THE LAST LAUGH
Why Being Near Water Really Does Make Us Happier
February 21, 2020
CLASSIC CARS 1987 Toyota MR2
February 21, 2020
LETTER
of the law
Remember letters? I mean of the postal kind. The ones we used to communicate with the world? Everything comes to me on my computer these days – such as bills that I can comfortably try to ignore and circulars from clubs that I’m foolish enough to belong to.
Never mind the fact that going there and getting out of my car is a major operation these days!
Then there used to be those love letters that came regularly (well, fairly regularly) from one’s overseas boyfriend and caused feminine hearts to lurch happily. Buttonholing my Dearly Beloved recently, we had the following conversation.
“What have you done with all those letters I wrote to you when you were in England?”
He looked blank.
“And you are asking me this after decades of marriage?’
“Perhaps for sentimental reasons...”
He snorted!
“Well, my pet – I have you in person, don’t I?”
He smiled ingratiatingly.
‘Don’t chaatufy me! You know I have written proof of all the promises you made before I married you.” (I had recently gone through those letters and realised what airy-fairy nonsense we fell for in our courting days… so I produced one)
“Read where you say you will always look after me.”
He looked affronted.
“Well, don’t I?”
“No!”
Affront rendered him speechless. Really, the poor darlings of our youth imagine they’ve been God’s gift to women.
But let’s talk about the arrival of those letters…
Teenagers like me would hang around in the verandah waiting for the postman to arrive around 10.30 a.m.. His was a familiar face. Usually, my school principal mother wasn’t around but my father’s work kept him busy writing at home. On principle, Colombo parents were a suspicious lot.
They were quite used to letters being thrown over the wall or garden hedge, or slipped under a closed gate and even given to a surreptitiously bribed gardener. Being an American, my mother was inclined to believe in personal privacy but my Indian father did not.
“So show me the mail,” he would say, upon hearing the postman’s bell. I was home from university and my intended Dearly Beloved’s far from frequent letters were sent to my home.
“Only for Mummy,” I would say.
Father was irritated. He corresponded regularly with academics around the world and expected daily letters.
“Let me see.”
Neatly extracting my own missive, I would hand over the rest. But my father was no fool.
“And from whom is yours, may I ask?”
“Oh a college friend,” I would glibly reply, sidling quickly into a bedroom.
Father got busy checking his expected mail and phoning the post office to complain that his letters were being held up by lazy sorting officers. He spent a happy half-hour hearing apologies, which were wearily given by the postmaster regularly. It was easier to agree with him than argue about the efficiency of the postal service.
Arguing with him meant that my father would proceed to call a higher authority. Fortunately, Father was out of the island quite a bit and the postman gave daily thanks for his absence.
Not that things were much better in the university hostel. There was no censorship of course, since we were deemed to be adults. But the curiosity of Miss da Cunha, the office handler of mail, was all encompassing.
“So what’s the news?” she would ask, brightly. We usually told her. She was a spinster and lived vicariously through our romances. Actually, it was quite sweet of her – she never repeated tales and shared ‘boyfriend problems’ with those who needed it.
Modern technology has put an end to all that and sometimes, I yearn for that slow pace.
Most school principals like me longed for the slower pace of a past era when we were bombarded by parents, students and teachers asking for urgent replies to minor matters. Even after retiring, I still do!
