Greeting cards are being replaced by SMS

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Pakhi Hussain

24 October, 2011

Greetings cards used to be the mainstay when it came to greetings no matter what the occasion. Technology, in the form of mobile calls, mobile SMSes, and the internet, is making hand-based cards irrelevant and putting an end to the age-old culture of choo

APART FROM the big Diary Milk Chocolates that I used to receive on my birthdays, the other thing that I used to look forward to were the hoards of greeting cards that my cousins used to send me from wherever they lived. They were special as they used to go up on my wall collection, and in a way, I used to feel loved whenever I used to look at them. As I grew up, the Dairy Milk was replaced with a book and greeting cards with SMS and calls. Although we must thank technology for making communication this easy, paper-based greeting cards are probably on their way out - being replaced with mobile phones and dirt cheap SMSes. According to gift shops retailers, in the last five years, greeting card sales have declined by more than 40 per cent.

There was a time when greeting cards used to be sold like hot cakes and the sale used to be especially high during the festival season. So much so that even greeting cards in regional languages became a big thing. However, this was soon replaced by Short Messaging Services, and greetings via emial and chat. While a paper-based greeting card costs anything between Rs 40 to Rs 175, a SMS costs around 1 rupee per message and calls these days are charged per second, so definitely the days of a greeting card being a major medium of communicating greetings are over. As reported in samachar.com, almost everyone prefers a SMS to a greeting card.

When asked Aseem, a photo-journalist, said that he doesn’t buy greeting cards at all, “as one can make a direct contact by calling a person up then why bother and buy a greeting card and post it.” He has a point but there are people who still do take pleasure in buying a card that has funny messages or is customised for a father or a brother.

In my family itself, although we youngsters have switched from a card to a SMS or a call but my uncle still gifts me with a card every birthday and although I do not have a collection of them but I still get one single card to keep for my wall.