The (lost & found) warmth of handwritten letter

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Ani S writes this interesting story of how he still remembers the handwritten letters from the parents and ponders what is he leaving behind for his kids.

Remembering the times- when not so long ago - we were kids, and the postman used to drop that blue inland letter from Baba to Papa. Or that postcard that Maama write to Ma on Rakhi with the Money order. I still remember reading thru them - again and again. Though i rarely met Baba - we lived so far off - but i knew him through his letters. Even after so many years, i still remember how he used to start his letters lovingly addressing his son. And when the new years used to come - our homes used to be full of those cards - handmade, or otherwise. As years have passed, when I have my kids - these things seem something like history. In an age of mobiles and mails - and low tariffs of airtimes for both local and international calls - i guess we all have stopped writing letters - or even writing for that matter.

I didn’t get that many chances to write to my parents, as I was always with them. But sometimes when they used to go for a long vacation at our native place, we used to write to them. Our used to be a community letter where my elder brother used to start the letter, my sister in law used to write in between and I used to close with a short paragraph in the end. It used to be a blue inland letter available at 75ps, if I remember correctly. Otherwise, I have written lots of such letters to my other relatives and I remember writing on occassions like Diwali was used to be quite an affair.

Till some time ago we still used to send Diwali greeting cards to our relatives with some special personal message which was contextual to their lives and really enjoy it. Though my parents used to hunt for cards with more religious touch , I managed to convert them to cards created by NGO’s like HelpAge and Cry.

But I just realized after reading Ani’s post that I no longer do this and send a twitterish 140 charcter SMS, which is again just the foward of the best Diwali SMS that I receive from others.

But sometimes the warm is in the message and not the medium. I have moved to Bangalore but still call my old friends, neighbors and relatives from Bombay and I really love it when I can sing ‘Happy Birthday To You !!!" exactly at 12.01 am in the midnight and be the first one to wish my special and dear ones. The best moments of the life can be captured any where and memory can take any shape. I have some good ones captured and pixalized on my hard disk :). The handwritten warmth is taking a new form and shape over the emails, sms, instant messengers, photos, social networks and many many more things. You just need to pour your heart out on the keyboard.

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