The Lost Generation

by Nidhi Dugar Kundalia

  ‘Somehow, the city just became bigger and we became smaller,’ he mumbles, his gaze dull and fixed in a faraway stare. Bright lights illuminated the sky, the stars were losing their shine and the fireflies were vanishing. Cars moved inch by inch on the roads outside and people were flipping each other off at every intersection. The post office was declared a heritage site and the entire letter-writing squad was relocated across the street.

  Sunlight trickles in through a fissure in Dilip’s tent this morning; dust particles floating in the rays briefly reflect off a tin box that lies below his table, emphasizing its existence—the lid is cracked at the edges and coated with rust. Following my eyes, Dilip puts the box on the table, cracking it open to reveal its contents—folded sheets of yellowed paper, envelopes and used nibs. He takes out an old letter, a single sheet with writing on both sides, devoid of lines, margins, texture or print.

  ‘I had written this for a client, a love letter for his girlfriend in Sholapur, and penned some lines from Hemant Kumar’s songs, my favourite.’ He sports a hesitant smile, his eyes trained on the letters in his hand.

  Dilip sometimes saves drafts like these, of the letters he writes for his clients, particularly the love letters to their girlfriends. ‘The ones to the wives were simpler, with directives like “Pay the rent”, or “Take care of my mother.” Like this one . . .’ He places an unpretentious, soggy blue paper before me. It is double-sided like a book, the kind that was sold at post offices in those days. The handwriting, taut and wiry, has faded into blue marks over time. The letter F resembled an elegant old man, slightly bent at the shoulders; the Gs and Ys are rendered with a loopy end.

  An idiomatic vitality—with large lettering and simple phrases—keeps the writing light and easy, a style worked upon to simplify it for his readers across the countryside. ‘All kinds of people came in to have their letters written here.’ He makes a sweeping movement with his hand, presenting his humble street-side office to my scrutiny: a battered briefcase and old calendars stacked against the walls, and newspapers in various languages. A cat cosies up on the wall that is used as support to build the tent, graffiti painted in red announcing: ‘Do not pass urine here.’

  An extraordinarily diverse cross-section of humanity lives in this city in pursuit of the glittering Bombay dream. The hectic metropolis in a flux of growth attracts all sorts of workers—traders, hawkers, cooks and labourers with little or no education migrate here from Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. Girls and boys flock here from towns and villages. Sometimes, they end up looking down at you from the movie and TV-show billboards, beautiful and unreal. But most of them end up where they never intended to be—in slums, on footpaths, in red-light areas.

  Dark clouds gather over us as he speaks. Dilip looks leaner and murkier as the evening sets in. ‘Lots of young girls from Grant Road came in back then.’ He refers to Mumbai’s largest red-light area, where women usually end up when they have no other way to eke out a living.

  ‘One of them, Swati, was very intelligent. She had been told by a lady in her village that she could get beauty-parlour work in Bombay. Upon arrival, she learnt that she owed the lady more than 1500 rupees and that the parlour job did not exist. She called me bhaiya and said she was twenty-five, but actually looked thirty,’ Dilip reminisces, glassy-eyed. ‘She sent letters with money to her son who lived in a hostel. Sometimes, she lied to him about the money, saying she’d been promoted at the sari shop where she worked; at other times, she said it was a Diwali bonus,’ he says.

  ‘In the nineteenth century, there were too many illiterate men away from home, and letters and telegrams were the only forms of communication. Letters being the warmer cousin,’ says Dilip of the art that constructs tiny bits of individual history as it unfolds. ‘I had some regular customers back then, like this sardar who drove a truck, but didn’t know how to count money. He sometimes came with gunny sacks full of notes, mostly one-rupee. We counted the money through the day and attached it with letters full of instructions from the city workers on how to spend the money; bags of their notes and coins would lie with us the entire day, but never did a rupee go missing. Such was the trust back then.’ He sighs.

