This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

Deepa Baste grew up in a very small town in southern India with mainly books to keep her company.

I'm an only child, so there was no one to sort of, you know, fight with and play with at home.

And she didn't have many links to the outside world.

This was the early 90s before email took off or

AOL chat rooms realized their full creepy potential. That's producer Vivian Lee.

But one day when she was 10 years old, Deepest father brought her home a children's magazine

with potential pen pals listed in the back.

Back then the idea of the pen pal was very popular.

To have a pen pal who lived abroad was was a big thing.

There were pen pals listed from all over the world.

Asia, Europe, South America, and deeper decided to write to two girls living in Russia.

But there was a problem.

This particular magazine actually came from a second hand shop

and was completely out of date.

The magazines that my dad found for me

were from, I think, the early 80s or so.

So I would, and I found them much later in the 90s.

So there was almost a sort of seven to eight year gap.

But even though seven years had passed since they listed their addresses in that magazine,

these two Russian girls, who were teenagers at this point, actually wrote back.

DIPA actually still has a lot of these old letters. at this point, actually wrote back.

...