PS You Love Them

Today I accidentally got to have a look at the letters I addressed to my dad and mom years back as a little kid residing in a boarding school almost 350 km away from home. Let me write down one of those letters for you exactly as it was.

My dear mum and dad.

How are you? I am fine and happy over here. How is the climate over there? Here it is good. I celebrated my birthday. The dress was very nice and the greetings. We are going to black thunder as a picnic on Saturday 12^th September. Charge 150 they will put with the bill. My quarterly Exams will finished at 20^th September. You should come on 21^st September Warden Miss said. How are all at home? Write a letter to me as I do for you. Pray for me as I do for you. I end this letter with lots of love and kisses.

Your loving Son.

The letter was dated 7-9-98, when I did my 3^rd std and was in a scribbling hand writing which even I found it difficult to read. There was also a crappy drawing behind in pencil that I had drawn(God, I really didn’t know what that meant no matter how hard I tried, so I gave up. May be I’ll upload it on FB for you’ll to decipher it). Just felt so much amazed and went on to read the rest of the letters dated since 1995. The bolded part in the above letter was standard in all of them which made me wonder if the climate was always good (Wish I can still add that part to my letters, sorry e-mails). And I think the words in the letter are far high for a 3^rd std student. It brought me a lot of memories from the good old past when life was limited within the fences of my school. My dad has all those letters filed up in the locker and values them more than all the money that he has earned over the years.

I agree it really is wonderful to catch up with any of our friends wherever they may be with just one click but what we miss is the days when we send a letter and eagerly wait for a reply from the other side. Today when there’s a friend’s birthday coming, we get alerts on our homepage on which we leave a post on their wall, leave them a text msg or send them an e-greeting which is standard for everyone, from acquaintances to our best friends. Where is the time and care that we spend on identifying the best of greeting cards from numerous others and address them to our loved ones with loads of care!

Though the Tele-communication era has made our world a global village, the truth is that it has distanced us in terms of the love and affection that we share for each other. But it is so heartening to know that besides all the 2G, 3G and S Band spectrums, we still have our age old India Post functioning and we still receive a few telegrams, personal letters and greeting cards. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone (no, not OD letters. Lol). My humble request is that, give it a try, spend some time, script a hand written letter and address it to your loved ones ignoring all the temptations posed by the 21^st century and witness how content you feel and also make the addressee feel. So what’s holding you, pen on J.