Just so there is no disaster. Just so there is no brainless punchings of the key board. Just so I have sufficient time to compose myself to write what may have got removed through accident. Just so I can surprise you with an early call …. so am I here, in your midst, perhaps ahead of the hour …

What had started as a gentle reminisce, as the IPL unfolded before my eyes, culminated in the harsh reality of the imminent loss that overtook the proceedings, when it was time to share it. Such tragedy, really. But gathering up courage and memory I thought it would be exciting to see if both could be tested. And hence this …

I had exuberance by my side, when I discovered that by cleaning up one’s surroundings, it did in fact have a cleansing effect on our being. And so what had remained pending for some time due to sudden travel, got occasion to be addressed. Letters that had come in from various quarters - fans, dignitaries, official office communications, personal and family, all received attention and happily I was able to pen down a few words, respond to requests, acknowledge greetings.

The visits to various countries and the grateful gifts one receives remain with me for days. Around me, close and within immediate reach. I often get the stick for being a hoarder, one that loves to store everything that comes my way - a little slip of paper given by an enthusiastic fan, a card hand made with affection and love, a Ganapati, a painting … just an endless flow of objects …

How can one ever have heart to do away with them ! They stay around and embrace me with their presence. Its not just the respect that one needs to give for having received, its to consider the effort in mind and body made by the person in assembling it. Going about building it, collecting material, buying it from a store, thinking what would best suit me. And days and days of preparation before it attains final form, fit enough in the eyes of the constructor to be gifted away. I find it most reverential and cannot develop the will to destroy or give it away.

The practice is and has such an old world charm about it. Those wonderful days gone by, when letter writing was such a beauteous exercise. Sitting in seclusion, thinking and imagining what and where the receiver would be and in what circumstance. Pages and pages of ink and pen deployed in the most attractive hand writing. Choosing the right paper - blue for love, white for peace, yellow for passion … ha ! Funny little innocent thoughts ! And then when it was over, to be reading it over and over again, so that it lingered with you before its departure through time and distance. Sealing the envelope finally and preparing for its journey. The walk to the post box, the gentle push into the slit made for the receptacle, pushing the fingers through it to make sure it had actually gone through and dropped to the bottom of the pit inside this red box, the conveyor of all our thoughts and hopes and information … and then the walk back, a bit desolate to have moved away from the connect …

And finally then the wait …

Waiting patiently day in and day out for that khaki costumed pleasant faced ‘Gandhi topi’ gentleman on his bike peddling along with his bag of letters slung precariously over the side. Th expectation of the reply, the disappointment of not receiving an immediate response and then quite suddenly - The Letter !!

Walking away with it to some secluded corner of the house. Gently, without destroying the lid of the envelope, opening the contents and blissfully reading every little bit of it, for hours. Smelling the paper, scented at times by the sender, feeling the aroma of intimacy and then keeping it under the pillow like the most prized possession and putting it away in that special velvet lined box locked and put away like they were some family asset… ha ha ha …

What innocent carefree days they were …

And now ..

No writing, no paper, no envelope, just an icon image of what it looks like on a flat screen of a lap top, harsh pushes of buttons to give expression to thought and emotion, no care in sealing the written, but shifting a cursor - what an odd unromantic name - to the send command and watching it stream across the internet indicator of its delivery … impersonal, devoid of any fuss and decorum of the past .. cool and quick and efficient … gone into the cyber space where the entire universe has and can access it at any given time…

Will this generation ever … no … better not get there .. they will never and they will always have a reason for the ‘never’..

Times change, people change, thoughts deeds and emotions change.. the cycle of life moves on … sometimes its good for us all to get off the tread mill and watch it go by endlessly in its rhythmic circular motion, stopping for no one, remorseless, unconcerned, unstoppable ..

Thank you for being on this cycle of time with me dearest FmXt .. and may you ever be unstoppable …. in receiving my love …

Amitabh Bachchan