Love By Post

The style and meaning of a love letter or billet doux reveals the person’s mental disposition who pens it. If he is a  teenager there will be nothing but sweet nothings about the girl he has a crush for. And it is vice versa too. To him his pimpled girl will appear like a Helen with moon like face. And to her the lover boy is Hercules though he is of thin built. But in their romantic outpourings to each other, they shower praise in their billet doux.

In adulthood, the love letter is sober, of course with less poetry in it. There is more yearning to understand the other person in such letters. The love expressed in such letters will last longer.

But the love letters authored by the roadside Romeos should be despised. For innumerable instances are there about gullible girls who fell a prey to such Romeos’ letters The billet doux of such elements are always intense in romantic poetry, though pirated at times. When a girl receives such letters she should not float on the clouds of romantic dreams. She should verify the antecedents of the boy apart from his good physique. If the lover- boy is  a bad type in spite of swearing his love by the five elements of nature, then let the police take care of him.  A few rewards with police clubs may deter him in future against producing tonnes of love-letters to innocent girls.

The language used in love letters many a time reflect the occupation of the individual. A computer engineer who fell in love with a software programmer asked her permission to log in to her heart. In his letter he said that if she would decide to close his file and throw away his floppy of love, he would format his life.

A Government employee wrote a love letter to his woman colleague next to his desk and put it  in the official folder and tied the red tape so that it would not slip. He put it on his table and went out for coffee. The attender who came there, thought it was an official letter.  Thus it traveled to half a dozen sections and finally reached her table with due official notings. None of the section heads cared  to take a close look at it and blindly noted, `may be considered’. The women employee in question was furious. She was angry not because her colleague wrote a love-letter to her; because it took so much time to reach her.

A doctor scribbled a love letter on a medical prescription pad,  to a lady doctor. He said that if his love was not reciprocated, he would send his heart to the mortuary after post mortem.

Similarly, a lawyer dashed a love letter to his colleague at the bar, and reserved his judgment on an arranged alliance for him pending the final hearing and disposal of his love letter.

In writing love letters employees of banks and other financial concerns are no exception. A bank officer asked his lady subordinate to open a credit balance with his love letter in the ledger of her heart. The lady promptly replied in her letter that in case of breach of promise, his love letter would be debited and shown as a liability in the balance sheet of his life.

Sending the love letter to the lady love or lover is a greater task than writing the same. From times immemorial various methods have been adopted to send the letter of love. Generally princes and princesses adopted parrots or pigeons to carry the message of love. In the epic Mahabharata, price Nala sends his love-message to princess Damayanti through a swan.

The immortal Sanskrit poet Kalidasa makes use of a cloud for this purpose. In his Megha Sandesam

 the hero sends his message of love through a cloud.

In another epic Sri Madbhagavatham, the princess Rukmini sends her love letter to Godhead Sri Krishna through a Brahmin. While imploring Lord Krishna to take her hand and rescue her from the forced marriage with king Sisupala, she avers whether the Brahmin had reached the destination or wearied by the strain of the travel rested somewhere  or, on hearing the proposal Lord Krishna  felt bad about her. Her letter reflects the throbbing of a virgin’s romantic heart.

Before summing up this piece, everyone should pity the poor, absent-minded lover who dropped his love letter  in the mail-box without writing the ‘To Address’ on the envelope!