Post Card Town Journey

Azhar sent me a series of postcards written by his school students. A wonderful initiative to let students express their thoughts through this wonderful medium. I reflected on how my postcard journey has flowed through. 

I remember writing letters to my friends and loved ones whenever I miss them. I wrote one for family as well. Wrote a couple for Dad and posted them. I was well versed with hand written letters on white pages and send them through post or mail. In 2019, when I was in Rajasthan teaching in a school, I came across a lesson from grade-8 where I have to teach a poem to children. I thought of creating an activity with postcards and poetry and thus began my post card journey. I picked up a poem written by Anjali and shared it with my students. I encouraged them to write their thoughts to Anjali on postcards. 

https://harimohanparuvu.blogspot.com/2019/08/anjali-poem-that-travelled-to-rajasthan.html

I saw students picking postcards and colours and decorated them in the most creative way. I never allowed myself to even think of colouring the postcards. The kids were very expressive and wrote their thoughts in English, in the language they know. 

I loved the way children expressed at their best and for teaching me that there are no bounds and rules in expression and creativity. I allowed myself to paint on postcards. Then I began to write postcards to all my students. All of them would write back. It was wonderful exchange of love and expression.

Over the time, I continued writing letters to friends and also wrote a couple of postcards whenever wherever possible. As I met A who is very passionate writer and would write in unimaginable hours and times. She'd just pick a book, pen and write without thinking twice of the situation, location, hour she is in. 

Imbibed with such intensity, As I continued my work through colours, I also bought a bunch of postcards and tried my best to hang around with postcards and often write to all my friends and loved ones. There was a time where I'd simply pick a card, write my thoughts and drop it in the postbox. Many would appreciate the act but I hardly received any handwritten letters. People would reply through typing. Harry, Anjali reply with hand written letters. Mounika would suprise me with four sentence hand written letters.

 I never stopped myself from expressing if I felt like expressing. I got used to all the lovely people who understood me and always received my expression with love rather than being intimidated by it. I was generous in my writing and wrote to anyone and everyone intending to express love and only love.

Azhar and I used to enjoy hand written letters and always promised to write to each other. We often do as well. As I moved to Geneva, I packed a lot of postcards. With the habit of writing postcards extensively, I tried writing postcards to friends and muses. At once, the postcard writing became a magic wand exercise. Write a postcard if you wish to write the future. I ended up writing series of postcards with a lot of great curiosity and love. 

I came across people who were surprised by my generosity in sharing written words. A few took the cards with indifference. I was curious of postcards as a medium and explore in my artistic journey. I painted more than 300 postcards and written some beautiful cute postcards to loved ones.

I became so attached to the postcards, I was not ready to share them with anyone. It's a journey to write postcards as one needs to pick it up, sit down with thoughts and intentions, write it down, drop it in the box or share it with them and wait! It's a journey to be detached with our writings.