Dead
letters brought alive!
By RAJBIR DESWAL
Any idea about the dead letters? Not many youngsters would know. Letters
that did not the reach the addressee were directed and dumped to be retrieved
when the address was found, in the Dead Letter Offices(DLO)—I can recall one
that was located in Amritsar. Spirited letters that we wrote with so much of
indulgence are dead now, thanks to emails, SMSs and other communication vehicles
available on the internet .
There was always a suspense and an apprehension if at all a letter
would reach its destination or not, unless you sent it with a paid ‘Acknowledgement
Due,’ especially in a registered cover, that would cost you ten times more than
the usual postage. The best way then to make a letter reach the (actual) hands
of the addressee was to send it as ‘bearing’ which meant that the recipient had
to pay double the postage. Most of the lower strata, especially labourers or
workers class from other states, used this mode. A bearing letter could be
written on an exercise book page, folded appropriately.
Best way to ensure that a letter wasn’t opened by anyone unauthorized,
was ink-marked on folds, with straight lines that would appear not in line and’
tinkered’ with, if the fold had been scrap-opened. Hardcore writers left their missives their ‘identity
cum emotion cum physical clue cum mental condition stains’ in the form of
symbols, tears, blood, lipstick or turmeric, as the situation warranted. A
postcard torn on one edge sounded an alarm for it contained information about
someone’s death.
Addresses were written in full measure, as if taking into account
every lamp-post or a municipal water-tap, if one of these was a local landmark.
The usual stereotype could be: “Mile Pandit Dinanath ji ko, Patanjali
Yogacharya, Mandir ke peechhe, Kumharan Kuan, Nazdik Govt Boys School, Chungi
ke pass, Court Road, Allahabad”. If the addressee had relocated himself,
then his neighbour could provide the postman a new address, on which the letter
could be ‘redirected’ (superscribed with
red pen) without landing in the DLO or
being paid extra postage.
A proper salutation in a letter to the addressee was a must. Care was
taken to make it as respectful as possible but clichés like Poojay Pita Ji,
Adarniya Bhai Sahab, Azeez-O-Mun, Barkhurdar were invariably there. Closing
the letter one would sound a tad more submissive—Apka agyakari beta; or,
Sirf tumhara! In some letters, the available space too was filled up,
making the reader turn it in many ways to decipher the entire scribbling.
The more animated letter writers invariably put a couplet, either at
the beginning or at the end. It could be anything like—By God’s grace we are
all fine here and hope you are also sailing in the same boat; Atra kushlam
tatra astoo; Aage motor peechhe car, badon ko Namaste chhoton ko pyar. And
then there were cautions—Chitthi ko taar samajhna; Thode likhe ko zyada
samajhna! There could be none in the family or circle of the addressee who
would go unenquired about—Jeeja ji ki naurki lagi ke nahin? Meena ke liye ladka dekha ki nahin ?Abki baar Pappu
pass ho gya ki nahin?—all this would end with “Khabar dena!”
In the 1949 Ashok Kumar-Madhubala blockbuster ‘Mahal’, the DLO retrieved
a letter written by one Ranajna, who committed suicide making it appear to be a
murder by her husband, but confessed it in a letter that did not reach the
right hands . When the suspense was known after the letter was handed over to
the judge, Ashok Kumar was saved from the gallows. A human error led to a
blunder; a human effort sorted matters out—in letter and spirit.
1 comment:
Hello Everybody,
My name is Mrs Sharon Sim. I live in Singapore and i am a happy woman today? and i told my self that any lender that rescue my family from our poor situation, i will refer any person that is looking for loan to him, he gave me happiness to me and my family, i was in need of a loan of $250,000.00 to start my life all over as i am a single mother with 3 kids I met this honest and GOD fearing man loan lender that help me with a loan of $250,000.00 SG. Dollar, he is a GOD fearing man, if you are in need of loan and you will pay back the loan please contact him tell him that is Mrs Sharon, that refer you to him. contact Dr Purva Pius,via email:(urgentloan22@gmail.com) Thank you.
Post a Comment