Monday, November 9, 2009

Do you post?

Yes, do you post? Not scraps or blogs silly! Do you post letters (not mails / mail chains) ?
When was the last time you actually posted a letter?
With due credit to this *Internet age*, I must say, people have almost forgotten how to write letters.
There was this interesting conversation at the lunch table today - My friend mentioned that she'd dress up her kid as a post-box for the fancy dress event at his school! Reason? Well, so that the kids are aware of a thing called 'post box' existed once upon a time :)
We talked about our school days, when we kept in touch with friends/cousins in another city, through letters.
I remember waiting for the postman to deliver that day's letters. He would make his rounds on the cycle of his, going house to house, every afternoon at around 3 pm. Nothing stopped him. Not the rains. Not even the sultry heat of the coastal city.
I dint receive any letters on most of the days. But on the day I got one, it'd fill me with an unusual sense of joy - something you feel when you get a surprise gift. My cousin and I wrote letters to each other. Every letter had the same opening & closing lines - "Hi, How are you? I'm fine" / "Bye, ta ta " followed by some stupid hand drawn cartoons saying "bye". We both treasure those letters as precious tokens from our childhood.
Going through those letters now makes me fall out of my chair, laughing! They seem absolutely hilarious now.
Do e-mails/facebook/orkut have the same feel? Can one treasure one's childhood/adolescence years through these community sites or emails? Can the 10 year back scraps bring me the same joy as a 10 year old handwritten letter?

2 comments:

Prashant Mehta said...

I guess it's not about the medium. It's about the feeling. 'Post' livens up those fond memories when we were young - those times which we have cherished. I guess the same would be with texts. If the texting gives way to something else, our next generation would be as nostalgic about SMSes as we are about Snail Mail. They would even yearn for the way they shortened the words - ate up the vowels - screwed up the grammar.

I guess it's about the time you enjoyed the most - the agents in that time would then become 'special'

Lavanya said...

@Prashant - Yes and No.
Yes : The future generations may treasure their growing up years through social networking sites/emails. Possible.

No : Nothing can replace what a letter has to offer. Letter captures something that belongs to its author - his/her handwriting.

I loved the last sentence of your comment. I agree with you on that :)