The shoebox of sentiments: Forwarded wishes, faded warmth

‘Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect!’  Owens Lee Pomeroy

A few days after Diwali, when the festive sparkle had begun to fade from the bazaars and lanes of North India, and the chatter on social media was already drifting towards the next significant date on the calendar, I found myself driving leisurely through the now almost serene roads of my city. The radio jockey was enthusiastically announcing details about an upcoming festival in another corner of the country, complete with the fair that would usher it in. Her co-host occasionally read out letters sent in by listeners.

One such letter was from a woman who fondly recalled how her family celebrated Diwali “in the good old days.” She wrote of wearing new clothes, filling earthen lamps with mustard oil to light up the night, and bursting simple crackers—phuljhadis and anars—whose glow felt enough to brighten the heart. She described plates heaped with homemade sweets—laddoo, balushahi, barfi, and gulab jamun—carried to neighbours’ homes, and how those same plates returned laden with equally delightful savouries and confections. The festival, she wrote, was less about spectacle and more about warmth, sharing, and the soft glow of familiar happiness.

Naturally, nostalgia washed over me as well, and my mind began to summon its own memories of Diwali and New Year celebrations. Yet, as I lingered on those recollections, I realized that what I miss the most is not the grandeur of the festivities, nor even the sweets or the sparkling lights. It is the warmth and intimacy of exchanging greeting cards. Those simple yet eloquent cards carried a tenderness that arrived just as the air turned crisp—a quiet reassurance of affection and connection, handwritten and heartfelt, that no digital message has ever quite been able to replace.

As a child, I eagerly awaited the arrival of greeting cards from distant relatives, family, and friends. I took special care in arranging them on the mantlepiece—each one occupying a place of pride on the cemented shelf draped in lace doilies. When guests came by to extend their wishes in person, the cards were displayed and admired, whether for the significance of the sender, the beauty of the calligraphy, or the elegance of the message within. They remained the chief decoration well into the first month of the new year, their presence an extension of the festival’s warmth. Eventually, they found their way into a carefully preserved collection, tucked lovingly into an empty metal tin or shoebox. I, for one, often fashioned bookmarks out of some of them—carrying a little piece of that affection between the pages of my books.

These days, when the sharp, metallic ping of social media alerts sounds on my phone in the days leading up to a festival, my heart gives a small, uneasy stir. I squirm on the inside, already knowing what awaits: another forwarded message, sent off in haste by a well-meaning friend or relative—wishes that feel neither personal nor thoughtful, just part of the endless digital drift that replaces presence with perfunctoriness.

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