Special day wishes in the digital age

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 Hi,

            When was the last time any of you received a birthday card, Wedding anniversary card, New year card by post? Sounds like another era, right? I consider lucky enough to have grown in 1980s, when I eagerly looked forward to receive birthday cards, festival greeting cards, handwritten letters from our relatives by post which cannot be imagined by current generations. I committed to my memory many of our relatives/friends special days  so as to send those beautiful cards! 

                 Greeting cards were painstakingly chosen from shops, additional loving messages were added along with the printed lines and posted with eagerness in the nearby postbox or post office. We used to wait with equal anticipation for those wonderful cards. During our childhood,  my sister and myself used to prepare hand painted greeting cards with lot of colors and imagination.  Our late grandfather used to tell that our handmade greeting cards and handwritten letters were his treasure. I still keep some cards and inland letters like treasure! 

          


                Post digital era, the way we remember and wish our friends/relatives have changed forever. Facebook sends notifications to people in the friends list if a person has put DOB  in the profile and the chain of wishes start. In family groups/friends group, we are greeted with a flurry of wishes which does not last more than a day and everything is seemed to have been forgotten the next day. Some wishes are genuine while others wish just out of little compulsion . No one feels committed to remember the special days except for the immediate family circle. Many feel shy to wish directly. A thousand online wishes still do not equate the surprise gifts or those postal greeting cards. We all have photo albums in our homes which belong to the pre digital era and that we keep fondly revisiting, compared to 10,000 photos we keep taking every time in our phones which are yet to see the light of the day, just like those special day wishes!


Deepa.




 

             

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