RING OUT THE OLD RING IN THE NEW

HAPPY NEW YEAR 

 "Ring out the old ring in the new" so said Alfred Tennyson in his immortal "In Memoriam".  There was a time when New Year was eagerly awaited, as fresh beginnings could be made, saying adios to the year that just went by. Apart from the  dancing and merry making on the New Year's eve, we would sit down and religiously prepare our own greeting cards list, where and who all were going to be on it. Prior to that getting hold of cards, ordering them in advance, initially just with the regimental emblem and then with our name embossed the customised version, it was an exercise in itself and then collect all the cards received and put them up for display in your office and at home. There was a personal touch in these precious cards, people endorsed a few salutations in hand and signed, but alas those days are all gone.

Ever since the advent of this wretched "whats app", it has single handedly put these cards to rest permanently. Now we dread New Year's eve and the following days, as we are literally swamped with new year good wishes from every possible contact or non contact. There are all kinds of messages doing the rounds, so we have some who decide to wax eloquent about philosophy dishing out sermons about the new year, some of us vainglorious types decide to take selfies with families and inundate the groups with their photos with the greetings, some indulge in poetry while some others say it with flowers and cakes but alas, all in the virtual world. The deluge of wishes actually submerge us as the count just keeps rising from hundreds to thousands and we find it difficult to keep pace. The issue is not just being at the receiving end, we have to give back in equal measure, else we feel left out, so then we end up pushing out these in the same manner as we received them. While we definitely end up touching base with many more, but the sheer pleasure of receiving the physical greeting card and having it displayed like a trophy is missing. Whats app being free, we tend to dig out even those friends and relatives who have been long forgotten and are not even in their contact list. So we end up introducing ourselves to these guys who obviously did not think it was worth the while to save your contact details. Then they feign as though they have been able to place you, which we all know is quite fake, as they have no recollection whatsoever, and sure enough they end up reciprocating with the perfunctory response “Same to you!”. For the retirees, this is a good pastime but for the rest who still have to work to earn their bread, this is a pain, especially as some oldies would take an offence on their good wishes not being responded to. 

I often wonder, what is there to celebrate about this new year, the thoughts expressed in a cartoon which I came across, where an alien is posing a question to his colleague as to why the earthlings are going crazy on this day. His response was that since their planet has completed one full circle of their star, they call it new year and dance around. The first one then says, didn’t he mention that these guys are quite a dumb race actually. 

Dumb we are, no doubt, as through “whats app”,  we are providing the most precious commodity “Data” in this digital era, to Meta on a platter.