Snippets about love letters make newspapers enjoyable to read in the midst of daily treachery and gore. An old letter in a bottle washed up on shore thousands of miles away and decades after it was written; a love letter from a long dead poet that has found its way into the public domain; a collection for us to draw ideas and lessons from.

We sigh a bit when we think of love letters. And if we have had our share of them, and are still living with the person who wrote them, perhaps we go over them from time to time, reliving magical moments and giving ourselves reasons to go on when the going gets tough. Or perhaps we scrutinise them with a fine-tooth comb, pointing out raucously and relentlessly: “This is what you promised me all those years ago! When are you going to live up to it?”

It is reported that men write more romantically eloquent love letters than women. (Or could it be that there are more letters from men that have been preserved by women recipients?)

I have two men in my life, from whom I have been separated by circumstance for a combined total of about 15 years and it should follow that I have boxes full of love letters, right?

Ah, how I wish that were true! Unfortunately, for one of the men, sweet nothings are just that — nothing — and any endearment beyond a stiff and formal ‘Dear’ (also used, remember, in the formal Dear Sir) would be going over the top, so there is nothing for me to cull from even the letters he wrote in our courting days.

Dramatic change

With the other, however, it is different. From the time he learnt to speak, he had something to say — most of it loving — at least for the first 15 years of his life!

That changed dramatically, of course, when he hit his mid-teens and there was nothing remotely loving about his words or his actions thereafter. He sank into cryptic SMSes and one-line e-mails – but who cares about that when I have his prolific early years to fall back on? It started with a ‘m-a-m-a-m-a-m-a-m-a’ that he didn’t know where exactly to end, so he just kept on forming the same letters and I kept on encouraging him, thrilled that he wanted to communicate with me in a way that ensured his words would echo down the corridors of time for me.

Right through junior school, there was no stopping him — if he emptied his lunch box, he’d leave me a note saying he had enjoyed it, if he didn’t empty his lunch box, he’d reassure me that he had not gone hungry because he’d eaten someone else’s snack! When he went out to play, he’d leave a note to tell me what time he’d be back, when he didn’t go out to play, he’d slip me a note telling me why he hadn’t — even if I was only a few feet away...

Every one of those little scraps is preserved. (They were, without exception, bits of paper, for where would he find a full sheet to write on when his heart was ready to pour out words in the middle of his busy young life?)

Others who have only those fragments to warm their hearts would probably laminate them, keep them in a safety box, neatly numbered and dated, ready to be read through whenever in need of an emotional ‘lift’. But I have left them scattered in different cupboards and drawers in the house, used as bookmarks, propped up on shelves, folded into purses...

And thus they pop into my life at unexpected moments: Little treasures that bring sunshine and smiles and happy anticipation to everyday activities through the years.

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.