  ‘Many customers would be up well before dawn and spend almost no waking hours at home. They were too tired to communicate and expected us to add some embellishments. This was not the time of WhatsApp and SMS. Without the help of facial expressions, gesticulation, we had to communicate effectively and personally, and send something to an unseen recipient . . .’ He taps his fingers on the tin box, unconsciously creating music reminiscent of happier days; perhaps he is remembering the stories he wrote that he thought the recipients of the letters would want to hear, the lies he created that they would want to believe in, the words that would have impressed them.

  A wonderful code in stamps, for secret lovers, is another of the many things that have died with the art of letter writing. By tilting the one-rupee Gandhi stamps at strategic angles, messages would be communicated. Depending on the angle, the stamp could mean ‘I love you’ or ‘Come and visit me.’ This sightless correspondence of letters, and the vulnerability and valour that it inspired, brought out the confessional and, sometimes, the crazy.

  ‘A lady came up to me once, in a burka. Speaking through her naqab, she said she wanted me to write a letter for divorce.’ He smiles, opening his Pandora’s box of memories. ‘I could make out that she was crying and pretended to be busy with other customers. She waited for a while and then sauntered away. The next day, she returned, and I was thinking of more excuses when she said it was a misunderstanding with her husband that was resolved thanks to his sister and that the divorce was off the table. I couldn’t have been more relieved,’ he says, patting his hair again. ‘Court cases can be messy.’

  Dilip also provided reading services. ‘My clients trusted me with their messages. There were messages for ex-criminals and traders, messages from lovers involved in extramarital affairs and messages from childhood friends,’ he mutters, as if delving into the corners of his memories that have lain untouched for a long time. The business was not exempt from error as there were delayed news of deaths and births that occurred months ago, misspelt words in letters that flew across the states smelling of cigarettes, car grease or sambar masala.

  On some Sunday afternoons, Dilip took bus no. 49 to an old Parsi widow’s house. ‘She lived with her part-time nurse, and was partially blind, owing to old age. I’d read the letters she received from her son who had made his home in Trinidad and from a sister who was at an old-age home in Pune.

  ‘We’d reply to those letters sometimes. She narrated and I wrote, informing them of the weather, of the kindness of her neighbours, of her knees growing stronger and how she could now make tea without any help.’

  Her home, he tells me, was filled with old china and tablecloths she had knitted when she had better eyesight. She subscribed to a newspaper even though she couldn’t read. Her apartment reeked of hospital sheets, garlic and Tiger balm—a smell that floated up Dilip’s nose until it reached a corner in his head where he had preserved the memories of his long-gone family. ‘I charged her half the usual price. She was particular about my handwriting though. Always insisted on Calicut fountain pens2 with black ink . . .’

  Thin sheets of rain start pouring down suddenly and the neighbourhood is plunged into chaos—men running for cover and screaming for people to give them way; a fallen button, a lost slipper, loose paper, worm-eaten leaves, all gather in tiny rivulets that flow down the streets. ‘I doubt we will have more customers today,’ he says pensively, looking out at the arrival of the Bombay monsoon.

  For the letter writers of Bombay, things took a complete turnaround in this season in 2002. In the already-thriving mobile-communications market, incoming calls became free and Reliance announced its launch. Things quickly changed after that. ‘I miss u’ could now be sent via SMS in a matter of seconds to the deepest corners of bucolic India and directives to wives and mot
her were only a phone call away.

  Priced at a few-hundred rupees, mobiles were in the hands of traders, hawkers, cooks, labourers and, over a few months, the letter writers were pushed out of business. In a matter of years, India Post stamped down on their business and postmarked it ‘obsolete’ in 2010.3 The government’s postal service decided not to renew the authorizations that allowed these letter writers to set up shop in their office quarters. And overnight, the letters writers’ fate was decided—an obscure place in the memory of hundreds of those who went to them to maintain their links to their homes, families and friends.

