Technology has brought a lot of us simplicity into our lives. It has made things a lot more convenient, speedy and fancy. As an aunt of mine once said it's all "magic" when she saw me transferring pictures from a computer into my mobile phone using bluetooth. But in all this convenience I sometimes end up missing the times when it wasn't all so easy.
I sit back and recall the times when I was younger, which wasn't very long back also but still ! I miss writing letters and posting them and receiving replies to those in turn. I might be sending out printed letters now but written ones ? No way. I might just have written a greeting card for a friend sitting in the US but not for anybody else in the last 7-8 years. There was however a time when I used to write. I would make lines on sheets so that my handwriting wouldn't look too messy on the paper. A rough draft of the letter would be prepared and then a final letter written. The same would then be put in an envelope and I would personally walk till the post box and send it off. Which makes me realise that the post box now doesn't even exist where it once was. There's just one post office in my locality now. Somehow writing a letter would never be as personal as sending a typed out letter. It's just not the same amount of effort and probably not the same enthusiasm either. For the person at the receiving end as well, yes it's a whole lot convenient to check your e-mail and save the file. But where is the charm of waiting for a letter to arrive ? The happiness that you feel when you have finally received that one letter ? I remember there was this one site which would let people write in their emails on their website and they would send it to receipient in a typed format on paper. I don't think the site exists now. I would like to exchange letters with some people once in a while :)
Another thing that I dearly miss is landlines. Yes, we still have them and pretty much use them as well. But my reason for missing landlines is blank calls. Sigh...What times. We wouldn't have cell phones and thus couldn't call up without the fear of the line being intercepted. And who would want teenage romance being heard over by parents ? So we would call up the other person, hear the parents or somebody unkown pick up and hang up instantly. Blank calls were also great fun on night outs. We would call up our crushes and giggle over the phone endlessly. These were also the times of the absence of caller ID's at most places. What glorious times these were. Now we have cellphones with caller ID's where our boyfriends/girlfriends/'whatever applicable can call on freely. The fun of hiding something and doing is now gone.
Now Delhi is a cold city. In winters you just have to have loads of rajais and kambals in your room to warm you up. Go back some years and you would know that we used to have those heaters with rods which weren't that effective also. Plus those were the times of several power cuts. So what used to happen in winters was that the whole family would be cuddled up next to each other in one bed in some rajais and some kambals and mathis and be watching TV on new years eve. Those weren't really the times when you'd party on new years, atleast not for us. So we would all watch TV cuddled together. Now, we have heaters( trust me I love them, I sit an inch away from my blower but still ?!?!?) and we don't really need the blankets and rajais. So cuddle together time for no good reason is slowly diminishing.
Oh and talking about TV, I miss the good old DD days for sure. I was way too young when they used to show programs only for a few hours but I do remember chitrahaar, my sister used to religiously tape that program. Then there was Rajni, Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, Hum Log, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Malgudi Days and loadsa others remarkable programmes that used to show on DD. It was fun waiting for them to air, even nicer to watch them. Somebody please read this and bring out VCD's of all DD programmes. Quite a few are out I know but some are still missing. Now thanks to technology we have zillion channels which show mostly trash. Not good.
I will keep adding as I am reminded of some more. In the meanwhile why don't you people add up stuff that you miss ?
P.S. I still do love the advancements that technology is bringing. So please all the techie gadgets in my house keep working as you do and do not take offence.
