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Somewhere in the middle of the book, Jay, the one reading all these old letters decades later, says something almost in passing that I didn't plan and only noticed after a reader pointed it out to me: Aarav's careful patience, Meera's warmth unfolding page by page. He's just describing the rhythm he's gotten used to by that point. But it's also, more or less, the whole method I used to write these two people, and I don't think I ever consciously decided on it. It just happened, letter by letter, the way most character voices do if you're doing it right.
I want to walk through how that actually showed up on the page, because it's the part of writing this book I get asked about the least and think about the most.
Aarav's first letter: courage that has to go through paper first
The very first letter Aarav writes is, if I'm honest, a little stiff. That was on purpose, though it took me a couple of drafts to trust it. He opens formally, introduces himself properly, explains who he is, and apologizes almost immediately for writing at all. I mean, it was kind of weird to keep myself in that position and be like Aarav to write the first letter, as I am a guy from the social media era. There's a line in it where he admits, more or less, that he isn't particularly brave, and that a letter can carry the courage he can't manage in person.
What I like about that letter now, rereading it, is how much it's a young man testing the water before he's willing to say anything real. He hides behind small details, college life, walks around campus, lectures he half-remembers, before he finally lets a genuine feeling slip through. And then, almost as if he's embarrassed by it, he adds a P.S. about a stamp issue. As if the practical detail could distract from what he'd just admitted.
I didn't write that P.S. as filler. I wrote it because that's exactly what someone like Aarav would do: say something enormous, then immediately retreat into logistics so it doesn't feel as exposed.
Meera's replies: less armor, faster warmth
Meera doesn't do that. Her letters, from the start, move differently, less hedging, more direct feeling, even when she's being careful about what she reveals. After their first meeting at Nainital Lake, she writes back almost immediately, and there's a small, specific detail in that letter I still think is one of the best things I wrote in the whole book: she mentions the Cheese & Chutney Roll they shared at a little shop called Maple Corner, and says she doesn't remember anything so ordinary ever feeling so extraordinary.
That's Meera's whole voice in one sentence, honestly. She doesn't perform emotion the way Aarav sometimes half-hides his. She just tells you what she noticed, and lets you sit with why it mattered. Where Aarav writes around a feeling before he gets to it, Meera tends to just hand it to you, gently, almost as an aside.
Meera is direct and straightforward & this was 2 things I kept in mind while writing her letters.
Where they start to switch
What I actually find more interesting than either voice on its own is how they shift as the letters go on. By the time Meera writes about visiting Golu Devta Temple, a scene where she describes Aarav walking slightly ahead of her on a narrow hill road, not out of impatience but to make sure the path is safe before she takes it, her handwriting, in the book's own description, has gone from tentative to rounded and confident. She's not hiding anymore. She's the one initiating the emotional honesty at that point in the story.
And Aarav, by contrast, gets steadier and more direct the longer they write to each other, the hesitant courtship voice from that first letter is mostly gone by the time he writes the line readers quote most:
"Next time, I'll wait. Even if you don't come."
There's no hedging left in that sentence at all. No P.S. to hide behind. That's not an accident; I wanted the reader to feel, without me pointing at it directly, that these two people had genuinely changed each other's relationship to honesty over the course of the book. Aarav gets more direct because Meera showed him it was safe to be. Meera gets more sure of herself because Aarav kept showing up, letter after letter, without demanding anything back.
Why I didn't want to write them the same
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| Author Yash Gadade |
I've read plenty of epistolary novels where both correspondents basically sound like the same person in two different fonts. I didn't want that here, mostly because I don't think that's how real letters actually work between two people who are falling for each other slowly. One of you is usually the one who reaches first. One of you is usually the one who takes longer to stop protecting yourself on the page.
I made Aarav the one who needs paper as a kind of armor before he can be honest. I made Meera the one who's already fairly honest, and spends the book instead learning to trust that honesty will actually be met with something back. Neither of them is "the romantic one" and the other "the practical one" — that felt too easy. They're just two different ways of learning the same thing, at slightly different speeds.
📖 Get Letters That Never Crossed Nainital on Goodreads →
If you've already finished the book and want to know what I think actually happened between the flood and that final reunion, I broke down the ending here, including the one thing I left deliberately unresolved.
FAQs
How is Aarav's writing style different from Meera's in Letters That Never Crossed Nainital?
Aarav's early letters are formal and hesitant, often hiding genuine feeling behind practical details or apologies. Meera's letters are more direct and sensory from the start, describing what she noticed and felt without much hedging.
Do Aarav and Meera's voices change over the course of the book?
Yes. As their correspondence continues, Aarav becomes more direct and less guarded, while Meera's letters — described in the book as moving from tentative to rounded and confident — show her becoming more assured and emotionally forthcoming.
Is Letters That Never Crossed Nainital told from both Aarav's and Meera's perspectives?
The story is told through their letters to each other, read decades later by Jay, a present-day post office worker who discovers the undelivered bundle and pieces together their relationship from both sides of the correspondence.
What is the most quoted line from Aarav's letters?
"Next time, I'll wait. Even if you don't come" — written after a missed meeting at Nainital Lake, and widely considered the book's signature line.
Where can I read Letters That Never Crossed Nainital?
It's available as an ebook and Paperback on Amazon and Flipkart. You can also add it on Goodreads to help other readers discover it.
If you've read the book — whose letters did you look forward to more, Aarav's or Meera's? I go back and forth myself. Tell me in the comments.
