According to the professor of history, through the speed of delivery has gone up, the size of the contents and creativity in writing have gone down.

Transcription

1 Dr. L.S. Nigam Dr. L.S. Nigam, Professor (Retired) of History, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University Raipur, said the judicious selection of words and meticulously planned phrasing of sentences made Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi s letter a good reading. In fact, he added, Gandhi, as if sticking to the grammar book, used to write simple and small sentences, which made the letters easy to understand and comprehend by the recipient. Dr. Nigam further said Gandhi always took care of maintaining proper courtesy in his writings. However, the tone and tenor of his writings differed from person to person depending upon their relational aspects with him. Besides, in most of his letters, he used to carve out a little space to enquire about the personal and family information about the recipients. These small nuances had the potential to touch the emotional chord of the recipient and hence, his letters enhanced the interpersonal communication aspects. As for present day letter communication, Dr. Nigam said It is almost non existence. Nobody in today s world communicates with writing long letters nor are hand written letters in vogue. He further said, today s generation is increasingly becoming techno-savvy and are using the latest technical gadgets to complete their interpersonal communication needs. Letters have now taken new form and nomenclature like , SMS, chattings and blogging etc.. According to the professor of history, through the speed of delivery has gone up, the size of the contents and creativity in writing have gone down. 193

2 Give a look at the s and SMSes of today s youths, and you will see that those were just like professional letters. Without any emotion or courtesy or anything that will make you little nostalgic, he added. Upon encountered with the clarification that youths use emoticons and other symbols that the medium enables them to express their feelings in their CMC communication, Dr. Nigam said emotions can only be expressed through word and that too when they were written creatively. They can t be expressed through emoticons. 194

3 Mr. Joseph John Mr. Joseph John, chief of bureau, The Times of India, Raipur edition, was of the opinion that evolution of language is a continuous process and the changes happen for the convenience of communication, and to suit the societal and technological changes. And hence, he finds no basic difference in the structure, construct and communicative aspects in present day computer mediated communication vis-a-vis the letters in the earlier days. During Gandhi s time mechanisation was not what it is today. It has made a lot of difference in the lives of people. Our work culture has changed and so also our societal characters. Today we don t have much time to write lengthy letters nor have the time to read lengthy letters. Hence comparing today s communication to that of Gandhi s is unjustified, even though both the communications have their own merits Mr. Joseph said. The senior journalist also did not find any lack of courtesy or politeness in today s CMC communication as compared to that of the earlier letters. According to him, today s CMC communicators use the available tools and techniques to express their feelings. With the communicants well conversant with the emoticons and acronyms, the message is communicated well, though it might not appear to be polite or courteous to people, who are not well versed with the CMC lingua franca. Mr. Joseph also did not approve the assumption that creativity amongst the youths has gone for a beating because of their lack of interest in reading and writing. On the contrary, he said, the internet, or for that 195

4 matter, the CMC platform provides a wider space and information making its users more creative. If you know the medium well, available technological tools provide you a wider scope to express your feeling and creativity, he said. 196

5 Conclusion & Suggestions From the study it could well be concluded that Gandhi used the personal letters as an effective medium of interpersonal communication to spread his ideas on numerous aspects like his ideas on Health, Healthy diet, Freedom of expression, Marriage, Fast, Khadi, Nationality, Equality, Justice, Non-violence, Satyagraha, Religion, Secularism, Non-cooperation, Swaraj etc.. Through the large number of letters that he wrote to co-workers, political activists, government officials, newspapers and his family members, we could see the glimpses of Gandhi s communication skills. These letters played an important role in his interpersonal communication. All these letters bear a unique style of writing. Even though it is not uncommon that people write differently to different set of people, what made the letters of Gandhi were its sheer numbers and the personalised touch he used to attribute in each of his letters. Besides, Gandhi, as if following the guidebook, used to write simple and small sentences. He also uses meticulously selected words to all his recipients so that his objective could be communicated. His selection of signing in and signing out addresses to the recipient and his signing off signatures also bears a distinct character. Gandhi however did not use literary tools like Metaphors, Similes, Irony, Quotes, Climax, Anti-climax, and References etc., much in his letters. Perhaps, this could be because his most of the letters contains the summery of his day-to-day activities or instructions to others to carry out certain act or related to some practical issue pertaining to that period. 197

6 Hence, he might have found much scope in incorporating any literary tools in the letters. Besides, given the nature of work Gandhi was engaged in- most of his letters were written relating to that work-there was also not much scope for writing letters with flowery language or full with literary tools. Nevertheless, Gandhi s letters contains proper etiquette and courtesy. Even though Gandhi used to write straight forward statements, none of his letters could be termed as impolite or uncourteous. This could perhaps the reason that Gandhi could communicate so well with large number of people across the country and became the tallest leader in the Indian freedom struggle. On the other hand, a look at the written communication through the CMC gives a different perspective altogether. Unlike the earlier letters, a look at the CMC communication gives the impression that it lacks descriptivity, etiquette and courtesy. But it certainly has the advantage of technology which makes it faster and qualitatively (in case of use of tools) superior. CMC communication with its speed, agility and interactiveness has been replacing the conventional mode of communication. And youths are becoming the change agent by hooking to the computer day-in and day-out for all kind of their works. Youths are finding the CMC suitable for their interpersonal communication, cross cultural understanding and enhancing their knowledge. The language used in CMC is being considered as the lingua franca of the medium and the users find no fault- content or courtesy wisein it. 198

7 The use of flaming, aggression, hyper-personal communication and behavioural disinhibition over CMC by its users could be attributed to the absence of social presence that the medium offers. Still it can t be said that they lacks politeness or courtesy. On the basis of the feedback received from this research it could well be concluded that politeness indicators/ courtesy are communicated, interpreted, and reciprocated CMC users by their own way and the evolving society has been coping up with this changing communication pattern. Besides, it could also be said that, over the time, the pattern adopted by the CMC users to communicate their courtesy, politeness and emotions could eventually be accepted as the societal norm of the Information & Communication Technology (ICT) savvy society that is fast emerging in the world. 199

8 Limitations: The results of this research, which is conducted amongst a smaller sample (300) may not entirely hold good, when taken in the perspective of the entire CMC using population. However, it could well be said that the results are indicative of the trend of the CMC users. 200