You've Got A Mail

It's fun reading through old mails. I'm not talking about the forwards and almost 'spam' mail that we've sent to our circle. I'm talking about those personal mail that we wrote to our friends, well-wishers and some time to even people who we've not even met. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those people who write to themselves, otherwise that would been exploration of a different proportion. 

I still have some of those handwritten letters preserved that my parents and friends wrote to me when I was in college. Those were the days of snail mail, greeting cards and demand drafts/cheques. Every mail was awaited with so much anticipation & desperation. Those mails could not be cherished in just one reading. A one pager small letter of sort (or note) also could mean so much happiness. One could see some hidden tears spoiling writing and thus bringing some more in your eyes.

Then came the days of emails and RTGS transfers. Emails are different from snail mails in one very distinguished way - I could never imagine the writer's emotional face popping out at the top left corner. Damn you Bollywood, why did you stop that brilliant special effect from those old days. From a technical point of view, emails are instantaneous. But then waiting for a email is equally frustrating. Interestingly, by this time, sms and yahoo chat had taken over a big share of our expressed views. It brought some more suffering for the impatient types. Worst kind of suffering was when you could see that person you are chatting with is typing something (in case of those online chats) but you are just waiting for the enter or send to be pressed. Those were the days, of thinking a hundred possible answers, reactions and counter reaction to every question that was typed in.

Email has one more peculiar issue - the backspace and delete functionality gives a lot of time for revisiting our views and thus hide that natural response or view that one has. In a snail mail, it meant cutting and thus could not be hidden from reader if the writer was confused or nervous or having a doubt about something.

It hid our handwriting too, and thus the entire focus shifted to spelling mistakes and grammar. If one was methodical in his method, even that could be avoided.

I have found myself changing my writing style over this period, there are more questions than ever, fonts have changed, so is the color and way I sign it off. I guess these are the things that will define our progression in life. One day there will be a science (like those handwriting experts's work) where one will tell things about me by reading my old mails.

Till then... lets just write a couple more mails to record our this stage of life and persona.