Can Thoughtful Writing Survive in the Modern Inbox?

I woke early this morning, tackled chores, brewed a cup of coffee, and settled in to check my emails. Anticipating the usual notifications from my bank, blog engagement data, or the weekly offers from Musafir or Emirates, I was caught off guard. Instead, I stumbled upon a digital relic—an authentic email, complete with structure, full sentences devoid of text abbreviations, proper syntax, and impeccable grammar. It was the whole shebang! Someone had actually written to me – instead of resorting to one of those impersonal Whatsapp messages that I usually read a day or two after they are sent! How cool, no?

Reading the email beckoned me to a time when the internet hummed at the pace of dial-up connections. A time when my communication with friends and family bore the weight of contemplation, when writing was an art, and was also my only way of connecting with friends from Mount Abu to Melbourne! (You know who you are)

As a student I was tethered to an hour of internet usage a day at home. Our egg white box computer sat on a Magenta table that was custom made to hide a printer, a bulky CPU, a noisy modem, and box speakers. We were all teched out in the early 2000s primarily thanks to my father’s foresight in recognizing the transformative impact of computers on the world; he wanted to ensure that we had the skills we would need in the future.

But one hour a day was never enough for me and so I found solace in cyber cafes, where for 10 rupees an hour I could navigate the fascinating virtual landscape, develop the grace of an Orkut maestro, stumble into strange chat rooms where people had even stranger user names and I would inevitably find myself hastily clicking the ‘x’ icon on a tab whenever a questionable advertisement or image popped up—usually just as the café owner was making his way down the aisle to ensure nobody was misusing the sacred machines. How times have changed, no?

Despite it all, nothing brought me more joy than spotting a familiar name in my inbox. Over the years, I transitioned from writing and sending letters to reading digital life updates, and both brought me immense joy. I have fond memories of walking to our neighborhood post office with grandma, queuing up to buy stamps, hunting for a glue stick and then finally slipping the envelopes into the slender mouths of big red letter boxes. Later, I made memories reading out emails to my folks, and printing out the ones I wanted to keep going back to after my time online was up. Email, once an art form, unfolded as a tapestry of my thoughts, meticulously woven in the quiet hum of a cyber café or against the background noise of a family of four in action.

Fast forward to the present, our corporate corridors reverberate with the staccato rhythm of mindless email culture, CCs, BCCs, instant messages, and WhatsApp pings—a cacophony that drowns the eloquence of artful communication. The digital realm, once my sanctuary for profound exchanges, now succumbs to the tyranny of brevity, FYIs, and is often used as a substitute for actual human to human communication.

In this era depth is sacrificed for immediacy and I yearn for a revival of the email’s grace. The corporate milieu, with its stilted language and curt directives, has eclipsed the nuanced beauty of written expression. People just don’t have the time to care for what they communicate.

If you’re reading this, I would ask you to reflect on the richness of what we’ve forsaken. The email, once a vessel for emotion and contemplation, has been long ignored. Can we not, in the midst of this digital deluge, salvage the sanctity of our written exchanges? As the festive season approaches with Christmas and New Year’s just around the bend, now is the ideal moment to delight someone with a heartfelt, personalized email message. Craft a note that goes beyond words, making them feel truly seen, warmly remembered, and genuinely cared for.

Can thoughtful writing survive in the modern inbox? I am going to try and reclaim the art of connection in the remaining ten days of 2023—one carefully crafted email at a time. Watch your inbox just in case you’re on my list.

The Sounds of Home

Yesterday’s newspaper bore the gut-wrenching headline, “Monsoons delayed by a week to nine days”, … but they’re wrong, as usual. Morning’s sunny skies are long gone, and above us, the heavens are painted in an apocalyptic palette as voluminous charcoal clouds glide gently overhead threatening imminent torrential release.

Picture taken by my father at 5:45 pm, 7.7.2022.

Around me, housewives scurry to bring in their laundry from balconies, rooftops and makeshift hangers, tarpaulin curtains are being strung by shopkeepers, and little children are screaming out to each other from windows and rooftops, as paper kites in freefall land on random terraces around the neighbourhood.

The scene around me has changed in a matter of moments. As thunder begins to rumble in the heavenly corridors overhead, July breezes carry the sounds of the city into every open casement.

A nearby temple has come alive with the blowing of the conch shell. The bells from the church behind my home seem to be ringing in unison as the strong updrafts rock the clappers from side to side. Bells from the anklets of young women tinkle and cyclists announce their approach as they all scurry to find cover.

Returning home is always an assault on the senses. Calcutta is teeming with life, it’s townships dense with people, buildings, flower markets and vendors. The city smells of camphor, dried leaves burning, pungent smog and delectable street food. And since the sights and scents are so compelling, I realise that I’ve rarely ever stopped to listen to and reminisce over the soundtrack of my formative years.

An airplane flying overhead punctuates my reverie and I lean over my terrace to listen to the sounds emanating from the street below. I hear crows hailing the coming deluge , the tinkling from a passing cycle rickshaw, a satsang of ladies in the distance and a damaru player in one desperate attempt to sell his remaining ware – but all of these seem to harmonise spontaneously and add to the lively soundscape of my home.

While I live and work abroad and watch the world whizz by me, ever changing, ever evolving, returning home is to come face to face with a city ageing gracefully and choosing to remain unchanged, immortal even. The sights don’t necessarily make for picture perfect memories if you’re looking for those, but there’s a warmth in the city  not to be found in many modern day Shangri-la’s beyond her borders.  And despite the plethora of reverberations, there is still a charming unison in the tsunami of sounds.

This is not a cacophony of disjointed melodies but a blend  of sound bytes etched permanently in my memory, in fact they are memories in and of themselves that fill my heart with nostalgia and the “bliss of solitude”. These are the sounds of home.