The New year started the usual way with the morning visitors making their appearance and greeting us with a smile. They were all there, the paper boy, the milk woman, the maid , the cook who worked upstairs, the driver who worked for our neighbour, the sweeper etc. all of them reeling off those three magic words: ‘Happy New Year amma and aiyya’ with a broad smile. Then followed the numerous phone calls from friends and relatives living in Chennai and the rest of the country.
This year too as was usual we had a pot luck party in the evening with a few games thrown in .It was fun quizzing our friends (whose age ranged from 40plus to 70 plus ) with general knowledge questions and some moron games also thrown in which brought out the child in them, each laughing and poking fun at one another when ever their answers appeared far fetched. One of the games consisted of 10 various ingredients mixed up in a tray and each one was asked to guess the number of varieties and mention their names. To everyone’s surprise the person who got nine right was a gentleman who is an auditor. The mouth watering menu which was polished off in no time proved a fitting finale to our get together.
Then what is it that I am missing you might ask. Well I miss the postman who would begin delivering beautiful greeting cards with all kinds of attractive pictures signed by the sender in his/her own hand writing. I would receive a handful each day which would begin from the last week of December and continue till almost the end of January. I proudly displayed them in my show case for all my visitors to see! The cards would remain there the whole of January and I would reluctantly remove them there after.
Don’t you think a greeting card sent by snail mail will score over one sent by e mail which lacks a personal touch?
n.meera raghavendra rao
Just Li'Es 
I still have a pile of hand written letters received about two decades ago. One of them is from a Padma Bhushan awardee. It is a pity that e-mail has overtaken this joyous mode of communication. As you rightly point out, the same thing has happened with greetings cards. The postal cards have decreased in the ratio of 10 to 1.
I could count the few greeting cards that trickled in which added up to a single digit.
i totally agree with you. for three consecutive years i sent cards, in vain, no acknowledgement, gave up.may be too old fashioned for the high tech world.
shall send you a nice one to make you laugh, next year
I shall look forward to it!