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‘What are you doing?’ asked my 6-year-old brother as I painstakingly drew a flower—a whole bouquet, really—on a sheet of chart paper I had measured and cut with great care. “I am making a greeting card for Amma. It’s her birthday tomorrow, you know.”
Those were the days when we actually took the time, trouble, and effort to make cards and write letters. Birthdays and anniversaries were always occasions to celebrate, and as children with a meagre Rs 10 or 15 as pocket money, it made perfect sense to save up for essential chart paper and make our own cards instead of buying expensive ready-made ones. It helped, of course, that my brother and I were fairly artistically inclined.
These hand-crafted ‘works of art’ were warmly received by friends, who appreciated the budding enterprise and creativity. Back then, I tracked birthdays diligently, taping a list to my cupboard so I would remember to wish everyone. In less than two decades, greeting cards were replaced entirely—first by their ubiquitous cousins, ‘e-cards’, and soon after by the far more impersonal posts on social networking sites, helpfully prompted by pop-up reminders of birthdays ‘coming up this month’.
I still remember, not too long ago, making a giant card wishing a student a speedy recovery or painting a group of horses for a friend. I even went through a Ganesha phase, sketching several to gift on New Year. There were cards for every reason, season, and mood, and I took great pride in customising them.
True, making cards demanded time and effort, but I planned carefully and became the family’s resident supplier—sometimes even taking advance bookings in bulk for special occasions. In the true spirit of it all, my parents paid me a modest stipend, which went straight into my piggy bank.
With the arrival of the Internet, I tried waging a small war against hi-tech greetings – the digital cards and slick WhatsApp messages. Eventually, I gave up, especially when my lovingly posted cards drew no response from friends through India Post.
I still sketch and paint, but now it is a “limited edition”: pieces created only for family occasions. I look back wistfully at those days of experimenting with styles—leaf prints, seed work, and block printing. I miss them, yet I also recognise that as times change, we must change too. As Alan Watts said, “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
After all, there is a kind of poetry even online — in our blog posts, our social networks, our attempts at terse haiku-like messages, and the digital sketches some of us create to brighten special moments. So let us wake up and smell the coffee, reminding ourselves that there is something in this shift in our lifestyles too. After all, “if nothing changed, there would be no butterflies.’’ Be the butterfly.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.