#snailmailproject

A letter from New Delhi

Vera is an Italian living in New Delhi. A postcard with an elephant’s back photographed in a narrow Indian lane perfectly summarizes her experience here. I can understand how surreal it must be for someone to arrive in this country and live out their days in complete wonder at the workings of this giant nation.

India for me is always in motion. Moving, churning, stirring and mixing. For Vera, I make a collage of color signifying how different she may feel from all of us yet she too has been colored the same color we are and quite like the circle she fits perfectly into our collective arrayed lives as fellows of this fantastic land.

India is an experience.

Please don’t miss the excellent illustration she makes on the envelope.

A letter about a dream.

Dinah, an artist from Pasadena writes to me about a dream she has. A dream to visit India and see the Taj for real. Last year her family lost everything their home, possessions, everything. She was struck with a medical condition but they’re doing much better now and I am so happy that her dream still lives.

I draw an image of her cradling her dream on the backdrop of a poem she wrote for me called “An athlete dying young” by A E Housman.

A letter about books.

Shivangi is a voracious reader. She is currently taking the 666 challenge where she is reading 6 books from 6 countries and 6 continents.

I myself adore books. I love how they can make me imagine, feel, understand and correlate at the same time. For Shivangi, I make the beautiful world only to be found inside of books.

A letter about the Bombay Rains!

Jamshedpur girl Sreejita in her letter asks me how I feel about the Bombay rains. I cannot relate in words but I tell her through the colors how much I love the monsoons here and how much they remind me of home. 

A letter about family stories

Charvi, a young student at IIT, writes about her memories of reading the letters leading to her parent's love marriage. A marriage strangely for the time, between a bride from Bangalore and a groom from U.P. 

She has read letters written to her Dada by her mother coaxing him to agree to the match and ardent letters from her Dada to her Nana, informing of the wedding baraat arrival plans and hoping there will be two north Indian dishes in the wedding feast. 

I love these little details of her family life that she now knows and perhaps these are the stories she will tell her children. Precious, intimate stories of her family. 

A story is what we will all become when we are no more and I think each of our story however big or small needs to be told. 

I draw for her an artwork called Family stories. 

A letter about strangers

Neha is a lover of letters. She often writes to family and friends but the most fascinating thing about her is that she writes even to strangers. She writes to the author of a book she just read or the Irani writer of the play she watched a while ago or even a college student whose installation she has seen in the Kala Ghoda Festival. 

In her letter, she explains,“That’s the least I can do for anyone make them feel nice and loved” 

I wish more people could be like her, after all, even I am trying to be that stranger.

I draw for her ‘Strangers’

So proud to share that my Snail Mail project was featured in The Sunday Guardian newspaper yesterday!

I am grateful for all who have been a part of this project and have written to me from far and wide. It started out as a small initiative two years ago and on my blog and I am so so happy to see it grow. 

Thank you for The Sunday Guardian Team for the wonderful interview, for my family who supported me and for all of you who have been following me on my journey. 

Do read the full interview to find out about what the project is, why I started it and what plans do I have for its future.