How does one come to know what was life like in the days gone by ? --

Now that you know there is such a genuine yet unperceived demand -- we may decide improve the situation and therefore bequeath an audio tape -- say, of the messages to our great grand children or the music of Lalgudy Jayaraman for the benefit of the future budding MS Subbulakshmis

However it is far too impertinent to assume that our heirs will be able to read our tapes. Already we are not able to read the 78 rpm, 45 rpm or the 33 rpm so called records. Therefore our messages shall be archived in some more generic form of record keeping, say as carvings in stones or in palm leaves [hoping in the meanwhile the calligraphy and scripts still survive at a far off date]

If we do not bequeath such artifacts our successors will have no clue. And they will blame us for sure. To express the same apprehension somewhat differently -- our forefathers did not leave us any -- so we do not have anything to peruse. Relax, I have decided to correct this specific disorder just now, so relief is in hand!

However waking up to the realities we still have the works of Valmiki and Vyasa, who are anxious to tell us all about the ways of life in the bygone eras

Extrapolating those examples -- tomorrow one might read Ian Fleming or Arthur Hailey and would be led to believe -- there were numbered spies round every corner armed with a golden gun and an Octopussy for company!

We have to take cognisance of possible distortions. Whatever we come across in a distant generation, may have to be de-exaggerated. A formula can be devised for this purpose

OK, to proceed further on this theme, suppose there was, indeed, a method for communicating with the future, it is but natural to infer there must be similar hotline to the past. It is our misfortune we have not discovered or invented any technique to put a call through to Babar or Gazni -- though we have been able to put a man on the moon!

How will they look like? Can you decipher them? Will you understand even granting that the calligraphy and the language are the same?

Communication is a both way business. If it is one way it is a mono-logue and not a dia-logue. We can classify -- court summons, email, SMS, v-mail in the former category, while street brawls, parliamentary proceedings and the julus of all varieties in the latter

So far as the past imperfect or the future perfect forms of communications are concerned, though we may aim for a real time dia-logue, mono-logue is the minimum ordering level

I guess I already get a lot of mail from the future. Because they are unreadable written in a lingo looking like jalebis. My colleagues call them junk or spam. That is unfortunate. I am painfully aware they are all genuine messages. Mainly because they are interested in the welfare of my private life, in my obtaining extraordinary formulations without prescriptions from 24 by 7 pharmacies located half way across the globe. My correspondents never get tired. They address me every day to the extent I may believe they nag. Each day they assume a new personality to persuade me. On no two occasions the correspondents are the same though the contents invariably are. Much as I may desire I cannot even acknowledge their kind gestures because mails to them bounce, demonstrating clearly they are only in the air, that is to say in an unperceivable future