A Requiem to the Handwritten Letter
When Did You Write a Handwritten Letter Last Time?
Chances are you don’t remember. If you are a Gen Z, perhaps never. If you are over fifty, maybe a decade ago. But what is there to remember? What is so special about a handwritten letter that prompts one to write about it?
Historically, letters were always handwritten. Before the invention of paper most likely in China, scripts of spiritual texts or Royal messages were written on various media — clay tablets, palm leaves, silk cloth, and so forth. The Kings used to write messages and orders to their nobles and governors, and letters to other kings, handwritten by a professional writer on such media. These were scrolled and delivered by a messenger in person who traveled great distances. These are ‘official’ letters which are subject of great historical interest.
Letters convey a myriad of human feelings and emotions — affection, love, hope, anxiety, anger, and frustration, just to name a few. The letters depict the interplay of thoughts and ideas with the intended recipients — muses, lovers, wives (girlfriends included), sons, daughters, and of course friends, relatives, and parents. Each is distinctive; each has its accepted way of addressing the subject, content, and style of writing. More often than not, they were elaborate, rather than being short and cryptic. They would rather begin with an appropriate beginning, ushering the topic gently and then dwell on it, leading to the intended action.
The handwriting often reveals the writer’s bent of mind and even his character. Whether the person is clear-minded and straight-forward or a cruel and complex character — all these can be found from the handwriting. Experts are normally able to get a fair idea about the person and his mentality. The letters written by someone who later becomes involved in a crime may throw valuable insight into the mentality of the writer.
Like a piece of the composition of Indian classical music, the way a letter is written may, in the beginning, contain ‘Alap’, a slow movement, like “Andante’, played slowly, and gradually bringing in the theme or the main Raga to play it, raising the ‘tempo’ to Jor and Jhala - a high tempo and then finishing with a pleasant concluding part.
Alas, in the lightning-fast tempo of the twenty-second century, there are only digital media transactions happening over a vast network of non-human computers, finishing the task in a few milliseconds! The message or ‘the letter’ itself may have been composed perhaps in less than a minute! There is no music-to-the-ears, no art (excuse me, emojis!), and little personal touch.
If you have started loving someone and are unsure how to convey your feeling, can you simply type in…” Hello, I love you. Do You Love Me” on your mobile phone? It sounds like an impending disaster, like an earthquake, whose low rumbling sound is felt inside one’s heart, who receives those few words!
What we need is a carefully scripted love letter, gradually revealing our feelings. What better way is there than writing it in an unhurried manner on a piece of crisp white (pink was a favorite choice for nearly a century) paper. Nothing is more pleasant than beautiful handwriting. Moreover. one takes time selecting the appropriate beginning. If you are a man and your love object is someone called Maria, you’d probably have to choose among ‘Dear Maria’, ‘My love’, ‘Sweet Maria’ or even simply ‘Dearest’. Even I am not quite sure about what Maria would love to hear. There lies the trick — anticipating and knowing what Maria would love to hear!
During my college years, I recall two of my close friends had approached me to help them write their first letters of love. Why me? Well, in one’s case, he had terrible handwriting. In another’s case, his command over language was rather demanding. In both cases there was one thing common — the letters, if written by themselves, would send their love objects scurrying for cover. Initially, I declined but they softened me up by offering free lunches in the college cafeteria. So, I ventured with due trepidation and voila! both letters received due admiration, and streams of love originated and flowed over a period of time, bringing them closer and closer. Sweet memories of forged love letters, rather difficult to forget! There were even books on love letters available those days — various forms and styles, just choose yours and start writing. One could use scented papers and even scented glue to close the envelope too.
Apart from the hidden tricks and subtle ways of attracting the affection of the loved one, there was almost always eager anticipation for the letter to arrive. Letters sent over ordinary post or mail took from a few days to a few weeks to reach their destination. It is that anticipation prolonged over days that made the letters even more desirable and adorable. A newly-wed village girl quietly anticipates the letter from her loving husband who is away to town for work. She would eventually get a letter addressed to her mom-in-law from her son — just one or two lines asking about her wellbeing. Oh! such a cruel fellow. It would take some time more when she gets her ‘own letter’, so private and so intimate that she can show it to only her best friend. The tingling bell of the bicycle of the approaching village postman sounded like the sweetest music to her. Such was the charm of the handwritten letter.
But it was not the love letters or personal letters alone revolving about the lives of millions of commoners, that one is inclined to reminisce. There were letters from a King to a Prince about serious royal duties to perform and even more difficult tasks ahead for him.
Reza Shah, the King of Persia (Iran) always consulted his young son, Prince Mohammed Reza on state matters. When WW II broke out, the British and the Soviets were worried about the presence of the Germans in Iran, maintaining the trans-Iranian railroad, because the British wanted to use that railroad to tranship military equipment to Russia. So they both decided to remove Reza Shah, who wanted the Germans to stay. Eventually, on 17th September 1941, Prince Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi ascended the throne of Persia, while Reza Shah had to abdicate and was exiled to Mauritius. Subsequently, both the father and the son exchanged handwritten letters. These letters reflected the deep respect and love from the son and great pieces of advice and exhortation to the young King from his father.
