MAY THERE BE LIGHT
"I am sick of these messages," he told me. "See this, I am deleting this, even without reading it. You can, then, imagine the kind of strain it has placed on my mind."
He was talking about the Diwali messages on his mobile phone.
I think he wasn't alone in felling so. I had already become sick. So sick, that, this Diwali, I sent just two messages, and then stopped. "What's the point in sending like this, like a herd - with no true feelings - just because every one is sending them to every one around? ... Who reads them, any way?" ... This was how I had already felt, even before this gentleman voiced his own irritation to me.
The Greetings-Card companies have shut their shops. Now, these cell-phone companies are cashing on this fashion. Yes, the only 'happy' people during this 'happy diwali' are they -- the cell-phone people!
If alone a thousand messages like these could make my life happy!
But, who listens? Who understands? As someone tells me as I write this, "What you think, just because you write this blog piece, all this is going to stop? Bhai jaan, jaisa chal raha hai, chalne do."
He very well knows, I possess no such illusions!
I thought of the Christmas cards, today. How, as the Season approached, we waited for the postman to bring them! How we read those wordings on the card, and particularly how we cherished those 'personalised' hand-written messages! How we decorated our cribs, our Christmas Trees, with our finest collection of years! How sad, bad and mad we felt when a card, from some one we loved, failed to arrive! And, how doubly delighted we would become when we found inside the envelope, along with the card, a long hand-written letter, as well!
Gone are those days. Now, sitting at home, you can beam across the glob a thousand Christmas SMS's - all by a single click on your PC ... and all free, too!
Pray, some one reads them, too!
I remember this 'odd ball' called Uncle Leo. He died at 85. Just three years before he died, he attended my wedding. In fact 'our' wedding, because, my brother Harry and myself - we both got married together. The next day, our mom handed to her newly wed sons two separate letters, beautifully hand-written, with some of the most exquisite wordings. Uncle Leo was our relative. But, we children had no much interaction with him. Yet, he wrote those letters to us, the young men, as though he would write them to his own children. Frankly, I wouldn't be able to exhibit such patience and care even at this age of 50!
That's why messages such as those of Uncle Leo are called, so fondly: 'Special'!
We cherish them for long, we remain humbled by them ... and, indebted, too.
And, these cyber-world messages?
My message box reads: 'EMPTY'!
GERALD D'CUNHA
P.S.: May there be joy, light and wisdom in your life ... I pray this with my true feelings!
He was talking about the Diwali messages on his mobile phone.
I think he wasn't alone in felling so. I had already become sick. So sick, that, this Diwali, I sent just two messages, and then stopped. "What's the point in sending like this, like a herd - with no true feelings - just because every one is sending them to every one around? ... Who reads them, any way?" ... This was how I had already felt, even before this gentleman voiced his own irritation to me.
The Greetings-Card companies have shut their shops. Now, these cell-phone companies are cashing on this fashion. Yes, the only 'happy' people during this 'happy diwali' are they -- the cell-phone people!
If alone a thousand messages like these could make my life happy!
But, who listens? Who understands? As someone tells me as I write this, "What you think, just because you write this blog piece, all this is going to stop? Bhai jaan, jaisa chal raha hai, chalne do."
He very well knows, I possess no such illusions!
I thought of the Christmas cards, today. How, as the Season approached, we waited for the postman to bring them! How we read those wordings on the card, and particularly how we cherished those 'personalised' hand-written messages! How we decorated our cribs, our Christmas Trees, with our finest collection of years! How sad, bad and mad we felt when a card, from some one we loved, failed to arrive! And, how doubly delighted we would become when we found inside the envelope, along with the card, a long hand-written letter, as well!
Gone are those days. Now, sitting at home, you can beam across the glob a thousand Christmas SMS's - all by a single click on your PC ... and all free, too!
Pray, some one reads them, too!
I remember this 'odd ball' called Uncle Leo. He died at 85. Just three years before he died, he attended my wedding. In fact 'our' wedding, because, my brother Harry and myself - we both got married together. The next day, our mom handed to her newly wed sons two separate letters, beautifully hand-written, with some of the most exquisite wordings. Uncle Leo was our relative. But, we children had no much interaction with him. Yet, he wrote those letters to us, the young men, as though he would write them to his own children. Frankly, I wouldn't be able to exhibit such patience and care even at this age of 50!
That's why messages such as those of Uncle Leo are called, so fondly: 'Special'!
We cherish them for long, we remain humbled by them ... and, indebted, too.
And, these cyber-world messages?
My message box reads: 'EMPTY'!
GERALD D'CUNHA
P.S.: May there be joy, light and wisdom in your life ... I pray this with my true feelings!
Comments
She went to sleep after reading some, i continued reading them.
As mentioned by you My message boxes too are empty, but still I have my older friends ,relatives letters and child hood friends letters(all of them). They are my treasures.
How true this post is.