Once upon a time there lived a successful salesman called Hafid. He lived in an elegant palace equipped with all sorts of amenities and luxuries of that time. During his last days he asked his truthful servant and friend to distribute all his wealth to the poor after his death and also bequeathed him his entire wealth and treasures. Later he had taken his servant to a deserted room in a corner in his palace that was kept locked for decades. The only object within that room was an old chest containing some tattered scrolls. Showing them to his servant Hafid said,"When a star had followed me from the sky,recognizing my good deeds, my guru gave these scrolls to me. I owe all my success, happiness, love, wealth and inner peace that I'm enjoying now to the knowledge which was scribbled in these ten scrolls. And I had been instructed by my guru to pass them on to my next successor, on whose arrival a star reappears on the sky."
He stopped the story here and told me that he would finish the remaining part in his next letter. Of course that didn't happen. I too had forgotten about that in the mean time. It has been almost three years since then. Today while I was rearranging the books in my cupboard I found a bunch of letters which I had received from my friends. So many letters....They were all about sharing and caring. I had spent all my evening in reading them. How beautiful!! My precious letters are. Some funny,some emotional,some poetic,some inspiring, some condemning, some arguing, some longing and together they all poked the dormant memories of the time when I was engaged in vigorous lettering. Somehow I had stopped lettering unconsciously. Hmm...I must resume that. Of course texting and mailing are prevalent these days. But a letter written by our own hand is incomparable in this technological pandora's box. A letter in its folds contains the fragrance of our dear ones for ages.
After a while, when I was lone and feeling lonely, I just reach for one of my letters, unfold it and caress its ragged surface only to come up with the questions and thoughts like "what are those ten scrolls?"
People change, but the words and feelings in these letters, they never change.......
-By Viroti Somasekhar