When the British started delaying delivery of letters in order to discourage such exchanges, they exchanged taped voice messages through Mohammed Reza’s friend Perron, a Frenchman. One of these letters from the exiled father contain:
My Dear Son,
Since the time I resigned in your favor and left my country, my only pleasure has been to witness your sincere service to your country….. Not a moment passes without my thinking of you and yet the only thing that keeps me happy and satisfied is the thought that you are spending your time in the service of Iran. …. Now that you have taken on your shoulders this heavy burden in such dark days, you must know that the price to be paid for the slightest mistake on your part may be our twenty years of service and our family’s name. You must never yield to anxiety or despair; rather, you must remain calm and so strongly rooted in your place that no power may hope to move the constancy of your will.
History is proof of how the young king followed his father’s advice to strive to build modern Iran over the next 38 years and became one of the most powerful regional political figures in the region until the Iranian revolution in 1979 displaced him. Unfortunately, the Shah had made political mistakes, that cost him his throne. Needless to say that his countrymen and the country descended to political thought and system that suits the seventh century, forsaking all the previous gains.
It is quite comforting and interesting to note that many of the handwritten letters by famous personalities were compiled into literary works for readers to delve into their lives and times. This is true in both the west and the east of our globe. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was imprisoned along with hundreds of leaders of freedom movements by the then British administration. Around 1928, he wrote a series of letters, away from home, to his 15-year-old daughter, Indira, which were later published as “Letters from a Father to His Daughter”, and became famous and used as a textbook in India. Indira later became the Prime Minister of India.
In My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz: Volume One, 1915–1933, the enduring love between Georgia, the artist, and Alfred, the photographer over three decades, more than 5000 letters can be found. In one letter, Georgia says,
Dearest — my body is simply crazy with wanting you — If you don’t come tomorrow — I don’t see how I can wait for you — I wonder if your body wants mine, the way mine wants yours — the kisses — the hotness — the wetness — all melting together — the being held so tight that it hurts — the strangle and the struggle.”
This is enchanting and earthy at the same time, expressed succinctly.
Ernest Hemingway was a prolific letter writer. Although he did not want these letters to be published, his son Patrick Hemingway felt that these letters would reveal a softer and real Hemingway, not the usually portrayed machismo and a tortured man. These letters were written to a wide variety of recipients — from his mother to rivals and many more, and compiled as The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 1, 1907–1922, curated by Sandra Spanier and Robert W. Stogdorn. The letters reveal how Hemingway composed each one of these letters, keeping the mind, the feelings, and understanding of the recipients in mind. “The letters thus become not only a tender homage to this unknown Hemingway, revealing new insights into his creative process along the way, but also a bow before the lost art of letter-writing itself” (Maria Popova in https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/01/16/famous-correspondence/).
The handwritten letters often reveal a less-known or sometimes unknown side of an otherwise well-known character. Winston Churchill, the Wartime British Prime Minister is known for his hatred and contempt towards Indians, despite the immense sacrifice of Indian soldiers, who fought for Britain during WW II. He is particularly responsible for the infamous Bengal famine of 1943–44, in which nearly three million lives perished, denying all fervent appeals for relief and food aid, even from his Viceroy.
Churchill writes to his wife Clementine from Wurzburg, Germany:
This army is a terrible engine. It marches sometimes 35 miles in a day. It is in number as the sands of the sea — & with all the modern conveniences. There is a complete divorce between the two sides of German life — the Imperialists & Socialists. Nothing unites them. They are two different nations. With us, there are so many shades. Here it is all black & white (the Prussian colours). I think another 50 years will see a wiser & gentler world. But we shall not be spectators of it. Only the P.K. will glitter in a happier scene. How easily men could make things much better than they are — if only all tried together! Much as was attracts me & fascinates my mind with its tremendous situation — I feel more deeply every year — & can measure the feeling here in the midst of arms — what vile & wicked folly & barbarism it all is.
Sweet cat — I kiss your vision as it rises before my mind. Your dear heart throbs often in my own. God bless you darling keep you safe & sound. Kiss the P.K. for me all over
With fondest love
W.
Compare his wartime policies and attitudes with “ I feel more deeply every year — & can measure the feeling here in the midst of arms — what vile & wicked folly & barbarism it all is” and one is confronted with a question:
Which Churchill is true?
Letters, handwritten, have been known to change the course of human history and civilization. Although written as a person-to-person communication, it triggered actions of an entire nation and then the whole world. Among such letters, one that stands out is a letter, Physicist Albert Einstein wrote to the US President Franklin Roosevelt sometime in 1939. Having fled Nazi Germany to the US, Einstein was aware of the power of Atomic Fusion and that Germany may make a nuclear bomb with it.
He was fearful of such a distinct possibility.
Einstein wrote to Roosevelt,
“It may be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium”. He went on to explain that this would generate “vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements”. He further advised the President that it would be prudent to have some “permanent contact” with the “group of physicists working on chain reactions in America”.
President Roosevelt took the matter seriously and ordered that “This requires action.” And so began the nuclear program in the US, which ultimately spread to so many nations. Although Germany did not use nuclear bombs during WWII, the US dropped bombs in Japan to bring Japan to its knees, finally ending the War. Today, unfortunately, such bombs are available to many nations — some with extremist groups and fanatics — the probability of a nuclear catastrophe has increased manifold.
Einstein was never a war-monger; on the contrary, he was a pacifist. But his fear and his letter changed the world forever.
Author’s Note:
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