Monday, August 18, 2008

Posted Letters Or The Lack Of It (Things Which Can Make You Hate Technology, Just A Little)

Dear reader, what happened to letters?? I mean 'the letter' letter. Anyone remember those? The one you write sitting in a comfy chair or window sill with a mug of coffee, remembering the person you are going to post it to. The one for which you select the fountain pen which makes your handwriting extra beautiful and the special Archies letter pad with touching lines at the bottom and small hearts in the background. The sort of letters which took days to complete. Those on which you wrote urgent in the covers even when it is silly, and those you put in the post box with prayer that it wont be lost, because it could never be reproduced, as it unique and is not a forward click away. What happened to those letters?
Today, when I was digging into the mess I call my shelf, I came across this old letter pad, one which I selected years back so carefully and excitedly taking hours deciding between two which I liked. It only has 3 or 4 pages now, the rest used up in my compulsive urge to write letters years back. Many of its pages were penned to my legendary pen-pal (I can write a book about him. I plan to write about him. But I so don’t know where to start.).some of them went to my parents and one even went to the Reynolds company, telling them that we all love their pens and their quality is failing ,so please do something (yeah, I was crazy, so were my pals at school.)
Why no one writes letters any more?(if someone is out there, who does , sorry buddy, this excludes you and cheers, keep it up!) Now every one is into texts, emails and IMs. Post is all about business, periodicals and greeting card now. Nothing personal attached. But weren’t letters 'the thing'? The ones you read when you sat alone in rainy afternoons, the ones you accidentally found in a book and look through quickly and smiled, or the stalk of them you keep hidden in a box, received from a very cherished lover. The ones which evoked silly smiles and random laughs and tears of long gone love and unkempt promises. The ones which, when you inspect the handwriting, you see the anger jabs, the string of dots of love and hand drawn smilies. Then there is a whole world of NBs,PSs, endearments, small pieces of tissue papers(which we used to put in inlands as they are super-light and so, undetectable.),the 'read this in a mirror' notes, the crazy nicknames in the from space in cover, the open with a smile note which actually makes you smile…..
Now when I see the things listed, I am getting all sad. I mean, I used to have all these things and I never realized how much I missed it. The email can never bring the nostalgia a letter brings. The faint scent, fading words, the handwriting which makes us feel near to the person with whom it belonged to. The extend of which I once saw in a letter, the two or three words written by a 2 year old boy to his mother months before he died. It's been 25 years since and his mother still keeps the letter. It’s all faded and threatening to tear up, but every time she comes across it, she cries. She has hundreds of long letters from her two other children and nothing values up to this one. How do I know this? The mother is my mom too and the boy was my elder brother.

4 comments:

anjooran said...

Nice
It touches

Btw how was your test?

smalltown_girl said...

i got 25%only. so i got another go at easy death. the sir is likely to kill me nx time. and am supposed to be studying. am such a ____

glad 2 hear u liked it.

snow said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
snow said...

hi there, I don't really remember how/when I added your blog to my favorites list, but well it's there and I'm glad 'cuz I got to read this amazingly touching post -- I hear ya, letters used to be THE thing! Nothing captures the essence of words more beautifully than a letter penned down in its own sweet time... ah man, I'm all nostalgic now, but hey good writing, keep up!

Cheers!