Un-posted
Letter…
HARISH
MONGA DIDO
With
the entry of digital era, the letter writing is a thing of the past except in
official capacity or in business houses. The old-timers used to
write a letter on a past card not wasting any corner space by writing vertically
and even horizontally. The Inland letters were used for a more
spacious and on plain paper using the envelope for more than one
page. Both these methods are obsolete now.
I
recollect that once I suggested to the Postal Department to introduce the
attractive and beautifully designed postcards and inland letters, to keep the
tradition of writing letter alive at least on festive occasions like new year,
Diwali, Dushera, Holi, birthdays or marriage anniversaries but it looks that
the same posted letter might have a find a dumping place in the old files of
the department.
With
the introduction of smart-phones, hardly anything is left un-posted as every
moment action is shared on the social media instantly to update at the
receiving end.
Even
otherwise, we write and speak for others, otherwise, there is no necessity to
write or speak.
Since
the postcards were an open letter, nothing personal or objectionable or which
you don’t want to share with others was written. The best course of using the
plain paper and post in a sealed envelope as even the inland letters were read
at the receiving end other than to whom it is addressed, though it was sealed
the folded ends were open both sides.
Writing
letter is an art, either it is official or personal to convince the receiver
for the purpose it has been written. It is in fact, the
questions-answers session if there is an exchange of letters and in that sense,
you become a co-author of the letter.
I
recollect that sometimes there are typographical mistakes in writing a letter
and the typist at the Secretariat has to face the consequences by typing a
letter addressed to Chief Engineer as Thief Engineer. And sometimes the whole
sense of letter is changed with typing of ‘now’ as ‘not’. In one of
my write-up, rise to the occasion was typed as rice to the occasion, thereby
totally changing the concept of the sentence. Another incident of
writing on the official noting as ‘Not approved’ was instantly changed on
getting recommendations from the seniors by adding ‘e’ to the ‘Not’ making it
as ‘Note approved’.
Among
Indian Industrialists, JRD Tata was probably considered the most prolific
letter-writer. He often said he had an ‘intense dislike’ for making
speeches. But he loved writing letters. There are over
40,000 letters by JRD in the Tata Central Achieves (TCA), Pune which is
probably arranged broadly in the category of – family correspondence, Master
files, alphabetical files project files and miscellaneous
correspondence. Usually, in his serious letters, he weighed the pros
and cons of the matter under consideration thoroughly and arrived at a
conclusion which he communicated to his correspondent. In his letters, what
appeals to the reader most is what may be called the directness in his
communications.
Frankly
speaking, writing a letter is purely a personal business between the two and
reading by the third person is a cheating and unnecessary interference and
sometimes a very awkward situation. I recollect that when I got published my
book dedicated to the blinds community was a collection of various writers but
was to be given to anything above the cost of the book – Rs.12 in
1992. But someone who contributed to my book, wrote me a postcard
with such a abusive and vulgar language, because of demanding the donation for
the needy class despite his inputs to the book, was read by my family members,
which put me in a very tongue-tied situation that the letter written in haste
or rage to that person, could not be posted and remained un-posted in my old
diaries even now for 27 years.
I think
I have perhaps weighed the repercussions by giving a second thought not to post
the letter written by me in response to the postcard.
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