When did you last post a card?

Question:  How many Christmas and New Year greeting cards did your family send and receive when you were 10 years old?

And how many did you get last Christmas??

My Answer:  40+ and ZERO!!

Here is my story..

 

Once upon a time,

Long long ago,

When cell phones and ring tones were non-existent….

We communicated thru inland letters & postcards. And there was one and only one agency – The Indian Post and Telegraph Service. It used to be called P&T.

Envelopes were costly and they were meant for special occasions- like sending your bio data to various companies along with attested copies of your birth certificate, marks sheet and a character certificate.

And for enclosing Jathakams (horoscopes) in response to matrimonial ads.

 And to send a crisp five rupee note to your loved ones on their birthday/anniversary or their son’s poonal (sacred thread) ceremony.

And to send greeting cards, of course!

Marriage invitations and other joyous functions were informed with pre-printed covers with bright haldi or Kumkum smudges on all the four corners – a tradition which is still practiced today. But the old P&T is mostly bypassed by the courier services of DTDC, DHL and Professional couriers. P&T’s speed post also gets a fair share of this business.

Death was announced on a naked white postcard.

Urgent messages were sent thru telegrams.  Many of you might still remember some of these.

Reached safe. 

Blessed with baby girl/boy.

Greeting #30 : May the heavens shower their choicest blessings on the newlywed couple

Greeting #25 : Our sincere condolence

And so on..

And you paid 25 paise per word to transmit. 

Our local postman was the man for all seasons.

Wearing crisp well ironed khakhi uniform (with baggy pockets) and khakhi cap with a red piping, he was probably the only respected and loved government servant ever. He was also one of the few literate ones in the locality who would deliver post and read them as well – an unrecognised & unrewarded value add by the Indian postal service!! 

The postman and his bicycle and his canvas satchel filled with letters was a common sight and the ring of his cycle bell announced his arrival into the small lanes of our mohalla (community).

Start of each month, the Postman was a hot property. Much sought after by many – pleased and pampered by all.

A generous bar of fresh ‘mysoor pak’ would be ready for him at the corner maami’s house when he would give her the money order from her son. And as he went along giving away the money order amounts to each house-hold, he would receive rings of handmade murukkus, a packet (potlam) of mixture, a couple of rava laadus freshly made from ghee residues, ribbon pakoda, kesari and what not!

An acceptance letter for a marriage proposal would fetch him 2 rupees, a job appointment letter- one rupee, and an occasional banana or a mango from the fruit vendor for reading/writing his letters. 

Come Deepavali, Pongal, Navaratri and New year, his satchel would ger heavier with loads of greeting cards, printed post cards and other odd sized envelopes. Sometimes he had to make two sorties to complete the distribution. 

But he never complained. He was always cheerful, wished each one with bright smile and accepted his festival gifts with humility & grace, generously wishing each one with his blessings & good tidings.

My Paati would always make him sit on our front porch cement slab, give him a big tumbler of warm sweetened milk or cool buttermilk depending on the season.

And we soon forgot Mani Iyer, the ever-smiling Postman when we relocated from Vellore to Dehra Dun!

Times have changed rapidly, the cell phones wiped out the traditional postal business. The humble postcard became the benchmark for Dhirubhai Ambani when he announced his vision to the nation saying that he will enable every Indian to talk to anyone in India at the price of a post card (40 paise/min then)!!

And WhatsApp went one step further. You could now write as many letters to as many persons for free!!

Sadly, communication nowadays have lost their personal touch.

Last birthday I got 42 messages on WhatsApp and another 20+ on FB ( some repeats).

Every Christmas & new year, my msgs run into a hundred at least and Holi, Diwali would fetch over 60++ - almost all of them mass forwards, one liners & GIFs.

But I very much miss the 6 odd birthday cards that I would always get earlier – all carefully selected and signed and posted a couple of days in advance so that they reach me on time. 

And the smart post man would correctly guess and wish me first and collect his 5 bucks!

Come Diwali, bright colourful Diwali cards ..

Lovely Christmas and New year Cards – remember Unicef & CRY cards? and others with snow topped Christmas Trees and Santa Claus and greetings written in many languages!

Remember the singing cards??  You open them, and they play the tune, Jingle bells, jingle bells or happy birthday to you in fast forward mode??

Remember the 3-D greeting cards??

For a very long time I carefully preserved one new year card that had a Japanese girl in a bright orange kimono who winked at you when you slightly turned the card sideways!

And we spent hours and hours at Archies and other book stores to select the perfect birthday cards / Christmas & New Year card / or the huge Wedding Anniversary card.

And patiently write our personal wishes and sign by all the folks in the family, write the address and stand at the post office Q to buy stamps for posting them.

And we all eagerly waited for a few special ones from abroad. And these came in fancy printed envelopes and big foreign postage stamps!! 

And we fought over the stamps.

So, when I went to the US the first time in 1979, I bought 20 picture post cards and a variety of stamps and posted them to all my relatives and friends who had kids.

Back to our topic..

Back in those days, between Dec 10 thru Jan 15^th, every empty space in our showcase would be filled with cards.  Our TV top and fridge and every flat surface in our drawing room would have these cards prominently propped up proudly . And at my friends place even their huge Christmas tree would be covered with loads of bright cards!

Not anymore.

It’s been more than 8 years since I got a genuine greeting card.  My fault – I have not sent one either!

By the way did anyone of you get an actual Merry Christmas or Happy New Year greeting card this holiday season?

If you got one or more,

I envy you!!

Krish..