I had some penfriends when I was growing up. Cable television had just about crept into our homes. The world was learnt through other’s experiences and words. Or monuments. Like all I knew about Italy was the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Rome and maybe Pizza. Things that an Encyclopedia tells are you important.
Penfriends. You wrote to them. In the beginning, focusing on how neat your handwriting could be. Wondering if the paper you wrote on was too cheap. For anyone who grew up on Target, you would remember the pages of addresses they had of people who wanted penfriends. Name, address, age, sex and hobbies. As an aside, I could do a series of posts on Target. It was a wonderful magazine for young adults. The one thing I loved about the magazine was how unpatronizing it sounded. But the India Today killed the magazine and transmogrified it into some crappy Teens Today. I found a post on Target here.
Coming back to penfriends though. So while we had penfriends in India – one also got into the whole International Penfriends thing. In class 6, our English teacher (this cutie called Jeannie Ibara), full of Parsee goodness walked in with a big bunch of sealed envelopes. Each student in the class got one. They were letters from Italian students. Same age. Different countries. Idea being you wrote back to that person and became friends with them. (Became friends. Just like that. In an instant.)
I got a letter from Lorenza Santo. (Or maybe it was Lorenzo Santa). I wrote back to her. Agonizing over each sentence. I sent it back. In that wonderful white, blue and red airmail envelope. With stamps worth rupees fourteen or so to ensure it went all the way to her home. She wrote back religiously. It was difficult to write to her I suppose. I was discovering monsoon, poetry and angst. She on the other hand wrote about playing the saxophone. She was going on school trips to Rome. I was going to a little picnic spot called Surajkund. I must have received a letter every 3 weeks from her. She sent me her photograph once. I remember the photograph better than I remember her letters. She was standing with her sister. Her sister was holding a bicycle. I remember thinking that the photo paper was so smooth. And that she was so tall. They were squinting into the sunlight. I sent her a photograph. The nicest one I could find.
I used to find her handwriting a bit difficult to decode. I would attempt to roll on my tongue the name of her friends. Italian names. They could have been types of pasta. It didn’t matter. But Italian wasn’t American. We were introduced to England through Agatha Christie, and the US through comics and television. Italy featured nowhere. The dullest letters I ever wrote were written to her. She was a nice kid, but we couldn’t go beyond the nice-ness. Our conversations were like polite talk in elevators. We were so busy explaining our cultures (because we thought that was so essential to understanding each other) that one felt like a tour guide. We lost touch. I have no idea who wrote the last letter. Or how the conversation died. Maybe it was over one of those summer vacations.
I was thinking of trumpets today, and ended up thinking of the saxophone. She was the first person I knew who was learning to play that instrument. I used to save every letter I had ever received. I burnt them all one day when I was 17, right before I joined college. I didn’t even bother sorting through the pile of crap. Autograph books, letters, cards, notes passed around in the classroom. It was nothing too dramatic. I was just trying to make space for all the change in my life. Moving homes and the end of school. I clearly remember her writing. The infuriating way her “a”s and “r”s were indecipherable. The airmail envelope. And the photograph of two Italian kids looking straight into the camera, their eyelids fighting the sun.
Penfriends. Penpals. The very words seem alien now. I have to say them out loud to even recall the way they sounded.
Love your blog, I guess more so since many of my views find reflection in yours..
I got a penfriend through the russian(was it??) magazine Misha (?) It was an American boy who collected nutcrackers of all things. I remeber actually bring amazed at that time that they had something to break open the hard shell of the nuts while all I ever did was to place the walnut or acroot on the hinge of the door and shut the door to crack open the shell:)
I had a penfriend through Misha as well. Target I loved but somehow cannot recall the penfriend column.
What a coincidence! Just two days back, I was expounding the greatness of Target to my husband. It was perfect. I remember each story, each illustration….. I will never forgive Living Media for converting it into that brainless magazine Teens Today.
Incidentally, I had a penpal through Target too. She was from Nagaland.
Lovely post!
I had an Argentinian Penfriend and it was so exciting to get a letter from her – the letter from across so many seas that I knew not where it was, the strangely beautiful stamps, the questions about India and the answers about Pampas grass. When did we lose touch? I know not how and why but it was a wonderful eye opener to the World at large. Lovely post Neha
Seriously, is your comment space an exhibition of how silly my species is? With people in the ‘I am also, I am also’ mode…… Either ask them to shut up or shut this blog down — thaaanga mudila.
First time reader, but interesting post. I was just telling someone the other day of how people never used snail mail anymore… and penfriends… I had tons of them once upon a time – I used to collect them like picture postcards. I still have one left – fifteen years after I “found” her in the penpals column in children’s world. I have met her only once, although we speak over the phone occasionally. I have lived in delhi all my life, and she’s moved around all across the country, and is presently outside India. Nowadays, despite emails and chatting and phone calls and all of that, we still manage to squeeze in the odd pen-and-paper letter every other month, with pretty envelopes, and fancy stamps… And I loved target too. Rosalind wilson, and then sigrun srivastava… brilliant magazine. teens today was horrible. read it once and trashed it immediately.
Ah! Target! – Moochwala! – Waiting for the postman every month – brown paper envelope bringing untold joy. Great times.
Deepa: Misha! Yeah of course I remember Misha. Used to collect nutcrackers? Of all things!?!
Patrix: Target had just two pages devoted to it. Columns of names etc. I wish I could find a few copies of that wonderful magazine.
Shruthi: Thanks. Nagaland eh? Still in touch?
30in1005: I guess after a point the conversation becomes a little forced no? It’s less intelligent than what you’re capable of. Everything is too trite.
Nilu: :)
Sumathi: Lucky you. I don’t think I am in touch with any of my penfriends. None actually. Perhaps you hit it off rather well. For me – I was always a little cautious of what I wrote to my penfriends – it was a little less dark than my own head – God knows who’d read the letter at the other end etc.
Motley Fool: I confess – I also used to treat myself to the Target Annual Diary. I used to love the funnies inside. The artwork was great too.. Such Joy!
Thanks for herding us down the memory lane.
I distinctly remember Ajit Ninan’s cartoons in Target; and the two pages that they would dedicate to off-beat pictures from all over the world — I still recall, for some reason, the picture of a man frying fish in Istanbul. All that was quarter of a century ago!
I was such a lousy penfriend:) I found mine through Target as well, his name was Gautam Vishwant and that’s all I remember about him. Such a nice post. I’d totally forgotten about Misha and penfriends.
Are you from DPS? Jeanie Aibara rings a bell!
hey! you’ve lost penfriendships…but you have loads of friends forming right here. penfriends in a virtual, postmodern world! click friends? blog pals?
What I completely detested about TeensToday was the fact that they had done away with the fiction column. I never renewed my subscription. And Misha.. I still remember the couple of pages towards the end which had to be cut out and folded to form mini storybooks, I think I still have some around in my trunk!!
And yes, Jeanie Aibara def rings a bell, DPS!
please write me the next day about this time tomorrow.