I yearn to receive a letter in my mailbox
Imiss the sight of umbrellas on a hot summer day because no one walks any more if they can help it. I rarely spot children playing hopscotch or cricket in the streets because they are busy indoors, mindlessly accepting deathly challenges on the internet. I crave sometimes for that childhood favourite, the sleek Phantom cigarettes, a sugary confection we sucked on nonchalantly, aping Audrey Hepburn loitering outside Tiffany’s in the iconic film ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’, but today children desire the real thing, laced with toxic nicotine that is so easily available outside schools and in corner shops. But most of all I yearn to receive a letter!
Oh! I get mail all the time from the phone company or insurance hopefuls or invitations to lavish exhibitions and lots of glossy brochures but never a personal letter, addressed just to me.
I read with dismay the news that London will soon phase out their classic red phone booths so ubiquitous to the city and their tourism because widespread prevalence of cell phones has made them redundant. In fact, these eye-catching, timeless structures have become a nuisance due to vandals and miscreants who defile and rob them systematically.
Will that also be the fate of our old worldly, rotund letter boxes, which sit somberly like brick-coloured penguins along the roads, their black flaps jutting out, solemnly awaiting the odd letter to fall in? I pass by the General Post Office almost daily, an officious-looking building, sporting a huge board encouraging youngsters to take up philately as a hobby but barely spot any activity. The telegram bade us a teary goodbye four years ago and maybe soon it will be the death knell for letters too.
Recently my mother showed me a file with letters exchanged between her parents during the late 1940s or so. My grandmother, a Sanskrit scholar, wrote in Hindi, while my grandfather who was at that time the editor of a daily in Lahore penned his in English. They were the simplest yet most beautiful exchange of ideas and plans for their new life and home together after marriage. In one, with great candour and humour, he warned her that his salary was frugal and his wheelchairbound mother could get crotchety! In another, she enquired shyly if his new bicycle was doing well. I marvelled at his forthrightness and also the patience and affection my grandmother, aged barely 17 displayed because she got along famously with her mother-in-law and had her eating out of her hands soon after the wedding.
So much of what was familiar is slowly vanishing, dying a neglected death. As kids in boarding school our first letters were dictated to us by the class teacher and then we added our personal touches like a drawing or a cartoon or just made hearts with crayons to show our parents that we missed them. Today, my niece writes emails from school on the computer and there is no eagerness or anticipation for letters.
The joy of seeing your name on the envelope and savouring the moment before opening it was so sweet and special but today’s children probably don’t have the time or sensibilities for it. The knowledge that somebody, somewhere, has taken out time to pen down special words and thoughts keeping just you in mind and the heady rush it brings is unsurpassable, to be relished and remembered by a chosen few.
I GET MAIL ALL THE TIME FROM THE PHONE COMPANY OR INSURANCE HOPEFULS OR INVITATIONS TO LAVISH EXHIBITIONS AND LOTS OF GLOSSY BROCHURES BUT NEVER A PERSONAL LETTER, ADDRESSED JUST TO ME