India’s Last Letter Writers

When I was a child in Calcutta, I remember my mother writing letters for our domestic helper, Kailash, who had never been to school. The letters always began with “Dear son ...” and included news about his family and instructions on how to use the money he sent.

Many people from rural India, much like Kailash, once relied on professional letter writers to maintain contact with loved ones after moving to the cities in search of work. However, this once-vital profession is slowly disappearing

Jagdish Sharma, one of the last remaining professional letter writers in Delhi, has not written a letter in over a decade. For 31 years, he worked just outside the Kashmere Gate post office, assisting a wide range of people in writing heartfelt letters. Sharma’s strengths lay not in complex tools, but in the basics: a solid grasp of language, neat handwriting, and a talent for translating people’s emotions into words. “People would tell me their stories,” he recalls, “and I would express them in my own words.”

Sharma worked with other letter writers for years, assisting customers with forms, parcels, and, most importantly, communication with distant family. “I helped 70 to 80 people a day,” he says with quiet pride. Letter writing has played a significant role in Indian history for centuries. During the Mughal era, professional writers supported aristocrats (贵族) in managing their correspondence. Later, when the British introduced a formal postal system in 1854, services were established to assist those who were unable to read or write.

In more recent years, however, changes in society quietly reshaped the need for traditional letter-writing services. As more people learned to read and write, and affordable mobile phones found their way into everyday life, the once-frequent visits to letter writers began to fade. By 2008, the Indian government officially recognized this shift, stating that the service was no longer considered essential. Sharma acknowledged that the decline had begun well before the government’s decision. As business declined, many of his colleagues either retired or sought employment elsewhere.

Despite the changes, Sharma still visits the post office daily, except Sundays. “I have nowhere else to go,” he says. One afternoon, I found him preparing a parcel for a client, sewing it with skill, writing the address, and sealing it with a candle. His long-time client, Rekha Kumari—who had been coming to him for ten years—smiled as she showed me her mobile phone. “No,” she said, “I’ll call them myself now.”