If you ever went to a cadet college, you’ll know this: letters were not just letters. Oh no. They were emotions. And sometimes utter disasters, if you know what I mean.

Picture it. You sit down at your desk on a Thursday evening, pen in hand, kind of forced—well, that is the rule—to write to your poor mother and father. And not in Bangla, mind you. English only! The teachers demanded it, the adjutant sniffed over it, and only if you had survived all the “security checking” would the letter be allowed to fly away home. Replies came back the same way, checked and marked “okay” by authority. But when it arrived, it was like Eid or something.

Farha Brotty, an alumna of Joypurhat Girls Cadet College, explains how the ritual worked:

“Letters were the tradition from a time when they were the only means of communication. By our time, we were allowed three phone calls a week, five minutes each. Still, writing letters in English was compulsory. And honestly, I think it was beautiful. People don’t really write anymore — they text or call. But putting pen to paper, pressing it against the page and letting your emotions spill out — that takes effort. It shows love.”

Farha even took the practice to another level. While most cadets scribbled notes to parents or secret boyfriends, she chose to write to famous personalities. Remarkably, one of them wrote back. The adjutant saw it, of course, but the buzz around campus was electric. Imagine the prestige of being the cadet who received a reply from someone famous!

Typically, though, letters were textbook stuff: beginning with “Dear Father/Mother,” followed by dutiful assurances that one was eating well, studying hard, and flourishing in cadet life. “More like model answers to exam questions,” Farha laughs.

Abir Najmujjaman Sikder of Cumilla Cadet College recalls the time he got caught passing letters for his seniors. In class 10, he was sent to CMH, and his seniors saw him as the perfect messenger, stuffing fifteen or sixteen love letters for their girlfriends into his beret. He got into a car with two other staff members. Suddenly, the car jolted, the beret slipped, and the letters flew everywhere. One staff muttered to the other, “What shall we do with him now?” The reply was, “Nothing. Besides, these are not his letters that I am sure of. Sikder couldn’t pull a girl if he tried. Poor boy.”

Man, that was rude.

Shahjadi Bushra Labonno from Mymensingh Girls Cadet College tells a sweet little story:

“I once wrote a letter to my brother and folded it into a paper boat. My teacher intercepted it, asked me to unfold it, read it carefully, and then told me to fold it back into the boat again. So I did!”

Labonno also remembers seniors sneaking in little sketches for their sweethearts. As a junior and a member of the Arts Club, she often helped decorate those letters. “I still sometimes read my old letters,” she admits with a grin. “They’re so close to my heart.”

But perhaps the most emotional tale comes from Sirajus Salikine Sakib of Jhenidah Cadet College. In his time, there was only one phone call a week — five minutes flat. The rest? Letters, letters, letters.

Thursdays were sacred. Cadets sat down with pens and paper (some secretly crying), writing carefully to their parents:

Dear Father,
I am perfectly fine. Cadet College is marvellous. We eat five meals a day. We study happily. I am growing stronger every second. Please don’t worry.

Of course, all lies. The life was brutal, the schedule merciless. But no cadet dared to confess, because teachers read every single word.

Sakib recalls. “I happened to be one of the earlier-day cadets who only got a single five-minute phone call per week. Other than that, letters were the only means of communication. We had a highly planned, disciplined, and scheduled life from early morning until lights out at 10:45 pm. After a hectic week, we finally got ‘Thursday Night,’ which was nothing short of pure excitement. That was the time we wrote letters to our parents.”

“For a class 7 boy, it was an emotional moment — pen in hand, paper ready, sometimes with tears. But we had to write about how well we were doing, how great life at cadet college was, how amazing it was to get five meals a day, and many other things — all to reassure our parents that their children were in good hands,” he says.

“Writing these ‘white lies’ amidst the hardships was part of growing up. Next Friday morning, we would submit the letters to the house office, and the house bearer would collect them and deposit them in the letter box.”

Sakib keeps going, “It’s important to note that these letters were read by our individual class tutors to check if anyone was in trouble or having problems. This was another reason why we rarely wrote anything negative.”

“By classes 9 and 10, cadets started having special letters, which often became the primary means of communication with someone close. But as tutors still read letters, the solution was to bypass the house bearer and drop them directly into the letterbox. This was no easy task: the box was right behind the adjutant’s office, an area you could not enter unless called. Sneaking there in the dark was nothing short of a ‘Mission Impossible.’ Yet, at that age, the sense of adventure made it thrilling. Sending a letter to someone you liked, knowing there was a risk of getting caught, added an extra adrenaline rush. On several occasions, guards blew their whistles when spotting a cadet in an unauthorized area, and everyone would scatter before being identified.

That’s how it was. Up until class 11, letters remained a major part of our communication with family and loved ones.”

Today, people just ping each other on WhatsApp or drop quick emojis. Where’s the magic in that? Cadets, though, still treasure their letters. They can close their eyes and remember the rustle of the paper, the smell of the envelope, the heart-pounding joy of reading a reply.

As Louis Armstrong sang — and every cadet who ever wrote a letter would agree — “What a wonderful world.”