by D T Lohith

Created on: February 08, 2007   Last Updated: March 14, 2007

A letter to Nobody

I want to write a letter. To whom ? Nobody in particular, in fact, to tell the truth, I do not know whom to address this letter, and why am I writing. I just feel like writing, that's all it matters. Hey, wait, is that all ? If there is no recipient, if nobody is going to read the letter, why should it be written at all ?

I feel, some questions cannot be answered, may be, this is one such.

I remember my school teacher saying often, a letter should be "short and sweet". Well, nicely said, this is correct, if there is a reader. For a letter like mine, which nobody is going to read perhaps, no such rules or norms will apply. Or, if that teacherly statement is true, Late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, the great Statesman and Politician, the revered intellectual, the architect of Modern India, must be a 'fool of the biggest order !'. When Nehru was is prison for a long time (as a political prisoner, of course !), he wrote a letter to his daughter Late Indira Gandhi, which was in due course, published in the form of a thick book called "The Discovery of India". Do you call a thick book 'a letter' written to a daughter byher father !? 'Discovery of India' is not short, nor is it sweet. It traces the 'so-far-unwritten-happenings'of Indian history, more in the form of a beautiful narration, and not at all in the style of a letter written by an affectionate father. No father, most assuredly, will subject his affectionate daughter to such a rigmarole exercise of going through a history book.

With the advent of computers, the habit of writing a letter by hand on paper has almost vanished from the urban scene in any part of the world. Perhaps, a very small percentage of humanity still lingers on to the beautiful act of writing letters on papers, and sending them by mail. In this present 'paper-less world', paper is not used for beautiful exercises like writing letters, sonnets or stories, but it is rampantly wasted for many acts like dry cleaning the butt after shitting !

I do not blame the present day people at all, who depend on computers extensively. I too started using the computer to a great extent, after I went through a bitter experience about ten years ago. I was translating some books from Tamil to Kannada, and as soon as one book was over, I was expected to send it to the publisher who was in another city. I was writing on paper, and once it happened so that I did not have sufficient time to make a photo copy

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