Open Letter 3: Instant Messaging, Letters, and Humor
Hi!
I am back with another open letter and this time, I am trying to experiment and use a platform apart from the default gmail to see how it works. One of my friends recommended me and it seems a nice idea. Wo sab to theek hai, mainly isme aise bhi option hai ki agar koi chahe to paise milenege. Bas wohi reason hai.
So I would like to continue from the last letter. Sab ne kaafi motivate kia. It was good to hear so many people liking the idea of writing this and I have decided to write twice in a month so you should be hearing my blabbering often. Get ready for the ride. Also, since I am trying this new platform, I would love to hear if it is a better option or simple emails were better. Reply karna, lakde ki tarah padh ki ignore mat karna jaise doctor ki baat power wale log kar dete hai.
Honestly, things have not changed much from the last letter I wrote. What would even change in 16 days? Some motivational speakers will say shit like change your life and create a new habit in that time. Arey oh mahatma, Motivation andar se aata hai, bak bak se nahi! :P Ha, my sleep cycle has changed completely all thanks to Euro 2020. For the people not following football, it was to be held in 2020 but all hail corona and now we are stuck with an obsolete name. The start of the tournament was scary as fuck when one of the star players- Christian Eriksen collapsed during the match. He was immediately looked by the medical team and thankfully enough, he was saved. That day I got scared to exercise intensively and the event had a massive impact on the mindset. It was much later that the news of his well being reached the public. Interestingly, it was one of the Danis players who gave the CPR and immediately helped with medical facilities. This all seems so amazing and scary but no one would with power would still pay attention to how doctors are doing a wonderful job. All we can do is bang some plates and throw some flowers. :p
So that was my week. I tried to write the same letter yesterday too but somehow, it felt really forced and it would not come out naturally. That usually sucks. It is not writer’s block or something, but it happens when the mind is busy. I am finally writing now hoping it would be better and you all like it. Or not. But it should be genuine and authentic. Straight from the heart and the brain. Maybe not. That would be blood I guess. Biology 101. Yes. I did pay attention in basic biology classes in school. I remember scoring great marks around 85-90% in one of the tests. I am sincere that way. I do not always wonder about bees, alligators, and dinosaurs. That reminds me, how do cockroaches remember where there homes are ? I guess they do not which is why they are always there in every house of the planet earth. Also, it is said that cockroaches can survive without head for weeks. Bullshit. If the scientists pay a little more attention to India, they would see that even human beings can survive on planet earth without heads for years and decades.
I guess that was enough warm up to start my writing. Oh wait. I am forgetting to play something while I write this. Yup. Ay Pilla is on. Let’s start.
DMs or IMs:-
Flashback to grade 8th. It was the era of Yahoo messenger and Ymail. I live in Rajkot and the city is very conservative in its approach so my school was very obedient to follow that path and have a school where both girls and boys studied but in different classes. If you do not know how it works, think about India and Pakistan. Both are from the same parent but stay separate and hate each other for no reason at all. Yep. That is how exactly the differences in school were, at least in the heads of the staff then who were responsible for managing the students. Talking and all was too advanced and you were either punished for that or teased for that. Both a headache in any case. Messenger to the rescue and I would try talking to girls through that. I managed to talk to a few but the conversation got over as quick as the salary that comes on 1st and by 2nd, you are broke af. That started the era of instant messaging, especially for me.
So that went on until the end of the school. It was not until college that I would actually come face to face people and talk to them. If the person turned out to be a girl, I would be nervous or anxious because of the distance created in mind. Slowly, that faded and I got the confidence to be myself around everyone, no matter what their gender is. Still, one thing that stayed is instant messaging.
Fast forward a few years ahead and today I talk to so many people on that. Some that I have met in life and have known so closely, and some that I have never met and seen them in real life. I would not be surprised if they turn out to be the cockroaches I mentioned above. Possibility, right? Instant messaging is such a strange phenomenon. It is meant to be instant. Like bam, I messaged you and you ideally should reply in like 10 minutes max. But no. That idea sounds more fantastical than Pappu winning the elections. Pappu can neither dance nor win elections. Foreign ka MBA bhi waste.
