When emotions take a backseat

THE OTHER day my friend looked at me with disbelief when I told him that I did not have an e-mail ID.

Whatever has happened to that ancient art called "letter- writing"? Technology, the Janus-faced wizard, seems to have relegated the art of letter-writing to the bin, replacing it with the e-mail.

What does an e-mail do that a letter cannot? E-mail is instant, an improvised speed-post. Messages are communicated at the touch of buttons and movement of the mouse. Now, greetings, applications for jobs, documents - in short, messages from almost all walks of life are sent via the e-mail. Often, there are specific instructions that the mode of communication must be only through the e-mail.

Why this superimposition of the electronic mail? With the advent of the e-mail, communication has definitely attained glorious heights by way of speed and technological wizardry. But much has been sacrificed.

E-mail etiquette now popularised as "netiquette", has slaughtered the "etiquette" of the English language.

Netiquette demands that an e-mail be short, precise and mostly abbreviated. So, words like "your" and "you" get mutilated and become "ur" and "u". To add to this destructive process, net users coin new words. The contemporary net culture has invaded all aspects of life to such an extent that the beautiful art of letter-writing seems to be fading.

Pen, paper and the process of thinking and giving form to thoughts - these are a treasure that cannot be replaced by any technological sophistry. The very notion of a letter being "personal" is anachronistic in the context of an e-mail. That "personal" flow of emotions from the mind to the pen to the reader is absent in an electronic mail.

Words may be the same in both forms of communication. but the beauty of a handwritten letter cannot be felt while reading an e- mail, although the latter may be made more attractive technically.

Another remarkable difference is one of re-reading a letter. Normally, once an e-mail is read, it is deleted. But some users save it in a folder for future reference. But a letter can be read anytime, any number of times and preserved across ages.

The hand that wields the pen somehow loses its might on the keyboard. This may seem to be an overstatement but this subtle revelation has several shades of truth, more validated by experience than by supposition.

Technology, whatever be the giant strides it takes, invariably becomes a victim of its own breakthrough. The e-mail has become a medium for neutralising a system. Virus, the electronic bug operates via the e-mail.

When you open your mail, a message flashes. Traps are set by way of offers or catchy phrases. For example, a message may say that you can become a millionaire if you open a particular mail. If you fall for this and open the mail, the virus is activated and it destroys the whole system and its contents.

A letter is a personal, one-to-one channel of communication, which cannot be duplicated. The "You" and "I" form the two pillars between which a whole bridge of feelings and emotions is constructed. And language is moulded, changed, rewritten and recast to convey so much, never destroyed and butchered.

Whither this art?

D.VENKATARAMANAN

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : Craftsmen turn market savvy
Next     : Succulent fare from the sea