Communication breakdown..

Goofy Mumma`s post 'Connected or Stressed?' set me thinking.
A few days back, someone gasped at the lengths of my emails. He said it was unnatural because he had gotten so used to brief, to-the-point messages. My emails made him uncomfortable, as did my thoughts. I couldn't get over it. It bothered me.
How can communicating be a bad thing?
In long ago lifetimes, I remember how I would run out of the girls` hostel, clutching a letter in my hand. I would drive to my favorite spot near college, a lone banyan tree on an abandoned hillock(also called LBT by AFMCites!), curl up underneath and devour the thick wad of paper full of gossip and news! Letters from home, from my sister. I would sit alone with the letter in my hand and weep some. And then I would begin to write..When Dad passed away last April, we had to go through his personal stuff. And there, wrapped up in a plastic bag, now crinkled over time, were all those letters I had written years ago, sitting alone under the tree. He had saved every single one of them.
I still have letters written by some of my closest friends in school. I love to hold them, to read them from time to time. It smells of History; my history and those who were a part of it. I saved each little note, each letter, so I could read them silently to myself on warm summer afternoons or a lonely winter day. I read the letters over and over, so as to remember those who were a part of my life once but not anymore. I read,so as not to let the words slip from my mind..so as never to forget.
A piece of paper conveying diverse sentiments, ranging from fear to love to warm hand clasps and big hugs..sometimes even anger, across distant souls. Some are brief. Some are piquant. Some loving. And some plain caustic. But all are heartfelt. All are earnest, unfeigned emotions that I had managed to evoke in someone; emotions strong enough to warrant an unbridled, unchecked expression of thoughts through a letter.
It never ceases to fascinated me.
A few years back when I was in the Army, I used to write long letters back home and to my friends. There was no cell phone connectivity along the LOC and landlines were unreliable. We had to go through 2 army exchanges to connect to a regular PCO. And then wait for days before there was a connection home. And so I wrote. I wrote every single day and like there`s no tomorrow. All that I had was my heart written out in pieces of paper. It was a life line; the only thread that kept me bound to the world outside; the only honest expression that told me I was still in the same world, still under the same sky, still breathed the same air. Everything else was surreal..
I still check my letter box everyday, but no one writes to me anymore. And so,like everyone else, I stick to emails too, though I have never seen it as any different from a letter, hand-written. What better way to put your thoughts and feelings across than by writing. It is gratifying. It pleases me. Satisfies my soul. Yes, Emails definitely help to keep in touch.But communicating? That`s a whole new ball game.
Consider this.
After a couple of long emails discussing Ayn Rand, I got a two-liner reply back from a "friend", stating how we should meet up over elaborate drinking sessions to chat up. I took that seriously. I was excited at the prospect of making a friend(God knows I needed one!). And I wrote back some more.. Only later did I learn it the hard way that sometimes people write two-liners for the heck of it. Yes, emails have made it easier to evade, to palter,to fool..And yet, despite the realization, when I dont get a response,it makes me guilty. It makes me sad. But most of all, it troubles me. Have I just ended up making a fool of myself? Has it been misconstrued as too eager or too desperate or too jobless. Why would someone avoid a coversation by sending back one-liner scraps/replies and sometimes not even that?! How can responding to an email be a bad thing? Or is this simply about not responding to my email?
In a world swamped by technology, everywhere I go, I find my personal space invaded. And it is at such times when I long to receive a letter, all gooey, gushy, maudlin..filled with words carefully chosen and eternal, meant for no one but me.. And yes, I have written such letters too - with no reply, thank you very much! Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic, or just downright old-fashioned.
In today`s world, where sentimentality is ridiculed and friendships have become a matter of convenience rather than need; where there is a growing apathy amongst men and urban alienation continues to take new forms, I cant help wondering..
Has interpersonal communication really gotten easier?
Or has it simply broken down..

"And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more.
People talking without speaking..
People hearing without listening..
People writing songs that voices never shared.
No one dared disturb the sound of silence.."