Little Little Big Things

Gone are the days when, one used to sit by their doorstep and wait for the postman to arrive with the letters of their loved ones. Things are way quicker now. One just sits at their home or at office desk and with just a single click e-mail[s] can be sent to the entire list, stored in the computer’s address book.

I remember my Nani waiting for postman to arrive with letters. It didn’t matter whether she was cooking, cleaning the house, or engaged in some other activity. She would know immediately when the postman would arrive, she would be excited while collecting the letter but once she had the letter in her hand and would open each letter patiently and read them for hours. They were letters from her distant brother and relatives. Sometimes they wrote everything happening in the village and other times they were simply wishes-like the New Year’s. Nani replied to each letter, she would spend hours doing just that and I would just look at her read- most of the times she smiled as she read the letter but sometimes she cried too and there were times where she would cry and smile at the same time. The whole thing just baffled me.

I wondered if I too had to read and write so many letters…but very little did I know that things would not remain the same. By the time I was 13 years old, there were faster modes of communication – the telephones (even mobile phones) and of course the e-mail. I assumed that one would never pick up a pen and write on the paper again – like my Nani did, but I was very wrong.

I received my very first letter from Bhaiya, he wrote one when he left to the USA for his further studies. We did talk on weekend over the phone and sent e-mails to each other everyday. I remember he did not post the letter, but sent the letter through someone who came to India for a small visit. He not only sent me the letter, but he also sent some chocolates, a nice white t-shirt with a big blue glittering butterfly printed on it…but none of these caught my interest like the letter did! I was really surprised when I first saw the letter and was very happy. I sat in my room and started to read the letter very slowly, absorbing every single word, feeling the emotion and imagining his voice in my head as I read the letter. When I had finished reading the letter, I realized that I had tears rolling down my eyes…now the letter was very general, he just asked me to “study well”, “listen to mummy-daddy”, “watch TV limitedly” and so on. These were usual stuffs he told me everyday, yet there was something more attached to that letter which made me cry. Even today when I read that letter I have a lump in my throat and numbness in my eyes and I really don’t understand why!

That was not my last letter, there were many more written by many others, but none with much love and care. But there is one other letter, which meant “a lot” to me when I received it. Like always, I was sitting in my room chatting with my friends when my Dad knocked the door…I went out and found a birthday card! I was more curious than surprised at first, as I didn’t expect anyone to send me a birthday card through post. My parents were as curious as I was, they were like, “which friend of yours is from Delhi?” And my immediate response was “Aakriti!” I was really happy! I mean, who writes to a friend you have met online just a couple of months back? It was not particularly a letter, it was a small package that had a little key chain of a man in it, and also a nice bracelet, and a card, not picked from Archies or Hallmark, but it was handmade. She had carefully dried the rose petals and stuck them on the card and written beautiful poems just for me! That really made me feel special and that moment I knew, I had a very special friend and I cannot thank her enough for one of my best birthday gifts ever!

Have you ever written a letter or received it? Maybe next time before sending an e-mail we should all think about writing a letter. No, we don’t have to write them all the time, but we can at least write them on special occasions and tell them how much they mean to us.

Isn’t it surprising how small little things can mean so much to someone? It doesn’t have to be a letter; it could be a book, a key chain, a bunch of flowers, a locket, or even a simple drawing of something that connects two hearts.

“Simple things are the most extraordinary, but only a pure heart can recognize them!”-Paulo Coelho