Frankly, in retrospect I am surprised that e-mail has become so big. When it started a few years ago it was such an unintrusive technology that one really wonders what it is doing being so popular in our brash in-your-face world.

When I am reading something good (which is quite often), I call friends to tell them about it. But when I am reading a Philip Roth, I also make sure to call up my cousin Gauri in Goa, who is also a big Roth fan. She fields a couple of calls from me and then tells me politely, “Harsh, why don’t you put it on e-mail? I have work now.” The ‘work’, I presume in Goa, means going for a party or to the beach. But, suitably chastened, I try to put down some words on the mail so that she can read it (delete it?) when she has the time.

There’s also a little distance when you read (an) e-mail. You are not seeing a face, listening to a voice. You are just reading, and the written word (when not handwritten) is impersonal. And that slight distance can’t hurt when you get something shocking on the mail.

When the e-mail revolution started a few years ago I couldn’t quite understand it. So I called my cousin, Premal, 15 years younger, who had mastered the technology. He came to set up an Outlook Express account for me. And soon the world opened up. Friends were literally a click away. Now, with broadband, it’s of course so much simpler.

... contd.