So Far Yet So Near

When we speak to our loved ones on the phone, over whataspp, zoom or google meets we just don’t realise the huge distance or how far they are. We also do not realise that we have not met them over years and time just dissolves in the space of the internet.

However this was not the case about twenty years ago. I remember how much distance one had to carry in our hearts just to hear the voice of our loved ones or read their had written feelings in that blue heart pages of the inland letter. I would eagerly wait for that blue companion to reach my mail box. I would excitedly rush to get it and read and re read the contents pouring the love expressed inside.

My mother and I thought of many devices that would help us to send the affection to our close family who had chosen to stay far because of work or studies. We used to tape our voices over the recorder and laugh or sing songs so that it becomes easier for our beloved to carry on the tasks of the day. We also wrote diligently every week and it was an exercise that never failed us. That duty we created helped us in many ways and has helped us even today to keep in touch.

Those beautiful inland letters still are kept in boxes, the photographs sent, carefully placed in heavy albums. In todays world we can click and delete anything in nano seconds which many times has made us forget the value of being in the past. It should be said that to access is much easier which has its own advantage but it has made the sincerity towards our feelings a little hazy. In that haze we often times stand to forget as easily as we can remember.

Let us, I urge keep both in store, the virtual and the real both can amalgamate into a zigzag cross roads of several meeting points and quick departures. These goodbyes will only be met soon, which can then become realities. Our world is being far enough to be near, very near and let that closeness remain as the mementos we will treasure forever.