E-Paper
Bringing back the glory of letter writing in Marathi
Pune-based Tejas Gokhale is trying to bring back the glory of letter writing in Marathi with a unique initiative ‘Patras Kaaran Ki’
Drafting a handwritten letter is a foregone skill for most of us today. Letter writing, which once was one of the only means of communication, has become a distant past with the advent of technology. Pune-based Tejas Gokhale is trying to bring back the glory of letter writing in Marathi with a unique initiative ‘Patras Kaaran Ki’. The event has been organised in tandem with a social media platform ‘Khalbatta’ to promote Marathi language through letter writing among citizens, especially today’s youth.
“Letter writing is not only a medium of expression but also a means of connecting with the language. Through the initiative, we have people writing to us at our office on Prabhat Road. The criterion to participate in the drive is that the letter needs to be written in Marathi on any inanimate object. Features like writing skills, expression and sensitivity are crucial and it needs to be grammatically correct. I plan to publish some of the selected letters on the social media platform,” said Tejas, owner and director of creativesplash.co.in, a video content creation studio.
Sharing more about ‘Khalbatta’, Tejas says the platform will be used to promote use of Marathi language.
“It is a social media platform to keep Marathi language alive and boost the use of Marathi language in daily routine. We proudly say that Marathi is our mother tongue, but often hesitate to use it in our daily life. It is regrettable that many Marathi celebrities are shy to converse in their own dialect. The use Marathi language has already dipped in business practice, through this medium, we hope to bring past glory to the language, “Tejas informed.
When two natives meet for work or any other reason, the conversation happens in English, he says. This set the alarm bells ringing for Tejas.
“ Even after knowing that the other person is a Marathi speaker, we tend to use other languages to maintain the ‘status’. It is deplorable when one’s intelligence is judged on the basis of that person’s English-speaking skills,” he states.
This notion prompted Tejas to initiate this special letter writing campaign.
“While writing a letter in mother tongue, care was taken to ensure that the language, words and syntax were accurate in order to help improve the language.”
This activity has garnered overwhelming response where he has received letters from 17 to 18 people every day. Unsurprisingly, many of them have expressed their thoughts on diverse topics from headphones, local trains to letter boxes.
Ashwini Deshpande is an animator and has composed a letter to her ink pen.
“I follow Khalbatta and was pleased to know about this activity. Back in school days, I used to write a letter to my pals during every summer vacation. Till I was 15, I was adept to scribbling frequent letters. However, with time the modes of communication evolved and the activity took a halt for good. Because of this activity, I could experience the joy of writing a letter all over again, after almost 12-15 years. It was amazing and nostalgic too,” Ashwini shared.
“During school days, use of ink pens was mandatory and I have fond memories of writing down my thoughts with an ink pen. It was out of gratitude that I wrote to an ink pen,” she said.
November 20 is the last day to submit the letters, and Tejas has urged citizens to share their thoughts via letters.
“So far we’ve received 80 letters,” he added.
