With the ever increasing technological realms, the tentacles of communication are spreading as widely as never before making our lives more and more sophisticated. In this process, many facets of our day- to- day life have endured a vast change, out of which, one aspect seems to stand in a unique position. The advancements in communication technology have exorbitantly changed our perception towards "conveying wishes to our near and dear ones on any special occasion." Wishing our beloved ones on any occasion is common now and was also common in the past but the process of wishing i.e., “the greeting culture” has undergone metamorphosis. This fact is evident from our actions
Delving deep into this... Dec 31st, the day on which the entire world sings unanimously to welcome the New Year, I was waiting for the clock to strike 12 so that I can start wishing my friends in a row through the magic gadgets “cell phone” and “computer”. “This year I am going to wish all my dear ones”, I thought. As soon as the clock stuck 12, I eagerly started calling my friends and the calls also started pouring in. This went on for about an hour and then I checked and re-checked the contacts on my cell phone to make sure I wished all my friends. But, that somehow didn’t my stop my excitement, which made me turn on my computer and start sending the “E-mail greetings”…This went on till I felt I reached everyone. Once I was done with wishing all my friends, I relaxed in my cozy chair. Then the tender silence settling after the new year bash embraced me and diverted my thoughts and took me into the reminisce of my childhood, the sweetest part of anyone’s life. Slowly my thoughts dwelled on the New Year festivities in the past, which made me feel nostalgic. New Year extravaganza then began around five to ten days before the 1st of January or even before. Well, this was mainly due to the remote access to the sophisticated and so called “wish passing” electronic devices like “mobile phone” and “computer”. The ways of greeting were different then… It used to be a lot more enterprising. It used to start right from purchasing the greeting cards or sometimes using your creativity to make one, gathering the postal addresses, affixing the stamps and posting them on time. It was an onus, but the fact that the fruits of our efforts go in the way of engrossing and enthralling our loved ones, always made the efforts worthy, which is almost extinct now. Next came the fantasy job…waiting for the greeting cards from your friends and relatives. This indeed was much interesting as much of time was spent anticipating everything right from the color of the greeting card to the sender and later on the adoring everything about the card. And above all, the experience of sending and receiving greetings left some cherishable memories. I, as a kid always reckoned New Year as “festival of greetings”.
“One fine day, I was opening a greeting card sent by my uncle, when the door bell rang. Another greeting card, thought I. I waited for my mom to open the door. Nobody was opening the door and the bell kept ringing.” It was only then I woke up to realize my thoughts transformed into dreams and now I am back to my senses. It was not the door bell, but it was my cell phone ringing. Well, “indeed another greeting- This time an electronic one”, smiled I. Then, I felt thankful to the gadget in my hand as it finally helped me achieve the objective of “greeting” all my kith and kin. I was satisfied.
In a sense, technology wins laurels for driving us effectively from colourful cards to electronic wishes, without creating a gap. We are still far away from bidding farewell and from forgetting the colours of the greeting cards. In spite of adoring the traditional greeting cards, we have welcomed the e-greetings culture greatly for only it can ease the time congestion created by the very same technology.
