Remembering the world that arrived by post

Letter-writing has a long literary tradition in India, going back to the days of Kalidasa’s Meghadūta. Almost anyone of a certain vintage would have heard of Jawaharlal Nehru’s letters from prison to his daughter, Indira Gandhi. There was a time when letters were gateways to distant worlds. They connected loved ones who were in faraway places and gifted abiding memories.