The Lost Season of Letters!

A few days back, my mother ordered me too clean our store room. I had to do it as my dinner was at stake if I made any excuses. The store room looked really creepy when I switched on the yellow bulb. It was full of newspapers, magazines and lot of things which were disposed in there which we do not use at all. There wasn't a single paper on which dust hadn't gathered. I was confused about from where to start. Hence, I took the small wooden table and sat on it to decide. While glancing through the room, I saw a large plastic bag which had been disposed at the corner. Stretching my leg, I pulled the bag near me and opened it. It was full of envelopes, bank correspondences, some bank statements and a few inland letters.

I pulled out some inlands to check them out. The letters were of Grandma when she used to write us every month, long time back. They were written in malayalam, as I cannot read the language I put them side and took out some envelopes. Some of them were marriage invitations, others were some random brochures but between them I saw a colourful letter which attracted my eyes. The letter was of my cousin which she had sent me some ten years ago maybe. She had made various drawings with colourful sketch pens around the places where she wrote the actual letter. I was in sheer nostalgia while going through the lines which made my eyes go wet as I finished reading it. I leaned back on the wall behind me and closed my eyes.

Sweet old childhood memories were all over my mind attached to writing, sending and receving letters. As we did not have a telephone in those days, my sisters and I used to be in touch through letters. I remembered how we used to share our problems, incidents and experiences through those letters. The expressions and feelings that one could deliver through hand written letters are not to be found in todays modern means of communicating.

The love and affection of a person towards the other could be felt while reading a letter, as the person has personally bought an envelope and stamps, wrote and went to the post box to drop it. Moreover, the joy of reading one's own name on the envelope and letting people around you know that the letter is sent to ME! is something very special :)

I remembered how I used to recognise the relative by the letter even though I cannot read my native language, by the handwriting on the address page. On a festival like Rakshabandhan my sisters used to send me Raakhi alongwith a long letter. Immediately, I used to tear a page from one of my school notebooks and sat down to write a reply with a 1000 watt smile on my face.:)

I even remembered how I used to sit beside my father when he used to write a reply to Grandmother's letters. I even used to ask my parents to read the line in her letter in which she has asked about me!

Travelling through these memory lanes, I even remembered a friend whom I had met just once in life. He lived in Chennai and was a neighbour of one of my relatives. We became pen-pal friends and wrote each other regularly. When I heard that he changed his residence, I could not write him anymore and nor did he after that, later I too changed my place, hence we lost touch since then. I hope to get a hint of him someday. :)

We have had the same postman who drops letters since a decade. Earlier during Diwali, we used to tell him to come a few days before the festival began and gave him the Diwali bonus and personally I used to fell really happy because I troubled him a lot when I expected any letters :). But now, its hardly any worth giving him a baksheesh, as he visits us only to drop some bank related letters, credit card and telephone bills. :(

The season of writing, sending, expecting and receiving letters has faded away into time. I don't think it would ever come back. With the advent of technology, the new means of communications like emails and SMS have took over and people have changed according to the trend. Though an email of SMS is just a few types and clicks away, they do not carry the freshness, the feeling and the magic that a letter used to convey.

Ah! How I miss the season of letters. Do you miss it too? :-)

*SPLASH!!!* I opened my eyes and saw my mother standing in front of me with a water jug. Oh heck! I fell asleep in the store room itself. I realised, no dinner for me today!