REVIVING THE ROMANCE OF LETTER WRITING By Sangeeta Deogawanka, Kolkata, India
It’s a long time since I have made any snail-mail (oops!) writing submissions. Even the occasional packets I send are through human couriers. For the advent of e-mail, has made life easy.
The reason why I prefer email submissions are threefold. First, of course, it works out cheaper. No SASE is required. Second, the turnaround time is quicker. Third, it saves on cardiac check-ups when I walk the tightrope with deadlines. Of course, there is yet another closely guarded reason, that no writer will tell you till ‘he has arrived’. It is easier on the writer’s morale to get e-rejects than rejects by post. Needless to say, this is something every writer has to go through someday or the other.
In retrospect, there is always that element of thrill associated with opening one’s mail vis-à-vis the inbox. There is a whole lot of procedure and buzz that goes into opening a letter. You wonder whether it contains a reject or a cheque. You look through it, feel it, and make wild guesses. When you finally cannot contain your curiosity and excitement any more, you look for your knife and slit it open with care. If it happens to be a reject note, after all that progression; it definitely guarantees a week-long dampener.
This made me wonder, if we writers don’t use the post any more, who does? For judging by the way editors mention receiving thousands of submissions, I was always under the impression that the two-way mail traffic sourced by writers, represented a considerable bulk of mail. So I visited some of the local Post Offices and here are some of the findings!
The maximum postage being bought at the counter was by job applicants. Next, in volume was postage bought by firms for sending out interview call letters. After that, came postage bought for use on speed post packets and parcels. Obviously, next were the stamp dealers who bought to stock-up for re-sale to collectors and of course, to affix on their world-wide mailers. Then there were the stamp collectors who bought sheets by the dozens in the scant hope of discovering some error in design or perforation. Last and the least, was stamps bought by ordinary folks to affix on their letters. What a multi-faceted use for a humble piece of paper devised for conveying letters!
These staggering facts on the eve of the World Postal Day made me wonder, whether our kids will ever know the joy of receiving letters from their aunt living abroad or granny on vacation? Will they ever experience the joy of letter-writing, except for the ‘class-room letter-writing exercise’ which anyway they find boring? For the thrill of looking at exotic stamps of other countries, the collective enjoyment derived from reading letters of holidaying relatives can’t hold a candle to the habitual checking of the inbox.
Technology has given man so much - cell phones, net-mail, gazets and gizmos. So who wants to write letters when you can call up on the cell-phone at cheap rates or send a SMS for a rupee? When you can e-mail whole documents and post holiday snaps via MMS or e-mail, who would want to make the effort to post a letter?
Well, we may not want to – but let us do it anyway.
Why not take the time to buy that ‘Anniversary Card’ and send it by post, rather than assign that ‘chore’ to an automated 123greetings.com service. Why not drop her a line to the grandmother instead of calling her up over phone. It will give her weeks-long pleasure untold.
Let us bring back the romance of letter writing in our everyday lives, and keep this vignette of history, the humble postage stamp, alive and thriving.
lovely! u know, i still write some letters to my sister in college. she feels "embarrassed" hehehe.
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I like that!
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Only business mail and wedding cards come by snail mail these days. Yeah, it was so nice to receive letters... there was a handwriting that you recognized, the anticipation, the thrill... lost forever...
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I still cherish my grandfather's mails to me, written in my school/college days. the ink is faded, the inland is yellowed but the memory is as precious as ever. yet again, the letters my husband and I wrote to each other during our courtship period, brings back such precious moments...emails don't have that charm, perhaps the present generation is poorer by the loss of such nostalgia?
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Oh yes, courtship through letters - nothing can beat it Suneetha!
Thank heavens I have plenty such 'memories' stowed away.
Can this SMS / email generation have such unbeatable keepsakes?
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Yeah Irene, in college letters used to be like huge dollops of sustenance, wouldn't you agree?
As for recognizing handwriting, you r right, so many (Nazreth) mem'ries associated with the same!
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Yeah, Sister Brigid handing out those letters... all of us wanting to receive one... you used to get lots!
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Hey,I am a vivid writer and love penning down my feelings and thoughts on to the paper but lately with the cell phones all want a simple SMS and they have 10000 reasons, and am sad to see this plight of our postage system. Had been thinking about writing down something on similar lines and you did. So seems may people could love relieve letters and cards via the post. Great!
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Hey, Ttat's great! Please do write Jessie, you can approach one topic from a dozen angles.
Yes, nothing beats scribbling your thoughts on paper, more spontaneous I think.
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Hey Sangeeta,
You know what! Your write-up made me wonder when I wrote my last letter. Well, I think that was nearly 15 years back when I was studying in Class 5 and wrote a letter to my uncle's wife (who was then his fiancee), just to tell her that how eager I was too see her as my aunt. I still remember the delight on her face when she showed that letter to my uncle when they got married. So true, we are forgetting this art of writing letters. Letters have this personalised touch to it, which probably can never come in an e-mail or an sms. Great write-up!
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Thanks Neha.
Yes, letter writing is indeed becoming passe'.
Do you know, a lot of historical stuff is gleaned from letters of our predecessors? Though-provoking ain't this?
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What a wonderful idea! We now even depend on emoticons to express our feelings, even typing out the words seems a hassle. The other day my daughter's friend actually made a card for her birthday which was such a lovely gesture!
There is so much fun in browsing for cards!
We need to rediscover simple joys!
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Oh yes, Archana, I like what you said - "we do need to rediscover the simple joys" !
I think, instead of the classroom letter-writing exercise, schools ought to make it a project where the kids actually write letters and post to each other.
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When I stayed in boarding school and wrote a letter to my mother, tears used to drop on the letter and smudge the words. When my mother read the letter, she could feel the emotions. Now even you break into tears while emailing, the emotion does not reach the recipient.
Also these are the days of free ready to use eCards which do not happen to convey the same kind of emotion as the traditional paper cards. I remember how I loved to receive the paper greeting cards and decorate my room with these cards!
Thanks Sangeeta for making us go back to our nostalgic past and make us think!
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I am glad Guna,you liked it.
Indeed, these e-cards are so robotic like, they do not really give any pleasure, not even the thought that the sender rem'mbered yr b'day - coz you know anyway, the details were posted in the site sometime back!
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Sangeetha,
Thank you for writing something which i have always thought of. I still like the idea of writing letters but the process which involves like buying the postage stamp,a cover and then finding a letter box to put it in and waiting for days to hear from the person- just think. Though the ' romance' of writing letters is good, the time it consumes is a villain. So at present there is no other option but to turn to our big eeeeeeeeeeee.
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Hi Wilma,
Thanks.
Do agree with you, the process of buying postage and posting letter,et al, are deterrent factors. I guess we could still do it in trips, send postcards from venues, whatever...
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Hi
Of course, writing is an art but then I can't imagine writing something without using the delete, undo and redo functions...We all have become so much used to using the back space and delete functions that it would feel odd to strike something out and proceed further in the real physical world of writing!
lalitha v raman
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Hi lalitha,
You are so right, but a recent experience of a 48 hr blackout took me back to writing on paper - and the results were mind-blowing, even if I say so!
So why not try and see if it works out for you too?
Shall share a joke with you - philatelists post empty covers for the sake of the stamp or postmark on the envelope and simultaneously send an email saying the cover is on the way!
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