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History has it that Sparta and Athens, the two neighbouring city states in ancient Greece, had been at war for many years. Eventually, the Athenian rulers wrote a letter to Sparta threatening: "If we reach Sparta, we will destroy you. Therefore surrender." The Spartan Assembly discussed the letter and decided to send the following one-line reply: "If you reach Sparta!" This is a laconic letter. The term ‘laconic’ denotatively means Spartan, who had the reputation for terseness of speech, involving the use of minimum of words, concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious. It was in 450 B.C. that the Greeks first used carrier pigeons as messengers, that is letters on wings. Of course letters have wings. They are flying messengers, bringing tidings for the king and the clown, for the rich and the poor, the shop at the corner, the girl next door, the lonely father at home, the son abroad, the soldier in the trench, the judge at the bench. They cross borders. They bring absent friends together, distant relations nearer. "In a man’s letters his soul lies naked," said Dr Johnson. In the world of letters, besides the laconic letters, as afore manifested, there are speaking letters, soothing letters, leasing letters. Here are some true and amusing tales from the history of letters. Benjamin Franklin, the father of electricity, was a man of letters, literally and idiomatically. Once a student doing a lengthy course in engineering in France wrote to him that persistent sexual desire pestered him, that he could not afford to marry unless he completed his studies and found a suitable avocation and that he could not find a respectable method to satisfy his sex urge. "Please advise." Franklin tendered the following advice to him: Desire for sex, which starts early in age, is a natural urge. Do not suppress it. Prefer old women to young ones. Since they are experienced, they train young men in the art of love-making, and provide greater satisfaction. Look at an old tree. It is withered at the top, but its roots remain full of sap and energy. Wrinkles might be written on the faces of old women, but their spirits are always young. And then they feel so obliged." This is at once a witty and soothing letter. C.D. Sidhu, is a well-known Punjabi dramatist, recently honoured with the Sahitya Akademy Award. He has scripted 33 plays, some of which are prescribed in the university curriculums. In his youthful days he loved a girl, named ‘S’. The love was so intense that at one point of time he intended marrying her. However, he went for higher studies to the USA. And this caused a temporary separation between the two. Feeling love-sick, he wrote a 60-page letter to his sweet-heart, using tall words, tall expressions to profess his love for her. But the lady sent a one-line reply: "Those who are sincere in love, do not blacken sheaves of papers, for love does not need empty words." This is a teasing letter, a taunting letter. Dr Sidhu has used this biographical happening in his play Mangu Aur Bikker. Gurprit Kaur is the true prototype of Miss ‘S’. However, from the days of
carrier pigeons, the world has come a long way. Carrier pigeons, down
the ages, were replaced by letters. And now even the letters have been
replaced by radio signals carried by electro-magnetic waves, by cell
phones, by e-mail. Yet letters have not lost their import. Nothing can
supplant the thrill the letters provide, the romanticism they transmit,
the distant expectations they engender, the balsamic suffusion they
transfuse, the charm they create and the kinship they foster.
Shakespeare anticipated the value of letters, when Menenius in Cariolanus
says: "A letter for me! It gives me an estate of seven years’
health."
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