LONGING
FOR THOSE OLD CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR
TIMES !
We
are on the threshold of yet another Christmas and another New Year. Watching
all the frenzied activity I see on the Cochin roads ,related to shopping for Christmas, which I notice is
mostly for Christmas decorations and textiles/garments, my mind goes four decades back to our days in College. Those
were the days when we used to “GO “shopping for Christmas and New Year cards for our
friends and relations. I use the word GO , because today people do not have to do
it . It is the age of messages/images through WhatsApp /Face Book etc,which is
accessible from your chair or bed! But those days we used go out shopping to search and buy cards which had beautiful words
to specifically express our wishes for
each person the card was being send to.
The money at our disposal of course would be limited.
Those were not days when parents could spare pocket money
like they do now a days. I remember , most of us in the college hostel where I was
put up ,would get a hundred rupee Money Order from our home. From this, eighty five
rupees would go for our hostel
fee. Out of the remaining fifteen rupees
a bottle of Horlicks would take
away seven rupees. Wonder why, but a
Horlicks drink at night was a must for us in the hostel, those days! So most of
us had to manage all our needs for the month including the visits to College Canteen with the balance of eight rupees .And we managed
to do it ,although we would face funds constraints by the last week and would
cut on our canteen trips ! The cost of a Masala Dosa those days was just 25
paise !! And a Masala Dosa or a Cutlet were the richest treat , unlike the
present days when a sumptuous choice of
eats is available to youngsters .
In December our parents obliged us with an additional five
or ten bucks for the special purpose of
buying Christmas and New Year greeting
cards ! The shopping for cards started
with the visit to the Higginbotham’s store in the City. The cards would be displayed , price wise on the stands .The prices ranged
from 25 paise to a kingly sum of five rupees ! To mix and match the price and our sentiments
was quite a job! Of course we would also go to smaller shops on the street
where we could getter cheaper cards .It
was an enjoyable exercise ,though. We
had to do all the shopping much before
Christmas holidays as those days the
Post offices would be so overburdened with the plethora of greeting cards that
the delivery of the cards
continued till mid-January even if posted mid -December.
We hostellers in
the Convent college where I studied ,were allowed to go shopping only once in a month , of
course accompanied by a Senior or a Nun
.One particular year ,I remember we had
the Half yearly exams early in December so we were not allowed to go out
shopping. There was no way to go out to make our purchase of greeting cards.
Some of us then decided to send hand-made cards. Paper was
available in the hostel store. We got water colours and oil paint and made the cards for Xmas and New Year. Leaves and flowers
were plucked and dried and pasted on the cards and some more innovative among
us even got poor butterflies and stuck them on to the cards!! The main idea was
that our friends and cousins, aunts and
uncles should get a personal card from us !Of course we also used
to receive such cards from our friends and relations and I still have some of these preserved till
date, for sentimental reasons!
Now things have
become so easy but so impersonal .All we
have to do is send an SMS or Email or use WhatsApp /Face Book . Greeting cards of all varieties can be downloaded and send by email. There is
no fun of shopping and searching for cards
to express our feelings ,no hassle of writing out addresses and sticking
stamps, no trip to the Post office or
finding someone to post it for us. But the charm is lost, somewhere
something seems missing. Although we have come a long way from those days, we of that
generation do miss the bonhomie
and fun, the joy of receiving and sending greeting cards. I feel like
crooning with Mary Hopkins... “Those were the days my friend/we thought
they’d never end……?