  A small man, dressed in a spotless white uniform, leapfrogs over the puddles towards Dilip, trying to keep his umbrella steady, but getting soaked nevertheless. Panting, he hands him a plastic bag with two books in it. ‘Bhai, urgent hai. Ise parcel kar de meri wife ko,’ he pleads with the letter writer who mostly spends his time these days filling out forms, submitting money orders and wrapping parcels—the postal trivialities that have survived the extinction of his letter-writing trade. ‘My son needs this book for his board exams,’ the man continues. ‘They live in Sholapur. Here is the address,’ he instructs Dilip, who quickly takes the parcel, wraps it in thick white cloth and prepares a note with the address.

  ‘What is your mobile number?’ he asks the man.

  ‘I have two. Write down both,’ the man replies, smiling and explaining that he received one from the owner of the house where he works as a cook.

  The letter writer snorts and notes both down.

  Turning to leave, the cook stops in his tracks and turns around. ‘Can you write a good-luck letter to my son? I’ll send it along with the parcel.’

  Dilip looks up in surprise and, without any other expression, pulls open an obdurate drawer, its channels disintegrating due to neglect, and takes out a letter-writing pad and a fountain pen, filling it up with fresh ink. When the nib touches the paper, it flows hesitantly at first and then creates letters and words. He closes his eyes in concentration for a few seconds. He probably wants to think before writing down every sentence because the reality of not being able to delete sentences, or shift passages or idioms around, is a bit disturbing. Opening his eyes again, he scribbles a few lines in Hindi; a fingerprint appears at the bottom of the page, where he holds the paper with his free hand; and a dog-ear has developed on the edge, where it was placed in the drawer, the taut, wiry writing blots around the punctuations, and it is nothing like the neat, ordered lettering from a computer.

  But there is neither impatience nor bemusement visible in Dilip’s writing. No problems of keyboard keys and printers for him. And here it is, in paper and ink, smelling of times gone by, a legacy that can be handed down to the cook’s son—perhaps the last generation of people who would be given a handwritten letter—who’d suck its contents into the pool of his memory and relish the letter from his father who wasn’t around for most of his years growing up. He will stow it away with all his other memories, the good, the bitter and the ugly, keeping them sealed, locked under everything else, and finally let them rust, until, one day, it will make its way into the hands of the people to whom letters are nothing more than antiques that have disappeared the way of papyrus scrolls, parchments and cablegrams.

  ‘Monsoons have always been a time for low trade.’ Dilip sighs. The other letter writers, sitting a few metres away from us, start packing up as the downpour thickens. ‘But I have stopped caring,’ he says, shaking his head, patting his thick, oily hair again. ‘I earned enough to educate my son—dekho na kismat [look at fate]—he wants to join the communications industry. For every new job created, some have to be destroyed. Who wants to sit in this mulch now? A rat was nibbling at my shoe the other day.’ He nods his head.

  ‘Honestly, I’m done with writing letters. I was a fastidious editor. I chopped pitilessly from my customers’ notations on some occasions and weaved emotions into others—not that I would get caught. I have too many secrets within me and cannot hold any more. The thing is that nobody wants to sit here now.’ He puts on a raincoat, ready to leave for the day. ‘I’ll do away with this,’ he says, buckling the belt around his waist and fastening the button at his neck. He puts the tin box in his briefcase and locks the bench to a hook on the wall. ‘And use my savings to become an LIC agent. Mobiles and banks ka zamana hai, bhai. Post office aur hamara zamana khatam ho gaya . . . [It is the time of mobile phones and banks. The time for post offices and letter writers has passed . . .]’

  Clutching his suitcase, Dilip steps out into the rain. I stop him for a last question. Does this upset him, this dying art or—if he wishes to call it so—craft?

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. ‘It’s all a part of the change. Like my son says, “It is the age of computers, learn it.” And, as much as I want it to be otherwise, I can hardly tell him it’s the age of handwritten letters.’

  Notes

  Chapter 1: The Godna Artists of Jharkhand

  1. Rajat Kujur, in his article ‘Red Terror over Jharkhand’ describes the kangaroo courts: ‘Denial of justice is the most important reason for the establishment of a parallel judiciary in Jharkhand. However, the primary difference between the Naxal kangaroo courts and the subordinate judiciary is the time and cost factor. While the common folk have no way of reaching the existing judicial system, the kangaroo courts reach the deprived sections of society. The Naxals are the sole arbiters of disputes related to jal (water), joru (wife) and zameen (land).’ Rajat Kujur, ‘Red Terror over Jharkhand’, article number 1881, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, 3 November 2005; available online at http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/red-terror-over-jharkhand-1881.html.