It is really strange how things are while talking on dms. No, I am not against it but it is strange. I would send a text and the reply can be in the next second or the next month. Not very clear, right? And that does not help in having the best of conversations too. Sure, one can have fairly great amount of depth and connections in them but kisiko to call aa hi jaata hai loanwalo ka. Bam! Link broken! However, it becomes a very convenient way to keep going and take the bond forward without any effort or necessary pressure to continue the conversation. One can reply whenever they want. Convenient as fuck! What even is as fuck? No meaning of fuck means easy. One means sexual intercourse and the other as per my limited knowledge is mismanage, disdain, or mistake. None of them are easy or even a superlative.
Koi sense hai iss baat ka? Bas sabko laga to use karne lage! Lit AF, haina ? :P
Anyway, rants apart. I have made some of the closest friends through the dms and IMs. It is a great way to connect. In fact, one of my friends and I have the best bond- Memeship. We just send memes to each other. Talks do not last very long. Maximum how are you and casual banters. I guess I know the process of water cycle better than that friend of mine. Still, it is a unique friendship to have. No fucks given and no offences taken. Spread jokes and humor. Voila, that is a nice way to stay connected and support other, in a very unique way. This memeship has been going on for at least 3 years now. I have written letters to that friend of mine too. I received some wholesome and crying memes in return. :P
Letters:-
So yeah. I love writing letters. If you are lucky enough, you would have received one from me. Back in college, I used to be really shy and nervous. I really admired some people in my class and had respect for them. As I was shy and not had enough social skills, I used to write them birthday poems and send it to them. That felt nice. Slowly, I realized that poems were very lyrical and the same. I mean, they would always be rhyming in the same way and the words would also be similar. Gradually, I shifted to writing letters. I have continued that tradition of mine. It becomes a free flow run of thoughts. If it is a personal letter, it has details about the memories we have shared, the classes we have bunked, people we have fooled, or the jokes we have cracked. It makes a lot of sense to write them out. It becomes an exercise of the brain to relive those memories and go in a trance like state with a part of them. The root of my blabbering is attached to that idea I guess. I need space. I guess a lot of it to keep on speaking and say so many things that it can be overwhelming. Aah. I cracked my own puzzle. :P Itna genius kaun hota hai ? :P (Flaunts myself and tries to put the spectacles up in a fashion like the professor from money heist and ends up smudging the whole spectacles. Epic fail! )
So that is a letter. I write a lot in my letters. In fact, I am also active on an application called Slowly which allows you to send letters (digital ones) to people across the world. Try that if you are a letter person. If the last two open letters were not good enough proof of that, this would be. However, people often find it difficult to reply and that is fine. Ideally, I would love a reply in the form of a letter but there is a spark that the bond gets and there is a lot of seamlessness in it. Most of the receivers are anyway bad writers as per their own self and I am stuck in this endless loop of writing and then seeing them happy for their gestures.
Well, the point is not my writing skills or my letters but the very art of letter writing. A letter becomes a gesture that the person thought about you and spent a good time thinking about writing a letter and sending it to you. That is what makes value in the mind. Also, there is a lot of time and effort that you can put in to reply. There is no pressure to be spontaneous and reply at the same instant. Hi there, DMs! It is unpredictable at its best. :D
Of course, letters are time-consuming and you need a good amount of knowledge to write the person. The better you know the person, the easier it becomes to write. And for the people who are not comfortable with that long train of thoughts, DM to the rescue. Still shy of DMing a person? Dhan tene, Memes!
Humor-
Memes are pictures that evoke humor and are often based on current affairs and happenings. The beauty of them is that they are quick, easy to understand, and can be intelligent. Unlike some of the comedians who try so hard to crack a joke and they crack the code to silence. The beauty about memes is that they are never forced or they cannot force you to laugh. Shows and films have cues that make you laugh. If a person cracks a joke, the audience laughs and you are supposed to feel that as funny. If not, you are a psychopath. Like me. I have this really unique quality that I can smile at the drop of a hat but laughing is a task for me. Most of the shows and movies fail miserably for me and it is really hard to make me laugh through that. Just to give an example, I hated the first part of Hangover. It seemed bleh at its best. Should have slept that time. I guess humor is based on twists and surprises. That involves unpredictability and I would overthink or think it to the point of exhaustion that it would be obvious and deprive me of any amusement. Sometimes, the exact opposite happens if it is done in a very intelligent way. I have been trying to see and observe a few humour clips and found the above. Let me give you an example.
