Greetings without cards

When you can tweet, scribble on walls, or simply touch the send button, why put pen on paper. At the risk of sounding outdated, I must say I do miss the once-upon-a-time year-end ritual of posting and receiving greeting cards. The mountains, the rivers, the flowers, the rising sun, birds on the far horizon  -- the glossy greeting cards were more like envelopes full of hopes and good wishes landing at your door steps.

I remember during my growing years, this season, I would eagerly wait for the postman every afternoon. With bag-loads of inland letters, postcards and greeting cards he would go cycling around town, dropping messages that travelled countless miles, stamped and sealed for long journeys. In the pleasantly warm, wintery afternoons, my ears would be all perked up, what if I missed the messenger pass by. 

Envelopes of different hues, cards of different shapes and sizes; it always felt so special that someone had actually taken that much of effort, spared that much of time to pick up the right one from rows full of them, personalized a note, made sure to put the address right and then post it on time, all of this just to spread a smile.  

Hand-made cards were much in vogue among school friends. A lot of the stuff that we learnt in our SUPW (socially useful productive work) classes would come in handy. On a creative high, we would unleash the Wordsworths and Shakespeares in us to express our deepest of thoughts in words.

Today, I so often miss those little moments that made life so beautiful. I still have a lot of those cards and hold them so dear. Whenever I mange to escape from the crazy maze of life, I turn to them, read them, feel them, go back in time with them. And every time, even before I know, there’s a smile on my lips and tears in my eyes.