I am opening my daily mail with that mixture of curiosity and boredom that accompanies the necessary and expectant routine at the beginning of the working day. The pack of letters brought by the postman in his daily round. They are stacked now on my table in front of me waiting to be read and asking to be answered. A friend’s letter, an unknown person’s letter, an invitation, a thanksgiving, a publicity folder, a greeting card. And in the midst of them all today an envelope that looks different in its shaded colour and relief texture elegantly rough to the touch, and announces freshness. There is only my address on the front of it. Correctly addressed to St Xavier’s College Residence, Ahmedabad 380 009, and with the title ‘father’ in front of my name. No sender’s address on the corner as prescribed. I turn it round as at times the sender’s address comes at the back. There it is. But it is not quite an address. It is just a request in a sentence. And a little mystifying at that. It just reads: ‘Open me very gently, please!’

I can’t help a smile. Who can the sender be? What can his mood be? Or rather her mood, as only a woman’s hand could write that. What is her intention, her meaning, her challenge, her prank? I’ll have to find out soon. I open the envelope with eager fingers, very very gently of course, or not so gently in fact if you ask me as a certain impatience speeds up my fingers, I fumble inside, take out the letter, and unfold it. Handwritten, careful penmanship, two pages, a name at the end. Unknown to me. I begin to read. And the surprises continue. This is how she begins:

*

‘My very very dear and somewhat brutish father.’

Quite a way of addressing me to be sure. I’ve been called dear, respected, venerated, even worshipful, but never brutish. Not at the beginning of a letter anyway. I may be that, of course. A bit rough and impatient at times. Even brutish perhaps. At least if tempered down by the ‘somewhat’. But I didn’t expect that as a greeting from an unknown correspondent to start a letter to me. I must read on.

‘I received your answer to my first letter to you. By return of post. Very much like you. Your daily mail. Your first task at your office. Letter received, letter answered. Like a machine. Letter, answer, paper basket. Another letter, another answer, paper basket again. Clean desk they call it. Very efficient. And very stupid. Don’t you realise that an instant answer like that has no value? How much I waited and doubted before writing to you! Should I dare, should I not, should I write, should I not, should I post the letter, should I not…? How many letters I tore, I rewrote, I tore again, I wrote again! Finally I plucked up courage, I wrote the final draft of my letter, copied it out on special art paper I bought for the occasion, addressed the ornamented envelope, stuck the stamp on it (I’m sure you didn’t notice it was a newly issued saint Tukaram memorial stamp I chose for you), posted it at the end of so many days and so many trials and so many doubts, and finally I sat down to wait out the long wait.

And the next day I get your answer! Yes, very polite, very proper, very formal. And very stupid. Don’t you see that an immediate answer like that at lightning speed has no value at all? You should have kept me waiting, doubting, suffering, despairing. Will he have received the letter, will he have read it, will he have liked it, will he write back, will I receive his answer, what will he say to me…? You should have kept me pining for days on end, wondering, agonising. Till at last a week later or two weeks later the postman would come, stop in front of my house, call out my name, and I would jump out of my chair, come out running, snatch your letter, go back to my room, make sure nobody was watching me, and I would have read it again and again and treasured it for ever. But no. Your reaction was automatic. Like a robot. Letter received, letter answered. I write today and receive your answer tomorrow. As all the people in your stack of letters for the day must have received. The efficient executive. You may be very intelligent in other things or people say so, but in this you are stupid. You don’t know how to deal with people. Not with women anyhow.

You have never seen me, of course. Or rather, you have seen me but you didn’t know it was me. The other day, in the talk you gave in the town-hall I was sitting in the front row right in the middle on your left side looking at you all the time and smiling at you. So I have seen you. But you have not seen me. You tell me in your answer that if I want I can come to your College and meet you at any time in your office. But maybe I don’t want to come. Not now, anyhow. I am very shy and I’m a little afraid of you. You are a big person. Not that I have any objection to your seeing me. I’m quite pretty, you know. But I’m sending to you no photograph of mine either. I prefer for you to imagine my face. I hope you are a good painter.’

Amazing girl. And she says she is shy. Just as well, I find myself thinking. That’s a woman’s charm for you.

‘You could come to my house if you want. My address is at the end of this letter and my house is close to your College. If you come and knock at the door I’ll open the door. When you ask about Sonali I’ll answer that, yes, she lives here but she is not at home. And you’ll have to go back sheepishly. Of course I have read your books and I follow your column in the Sunday paper every week and I’ll continue to do so. And then we’ll see what happens. For now I want it that way. I’m studying now though not in your College. I am not your student. I’m just a reader among the many you have. Only that I feel that all you are writing you write it only for me. But I imagine many others feel the same as I do. Never mind. I will write from time to time to tell you what I do and how I feel. And you can do the same with me if you feel like it.

That’s all for today.’

*

That was the letter. Now I understood why she had warned me to open it very very gently. There were many delicate feelings in it. And now it was my turn to read it several times in wonder. It started a long correspondence. We went on exchanging letters with free irregularity and happy mood through years. Of course, never by return of post. I realised how she was right, and how in fact a delayed answer has a greater value than an immediate one as it keeps me thinking of the person between letters, leaves the choice of timing to me, my letter ceases to be an ‘answer’ and becomes an independent writing at my own initiative and in my own time, and as such it gives life and freshness to a correspondence. Not one letter ‘answering’ the other person’s letter, but both correspondents independently choosing to write at their own time and in their own mood. That is friendship by letter. This much that plucky girl had certainly taught me.

She graduated, and soon after graduation she wrote she was getting married. No details. I congratulated her and sent her my best blessings for her marriage. After that she never wrote again. At her marriage she must have gone to live at her husband’s place, and she had not given me her new address. I think I can guess why. In her husband’s home she would be traditionally under her mother-in-law who, also traditionally, would exercise absolute control over her daughter-in-law, and consequently would carefully watch her correspondence and would feel jealous at the letters she wrote to me and I wrote to her, as I was a well-known person and mothers-in-law are always jealous of their daughters-in-law. She rightly opted for peace in the home. I did think of her off and on, always with kind feelings and wistful memories, and I always felt sure she also thought of me off and on with kind feelings and wistful memories, and maybe she wrote letters in her mind to be opened very very gently by me. As for me, writer that I am, I am writing now the story of this beautifully feminine chapter in my life just as it was. I never saw her.

*

On this my recent public visit to India and Ahmedabad after so many years, I did entertain the fantasy that, as my programme in the city had been announced beforehand in the papers, she would know about it and would come to my public reception, stand in front of me, join her hands and bow her head, then look at me straight in the face and tell me in her teasing playful way: ‘I am Sonali.’ And we would both laugh our souls out in recognition. But she did not turn up.

Though, who knows? Maybe that woman who was sitting in the front row right in the middle of the hall on my left side during my talk at my public reception in the Gujarat Vidyapeeth of Ahmedabad the other day looking at me all the time and smiling wistfully to herself and at me was Sonali. I shall never know.

One thing I know. I should have written at the beginning of this article, ‘Read me very gently, please!’ There are many delicate feelings behind it.