Opinion | Columnists

Treasure trove of love

We will soon complete another year of togetherness

  • By Sudha Subramanian, Special to Gulf News
  • Published: 00:00 February 13, 2012
  • Gulf News

We will soon complete another year of togetherness. Like many girls around the world, I had dreamt too — of meeting my knight in shining armour except that in reality, there came neither the knight nor any armour. All that came along was a man on a bike. But, that is not where the story began.

Our love story started with letters. Letter-writing to be precise. We wrote copiously. Line after line, page after page. It was our only means of communication.

Telephones were for the rich and mobile phones/emails were unheard of. I remember writing at the slightest pretext. Nothing could stop us as we fervently wrote.

Those written pages had dreams, ambition and a wish for a beautiful tomorrow. I read those words scrawled in neat handwriting earnestly. I re-read them many times after I received them and it always brought a smile to see my handwritten name on the envelope. Sometimes, I just stared at the lines without even reading them. No matter how bad the day went by, I could clutch the letter and soon feel better.

They were not just words. Sometimes, there was a personal touch to it. A little heart tucked away in the corner of a page, a little sticker or anything. Sometimes, there were hand-drawn smileys and some other times, there was a line from a song that always tugged at my heart. I can tell with exact precision how my heart lifted me in the air and fanned a smile on my face.

If we romanced writing letters, we also had our share of fights. We poured out our frustration in words and expressed our anger. Sometimes I would scribble all I could and post. And then would come the impatient period of waiting for a reaction.

I can't really tell when it happened but those letters stopped. I neither wrote nor received any. Perhaps because telephones were beginning to get accessible. After all, it was so much simpler than to write.

There was no need to organise my thoughts or settle near a desk to write. Most of all, it hardly took any time and I always knew the reaction immediately. The bonus was that I could also hear the voice.

So, it is highly unlikely to miss letters because, I actually enjoyed the telephones more — or so I thought. That was till I found the treasure chest.

Nostalgia strikes

A couple of weeks ago, I chanced upon a paperback file. It was old and dusty. On the cover of the file was a neat little sticker. It read, ‘A treasure trove of love' . Curious, I opened the file. To my surprise, I recognised my familiar handwriting. It was then that I realised that all my letters were neatly tucked in that file folder. As I read, I could instantly feel the warmth, and I could not wipe off the smile on my face for that entire day.

Nostalgia struck me like an old disease. I headed off to get my own collection of letters that were stacked in a cover. As I read those mails that went back and forth, I couldn't help wonder why I had abandoned such a beautiful tradition. Today, we do finish each other's sentences but we no longer have the time to speak about our dreams or our lives.

We mostly talk about who will drop off our kid or what to do over the weekend. We do fight about who will do the dishes or whose turn it is to pick up the trash. There is no time for love, life or dreams. Perhaps it is time to pick up that pen. After all, romance is the sheer essence of life, no matter how old we get.

 

Sudha Subramanian is an independent journalist based in Dubai.

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