Letter writing is history

 The other day I discovered that my handwriting has gone from bad to worse. My writing these days is mostly limited to taking notes at face to face meetings at work. As more and more meetings take place online, I take notes on my desk top computer on Notepad. Only solace, compared to the hand writings of many here, including my son's, mine is an exquisite art.

Handwriting also varies with age, the older persons have better handwriting, explained by the fact that a generation ago people use to write a lot using a pen or pencil. Keyboards used to be associated only with the typewriters. The persons using them during my growing up days were often ridiculed as "mere typists" in a derogatory sense. A writer is a mere typist these days, typing at tremendous speed on our gadgets while our handwriting suffers. It won't be long a piece of good handwriting will find a place in museums like dinosaur fossils.

The last time I remember writing a letter was years ago in 1997 when I wrote a letter my grandmother from USA. She was staying in our village at that time, the only mode of communication to her. Soon e-mails and texting took over. But they are no match to the euphoria and nostalgia associated with a letter written by hand which brings the flavor of the person who has written it.

A letter of appreciation or a love letter written by hand has a personal touch and fragrance, a handwritten card will never be replicated on a text or email message. As mentioned in an epic Kishore Kumar song "KHUSBOO A NAHI SAKTI KABHI KAGAZ KE PHOOLON SE" (Fragrance can never come from paper flowers), a handwritten note has a soul associated with it, when compared to an inanimate text or email. The fun of writing on a paper Diary can ever be replaced by blog writing on a cellphone.

Yet we have to live with the fact that time and tide wait for none. Those who can't adapt become extinct like dinosaurs or Cheetahs in India (The Maharajah of Sarguja, MP shot dead the last Asiatic Cheetah in 1956 causing it's extinction). Anybody is recording a VHS tape, using a floppy disk, purchasing a Kodak camera roll, using dial-up modem these days ?Does anyone remembers when he or she sent a telegram last time ? We have to accept the reality and move on. Still it doesn't hurt to write a handwritten note to appreciate some one, because there is a tangible difference.

Reminded of legendary Akshaya Mohanty's song..

"SAKALA RA GAADI,

GALA GADI GADI,

KALA DHUAN CHHADI,

DAKA GADI GALA RE,

SETA NARANGI NARANGI NARANGI...

CHHATI DHAKA DHAKA,

MANA SAKA SAKA,

ASICHI KI TANKA, HATHA LEKHA DAKA,

DAKA BALA DELA RE...

CHITHI BERINGI BERINGI BERINGI.."

"The morning train chugs ahead,

 Spraying its black smoke upwards, 

 The Mail train proceeds on

 with its compartments coated crimson.

 While the Heart beats, Mind shudders

 Expecting her handwritten letter,

 Alas ! The Mailman delivers,

 a post-paid letter, to the receiver".

Many may not be familiar with the Odia term BERINGI mentioned in this son. It is the word Bearing pronounced in ONGLISH, i.e, Odia accented English). It denotes a letter with unpaid or underpaid postage stamp, the receiver must pay the postal charges in order for the postman to deliver it.