emails and Letters

Had heard this nice speech way back, from Srimathy at the toastmaster's.
Here's the gist, its a good read.
Dec 2007, the week before Christmas, I decided to send a gift to a family friend. I was trying to make a point, that I did not care for expensive gifts and what really mattered was the thought. I chose a book, “Life’s little instruction book.”, cost about 7.00$. I wanted to tell them that it was a fun book to read with someone you cared about. I was also wishing them a life full of happiness and joy. Keep all this in mind as you listen to my story. I went online to Barnes& Noble.com.

I ordered the book, selected Gift wrap and spend a lot of time compressing all this into 250 characters. I clicked the confirm button and soon I got an email confirming my order. There was no gift wrap and there was no personal message. I panicked. I called customer service and after a long wait I spoke to a real human voice on the other end. I was told that the gift wrap could not be fixed but a personal message was easy to add.

I spent the next fifteen minutes spelling out an Indian name, and with all the tension tried to recreate the message in 250 characters. I was not completely happy with how it turned out but I let it go. Finally the book arrived in few days. No gift wrap, no message and surprisingly, the from address was theirs too. So they were left wondering when they ordered a silly book. They were polite to me but the meaning of the whole act was totally lost. Far from how I had imagined it.


I would like to talk today about the charm of hand written notes and letters.Communication modes have changed a lot over the years.Especially now that postcards have been replaced by status updates in facebook and twitter.The new culture is one of speed and hurry. Everything is shortened and we sometimes do not even write complete sentences. I know a friend who signs off as R. In the midst of all this, why is it more charming to receive or send handwritten notes or letters?

There is a charm to choosing fine stationary and writing with a fountain pen. People sat down just to write a letter. We did not communicate in short sentences so often and so there was more to communicate in the written form. More of it was also retained by the recipients. There is something about letter writing that lets your thoughts flow. If you are in the right frame of find, it is almost unstoppable once you begin. You make a special connection with the person to whom you are writing. History has many a record of collections of love letters, educational letters and travelogues.
There is a fine collection of letters that Nehru wrote to his daughter Indira Gandhi when he was in prison.

Those of us who are from the age of letter writing have our own treasures. The last time I went to India, I brought back a large bagful of old letters. I still enjoy holding the piece of paper in my hand, feeling it, and cherishing the old times… Strangely I don’t have any letters from the last five or six years. The internet age has taken over and I really dont read even a week old email

You may notice that of late even Christmas and New Year wishes are not addressed to individuals, but to groups. Mass distribution lists are good for work related communication. But when you received a ‘happy new year’ note along with 50 others copied on it, it seems very impersonal. Probably its fitting with the times of hurry and speed.

In the evening when you pick up mail, it would be nice to receive a letter for a change instead of bills and catalogues. If you enjoy that, take the time to write to someone and you will be surprised at how much joy there is to writing.

Preacher Hijacks Plane!

This news is really funny.
A preacher who is a junkie hijacks the whole plane on the basis of a fake bomb. And we think airport security has been made tougher. Probably he didn't bring his fake bomb inside a shoe or as a liquid, else he would have been definitely caught.

Tickets in black!

Had a pretty fun filled weekend. me, missus and couple of friends drove down to New york just like that. We thought as we are getting bored on a long weekend, why not go and watch U.S Open!Crazy decision at the eleventh hour, but it was worth it.

we drove (actually one of our friends did the majority of driving for 12 hrs) 18 hrs in 2 days to and fro and watched the matches on Saturday for 8-9 hrs. What was bizarre about the whole trip was that we paid 240 bucks for a single $62 ticket. The ticketing company even provided us the shuttle to the stadium.
I thought selling tickets for more value at the eleventh hour was illegal, and that this used to happen only in India (before the multiplexes took over the business from single theatres). But I guess this business is pretty alive and thriving and very much legal here! and we curse our Indian system for corruption and black marketing.
The only difference is that I guess, those black ticket selling kids/men in India lack the sophistication and internet marketing techniques, else you would be buying your next khan movie or T20 tickets in the net!
probably the day is not too far, you never know.
cheers