Postcard as a metaphor of life

October is what I would call my spirit month! The sun is balmy, the breeze cool. The crisp mornings lend you early apricity, and even as the afternoon scorches, the saptaparni-laden evenings bring in a calm that beats even the onset of pollution in Delhi. I would collect the shiuli flowers that line the lanes of my neighbourhood, arrange them into fractals, or floating arrangements, or just randomly infuse them in various rooms. After losing my father last year, October lost its charm for me.

I woke up this first day of October hoping to bring back some tradition, for even if the heart is heavy, shiuli may be a balm. I walked through my neighbourhood and returned disheartened with the realisation that the shiuli trees are yet to bloom. But the day definitely had other plans. I read a message mentioning that October 1 is World Postcard Day! I never knew about such a day.

In October 1869, Austria issued the first official postal card. The World Postcard Day was first observed in 2020 to celebrate the postcard and the connections it brings. I immediately went back to the very first time I saw postcards — my grandparents’ postcards to their children and their family, which were carefully preserved, like a family treasure.

As someone who lost her grandfather as a kid, those postcards carried remnants of his persona — his writing style, the pen he used, the emotions that oozed out of the yellow cards. And what a bonanza if it was a picture postcard! As a child, it was extremely fascinating looking at places through pictures, pictures that were perfect.

I grew up in a home of letters and books, so much so that the idea of weekends for me and my sister was finding nooks to snuggle in and read or write. I saw my handwriting evolve, from the very schooled cursive to what I now feel is the expression of my soul. The ink did not really evolve, for our mother always told us the power is in the pen, not in the ink. The effort then became to infuse our words with an emotion so powerful that the ink is the intangible.

All along, the humble yellow postcards occupied a greater space in the study, and in the suitcases while travelling. While on Bharat Darshan (as part of my job training), I carried my postcards everywhere, my eyes scouting for unique post offices which may lend some ink (their rubber stamps) on my postcards and I posted them to friends and family dutifully. I still remember the excitement of looking for a post office near Nathu La, or Lakshadweep, and then the long wait in anticipation till the postcard reached my loved ones.

But what makes a postcard so unique? For me, it is a metaphor for how I see life. What you write on it is visible to everyone, but understood by only those who matter (the intended recipient). A handwritten letter does not give this privilege; it is like a confidential slice out of life, to be shared only in whispers. A postcard is an expression that two people share — seen by many, understood by few. This is how our lives are, in the public gaze, but extremely intimate, for the journey of our souls is all but invisible to all, except a few.

The postcard is a blank slate, like life. You draw, paint or scribble on the canvas of life the way you want, but there are limitations. Likewise, the postcard gives me one side, or if I’m lucky, a one-and-a-half side, nothing more, and the freedom to paint my canvas.

The postcard carries the imprints of all those who it meets on its journey, from the rusted postbox to the postmasters to the recesses where it might have receded in its journey, till it reaches the one it is meant for.

I see my life, too, as having the imprints of all those who moulded me, those who met me, even silent spectators who imparted their experiences to me. This is my unique stratigraphy of life, and even for my postcard, for when it reaches me, it carries not only the sender but also all those who it met. Some postcards get lost en route, like relationships in life. The loose ends and lost postcards are also treasures, for losing is not always bad, sometimes it means letting go.

Some postcards are written and never posted, like emotions that reach a crescendo only to be whisked away, and it is also the unsaid that defines us in life, for not every thought is meant for others, some are for us, just for us.

And finally, the humble traditional postcard in India being yellow, seems like a beautiful coincidence. The colour yellow is both joy and malady and everything in between. It depends on how you see it, which colour your lens reflects and which it absorbs. Same with life, isn’t it? If you’re waiting, please post the postcard. If nothing else, it may just be a catharsis!

And thus, for me, this October, painful in grief as it is, gave me a gift other than shiuli too, a day to remember my postcards.

—The writer is an IRS officer. Views are personal