Thursday, September 22, 2011

The Open letter collection

It seems to be all the rage to be writing "Open Letters" these days in India. Social networks (and email systems) across the planet seem to be buzzing with all the letters flying left and right. (or is it North-South/East-West ?)

I got to hear about so many of these that I initially pondered writing one of my own. Alas, I cannot write as eloquently as some of the writers, so I decided against it. Here instead, is a collection of the various open letters that are (to my knowledge) buzzing around everywhere.

The oldest and perhaps the most well read until  recently was the 2004 open letter quoted below

"The Travails of Single South Indian men of conservative upbringing" or "Why we don't get any..."
http://www.whatay.com/2004/05/17/the-travails-of-single-south-indian-men-of-conser/(Edit: Updated April 2012 for new URL)

More recently, we got the rant against men from the city of Delhi:

OPEN LETTER TO A DELHI BOY
http://raagshahana.blogspot.com/2011/09/open-letter-to-delhi-boy.html

This one set of a firestorm! Twitter, Facebook, Google+ ... take the pick of your favorite social network and I'm pretty sure you've seen it being quoted and forwarded and posted and #hastagged all over the place.

A Delhi boy wrote back in protest

Bhaiyya... Palika Bazaar ka kitna? 
(translates to "How much (does it cost) to get to Palika Bazaar" - a shopping center in Delhi)
http://disgruntledmob.blogspot.com/2011/09/bhaiyya-palika-bazaar-ka-kitna.html

There was another lady who didn't particulary care for the "Open letter to a Delhi boy" either.

'Tis the season for open letters

http://www.lavanyad.com/madmomma/?p=6298


Somewhere along the line, another open letter came up, this one ranting against the language skills of people from the Indian state of West Bengal.

Dear Bengali boy, what's with the accent?
http://theblackrosegal.blogspot.com/2011/09/dear-bengali-boy-whats-with-accent.html


(I haven't seen a response to this one yet, if you do, please let me know in the comments and I'll link it up)

The latest one I've seen is the one below, where she tries to analyze this North-South divide.

THE NAARTH-SAUTH WAR - a Madrasi take
http://www.sify.com/news/the-naarth-sauth-war-a-madrasi-s-take-news-columns-ljwkWphgcfd.html

There are so many open letters flying around, that it prompted one person to write an "Open Rant"

An Open Rant
http://unpredictableblog.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/an-open-rant/

Have I missed some? please let me know!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There are many many more far better than the Madrasn' rant which was just coarse, vulgar and abusive and just the most pathetic streotype. God help that child , she seems to suffer form some terible inferiority complex whic she coalks with one arrogant boast after the other . Will post links to the others shortly