Will Somebody Please Write Me A Letter?

This is another one I found from an old collection of articles. Still holds good - the write me a letter part.

I can't get over the fact that my family and friends do not remember my postal address anymore. They have all shifted to e mails (and SMSs and Whatsapps and Whatsupps) which do not require any knowledge of postal addresses. Now if the family and friends do not know my whereabouts it may not be such a bad thing after all (I have been trying to lose them for years), but e mails/smss etc have other features that make them a lot worse than the letters that family and friends sent me earlier. Emails and their ilk are curt, rude, come in by the dozen, and often with an attachment that accompanies them like an insolent, unpleasant friend. And the James Bondesque alpha numeric messages do not fool me a bit because I know the senders are not as busy as they make themselves out to be. 

I have nothing against messages getting crisper, but there are a couple of things one must watch out for with great alacrity. One of the great deceptions of this form of communication is the instant personality upgradation that the sender assumes, thanks to typed alpha numeric matter. On e-mail and sms, all senders appear to be well organised,  intelligent and sensitive people which, as we all know, is not the case with 99% of the world. For example, my friend who scrawls like a chicken, has lousy spelling and sends in little after-thoughts on the sides of the letter discovered email/sms and was instantly transformed into a hip guy with a great sense of balance and proportion. Now that’s not my friend at all and anyone who forms an impression of him based on his email/sms better watch out!

And when messages from family, prospective romantic interests, prospective room mates come nicely packaged in email/sms, it gets really difficult to know what you are getting into. I mean it would be disastrous if the mature, perfectionist you were planning to marry turned out to be a giggly, air headed girl. I can't tell you how easily one can get fooled if one is constantly exposed to this kind of a deception.

In sharp contrast, the good old handwritten letters reveal the personality behind the message lucidly. Right from the way letters are begun and ended, empty spaces utilised and even by the way they are glued -handwritten letters provide an honest insight into the writer. For example one can easily make up one's mind whether one wants to live with someone who keeps spilling pickle everytime he writes a letter, or with someone who thinks every tiny space has to be filled with alphabet!

And one can hold letters and hug them and kiss them or tear them up if one so feels like it! With handwritten letters you can express your feelings. It's important you know.

One cannot hold virtual letters and cards or express any feelings because of obvious reasons - they are not made for that kind of an activity. You can send the best of cards to a person but if the person cannot hold it, its pretty much like dreaming. It is like showing a gift in the window and saying 'hey pal that’s for you'. I also don’t care much for messages that say 'hpy b'day 2 u!’, as if the whole day is spent by this wisher sending millions of such messages to the whole world.

Despite handwritten letters being long, boring and sometimes illegible, I realised that I want letters and cards with little PS messages scrawled along in the sides on my birthday. With little impromptu works of art aimed at cheering one up. With a whiff of perfume put discreetly put on it. With all the delicious uncertainty of a wonderful, hot dinner being served up.

I want the pleasure of opening the envelope carefully so I do not tear out even a small part inside. I want to be able to hold the card and open and shut it as many times as I want to read it. And I want to fill in suitcases of such cards and letters and preserve them and read them when I grow old.

I wish people would start writing letters and sending cards the way they used to, sometime (a couple of decades ago) ago. Yes, it’s a little more effort but since we all are either switching channels or surfing the net all day or moaning all the time about how little time we have, we could spare a few moments for this activity. I don’t mind waiting a couple of days more for the cards and the letters to arrive, but please, will someone write me a letter?

I promise to write back right away!