  2. Nomadic tribe found mostly in Bihar and Jharkhand.

  3. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was a French traveller and jewel merchant who wrote Les Six Voyages, qu’il a fait en Turquie, en Perse, et aux Indes, which was eventually published in Paris in 1676, and contained personal experiences of his trip.

  4. Clare Anderson, ‘Godna: Inscribing Indian Convicts in the Nineteenth Century’, in Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History, ed. Jane Caplan (London: Reaktion Books, 2000).

  5. Kurukh is a Dravidian language spoken by the nearly 2 million Oraon tribal peoples of Orissa and the surrounding areas of India in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.

  6. Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow, Kharia-Texte (Prosa und Poesie) (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1965).

  7. The Oraons are one of the largest tribes in South Asia and are classified in the Scheduled Tribes list of the Indian Constitution. They mainly depend on agriculture to earn their living. They are also known as Kurukh tribes and have adapted a few customs of the areas they have migrated to. These tribes are mainly found in the states of Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa. See Abhik Ghosh, History and Culture of the Oraon Tribe (New Delhi: Mohit Publications, 2003).

  8. To make a man of him, an Oraon boy, at the age of twelve or thereabouts, has seven or more scars made on his arm in the following manner: Seven or more rings of cow dung are placed on the arm to be operated upon, and the skin beneath each of these rings is burnt with a lighted wick. In a village where there is a dumkuria, or common dormitory, for all the bachelors of the village, these scars, called sika marks, are made by the older boys on the arms of the younger boys when the latter are admitted into membership of the dumkuria fraternity. See S.C. Roy, ‘Birth and Childhood Ceremonies among the Oraons’, Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society (1915).

  Chapter 2: The Rudaalis of Rajasthan

  1. Legend has it that the beautiful goddess Saraswati sprung from the forehead of her father Brahma, the god of creation. It is said that as soon as Brahma looked at her beauty, he was filled with desire for her. Unhappy with the amorous attentions he bestowed upon her, Saraswati tried to dodge and hide. This is why the river Saraswati apparently flows underground. And the brief appearances she made above the ground were the moments,
legends assert, when she stopped to rest from her tiring run. Scientists say new evidence could unearth the Saraswati today and research in this area is afoot. See Richard Mahapatra, ‘Saraswati underground’, Down To Earth, 15 November 2002; available online at http://www.downtoearth.org.in/coverage/saraswati-underground-15455.

  2. Statistics obtained from the thakur of the area himself; an approximate figure.

  3. Rawat Rajputs were related to Maharawal Sabal Singh Bhati of Jaisalmer and are direct descendants of Kunwar Bankidas. The rulers of Jaisalmer are descendants of Lord Hari Krishna, a Yadu Rajput of Somvansha (i.e., the lunar or Indu race.) Prayag (now known as Allahabad) was the cradle of the race after which Mathura remained as the seat of power for a long period. They were driven out of Mathura after their chief was defeated and killed; they eventually settled in Punjab and Kabul, where they changed their patronym to Bhati, after a brave chief. However, his descendants were defeated by invading tribals and they shifted their capital to the Thar Desert.

  4. ‘Daroga’ means the offspring of a Rajput father and a non-Rajput (lower-caste) mother. See Lindsey Harlan, The Goddesses’ Henchmen: Gender in Indian Hero Worship (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).

  5. Daories often doubled up as rudaalis. The emergence of the daori caste is often associated with Rajput rule. They were sometimes admitted into the zenana (the part of the household to which the women of the family were restricted) and served as domestic help. Other times, they were maintained outside the homes in separate accommodation. See K.S. Singh and B.K. Lavani, ed., People of India: Rajasthan, Volume 1, Anthropological Survey of India (New Delhi: Popular Prakashan, 1998).