What ‘The Correspondent’ by Virginia Evans Returned To Me
Postman! You’ve Got Mail! ‘The Correspondent‘ rings the pleasantest of my memory bells.
My dear reader,
If you are reading this, I want to thank you for waiting for me for nearly six months. It has been the longest in 21 years that I have been away from this blog. At some point, I hope to share what happened in this time and I will, after I make sense of it all in my head. For now, it has been a journey of self-reckoning and sometimes that needs quiet time to simmer alone.
I have just started reading ‘The Correspondent’ by Virginia Evans. After pondering it across book sellers, covers and formats, I finally bought the red-and-pink covered paperback available in India. It was at a friendly bookshop (a new one to me), after a book club meet (also new to me) and a cheerful, laughing, eyes-shining conversation with another booklover who happens to work there. I called him ‘an alcoholic who works at a bar’. Then I sat down in the food court with a snack to gloat to myself over my new books.
It took me back to the 2000s when I was new of disposable income and a wonderful bookshop had sprung up conveniently close by. I would spend my weekend, ‘investing’ my earnings in books and even more hours browsing the stacks, observing other readers, becoming friends with the staff. And then I would partake of a snack and connect with my new friends of pages, in a food court (that was considered fancy then). I felt very intellectual, independent, stylish. I felt good. Yesterday, I felt that way again, after a very long time.
A new home for my bookish self, a new people.
A few weeks after I published this post, one of the Landmark employees called me to say that it had been circulated through the company and made its way to the top management who asked that I be offered a discount the next time I visited the store because I had written something so warm about them. ❤️
The book charmed me at first random opening, which brought up a letter about Kashuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go‘. I am greatly cheered by signs such as this. This was the book that signalled a hard but worthwhile lesson for me last year on who I am, how the world is. It was the start of my mapping how I want to navigate the rest of my life, at least for now. This is why I finally put down the cash on the book.
This morning, it felt easier to choose to read over my morning tea, rather than watch a video. My Current Reading list is full of very good books which feel like hard work. But this one had the feel of re-opening a much cherished letter—or more recently, a postcard. The letter that I read, immediately struck me for the journey it took on a single page. It would have felt like a bait-and-switch in what we call conversation today. But because it was a letter, as I well remember from my days as a letter writer and diarist, it followed the beautifully clean rules of engagement that human civilization had perfected over centuries.
First, the warm and very personal greeting. Specific ‘Thank you’s are the best way to do this. Then a precise, yet polite apology for a relatively minor No. And finally a firm stand on the really big thing. Sign off with precision, politeness and always, warmth. Perfect *chef’s kiss*.
I remember this in my bones, like it’s muscle memory. This is how I write emails. It is how I try to frame my messages. Any act of communication deserves consideration. The image of several crumpled pieces of paper, around a pair of hands poised over a sheet of paper is dramatization of that consideration. A letter that arrives with ink smudges and cancellations or overwriting shows that consideration too. I thought word-processessing and digital connectivity were tools to improve these, not to erase them.
In the past few months. I’ve been told that my messages are too long and boring to read. In a professional interaction, I was put off by the callousness of an emoji tapped on a painstakingly crafted email that I had sent. Especially since I had asked an important question, which the recipient did not answer and worse still, penalised me for asking. I have since, stopped saying hello and thank you on emails to them. I have also began rethinking what I want to share with the person with whom I text and when I occasionally lapse into authentic sharing, I am quick to apologise and hold myself back from initiating the next conversation. And this is how conversations are thwarted.
Yet, I don’t want to linger on this sour note. My first instinct after reading the letter in the book, was to share this gem of a thought with two people. One, a friend who equally loves words, quiet pondering and gentle sharing. I sent her a voicenote, as with her, it feels safe for me to try this unfamiliar medium. The other, a new friend who is full of bright ideas and translates youth culture to me, but who has an unusual gentleness to her and might be open to the idea. I am going to send her this blogpost.
I wonder if the current buzziness of this book, will inspire more people to return to letter-writing and correspondingly the art of communicating well. It would be easy to say that anyone who was already this way, is already doing it. But that feels cynical about the people who just weren’t born yet to an era where letter-writing was the norm, and the art of communicating well was aspirational. It is also needlessly harsh on people such as myself who have just felt defeated by a world that responded only with harshness. I want to think that it serves as a reminder to us that we are not alone.
It feels like the current proliferation of communication media has not actually democratized conversation but has overwhelmed culture with rigid agenda over personal need. People don’t speak because they need to share something. They do so because without it, they believe that they will cease to exist, that they will lose their citizenship in humanity. This is why they are cruel and gatekeep those who don’t follow the same patterns of platform usage. It is also why they are fearful and frantic in their communications.
Nobody ever needed ‘letter-writing detox’ or to ‘take a break from diarying’ or ‘step off the postcards grid’. None of these forms of communication were meant to word-perfect, formatted perfectly or measured for worth in terms of visible response from the other person. Their only purpose was to communicate thoughts and feelings. And the art of them was to nurture a conversation. Consideration for the other person, gentle curiosity (not intrusiveness), a desire to share something one created in one’s mind (rather than dumping) and closing with a request (not a call to action).
That is why letter-writing is an art.
The other side of this courteousness and consideration was the knowledge that not everyone was a letter-writer or even the same kind of letter-writer. One hoped of course, for a reply because it was and still is always a delight to receive mail. It is so strange for someone who remembers that feeling, to now live in a world where notifications are treated with a groan (even by oneself). This is not because communication is unwelcome. It is because this is not communication at all.
Last week, I listened to a voice note sent by one of the two people I’ve mentioned above (which had been sent a day earlier). She said that she really appreciated having a space with me to respond on her own time and headspace. I want to remind her that this is a space we create together. It is also why I felt safe sending her a voice note this morning that was not a reply to hers, but this new thought. And that voice note became this blogpost and my return (I hope) to writing. Nothing about this is groanworthy; only deserving of warmth and cheer.
People who wrote letters and sent postcards did not make character judgements about themselves based on who responded and how. That is not how communication works and I say that knowing that human communication has preceded digital platforms by centuries. And this does give me hope. Humanity has always found ways to connect and bond. A decade of so is a mere blip in history and culture. I will close on that cheerful thought.
I hope you have a day of cheer and peace, after you close this window.