An old Christmas card

This time around in a different age and world, homes would be decked with Christmas cards sent by friends, relatives and even strangers. They would be strung on a string much like freshly washed laundry across Christmas trees or exhibited on drawing room mantles and office tables. The more cards one was able to display, the greater it seemed was the popularity of the proud recipient!

We had many Christian friends and acquaintances and our home would soon fill up with cards. As children we never had a Christmas tree at home but the cards were always given the pride of place and each one was received with excitement and warmth. I too made it a habit to reciprocate as much as the meager pocket money and cost of postage allowed me to.

The cards came with beautiful images accompanied by both printed and handwritten messages conveying wishes of love, remembrance and warmth. Without doubt, they were the highlights of the season for many of us who otherwise did not have the opportunity to celebrate Christmas the same way as some of our friends. They transported us to the beautiful and wonderful world of Christmas trees, Santa and his reindeer, Stockings filled with gifts, plum cakes and even caroling.

These cards have all but vanished now. It started with e-cards sent through emails. Electronic cards with animated messages popped up on your emails and often had a button you could press for instant reciprocity. You could choose from a wide array of e-cards and also personalize them at little or no cost. There was no need to post them a month in advance as instant delivery was assured. But these cards also faced a quick demise when Messaging services like WhatsApp became popular. Now emailing cards have become dispensable and feet as archaic as postal envelopes. You can google the card of your liking and forward it to all your contacts without cost. And if that is cumbersome you can recycle the card on WhatsApp by forwarding it to multiple recipients without breaking into a sweat. And they can be deleted en masse after a few days so that precious storage space is saved. Yes, life has become easier for serial card senders.

My father always looked forward to Christmas as he grew older and more imprisoned within the four walls of our Delhi home. His best friend and brother in arms Col. Bob Snaize of the Assam Regiment had retired to Shillong which was also the native home of his wife, Aunt Feli. Their friendship continued well beyond the retirement years as both made annual pilgrimages between Shillong and Delhi as long as the weary old army boots did not fail them. Every time father embarked on this journey we would worry about how he would fare travelling either alone or with a companion but he never missed a trip to spend time with Uncle Bob and Aunt Feli in their quaint English style cottage “Cowleen” in Shillong just above the Military Hospital. They also exchanged letters regularly updating each other even as age began taking a toll on their health. Then the visits from both sides became rarer. Soon the letters too became irregular but the Christmas cards continued to make their journeys through the postal route between Shillong and Delhi arriving every year a few days before 25 December. The card from Uncle Bob always began with “dear Harry (my father’s army nickname), Sarala and the boys” and signed off in his inimitable “yours aye, Bob and Feli”. It always acted as a tonic for my father and he would show it to us with pride and take an extra swig of Rum in the evening. The letters and the visits had ended but the Christmas card kept the bond between the two old soldiers and best friends alive and kicking.

Then one day my Shillong-based cousin informed us that Uncle Bob had been diagnosed with throat cancer. My father’s few letters to him remained unanswered. As he too was now old and not quite up to the rigors of letter writing the exchange of updates between the two old friends completely ceased. But my father now looked forward to the annual Christmas card as his only link with his old friend. With Christmas around the corner, we received the news that we had hoped not to. Uncle Bob had passed away. My mother told us that we should not tell father about this. After all, he too was old and may not be able to survive the loss of his best friend. A few months later Christmas came and went without a card from Uncle Bob. My mom broke the news to him as gently as she could. I still remember my father looking at us and repeating “Bob is gone, he is gone” as if he did not believe it. We felt his pain and realized how much this bond had meant to him in his life.

The hand written card built bridges across distances in a way no card on WhatsApp or email can. Many mourn the death of reading and writing habits of children blinded by the light of their smartphones. The pleasure of turning or earmarking a real page and penning one’s thoughts on white paper with an erasure on standby are not really lost arts. They are just forgotten and replaced by quicker and easier replacements in a fast moving world. Otherwise there are shops that still sell cards and post offices that will happily stamp your envelopes and post them to destinations however far anywhere in the world. But our wishes and greetings now have to be like ready to eat noodles. Nobody has time to hold a pen and rustle up a few kind words if it takes more than a few minutes.

My dad has passed on and so has my mother and Aunt Feli. We don’t wait for any letters or cards to be dropped in our post box any more. Maybe one day we will learn to prize the Christmas cards that can never be deleted with a button because the heart, unlike the smartphone, has unlimited storage.

Views expressed are personal