Waiting For that Letter to Arrive......!!!!

I read this post by Veena - Which took me back to my own growing up years. Memories started to flood in like snapshots of some different movie - that life seems so long forgotten, as if a part of someone else's life.

The subtle letter writing, exchange of cards and everything seem so long gone with all this techno-gushing in the lives.

It was way back in '97, i just filled a pen pal club form (it was some International thing)at a friend's place, just for the sake of fun, rather than anything else. Time passed and it went out of my mind completely! And then again childhood days are like that, there's hardly anything that could catch their fancy for a long time.
And so, i was no exception, and forgot all about it.

It was in late in '99, i was just idling around at home in the afternoon, and then the doorbell went off. It was the postman (in those days i used to be totally in my stamp collection thing and used to pester him a lot to give me, if any, new stamps on or off any envelope). He handed me a letter, I exactly remember it, It was a baby yellow colored envelope which enclosed a letter and two hand made cards wishing me Christmas and forthcoming new year. O h my God! now it dawned on me and all that form thing came back to my mind. My form had been considered and finally been accepted.
It was my first letter from my first Pen Pal!

My happiness knew no bounds! I was ecstatic ! It got such a thrill to get a letter specially addressed to me and to realise that someone out there would be waiting and expecting my reply.
Thus began a whole new chapter of exchanging letters, pictures, mementos and cards.
Every time i saw the postman uncle, I used to rush towards him, expecting a letter. Her name was Kaisa, she was from Finland. Beautiful place, as she described it, its cultures, practices and everything from weather to its seasonal sports, and what not. It was a whole new experience. I was looking into a whole new world through her letters. Trying to visualise as to what she would had been feeling or doing. I'LL GIVE YOU AN EXAMPLE :
As, she wrote - I am sitting at the porch, under the sun, Its spring and the temperature is 15 degrees, Listening to the radio and writing you a letter an so on..
OR :
Its Late in the night, done with all my chores and now writing a letter to you..

Its actually not easy to express all my feelings out on the blog, because some things just cant be explained or expressed, its just in the heart.

But, yeah as i was growing up, the pressures of my academics took me, with my boards 10th and finally i shifted to Delhi to do my 11th and 12th, still i tried hard to maintain that constancy, but somewhere in between it just went out. With three address changes we somewhere lost touch, and with life's own demands, it went somewhere at the back of my mind.
(I still have all her letters intact along with the envelopes and cards she had sent in.)
I wish, i could start off again.

May be it not my fault all together (human nature - we somehow tend to defend ourselves), with all this rise in technology - emails, community sites, phones - have taken a toll on this subtlest art. A personalised letter gives such such a high thrill which is incomparable with any other counterpart.