I got mail

I occasionally share the contents of my Inbox.

Here are two. One is a letter addressed to me; the reply was certainly not sent (it is in no way meant to insult the writer of the note, therefore the identity is not revealed here. Heck, who knows, it could just be someone having fun at my expense…) The other is a forward that I imagined I could reply to.

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Dear Farzana,

How r u?

Me, MQM from Sindh, Pakistan.

i am Sindhi writer, living in Karachi and writing in my mother Language Sindhi and i am around read your story and i think your very true and emotional heart touchy writer.

if you dont mind plz tell me about your life vision??.

Always Smile with peace and bless to better world.

Keep It Up.

Peace,

mqm

My could-have-been reply:

Dear MQM:

I am fine with your good wishes coming from far-off land.

I am writing in different languages, thinking it is English. I don’t know what my mother language is, but like angrez ki aulad I feel English is mother of all languages. Please don’t ask who is father, it will become family matter.

I am feeling touched by your thinking I am very true and emotional touchy heart writer. Everyone is saying I hardcore type, no heart, no core, only hardcore.

My life vision is simple – wear blinkers. I am like sturdy horse, can win only if I see nothing around, no khit-pit about this and that, keep eyes focussing on road ahead. Sometimes I go off-track, but that is fault of legs. I got only two. Horse has four.

I am also always smiling and peacing and blessing for bettering world.

But I am sorry I cannot keep it up…maybe next birth.

Still in one piece,

F

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This is a Rejection slip from a Chinese economic journal, quoted in The Financial Times (thanks X for sending the smile). Had I been the recipient, it is unlikely I may have kept quiet, therefore a possible response follows:

We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity.

My could-have-been reply:

Thank you for reading the manuscript. Since you aver it is a divine composition, may I now reveal the truth? It was in fact written with divine intervention and occurred in proper syntax and context as a dream. It gives me immense pleasure that you saw beyond this and are compelled to be chary about anything of lower standard, something you have always excelled at publishing. This ‘hand of god’ bait was only for you to swallow and realise the calumny you have often been passing off as serious discourse. Long years ago I decided to overlook your short-sightedness. Alas, it is only now that I have made the acquaintance of the arrogance of your timidity. For the next thousand years you shall course along for, as we say in Chinese, up y’alls.