Sometimes I feel I would have liked to hold on to the past, to those things which I grew up with - especially those that are slipping away steadily. They are like familiar faces, old comforting stuff that make you feel like a child again. There are some things that will go extinct soon...and I will miss them!
Yesterday I signed up to "go paperless" with my bank. They told me from now on I'll have to open emails and not letters. I was relieved to think there'll be less clutter in the house and no fear of "where did I keep that?". Arnab said, "the trees will be happy", but the question is would USPS be happy too? What about those people whose families depend on us not going paperless? Is it more important to save trees than save jobs? I wonder! Post office is one of those things that will be a dodo quite soon and with it will go letters and stamps!
Those who used to collect stamps as kids would remember what an unusual stamp meant. I couldn't wait to dip those in a bowl of water to peel the stamp off and then put the hinge on and stick in my album. I asked so many people if they have stamps, peeled them off from my mom's international letters...what will our next generation do? Would they ever know what a "first day cover" means?
We don't write letters anymore. Why should we write? How long would it take to reach the person? Surely it can't beat the time an email takes to reach! The art of letter writing has vanished long back, so will "love letters" do. Lovers of the future would have 3D graphics on their "love emails" but that would miss the personal touch - the actual physical touch of the person, the scented inks, glitters and rose petals.
Another thing I can see deteriorating day by day is handwriting. We don't write, we type. I know many people who cannot write in cursive. Who knows if I'll be able to continue that for long? People nowadays grab the pen in such a horrid way that it makes me wonder if they ever learned to hold it right! I saw a six year old girl practise handwriting a few days back. "What's the use?" I wondered, "she only needs to learn how to use MS Word!"
Along with these, another long time friend of ours would be gone. That is the newspaper. Google news has already taken up the place of the newsstand in the corner. "Times New Roman" would be just another font in the MS Word dropdown. Sherlock Holmes would never have to differentiate between newspaper prints any more.
How many of you remember the desk phone with that special ring? And Kodak film cameras where we had only 36 shots per film?
The internet revolution, though good, has created strange things out of humans. I email and IM my co-worker who sits almost next to me, instead of walking to her desk and having a face to face chat. Will we forget how to talk even? Who knows if conversation would become a lost art too?
Yesterday I signed up to "go paperless" with my bank. They told me from now on I'll have to open emails and not letters. I was relieved to think there'll be less clutter in the house and no fear of "where did I keep that?". Arnab said, "the trees will be happy", but the question is would USPS be happy too? What about those people whose families depend on us not going paperless? Is it more important to save trees than save jobs? I wonder! Post office is one of those things that will be a dodo quite soon and with it will go letters and stamps!
Those who used to collect stamps as kids would remember what an unusual stamp meant. I couldn't wait to dip those in a bowl of water to peel the stamp off and then put the hinge on and stick in my album. I asked so many people if they have stamps, peeled them off from my mom's international letters...what will our next generation do? Would they ever know what a "first day cover" means?
We don't write letters anymore. Why should we write? How long would it take to reach the person? Surely it can't beat the time an email takes to reach! The art of letter writing has vanished long back, so will "love letters" do. Lovers of the future would have 3D graphics on their "love emails" but that would miss the personal touch - the actual physical touch of the person, the scented inks, glitters and rose petals.
Another thing I can see deteriorating day by day is handwriting. We don't write, we type. I know many people who cannot write in cursive. Who knows if I'll be able to continue that for long? People nowadays grab the pen in such a horrid way that it makes me wonder if they ever learned to hold it right! I saw a six year old girl practise handwriting a few days back. "What's the use?" I wondered, "she only needs to learn how to use MS Word!"
Along with these, another long time friend of ours would be gone. That is the newspaper. Google news has already taken up the place of the newsstand in the corner. "Times New Roman" would be just another font in the MS Word dropdown. Sherlock Holmes would never have to differentiate between newspaper prints any more.
How many of you remember the desk phone with that special ring? And Kodak film cameras where we had only 36 shots per film?
The internet revolution, though good, has created strange things out of humans. I email and IM my co-worker who sits almost next to me, instead of walking to her desk and having a face to face chat. Will we forget how to talk even? Who knows if conversation would become a lost art too?
