. Things are different today though, as email and WhatsApp have eliminated the need for letter writers, forcing 54-year- old Nath and his ilk to pivot professionally.<\/p>\n\n