sincerely yours

A few months ago, an aged reader of my blog telephoned me to express his love for the finesse he had caught about my blog. He lives in a north-western part of India, possesses a desktop of prehistoric age and is familiar with Windows 98. I questioned him on and on about the sake of his inflexible standing on the past, and came by a more inflexible answer. "They say, the world has changed too much. But, I don't think so," he said, "any bigger power always replaces a big one, which was, in its time, known to be a formidable one. Similarly, any technological advancement acts on the earlier advancement like an eraser. So, hardly ever I say, the advanced the better. Another point is there, a very secret one young man, I am very frank with two persons in my life, your aunt and Windows 98."

The majority that shout for being technologically advanced, must have been thrashed by this remark, which, I found quite redoubtable. In course of our talking, I released myself into some happier moments of my life, which any fairytale would best describe as a lost spring.

Let me come to the point. His monitor fails to display the blog entirely and compels him to fit it by constant irritation of the mouse on the bars.

Day by day, he, like my father, is falling short of his faculty of vision, and the electronically written black letters on a grey background and the grey banner leave a rising-and-overlapping impact on his eyes and tangible mind. Though aged, he is an avid reader of my blog. Readers should keep it in mind, he has already entered a half-dark room of his life.

"Would you increase the font size a bit, for me, and change the colour as well?" - he solicited in a baritone voice. The font was no doubt big and I had no second thought to change the colour of my blog.

With the greasy passage of time, I let the request dive into a pool of oblivion. I found myself bogged down under a pile of exercise books and scripts and got used to incubating my day-to-day ramblings on the blog. Months flew away and drove me my insouciant negligence.

A week ago he rang me up again, "Dibakar, no degree of adjective is suitable for your everyday progress, however, my eyesight strains too much to have a go through." he continued, "Will you please increase the font size now or change the background colour?"

... There was from my end an accidental pause, which was accidentally broken by a laughter of pain from his dead end...

I decided to work harder than ever to put some changes to my blog. I sat hours together, spent the whole day in front of my computer and got up finally to go to bed at 3:42 AM yesterday. I sought his suggestion in order that he might see it, read it, touch the core and feel the aroma of written words. This time the blog is not so good; it has lost my ingenuity. It is not so good, yet it is better than being "so good", as the man on the other bank, drenched in dark rains, is waiting for a new shower... fresh branches of energy and twigs of promise will spring through...

I know there is no better suggestion than living a life like a life. I want to live a life, and therefore, wish to dedicate this blog to his fading eyesight that has almost attained martyrdom but has not attained it yet.

My dear old friend, I humbly request you to go through this blog and tell me anything over phone except those last words, "Will you please...?"