Witerati | You’ve got mail
That time of the year when the doorbells of Digital India constantly clamour with different sounds, sounds that make the ears miss the tones of another bell.
As its curtains down on another year, it opens the door to memory lane. As Christmas and New Year narratives see Digital India’s doorbell ringing fast and furious to new-age tones — BlinkIt to Big Basket, Zepto to Zomato ferrying year-end deliveries, it’s time for nostalgia to tiptoe in.
What a pity that GenNext — post-millennials — shall never know the sound of a bell that came tinkling down the bend when New Year crept round the corner.
For whom the bell tolls
Come December end and that bell sounded busier. As did the postman bustling about the neighbourhood, on his bloated belly and bicycle, bearing a bountiful load of letters. Bigger, bulkier, busier.
New Year greeting cards.
The bell tinkled and trilled more fast and furious, as the postman used to ferry forth an armload of cards to every letterbox down the lane. He puffed and pedalled to ensure the greetings landed on time.
How times have since changed!
Whither now that ritual of penning and posting piles of greeting cards. How the digital life, thanks to social media and WhatsApp e-greetings, has robbed the New Year narrative of the joys of penning greeting cards.
Come December, and back in bygone days, it entailed a trip to a stationery store in our City Beautiful’s shopping hotspot — Sector 17. Tucked in a corner of the pulsating plaza was this shop that stocked greeting cards of all colours, creativity and curiosity. Azad Hind Stores.
This year-end excursion was undertaken as religiously as going to gurdwara on Gurpurab. The ritualism that informed this pilgrimage had a hidden bait driving it.
Post the endless hours spent tagging with parents to pick and pore, over greeting cards at this store, there awaited a tempting treat. Softy at Kwality’s or jelly ‘n’ cream at Indian Coffee House.
Well worth the bait, well worth the wait.
This was a generation that saw December devoted to navigating Long Lists and Short Lists different from the lists that Gen Z is growing up with — Bucket Lists to Booker Short Lists to Oscars Long Lists.
Parents used to thrust under the noses of progeny the Big Fat New Year Cards Long List.
Other than routine holiday homework, this was another home work an entire generation grew up on.
Stamp of the times
From the painstaking penning of addresses and endearments on cards to pasting stamps to pottering off on another pilgrimage to the letter box down the lane, this was a pen project done with much relish and revelry.
The best part of it was not so much in the sending, but in the receiving.
The thrill lay in the decoding. New year mail spawned an entire generation of junior Sherlock Holmes.
The moment a bunch of New Year cards landed, the handwriting on the envelope began to be deciphered. The clues lay in the twists and turns. Of the senders’ handwriting.
“This looks like Minni masi’s writing, that seems like Sweety uncle’s card…” Childhood was one big card game.
Then came the new writing on the wall. Digitalisation slowly snatched it all.
Gone is that ritual from the New Year narrative. Like that ubiquitous stationery store, handwritten greetings too have faded forever. Faded into the bylanes of the bygone.
The other day, a mini storm erupted when one was consumed by this sudden urge, after ages, to post hand-written New Year cards. There was a pressing need for postage stamps. But there were none in the house or neighbourhood.
Digital India’s denizen contorted in consternation. Young India twitched its tongue to seal it with a stamp of surprise.
“Gosh, who sends cards in these times of WA! You must be off your rocker.”
So resonant of that age-old argument, that big book debate — Paperback Vs Kindle.
One was saved from answering, for there was a door bell to answer. A Porter bloke stood pounding the bell, bearing swag and a new-age New Year deliveries’ bag.
The curious case of “You’ve Not Got Mail”.
chetnakeer@yahoo.com
