Oh the postbox…

Is letter writing an art of a bygone era? Does the advent of new forms of communication necessarily mean death to the old forms?
Letter writing was so important then, it used to be a part of our school curriculum in the language sessions! I wonder if it still is!

I used to love writing letters, especially long ones (sometimes at the risk of boring the receiver to death!!). And I used to love (still do) getting long letters addressed to me…
I sometimes feel they used to hold the kind of belongingness that these emails / sms can’t match! Besides the wait for the letters used to be worth it! You write a letter, post it, wait for it to reach the receiver, wait for reply and so on…
That reminds me of an old lady who used to stay in the apartment complex facing ours. She used to stay with her son and would wait for letters from her daughter staying in another town. 1.30 was the time when the postman used to arrive and that also happened to be the time we returned from school. She used to stand out at her door and check if she could spot any of us in our balcony. She would then ask hopefully using gestures (we were quite far for her to yell out) if the postman arrived. There used to be despair when she expected letters and they would not arrive. The day she used to get her daughter’s letter, she used to gesticulate to tell us that her letter has come and there used to be a kind of joy on her face.

Then were the times we along with our mom used to visit our grand parents in another town. We used to send letters to dad back home and would wait for his replies. And also the letters to our friends when we were on school vacation…
I have still cherished some of the letters from friends 10 years on and do re-read them time and again.

These days the only things we receive in post are bills / bank statements and solicitations!