A real letter

Just a couple of days ago. I wrote a real letter, you know-with pen on paper. I stuck a stamp on it and shoved it into the "Other than Tamil Nadu" slot in the Post Office. Right now, if I got the box right, an owl or a plane should be carrying it across the seas to its destination in Singapore.

And I'm pleased as punch!

In the days when I had just one e-mail account(good old Hotmail!)and orkut could
well have been a lean-meats store in Kampuchea, I used to love writing letters.

Really. I used to pack thick sheafs of papers filled with my large, right sloping cursive, mostly in black ink.I even had a stock of different types of paper, of course, to fit the personality type I'd be writing to, the flowery pages, some traditional auroville handmade paper, the cigar-banana thick sheets. Frequently,I'd buy coloured pens, ink ones, sometimes to make fancy illustrations on the margins, just in case the writing got colourless. And I'd walk to the General Post Office to buy just-released stamps to put on the envelopes.

I don't know if all the various people I was Pen-Pals with enjoyed these letters:To the firangi ones, I wrote about the rich history and culture of India and the south; to those in other states, it was unending accounts of the history of Chennai and its most famous locales! To read them now, you'd think I would have turned out a historian, albeit an immature one, or worse, fascist! Maybe, I have, actually. Historian, not fascist. I do chronicle stuff for a living. MAturity, I hope, was acquired over the years!

And then, I used to meander, just like this. Start with one thing and then run away with another...And leave my poor readers to make sense of the thing... I surely do hope they weathered the reams and went until the last when they'd be assaulted by an absurd amount of hand-drawn smileys and exclamation marks! Mercifully, I wouldn't end with love and kisses! Or would I?!

Anyway, Naveen my friend, the letter I wrote to you a couple of days ago is slimmer, on real good handmade-paper; with close packed right-sloping cursive, slimmer now; and has no smileys; some exclamations and certainly no history of the world! Thanks for writing to me, first, a proper letter. Somewhere, something told me, one good turn deserves a letter! And there you go!

I might waltz into Landmark tomorrow, not even look at Harry Potter, walk to the stationery section and pick up some of that strawberry-scented paper I've been hearing about. The next time, I can compensate for lack of reading material with exotic smelling material. But, that's the next time! Until then, I'll just go and check my Orkut scraps!