Dear you,
we write you a letter. a real one. it turns up at your house and waits until you're ready for it.
us, mostly. the cats supervise.
is this you?
tick whatever's true. nobody's counting except this page, and it isn't telling anyone.
go on then.
the one about being the person who books the appointments
about the day you looked up and realised there was no adult above you keeping track anymore. this is the one that'll land first if you join now.
why paper, honestly,
in this day and age
it can't buzz at you
no ping, no badge, no small red circle sitting there tapping its foot. it lies on the shelf being quiet, which nothing else you own does.
the calmest object in your houseit has no idea if you've read it
no ticks, blue or otherwise. leave it till sunday. leave it till next year. it won't sulk and we'll be none the wiser.
genuinely nothing owedand you get to keep it
a drawer, a book, a tin, the shelf by the door. try holding onto a text message for nine years. go on. try.
nobody's grandkids find screenshotswhat it isn't
not a newsletter
nothing lands in your inbox. nothing tells us whether you opened it. there's no open rate and we like it that way.
not self-help
no framework, no five steps, no prompts you'll abandon by the second week. nobody here is qualified to fix you.
not relentless positivity
you don't have to feel better afterwards. some of these just sit with the thing and keep you company while it's there.
not forever
three, six or twelve months and then it stops. nothing renews on its own, nothing sits on your card quietly ticking.
shall we write to you?
three months is the smallest thing we do. that's long enough to know whether we get on, and short enough that it isn't a commitment you'll resent.
have a look at the options →that's useful, actually
tell us where to write and we'll send you the letter that fits what you ticked. no list, no sequence — a person reads this.
we keep your email to write to you and nothing else. say the word and we delete it.
right. got it.
we'll write back properly — usually within a week, occasionally in a bit of a rush.
so what's in it?
not a lot, honestly. it all has to fit through your letterbox, which mercifully rules out most of the nonsense a company would try to send you. no mug. no candle. no tote bag with a slogan on it.
about nine hundred words, on one folded sheet. written to one person, which is you. no bullet points and no lesson bolted onto the end.
stamped, addressed to us, and completely blank. that blankness alarms people for roughly four seconds and then they rather love it.
to sit with, not to answer by friday. there's no worksheet, no streak, and nobody will email you asking how it went.
plus a small print or a bookmark when we can manage it, and eight songs hiding behind a stamp on the back.
how one of these actually
comes together
malini writes a bad draft
usually set off by something a stranger wrote on a reply card. it's always too long and slightly furious.
she reads it out loud and deletes most of it
whatever survives being said aloud is the letter. this is the only editing system we have and it works alarmingly well.
zeel lays it out and argues about paper
this takes longer than the writing did. we have stopped questioning it. she is usually right.
printing, at a shop down the road
the man there has started asking what this one's about. we tell him. he has opinions and shares them freely.
a whole day of folding
stuffing, stamping, and writing every address by hand. this is the bit where you stop being a name on a list and become a street in a city we've never seen.
we hand it all over to the post
which is where our control ends entirely. four to ten days across india, closer to three weeks if you're further away.
if it gets eaten on the way, tell us. we send another, no forms, no proof.
rules a letter is not allowed to break
no telling you what to do
we don't know your life. we barely know ours, and only on a good day.
no tidy ending
sometimes the honest close is "anyway, that's roughly where I am too". we let it stand.
no "showing up for yourself"
nor journey, nor holding space, nor unpacking. there is a banned list and it grows.
no asking you to follow anything
the letter is the whole relationship. there's nothing else to join and nothing to scroll.
that list is stuck above the printer. we've broken the second one exactly once.
things people ask us
zeel & malini
one writes them, one makes them. we both fold envelopes badly, in the same flat, generally while disagreeing about something.
Zeel
cheerful before 9am, which is frankly suspicious. she designs everything you end up holding — the paper, the ink, where the stamp sits, the sticker you'll save and then never use.
she's also doing a PhD, which she will explain if you ask, and you should ask, because she gets very fast and very happy about it.
- makes the whole physical thing
- PhD in progress — genuinely, ask her
- cats, plural. they supervise the folding.
- has opinions about paper you didn't know existed
Malini
runs a creative agency, which is a polite way of saying she writes all day and then goes home and writes some more. this is the writing she'd be doing regardless.
loves a ghazal more than is strictly reasonable. her shelf is almost entirely Japanese fiction in translation, which explains a great deal about how these letters sound — quiet, a bit sideways, occasionally about a cat.
- writes the letters, every one
- runs a creative agency by day
- ghazals on loop, volume unreasonable
- will recommend you a Japanese novel unprompted
zeel makes it something you want to keep
paper weight, envelope colour, where the stamp goes, whether the sticker is matte. if it feels nice in your hands, that's entirely her fault.
malini makes it something you want to read
the nine hundred words. the bit that makes you go oh. and the ending that stubbornly refuses to fix anything.
we interviewed each other,
which was awkward
so why letters, of all things?
because i wanted to make something you could hold. everything i design ends up on a screen and then gone. this one sits in a drawer.
and writing to one person is easier than writing to everyone. i can't write to "an audience". i can write to you.
what's the hardest part?
knowing when to stop. every letter has a version where i explain too much and ruin it.
the folding. four hours. my hands hurt. i love it and i'm also complaining.
worst decision so far?
the beautiful envelopes that did not survive the post. we don't talk about those.
i wrote about grief far too early on. it was good, and it was much too much, much too soon.
