Shammi Kapoor, Tabassum, Sunil Dutt, Saira Banu, Dharmendra's letters and autographed black and white photos to fan go viral, NFAI keen on preserving them for film buffs

Several letters written by yesteryear's eminent personalities from the entertainment industry along with their autographed pictures took Twitter by storm recently. Writer Sam Jawed discovered these letters during a storeroom cleanup in an album treasured by her late aunt Mehrunnisa Najma. These letters were written to her aunt by some of the most legendary Bollywood stars including Shammi Kapoor, Dharmendra, Rajendra Kumar, Sunil Dutt, Saira Banu, Tabassum and many more. These letters transported everyone to the golden era of Bollywood. Comments started pouring in, from around the world, on how amazing the collection is. And, now, the National Film Archive of India has reached out to Ms Jawed seeking her approval on preserving this collection for film buffs. We take you through Najma’s collection that united everyone on the so-often divided social media. Speaking with ETimes, Sam says, 'Everyone knew of my aunt’s collection but somehow no one ever gave it much attention or importance. She used to show it to us when we were kids and over the years it was forgotten. When my aunt died in 2006, the album came in my possession. I kept it with the rest of her papers and it remained forgotten. It was rediscovered recently during a clean-up and I decided to share it on Twitter. I had absolutely no idea that it will get such a response. I think we need to pay more attention to memorabilia left behind to us and do our best to treasure it in the same way that the person who left it behind did in his/her lifetime.' Najma was born in the 1930s. Her father was from Punjab and her mother was from Burma (Myanmar). Najma loved movies! She listened intently to songs on the radio and wrote letters to her favourite movie stars. The series began at a young age and continued until they were married. After marriage, she stopped writing letters but did not stop watching movies.