PLANNING OUR LIVES BEYOND WORK

Stepping into the new calendar year means surfing through a barrage of forwarded new year greetings.

- ANURADHA GOYAL

Stepping into the new calendar year means surfing through a barrage of forwarded new year greetings. Answering the ones personally addressed with a hint of originality, I was transported to childhood days when we used to write new year greetings on postcards to every family we knew. Then came the era of greeting cards that were sent with a personal note mentioning the names of all family members of both the sender and the receiver. Those with cameras would send a recent picture. This was a yearly contact with all the people who were a part of our lives, personally or professionally. Greetings were an acknowledgement, an opportunity to reconnect and update.

Switch to the digital era, we swim in the sea of forwarded messages from anyone whose phone has my number saved, many numbers we cannot even recall. In times of outsourcing, we just wait for a greeting that can be forwarded on our WhatsApp broadcast list. To a couple of kids who did wish me in person, I asked, "How are you going to make this new year happy, for yourself and for me?" They were at a complete loss and made a polite exit. It was an out-of-syllabus question. Isn't custom to simply reply Happy New Year with Happy New Year?