Q1.
I. Your school is organising a musical evening on 21 June, World Music Day. You are presenting a Sitar recital at the event. Draft an invitation letter requesting your grandparents to attend the event.
Follow the guidelines given below to draft the invitation letter.
Format: Sender’s address / Date / Salutation: Dear… / Body of the letter: Ask about their well-being. Mention the event and give details—date, time, and venue. Request them to attend. / Complimentary close: Yours affectionately, / Name of the sender
Language: Use first person—‘I’ and second person ‘We’ and ‘You’. Write in a warm and personalised style.
Answer
This is an informal letter — the reader is your own grandparents — so the format is the informal one and the tone is warm. Two things are being marked: the format, which is fixed, and the warmth, which is what makes it a letter to family rather than a notice.
What a good answer must contain:
- Sender’s address and date at the top left. No receiver’s address in an informal letter.
- Salutation — “Dear Dadu and Dida,” / “Dear Grandpa and Grandma,”. A comma after it, and the letter begins on the next line.
- Paragraph 1 — well-being. Ask after them before you ask for anything. One or two lines.
- Paragraph 2 — the event, with all four details: what it is, the date (21 June, World Music Day), the time and the venue, plus your own part in it — the sitar recital.
- Paragraph 3 — the request, plus one practical arrangement (who will receive them, where they will sit, how they will travel).
- Complimentary close — “Yours affectionately,” — and your name.
- Language — first person I, second person you, and we for the family and the school. Contractions are allowed here; this is not a formal letter.
Sample answer:
14, Sonapur Lane
Beltola
Guwahati – 781028
8 June 20XX
Dear Dadu and Dida,
I hope you are both keeping well. Dida, is your knee better now that the rains have started? Ma tells me you have already begun the mango pickle for this year, and I am counting on my share of it.
I am writing with some news I have been waiting to share. Our school is holding a musical evening on 21 June, which is World Music Day, and I have been chosen to present a sitar recital at it. I will be playing a short piece in Raga Yaman — the one you first heard me stumble through last Puja, Dadu, when I could barely hold the mizrab straight. My teacher says I am ready now. The programme begins at 5.30 p.m. in the school auditorium, Sunrise Higher Secondary School, Beltola, and my recital is third on the list, at about six o’clock.
Please do come. It would mean a great deal to me to see you both in the hall, because it was your gramophone records that made me want to learn the instrument in the first place. Papa will pick you up from Nalbari on the morning of the twentieth so that you need not travel on the day itself, and I have already asked for two seats to be kept in the second row, near the aisle, so that Dida does not have to climb any steps.
Do write back and tell me you are coming. I will save my nervousness for the stage and not for your answer.
Yours affectionately,
Ankita
Beltola
Guwahati – 781028
8 June 20XX
Dear Dadu and Dida,
I hope you are both keeping well. Dida, is your knee better now that the rains have started? Ma tells me you have already begun the mango pickle for this year, and I am counting on my share of it.
I am writing with some news I have been waiting to share. Our school is holding a musical evening on 21 June, which is World Music Day, and I have been chosen to present a sitar recital at it. I will be playing a short piece in Raga Yaman — the one you first heard me stumble through last Puja, Dadu, when I could barely hold the mizrab straight. My teacher says I am ready now. The programme begins at 5.30 p.m. in the school auditorium, Sunrise Higher Secondary School, Beltola, and my recital is third on the list, at about six o’clock.
Please do come. It would mean a great deal to me to see you both in the hall, because it was your gramophone records that made me want to learn the instrument in the first place. Papa will pick you up from Nalbari on the morning of the twentieth so that you need not travel on the day itself, and I have already asked for two seats to be kept in the second row, near the aisle, so that Dida does not have to climb any steps.
Do write back and tell me you are coming. I will save my nervousness for the stage and not for your answer.
Yours affectionately,
Ankita
What makes the sample warm rather than merely correct: it asks a particular question (the knee, the pickle) instead of a general ‘how are you’; it connects the event to the reader (“it was your gramophone records that made me want to learn”); it removes their difficulties before they can raise them (the travel, the seats near the aisle); and it ends with a light joke. Those four habits are what separate a family letter from a circular — and they are exactly what the instruction ‘warm and personalised style’ is asking for.
Common mistakes to avoid: writing the receiver’s address (that belongs to formal letters only); using ‘Yours faithfully’ or ‘Yours sincerely’ (wrong register for grandparents); forgetting the time or the venue — the marks for content are usually tied to all four details; and writing a whole paragraph about yourself before asking how they are.