Veteran letter writer thanks KT for nurturing creativity

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Veteran letter writer thanks KT for nurturing creativity

Dubai - Jayashree Kulkarni, a resident of Abu Dhabi, has been a subscriber of Khaleej Times since 1980.

by

Suneeti Ahuja Kohli

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Published: Mon 18 Mar 2019, 10:59 PM

On October 1, 2005, a long-time subscriber of Khaleej Times typed her first letter to the editor. She wasn't sure at first if it would be published. But four days later when her husband spotted her name in the section and informed her, she was elated and has never stopped writing since then.
Jayashree Kulkarni, a resident of Abu Dhabi, has been a subscriber of Khaleej Times since 1980 and a regular contributor to the newspaper since 2005. After spending nearly four decades in the UAE, she is packing her memories and life to move back to Pune, her hometown in western India.
Asked what's the most precious thing she is taking with her from here, pat came her reply: "Letters I wrote to Khaleej Times. I have clippings and screenshots of all the letters that I have written to KT. I visited India last month and carried all the clippings in my personal luggage to safe-keep them in my new home," she said with pride on the phone.
"I came to Abu Dhabi in 1980 with my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. My husband was working in the capital at that time. In the last 39 years, I have had another child (a son), a job, made wonderful friends, and had a life full of memories and experiences, for which I am eternally grateful. I was forever busy with my children, husband and work responsibilities as an English school teacher, but in 2005 when both my children immigrated to Australia, I was struck with the empty nest syndrome," she said.
It was at that time that she started contributing to the Letters to the Editor section in Khaleej Times. Almost 14 years later, she is proud of contributing more than 2,000 letters to the newspaper. Recently she started regularly contributing to the Open Minds section on the opinion pages, too. "It has been a very interesting journey, not only because my thoughts and views were published in a national daily, but also the fact that it inspired my students to explore a career in writing and look at writing as a creative pursuit," said Kulkarni. One of her students is a blogger and another contributes regularly to a newspaper in Canada.
"What can be a better reward than this for a teacher?" she asked.
There's nervousness as Kulkarni and her husband are moving to a city they call their hometown when in reality the UAE is the only place they have truly felt at home in the last so many years. "We are packing off our bags and moving for good, but that doesn't mean we'll disconnect completely. We have cancelled our print subscription just a couple of days back, but I will continue reading Khaleej Times online. I will also continue writing letters to the newspaper. This newspaper helped me explore my creative pursuit for writing, and honoured my comments as a reader. You will keep hearing from me," she said before signing off.
It's a loss when newspapers lose such loyal readership, but it is people like Kulkarni who are the biggest ambassadors of a newspaper.
- suneeti@khaleejtimes.com


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