Oh my God! it's gone!
Why can’t birth days last longer than 24 hours? I mean, I spend an entire year waiting for that one beautiful day and then it is gone in a snap! Just like that. I wish I had the power to make all Birth days last for one Jovian day ( I don’t know how long that is but it should definitely be longer than 24h:-D). But this blog is not about the bigger picture rather it is all for the nitty-gritty’s (what is the correct spelling!) of birthdays – The Cards!
I turned 4 times my birthdate a few days back. However I received only 1/8th of my age as greeting cards. Okay for those weak in Math, let me add another clue, I received just THREE cards. Damn! What happened to the world of people in my life????
Nopes. They did not forget but then you see, we live in this techno-crazy world where what can be conveyed in a nanosecond over phone/email need not be put through the arduous ritual of walking by aisles of cards to select that purrfect one.
Why did I get that 3 anyway? Primo, my parents refused to be part of the Internet Cult and secundo, my 10 year old cousin finds it more exciting to use her set of crayons than MSPaint or www.greetings.yahoo.com (should I ask them money for advertisement?) and thirdo, my best friend is a stickler for doing the "right" thing with the right amount of dedication! Kudos to them!
Looks like all these wonderful inventions have just crippled us and reduced our circle. I know I am talking just the opposite of what they actually do. But then if you are a starry-eyed little girl who believes more in Faraway trees and fighting the Romans, then all this gigabytes and terabytes of information available for picking is not really enticing!
My wardrobe has one shelf completely devoted to packets and packets of cards starting from my 4th standard. Of course that was an age when pocket money was still a dream. Those yellowed papers torn from geography and history notebooks, with a simple “Happy Birth Day” scribbled across with a blunt pencil, speak volumes.
Somehow I find it impossible to imagine myself with my little angel on my lap, both of us staring at the monitor and Mommy showing her this emotional b’day email from an age long forgotten. I am sure my computer would crash innumerable times before such a moment arrives and delete those wonderful mails. Of course I could copy it onto a CD, but wonder if that would last the ravages of time at my clumsy hands.
But I can definitely picture myself in this time of reference – My little angel and I sitting cross-legged on the floor, by the French window in my new home, poring over reams and reams of crumpled and yellowed papers and cards and listening to her “Oooh Amma, look at this card! Isn’t this bunny cute?” and I respond with a hug though to my corrupted-with-adult-ideas-brain that looks more like a balloon. *sigh*
But for now, all that I can do, as a 24 year old romantic little girl who refuses to grow up, is wait…for my very own little angel. I know they exist because among the many nanosecond calls that I received, one was from this 1 year old cherub of a niece whispering softly in the phone “appi baduke ammai”.
“If you can wait and not be tired by waiting”…Kipling knew this little girl!
I turned 4 times my birthdate a few days back. However I received only 1/8th of my age as greeting cards. Okay for those weak in Math, let me add another clue, I received just THREE cards. Damn! What happened to the world of people in my life????
Nopes. They did not forget but then you see, we live in this techno-crazy world where what can be conveyed in a nanosecond over phone/email need not be put through the arduous ritual of walking by aisles of cards to select that purrfect one.
Why did I get that 3 anyway? Primo, my parents refused to be part of the Internet Cult and secundo, my 10 year old cousin finds it more exciting to use her set of crayons than MSPaint or www.greetings.yahoo.com (should I ask them money for advertisement?) and thirdo, my best friend is a stickler for doing the "right" thing with the right amount of dedication! Kudos to them!
Looks like all these wonderful inventions have just crippled us and reduced our circle. I know I am talking just the opposite of what they actually do. But then if you are a starry-eyed little girl who believes more in Faraway trees and fighting the Romans, then all this gigabytes and terabytes of information available for picking is not really enticing!
My wardrobe has one shelf completely devoted to packets and packets of cards starting from my 4th standard. Of course that was an age when pocket money was still a dream. Those yellowed papers torn from geography and history notebooks, with a simple “Happy Birth Day” scribbled across with a blunt pencil, speak volumes.
Somehow I find it impossible to imagine myself with my little angel on my lap, both of us staring at the monitor and Mommy showing her this emotional b’day email from an age long forgotten. I am sure my computer would crash innumerable times before such a moment arrives and delete those wonderful mails. Of course I could copy it onto a CD, but wonder if that would last the ravages of time at my clumsy hands.
But I can definitely picture myself in this time of reference – My little angel and I sitting cross-legged on the floor, by the French window in my new home, poring over reams and reams of crumpled and yellowed papers and cards and listening to her “Oooh Amma, look at this card! Isn’t this bunny cute?” and I respond with a hug though to my corrupted-with-adult-ideas-brain that looks more like a balloon. *sigh*
But for now, all that I can do, as a 24 year old romantic little girl who refuses to grow up, is wait…for my very own little angel. I know they exist because among the many nanosecond calls that I received, one was from this 1 year old cherub of a niece whispering softly in the phone “appi baduke ammai”.
“If you can wait and not be tired by waiting”…Kipling knew this little girl!
posted by Kumari at 12:22 AM
3 Comments:
Thanks a lot! Hope you had a great day too!
Yeah i do agree this medium has its advantages cos if this ether wasn't here i suppose we wouldn't have said what we just did.
Hmm...but i guess there is something exotically nice about those old-world customs:) till another day...
Belated Happy Birthday PonC! Hope you had a nice day!! I completely agree with you about the cards and stuff. They dont expire like the e-hallmark cards do :-) And they bring back a wave of nostalgia!
belated happy birthday! as years roll, dont we look forward to this day lesser n lesser? :)
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