It’s greeting cards for the old, wired forwards for the young

With the festive season round the corner, regular greeting cards seem to have been replaced by Whatsapp texts and e-cards. The trend is not just restricted to the harvest festival of Pongal; this is so with other major occasions too, like New Year and Deepavali when people used to exchange greetings via cards. Platforms like Instagram and facebook say it all now. 

With the exit of the card culture, photos taken on mobiles or those that found place in dailies are tagged with greetings on social media. Interestingly, such picture-supported texts give the receiver a glimpse of  tradition and on-the-ground activities associated with the festival. A Google search or the relevant facebook page leads to a collage of pictures, with greetings offering a visual treat of rural Tamil Nadu during the harvest festival and the customs, rituals and sports associated with it.

S Bharath, an engineering student, must echo the thoughts of all young people when he says he approves heartily of Pongal wishes conveyed through social media. “I can click anything at any time, upload and share with everyone in a split second. There is no need to wait for days on end to have one’s cards reach someone, like it was in the 1980s or earlier,” he says. 

Though such a makeover of a traditional occasion is a welcome sign for Gen-X, old timers find it hard to let go. “Yes, it saves time I agree. But, the satisfaction and intimacy one feels when seeing the handwriting and signature of our near and dear ones is something unique. We see the affection beyond the words when we receive it, addressed to us, individually. In present-day technology, it is group messaging or bulk mailing. Doesn’t it sound like a time-bound duty ahead of or on special days like Pongal?,” opines 77-year-old P T Rangamani, a retired GM of what was then Indian Telephones.