pen friend

Years ago, and I mean yeeeears ago, I used to have a pen friend. Of course all of you know what a pen friend is, so I won't waste our time here. But yeah, I was chatting with another friend this morning and we suddenly remembered this person. Now, there's a funny story behind this friendship. I was in the 6th or 7th grade, don't remember which one. At home, we used to subscribe a comic book called Tinkle (again, won't waste time here). And those days, they used to publish a stamp-sized b&w photo of boys and girls who were pen friends and generally wanted their names to be known to other 'wannabe pen friends'. So, well, here was the picture of a grinning boy who struck me as pen-friend material. He liked reading comics, especially Tintin (Oh boy, tintin..evokes some strong childhood memories there. Another post, sometime...). That was enough for me. And the best part was, this guy was from a neighboring city, which I frequented. Ah, we could exchange tintin comics and I could get to read all those tintins and asterixes I'd missed. Yippee! So I shot a card and hey, what do you know, he replied! Many inland letters and postcards later, I finally got to meet him. He was quite like how I'd imagined he would be. It was great. Surprisingly, that was our first and last meeting. But our pen-friendship lasted 2 more years. And then I'd to move down south to a boarding school. Our letters came down in numbers and finally, we faded from each other's existence. I don't know what happened. It happens, I guess...

About 11 years ago, this guy surfaced in my life again, though not in person; only in name. Through a classmate of mine in college. Apparently these two guys were also pen friends and the whole connection was re-established through the mention of Tintin comics. They'd parted ways as well after a year or so of correspondence.

*Sigh*. Those were the days. Was fun, I swear!

I mean, today we have the internet, connecting literally billions across the world. I speak with you guys like we've known each other for years and it's good fun too. It feels nice to belong to a community of people. We write, connect, share feelings; it gets all mushy at times.

Pen friendship just got a step ahead. But it's not the same anymore.