what do you actually want out of this?
for one person to read something on a wednesday and feel slightly less strange about themselves.
that, and to still be doing it in five years. not bigger. just still going.
folding day, hour by hour
tea, and an argument about the pile order
letter, card, question, sticker. we've changed it twice and regretted it both times.
folding, badly, with a podcast on
zeel folds better. malini folds faster. neither of us will concede which one matters.
every address, written by hand
this is when you stop being a name on a list and become a street in a city we've never been to.
stamps, and a cat sitting on the pile
every single time. same cat. we've given up moving her.
what we're into lately
- zeel is
- photographing the same corner of her balcony at dusk every day, for reasons she cannot explain
- malini is
- halfway through a Japanese novel where nothing happens for two hundred pages and then everything does
- both of us are
- still arguing about whether the envelopes should be kraft or grey. it has been three weeks.
↑ we change this whenever we remember. it's the only bit of this website that moves.
how this started
we spent about two years sending each other absurdly long messages at one in the morning. mostly about being tired in a way that sleeping doesn't fix.
then malini printed one out and posted it instead. it took nine days, cost more than it should have, and was so much better that we never really stopped.
now other people get them too. that is the entire business plan, written down.
↑ swap this for your real version — it'll be better than ours
things we've been asked
and never printed
how long shall
we write for?
nothing auto-renews. nothing sits quietly on your card for years. you pick a stretch, it happens, it ends — and if you want more of it, you tell us.
three months
enough to know if we get on
- 3 letters
- 3 stamped cards to write back on
- a sticker each time
- postage within india on us
₹897₹299 a letter
six months
you'll know our handwriting by the end
- everything in three
- a small print for the fridge
- a say in what we write next
- skip a month, no questions asked
₹1,614₹269 a letter · save 10%
twelve months
okay so we're properly doing this
- everything in six
- a tin to keep them all in
- a handwritten note from us
- we write back to you, properly
₹2,870₹239 a letter · save 20%
outside india, add ₹200 a month and roughly three weeks of patience · gifting has its own page → · eaten by the post? we send another, no forms.
the awkward questions
everything else
is this therapy?
no, and we won't pretend otherwise. it's company, not care. if you're carrying something heavy, please talk to someone qualified as well — we'd genuinely rather you did.
can i cancel?
there's nothing to cancel. you paid for three, six or twelve, that's what happens, and nothing renews by itself. if you need to stop part-way, just ask and we'll refund the rest.
can i pause?
on six and twelve, yes — skip a month, no explanation needed, and we add it onto the end.
i'm outside india
we post worldwide. add ₹200 a month and expect about three weeks. the reply card only comes pre-stamped within india — international reply coupons are a nightmare, sorry.
do you actually read the cards people send back?
every one. it's the best hour of any month and it's usually where the next letter comes from.
can i buy just one letter?
not at the moment. three is the smallest thing we do, mostly because one isn't really the point — the third one lands differently to the first.
right then, let's start
leave your name and we'll write back asking where you live and which stretch you'd like. a real person replies. that's the whole system.
one email, from us, and no list you have to escape from later.
give someone
the good post
for the person who insists they don't need anything. they're lying, obviously. they just don't need more things.
pick three, six or twelve
same prices as everything else. we don't charge extra for it being a present — that would be rude.
send us their address
and yours, so we know who to blame. we never contact them about anything else, ever.
we write your card by hand
it goes in the first envelope, so they know it's from you before they've worked out what this is.
write the card now, why not
you
goes in the first envelope
this is from me. i thought of you.
tap one to try it on. the first three are real ones people have sent, and all three did the job.
who this actually lands for
someone who moved cities
new flat, no post, a letterbox that has only ever held bills and a gas connection form.
homesickness, addresseda parent
who says they don't want anything and then keeps every card you've ever sent in one specific drawer.
you know it's truea friend who's had a year
the kind where "how are you" gets a pause. this is company that doesn't need answering.
the good sort of nothing-to-dosomeone leaving home
hostel, new job, first flat. months of somebody remembering them without being asked to.
the tin makes this onewhat happens at their end
an envelope with handwriting on it
already unusual enough that most people photograph it before they open it.
your card, before anything else
written out by us in your words, so they know it's you before they know what this is.
the letter
which has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. that's the actual gift.
it happens again
this is the part nobody expects. it just keeps arriving.
two honest warnings
one — it's slow. if it needs to land on a particular birthday, tell us at least three weeks ahead and we'll work backwards from the date.
two — they might cry. several people have. we've stopped apologising for it.
write to us
two people, one kitchen table. give us a few days and we always answer. there's no ticketing system and no bot, which is both the charm and the delay.
go on then
changed address, letter went astray, want to collaborate, want to argue about paper — all equally welcome.
we answer everything. usually within a week, occasionally in a bit of a rush.
or actually post us
Dear You
Ahmedabad 380015
Gujarat, India
a real letter to us gets a real letter back. it is the slowest customer support in the country and we are weirdly proud of it.
the other reasons
press & interviews → hello@dearyou.club
bulk or corporate gifting → same address, put BULK in the subject
stockists → we're not in shops yet. ask again in a year.
collaborations → yes if it's paper, probably not if it's an app.
how fast we actually are
one thing we can't do
we're not counsellors and we won't pretend to be. if you write to us about something heavy we'll write back honestly, as people — but please talk to someone qualified too. we'd rather have you around.