By: Tinky Ningombam
A long time has passed since I got a greeting card leave alone a letter for New Year`™s. The last I remember was a small tag card that came along with a gift which just said `Best Wishes`. I think cards and letters have disappeared starting from our generation. How long has it been since one bought a stamp and mailed a letter? How long since one mailed a postcard? We are so used to sending short text mails and instant messages that writing with our hand has become taxing for us. Gone are the days when we needed an Archies`™ card to express our love.
One of my priced possession is a postcard letter that one of my convent Sister sent to me. If I am not wrong that was the first letter that anyone had posted to me in my life. She had transferred to another school in the country and a group of us had written letters that we dropped for her through our school mail. To my surprise and joy, we got a letter back from her, tapped to the notice board. It was hardly two pages from her asking us about our school and telling us about her new one but with it brought the strange joy of receiving a handwritten letter marked with my name.
But this seems like ages ago. Handwritten letters have gradually disappeared from our social life. Despite my infallible love of paper and writing, I have replaced my ink and paper for the fast and edit-ready laptop. I recall the time in school when I used to write most of the friends`™ letters. That used to be a fun affair. I could create elaborate premises, use extended metaphors, show-off my love of words. In the olden days my trade would definitely have been one of writing letters for people.
Now we do not opt for slow communication. Emails and text messages have replaced what was once a very personal and slow process of penning down one`™s thoughts and then sharing it. There is something about the act of thinking and stringing words writing to someone. Then the bittersweet feeling of waiting for the letter reaching someone and the anticipation of a response.
With letters, the thoughts are permanent. We cannot pen down a transient thought. It has to be a commitment to our feeling at that point of time and it captured what we felt at that moment. Whether it was a forceful scribbling with dabs of ink on the corner of the pages or a phrase that was gingerly written after many corrections and cross-outs. I believe that the auto-corrected electronic word documents or type pads cannot capture the personality of a handwritten note.
It is in-fact a secret joy for me to find second hand books where I find small notes at the sides, a small doodle or even a piece of handwritten note as it lends more character to the book which has captured a little bit of the history of the previous owner. And for that I hoard my own scribbled notes. Random bad literature and handwritten notes which once meant something quite different to me. If one asks anyone about the last time we wrote a letter to someone we might not even remember the year. Goethe said that letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind after their passing away. Be it Oscar Wilde`™s impeccable love letters or John Keats`™ pained last letters to his friends. The charm of handwritten letters is one that will have no match to compare with.
