KOCHI: In this era facing the dearth of compassion for fellow beings, Sana Khader, and her friends are spreading love through letters around the globe. Sana, a 22-year-old engineering student from Kozhikode famous for her queer hobby- Pen paling has recently taken charge to conduct ‘Meet, Greet and Scribble with Sana Khader’ as part of ‘Letters Of Love 2018’ campaign at Harbourd Cafe, Calicut. This was conducted to raise awareness and make a difference to refugee crises. More than twenty people along with Sana gathered and contributed by making and sending handmade cards with a postal card to the little ones at refugee camps.
Popular in instagram as ‘Zannist’, this snail mailer writes up to fourteen letters every week from her yellow desk, to stay connected with her 53 pen pals from 32 different countries.
“I always think of doing something different. I want to travel to places and know the culture of people around the globe. Knowing it ain’t that easy at the moment , I started with Pen-paling as a hobby and it’s part of my life now”, said Sana.
This idea burgeoned two years ago, and her first friend was from Netherlands. Due to the hectic academic schedule, Sana had to give a break, and restarted in 2016, after understanding the capability of time management within her to balance her dual priorities. Though she haven’t met any of her pen friends yet, she wants to keep in touch with all of them. with every letter, she receives a gift hamper also. It may contain souvenirs of that particular place from where the letter is posted such as coins, stamps, leaves etc.
Sana recollects that one of the bad experiences she encountered was when one of her pen friend from Finland stopped writing. In the first ‘Hello’ mail itself, she had mentioned that she is a cancer patient. Her second letter was her last, in which she has asked not to wait any more for her replies, but for which Sana replied, but feels that the pen friend had made to a point to leave.
Apart from letter writing, Sana is passionate about craft works, drawing, doodling, dress designing etc. She is also an expert in making handmade gifts like scrapbooks, flipbooks, memory albums and any-occasion cards and put it on sale on her instagram page ‘Zannist’. Having started earning at the age of eighteen, Sana receives daily orders through her page for customised handicraft gifts.This is her major source of income to meet with college expenses.
Sana said,”People always called me artist and I ended up naming my page by combining it with another version of my name, Zana and Artist as Zannist.”Aiming to brand her venture at future, she aspires to pursue Masters in Business Administration along with fashion designing course with a target of having hundred pen pals across the world by next year.