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For someone whose writing in recent times is born out of un-gainful unemployment, I can vouch for the fact that writing an "open letter" is the work of a super-unemployed mind. Utterly disengaged as I have been, it has never occurred to my idle senses to write one so far but being on the threshold of attaining the super-unemployed status (my own coinage, of course), I intend to do so soon. The targets of my affection or disaffection would not be the Obamas, Modis, Bhuttos or celebrity stars of the Sunny Leone kinds. They would be those who have the time, patience and the self-elevating mind to write "open letters."
There is a certain self-deceptive charm and accredited advantage about writing "open letters." They are read by all and sundry except those they are addressed to. The reason is not far to seek. The people at the receiving end of "open letters" don't live in the same world as lesser mortals do. So there is never any fear of reprisal, backlash or retaliation even if the piece goes viral on a social networking site. And the proverbial icing on the cake comes with the smug feeling that you wrote your piece of mind to a person in public domain.
My sudden interest in the issue stems out of the recent "open letters" written to Bilawal Bhutto who has understandably roused a section of super-patriotic Indians with his outburst that he would take all of Kashmir from India. He followed it up with a threat to hack the Facebook account of Mark Zuckerberg, no less. The second threat had me more worried since a threat to Facebook would mean a threat to my existence, or whatever silly little has remained of it since that is where I place my blog links.
My first brush with an "open letter" came thanks to literary critic William Hazlitt whose letter to his son was a chapter in school English. At the time, I didn't understand the head or tail of what he wrote, nor his provocation to write. All I could gather from the tone and tenor of that letter was the exaggerated sense of counseling in it that probably must have bounced off his son, presuming of course, he read it. Today, I must be almost as old as Hazlitt must have been then minus that highly embroidered and overstated wisdom.
Now that I am grappling with the temptation to shoot off "open letters" to all those who write them, I am also bracing up to be chewed out for the misdemeanor. Sample this first paragraph:
To All Open Letter Writers
First of all, a 'Hello'. I have never met you before, nor do I wish to bump into you in future, but I have been reading a lot of your "open letters" lately. I want you to know that I do understand, if not appreciate, why you write open letters and I sympathize with your motives. I'm saying that because all "open letters" begin with this false sense of intimacy and the bogus claim that the writer really wants the best for the person he or she is addressing.
This sample, if anything, will tell you that I can make a Chetan Bhagat look like an apprentice in blending speed and lack of substance. I am told all anonymous letters are despicable, but you just have to put some etiquette in them. They become "open letters."
