Can you hear me now?

I received emails in response to almost every op-ed that I wrote.  A few were hateful, yes.  But, for the most part, people were decent even when disagreeing with me.  I always replied to them, except the "haters and losers," to use the current president's words.  To me, there was no second thoughts about replying; the whole point in writing op-eds was to engage with the public on important issues, and I loved that engagement.

As a reader of commentaries, I have also written a few emails to authors.  I don't recall ever emailing when I disagreed with the author because I fear that critical engagement is not what most writers like, even though I love that.  I have emailed almost always rejoinders in agreement.  Many of them have replied, mostly with nothing more than thanks.

Even recently. After reading this essay in the context of the Sabarimalai controversy, I wrote to that author.  That was a month ago.  A few days after that, I wrote to another author who had engaged with the public on correcting the narrative about Aurangzeb.  And a couple of days after that, I emailed another author in response to her commentary about the status of women and caste in India.

I never received a reply from any of them.  

And, oh, in case you thought that it is the awfully arrogant men who don't reply, well, all the three are women.  And, oh, if you thought it is because they are Indians, or Americans, well, one is an Indian, a second is an American, and the third is an Americanized Indian.  There!

A contrast to these is my favorite contemporary public intellectual--Jill Lepore.

I wrote to Jill Lepore a couple of days ago:

Dear Professor Lepore:
After years of reading your essays in The New Yorker, for the first time I read one of your books--These Truths.  I enjoyed reading and learning from it.  Thanks.
While reading, I was also blogging about it, adding my own thoughts as well.  The following was a comment a few days ago at the final post in the series:

I have been following your writing with great interest. I have a question: What makes America great? My daughter - a very bright 12 year old - is being taught history by a gifted teacher who told them a history of the United States very much in line with the Lepore thesis that you have explored in this blog. So I asked her: if America is all this, then what makes it great?Perhaps you can answer this question?

I suggested in my response that I will be most delighted to read what his daughter wrote in response to the question, "what makes America great?"  I am yet to hear from him.
It then occurred to me that this is a question that I should direct to you.  Or, maybe you have already written such an essay that I can read up somewhere?
Thanks again for your awesome writings in everyday simple language that makes reading them a pleasure.

Jill Lepore writes back:

So glad you enjoyed the book. I think my answer to that question is in my next book, which is called "This America: The Case for the Nation."

I suppose Jill Lepore sets the bar high.  Good for her!