Remember Rahul Subramanian? Yes, the building uncle wala guy on Instagram. Okay maga? So I follow him closely and he is one of the few comedians that amuses me. I saw one of his videos-
John Abraham and Kent
Do watch the video and read ahead for the best results. Also, spoilers ahead.
So the whole premise of the script revolves around two things- John and Kent. The first part does not have any twist wale jokes but only observations. The Kent part becomes interesting. He establishes the premise with two examples- Pina colada and superman. Later, he takes the path to Sholay and ends with the perfect cover up- I trust only Kent. Here, you see the audience saying that. It is the point of amusement that you were a part of the story and you cracked it perfectly. That is the humor that gives you the perfect oxytocin rush when you guess it perfectly.
Since my humor memes were limited and I was bored with the same lame jokes, I explored a whole new genre of jokes this lockdown- Dark humor. People who would have shown a little interest in receiving dark humour memes know how extreme it can go. It is really interesting to see how the jokes and the memes test your ideology and emotions. It can also give you an idea of how sensitive or emotional you are as compared to how logical and practical you are.
The best way to know yourself is to know what makes you laugh and what would you do to make people laugh!
- I made this up right now. I do not know if someone said it before. Uske meri taraf se hi bolna aur zyada friendly ho to high five dena.
That was my humour insight. I try to use it often in anything and everything I can. In fact, I remember trying to write a script for a stand-up comedy with a friend of mine back in college. We did write the jokes when they came up and tried to compile them but it never got any platform. Bro, if you are reading this. Apni Swayam Seva! :P ( you know the actual full form and the abbreviation). I have no idea how good or bad that would be. Would you like to see that happen? Let me know.
Pheww. I blabbered a lot, didn’t I? Who knows how much I even spoke! In other news, one my poems got published in a book and that book is available on platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, and Google Playstore as Ebook. “DM” me with ‘Maal Bhejo’ on Instagram if you are interested to purchase them or read them. Jaisa aapka bank balance chahe. :p The codeword is important to make sure Zucku is misguided and thinks that we are smuggling some sort of maal. Aah, you cannot advertise drugs on Facebook or Google anyway. Yes! Zucku- 0 , Harsh- 1.
Hats off to your patience that you are still reading this. Hona to chahiye itna patience but sab velle bhi nahi hote. Kisiko kaam hota hai, kisiko sona hota hai, kisiko Khali ke post pe comment karna hota hai aur kisiko wall pe stare karke yeh sochna hai ki Mars pe shift hone ke baad Bezos cricket ya baseball kaise khelega.
As I did last time, I am attaching a TL; DR ( Too Long, Didn’t Read ) summary here.
DMs:- Dinosaur magazines. Yes. For people who want a short and sweet version of conversations because they are busy wondering about the question, I posted in my first letter about Dinosaurs sexual activities. Keep thinking and let me know if you have a theory or something. We’ll do some nice speculations and think how big their omlettes will be form the eggs they give.
Letters- The beauty of long, unfiltered conversations. I crave for these and think that the right way of knowing someone is through this. Bonus is that letters can be short too. Oh yes, Zucku does not peep in and sell your data to Page guy too. :P Data is safe and you have the option to go back to it and read it after years to see how good things are ! I always do that when I feel low and want to cherish someone in my life. :D
Humor- You are what you laugh at and you are what you would do to make people laugh. I hope you use humor and make yourself happy whenever you want to. Kuch nahi to you would be laughing or blushing like a mad human seeing your jokes or thinking about them. Khud ko hasa lo, dusre apne aap has lenge. Aur ha, if someone is funny or a comedian, do not tell them to crack a joke randomly. If you want them to, pay them. ( Subtle indication to pay for my writings and make me earn some money. Substack pe aa gaya gmail se uske liye! :P)
Me- A poem of mine just got published in a book. I am also organizing a regular art talk session where we would talk about forms of art like book, series, movies, poems, and short stories. Dinosaur Magazine me if you are interested.
Also, if you feel like talking to me, you can either DM me or send me a letter. As you would have felt, I have become comfortable with both.
Bas, ho gaya. Here is a song that you can enjoy and have some great fun!
Photograph that I took -
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Swag lies inside you! :P
Comic for you all! :D
Chalo, That was all! I would be waiting to see your response to this letter! Let me have honest feedback and tell me if it got boring or shit! :P
Until next time,
Take care and stay safe! :D