Crossing Boundaries.

(1 Apr ’11)

            My first pen-friend was Asha C, from Coorg. Born and educated in Mumbai, I hadn’t a clue where that was. I’d got her name from the Illustrated Weekly of India’s children’s page. I was so curious when I got her reply. We wrote on ‘inlands’, sometimes on postcards, seldom on paper for pasted envelopes were expensive. Over three decades later, I can still recall the smell of paper and glue, the slish sound of a letter being slipped under the door by the postman. We wrote of our schools, our families, our hobbies (writing letters was one, naturally) and we actually grew up together though we’d never met. Through exams, romances, crushes, tearful failures, adventure sports (she did sky-diving, I did mountaineering), marriage and children. It was only after domestic duties took over our lives completely, did the letters stop. This was way before Internet and cyberspace entered our lexicon. In fact, before mobile phones or even STD booths were seen.

            She wasn’t my only pen-friend. I had Teresa Walker, a music student from London, Richard Feusi, who worked in a restaurant, from Switzerland, even one prisoner from a small US town, whose friendship I discontinued after my family objected. On and off, I had several from various Indian states. Most times, though, my letters were locked up in a small tin box: they were mine, mine alone. I had a hard childhood, in some ways, and this hobby was cathartic. I could pour my woes, stretch my imagination, speak my heart to those who didn’t know even what I looked like (no, in those days we didn’t exchange photographs) and get advice or kudos from them. They belonged to my life though they weren’t really a part of it. Came adulthood and my constant change of residence, and the pressures of their professional lives diluted the regularity of the letters and eventually, my pen-friends and I gradually split. Monthly letters became once in a while, shrank to occasional postcards, further reduced to cards at Diwali, then died a natural death.

Thanks to those letter-connections, I discovered that people were the same no matter of what colour, creed or race, that emotions and attitudes didn’t change with culture or location. Some of my friends had a sense of humour, some didn’t. Some got flustered by a particular word, others glossed over anything negative. Even through ink, these differences and characteristics came through. By the eighties, this sort of long-distance pen-friendship with strangers unmet was extinct.

            Later, friends made across transfers and postings became pen-friends. There was no anonymity there, we knew each other and just wanted to keep in touch lest we forgot shared times. Once phones took over our lives, bills or not, we called, we heard each others’ voices, we laughed, shared news of children, husbands, ourselves.

            Attitudes changed, locations changed, ages changed, means of communication also changed. Those who could afford it began to travel to meet and stay with friends. Some bought homes in the same neighbourhoods so they could be together till the sunset of their lives. But what changed our lives completely, other than the nests getting empty, was the internet and the cellular phone.

            I have now a collection of emails and mobile phone numbers. I can sit at my keyboard and track and ‘meet’ old acquaintances online. Whatta high that gives. Across the oceans, on the other side of the planet, from different time zones, I meet people I have met sometime, loved and wish to connect with again. I learn about the zig-zags of their careers, share the joy of the success of their children… some say this electronic networking isn’t human contact. I vigourously object: any contact is good. These lovely souls, my friends, would have never met me again if it wasn’t for modern technology. Best of all, a place like Facebook has not only helped me find people from my past, in the desert-time of my life, it has enabled me to make friends with others with similar interests. I know I’m not alone when I declare that I love solitary walks in an early monsoon drizzle, that I envy those who can eat the non-transportable Kaalo Ishaad mango from Karwar, plucked ripe straight off a tree… and more. Best of all, I have been able to befriend people half my age.

            Ah, age. I started working at a regular job at the age of forty-four. Guess what, my ‘contemporaries’ and colleagues were younger than my married son. Didn’t I feel out of place? Oh yes. And I loved every bit of it. Still do. My friends’ ages now range from those in above sixty to those below twenty-five. To click, one doesn’t have to match years, just temperament, values, and chemistry. There are no boundaries to friendship.

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