I remember back in my school days — probably 5th or 6th grade when we were first taught to write letters. This was back in 2005 or 2006, when no one used to write personal letters to each other anymore. I have received less than 5 letters till date! Emails did exist back then and Gmail was just getting popular. Yahoo, Hotmail and Rediff still dominated the game.
The letters had a definite structure and the structure had marks. You simply cannot go write the address in the right side! There goes your quarter of a mark.
We used to get 2–3, 5 mark questions to write letters like these :
- Imagine you are Raju/Radha. You went to the hospital and saw the hard working doctors. Write a letter to your friend Maya/Manoj telling about your experience meeting them.
- Imagine you are Joseph/Jane. Write a letter to your friend Suraj/Shyama about the exciting summer vacation you had at your native place.
You get the gist.
I used to loooooove this though. This was when I used to let my imagination run marathons and come up with what would have been my ideal vacation or experience. English was my favourite subject back then and I would always try to get maximum marks in the writing section( Section — B).
[Section A would be Reading Comprehension, C would be Grammar and D would be Literature for who are not familiar with the patterns of English examinations in CBSE system]
I used to get good marks too and it was fiercely competitive in the class to see who would get the maximum marks in writing.
After graduation, the few occasions that I had written letters was in college to the Head of the Department or to the Class Tutor for duty leaves or for getting permission to conduct events. My friends used to ask me to write letters for them too.
Anyway, the reason for this recollection and post is to share an application that I had discovered via a friend recently called Slowly.
Slowly lets you write letters to pen pals around the world. This is not an instant messaging or dating application. You can find people based on mutual interest via suggestion or manually add them. The letters take its own sweet time to get delivered based on the distance.
In their own words,
SLOWLY is not your typical networking or dating app — we’re bringing the traditional pen friend experience to your smartphone.
Initially I was apprehensive. Connecting with random strangers via letters?
There are no profile pictures. Only avatars that you can customise. There is also the concept of stamps — which you can collect as you connect from people with different countries. You get a few stamps by default based on your location which you can share it with your friends when you send them letters. Just like stamps on a postcard/letter in real life!
I have 15 of them currently in my list and this increases as you connect more.
I have the stamps of the Burj Al Arab, Atlantis — the Palm and Ramadan which are location & event based, since I am in UAE.
From India, I got the Lotus Temple, the Taj Mahal and the Gateway of India.
My latest one is the Around the World stamp, which I received because I made friends from 5 different countries! How cool is that?
Matching Friends
Initially you given the option to set your interests. This can be changed at any point of time. There are around 30 different topics such as Technology, Music, Gaming, Fiction, Feminism, Psychology and so on.
You are then given the option to select the Gender and Age group filter of people whom you want to connect with.
Then you are matched to a maximum of 3 people by the system, whom you may or may not proceed to connect with by sending them mails.
Anyhow, you can only use the system generated match only once in 24 hours. You will have to wait before using it again — wait Slowly.
Once you sent the letter, it takes time for it to be delivered. And you will also be shown the time it would take for you to receive your replies too. The duration it takes for you to receive a letter from India or Italy varies because of the distance.
Trust me, even after 2 weeks of using the application, I still get excited when I see that a letter is going to arrive for me in 3 hours from somewhere.
I kid you not. It’s difficult writing long letters in the mobile phone. So there is also their web version similar to Whatsapp Web, which lets you perform limited functionalities such as writing letters and reading their blogs — Not matching/changing settings here.
They have a blog where you can narrate your experiences or stories — not limited to using Slowly. But I did read a lot of tales of love, friendships and meeting their soul mates via the application as I went through them. Now that would be a good story to tell your kids! Lol
At an age when people are literally reachable at your fingertips,instant messages have become the predominant mode of communication and instant gratification and the hook models are used everywhere — going back to writing letters and expressing your thoughts and feelings via and waiting long for it to be answered sounds surreal.
I did get a lot of mixed reactions from my friends about the same.
‘Why?’. ‘Can’t you use Tinder?’. ‘How long do we have to write?’. ‘What do they look like?’. ‘Can’t you use Whatsapp?’
I enjoy writing — it relaxes me and gives me a mode to truly express how I feel and vent my emotions. I believe writing is the best way to bring clarity for your thoughts. And I love meeting new people and having conversations. Slowly lets me combine both my interests.
I never felt Slowly was a dating application. It could be, if your intentions are so — but mine never was. There are men & women, young & old, married & unmarried, divorced & separated — using the platform to make genuine connections and share their thoughts.
I have often seen how the shield of anonymity often allows you to divulge your deepest thoughts, fears and feelings to a random stranger . There is no fear of being recognised, judged or seen any differently.
I have had my pals share their worries — of a possible layoff or health condition, their joys & happiness — their nephew being born or picking up a new hobby, their travel experiences- visiting the Rann of Kutch or a plan to visit Bhutan with their fiancee, their frustration at being stuck at home, their favorite recipes & cooking experiences amidst the lockdown, their must watch movie suggestions in Netflix, playlists in Spotify and more. Occasionally you find people who have visited similar places or are from your state/country and you share things to do and discover — local cuisines, festivals & places to visit unknown before.
I would recommend Slowly for anyone who wants to discover the joy of writing again and also meeting new people to share experiences and culture from around the world. It is not without efforts though — when someone takes time to write long meaningful letters, It’s awfully rude to write one liners :) Over time, you just slowly pick up the art of writing letters.
