Remember the old days? The pen-pal days? When you would pour your thoughts and words over a paper, seal it with fondness and post it to someone next door, next city, or beyond the seas to a different country. I always fantasized about having one such pen-pal. Though it never happened. As a kid, I thought my existence was incomplete without it as everyone in my school had one or at least they claimed to have one.

As time passed in came the wave of Yahoo chat rooms, Hotmails, Orkut scraps, followed by the new age Facebook wall, Gtalk, Twitter timeline, Snapchat, WhatsApp, WeChat, Kik, and more. The charm of writing a heartfelt letter got buried under the mountain of easy, smart, and advanced ways of communication. I love technology and it is (if not indispensable) an important part of my life. But if only we could have a balance between the old and the new. 

Stupid as it sounds, I found this balance in Gmail. Yes, the equilibrium that I was craving for came in the form of a technology. I like the freedom it gives. I can write pages or even a line and take my own sweet time to do so. Once sent, I need to wait for the other person to read it. Also, it doesn't tell when the person has read it and when he/she is going to reply (if they plan to reply at all). Oh and the excitement of finding the reply in my mail when I open it is second only to finding a letter addressed to me, on my table.  

On and off I had an habit of chatting over mail but after having a conversation once that spanned over 200 mails (send + receive) I realized that this is the closest I can get to exchanging letters. Not because I don't have the patience, I do, but because people don't. And the recent exchange that just crossed 21 mails (+ still going strong) made it clear for me that I like Gmail as I like writing letters. Though even I am guilty. Yes A, I am saying this to you. I still have to reply to your letter and trust me, I will. :) 

Maybe I should get down to it right now.