Letter-writing has its own romance, a mood that has slowly slipped out of our lives. Daakroom, “a unique carnival designed to reintroduce children and larger audiences to letter-writing in innovative, creative and engaging ways” is trying to bring back the feel-goodness of it all. t2 chatted with Harnehmat Kaur and Shivani Mehta, co-founders and organisers of Daakroom, to know more about the initiative.
Harnehmat Kaur
Shivani Mehta
Daakroom is a lovely idea! How did it come about? How old is this initiative?
Thank you. Daakroom was born from our personal love for writing letters, especially in our college days, and the vision to see them becoming a relevant medium of communication in today’s fast digital age. We would devise creative ways to inspire people from all walks of life to put pen to paper. Starting from a small postcard stall in our alma mater, National Institute of Design, on World Post Day, October 9, 2013 to doing large-scale events and campaigns across the country, we’ve evolved our strategies to make as many people fall in love with letter-writing as possible. We’ve been passionately working since nine years and have managed to get more than 5 lakh letters written till date!
What kind of a response have you got so far?
A quintessential response to our work is disbelief which quickly gets converted into fascination and almost always an agreement on how letters are relevant even today! We get a lot of encouragement and support from the Indian Department of Posts to make our activities an authentic experience, and schools are welcoming of our programme to take letter-writing out of textbooks. We also mix learning with entertainment via professional workshops, competitions and performances related to letter-writing, which makes the initiative engaging for all age groups.
What did your experience tell you about people and their relationship with letters?
We are yet to meet a person who has experienced letters and not fallen in love with them. They only need the material and convenience to write again, and relive their romance with the written word. A teary-eyed story of the letters written during Partition or an episode of naughty love letters sent during courtship, told with a glint in their eyes, are common conversations for us while people are writing letters and postcards. And that is also one of the aims of Daakroom — to spark these conversations and stories, which could benefit and inspire the younger generation to believe in how relationships can be built and strengthened with letters.
We have seen that letters remain deeply personal and special memorabilia. As compared to the lack of personalisation in digital communication methods today, handwritten letters and postcards are like holding a little piece of the person who wrote it. And that is truly, truly special. A legacy in itself.
Did you find something alarming from your interactions with the millennials?
The Gen Z and the Alpha Gen, the ones who don’t know what a 50p yellow postcard is, actually find it magical that one can lick and stick a stamp and an addressed letter reaches where you address it to! It is not as alarming as it is tragically amusing to see that the millennials do not understand the beauty of a handwritten letter or postcard because they haven’t experienced it in its glory. The need for instant gratification, thanks to Snapchat, etc. needs to be mellowed with the patience that comes with waiting for snail mail!
Nevertheless, it is this very challenge that makes our work exciting; this needs to make them accept letters as an option for communication, wherever possible and necessary, amidst emails, messages, etc. To be able to wisely choose the medium as per the message. The timing also feels quite right to do this because there are generations above them who have experienced this and happily pass on the inspiration with their own letters and stories!
What typically happens in a letter-writing carnival? When are you planning the next carnival?
Daakroom is a unique carnival designed to reintroduce children and larger audiences to letter-writing in innovative, creative and engaging ways. The name comes from the word ‘daak’, which means post in Hindi. Among a lot of experiential elements, we even recreate the post office experience with a postbox and a real postman!
Daakroom hosts competitions, events and workshops around writing and post — like philately, calligraphy, origami, graphology, letter-writing, postcard-making and so on. It also has music, theatre, dance and interactive demos from the Postal Department, deploying fun ways to get people of all age groups excited about letter-writing!
What truly works the best at Daakroom is how the carnival acts as a facilitator. Our work is to create an environment that encourages people to write, and to give them several triggers and reasons to write. And to bring different generations together on one day in one place and initiate conversations and exchange of stories. Because when children come to Daakroom with their parents, we no longer have to tell them to write. Their parents’ stories can do the magic just as beautifully, if not more.
Our next carnival is scheduled to be held on Sunday,December 4, 2022 at Gandhi Darshan, Rajghat, New Delhi, from 10am - 6pm.
What are your most cherished memories of handwritten letters?
We believe that when you write many letters, you also start receiving some back, and that is perhaps the most beautiful part of the process! Each of us has this treasure box of letters we have preserved over the years that we go back to on occasion. Letters exchanged with friends, family, teachers, etc. And opening these boxes and folders is like entering a time capsule!
Some of our most cherished letters are the ones written by our spouses over the years at various stages of our relationship. And the letters and cards from family and close friends are unmistakably the most remarkable keepsakes.
Do you still write letters? Your last letter was to?
But of course! We truly practise what we preach. We end up writing very many letters across the month, from personal to professional. And one of the most recent letters we wrote was actually to each other as co-founders of Daakroom, sharing our excitement and anxieties about building something together!
And while we have written our fair share of sheets, we firmly believe that letters don’t only mean pages of writing, they can even be small notes and Post-its stuck around your home or snuck into meal boxes to make someone feel special!
The message is lovely. What do you plan to do to make it popular?
We are on the path to take Daakroom across multiple cities around the country and make as many people experience letters and postcards. The aim is to be doing carnivals in 10 cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Calcutta, etc. in rotation by 2030!
Also, we try to connect with celebrities and iconic personalities and encourage them to write letters so that their numerous fans follow suit! So far, we’ve gotten responses from Amitabh Bachchan,
Gulzar sahab, Tahira Kashyap, Manish Sisodia, Gul Panag and more, with letters and videos for the same. We also constantly work on designing pan India letter- writing activities with brands. A popular one is Letter to my Supermom with JK Paper where we use personal letters as a pick-up point to get young ones interested in writing in the real world.
If you were to write a letter to popular personalities, who would you pick and what would you write to them about?
Amitabh Bachchanji, complimenting him on his handwriting and his handwritten notes to his fraternity members when they give stellar performances. He gives us the perfect reason to write — write to appreciate someone.
Twinkle Khanna, aka Mrs Funnybones, writing to her about her powerful and unique voice that brings up many social causes ranging from our personal to professional space, from our homes to the planet in general. She inspires many to speak up for what they believe in.
Shabana Azmiji, writing to her about Tumhari Amrita, a beautiful play she did with late actor Farooq Sheikhji around sending and reading letters to each other. It is the most heartwarming play that we would love to have her perform with us!
The legendary Virat Kohli, writing to him and Team Blue and bucking them up for many more fantastic performances at the T20 World Cup!