Detached in a Connected World
Fifteen years down memory lane: Communication between old parents and grown up employed kids was mainly through letters, trunck calls or STD calls. Kids would come down for a week or two every year to stay at their family home. A nice memorable reunion. Then parents would go down to celebrate important festivals like Diwali, Sankranti with their kids.
Memories from my past: I was in class 3 studying at my granny's. Every Sunday, the only holiday of the week, i remember writing a letter to my parents in whatever limited English i knew. Wouldn't address mom, dad and Pravin together. Had this peculiar habit of writing a separate paragraph for each one of them followed by a customised signature. Sounds funny today but they, in those days, longed to receive my weekly letter. And me too from them. Dad always wrote in english and i could read his paragraph. But mom wrote in Tamil and i would ask my granny to read it out for me, it had a personal touch to it. My parents would come down to Madurai to celebrate Diwali with their parents and that united me with them.

A decade ago: E-mails had started slowly replacing inland/airmail letters. But they were still limited to 1/2 e-mail per day as those were the days when e-mails were charged ( i think rs. 3 per e-mail at my college). But still the yearly reunion was very much in vogue. One month of dedicated time with kids and parents when nothing else took priority.

Five years ago: Chat became the order of communication.
Now: Age of webcam. See them while you chat.

People think you are in the stone age if you don't "yahoo" with your parents.
It would have been a good 5 years since i wrote a letter to my parents. E-mail them everyday - helps us stay connected but those sweet-little nothings are no longer my e-mail content. If i can find an appropriate subject for my mail i wriite to them, else i don't. My eyes no longer keep waiting for the 10 o clock postman to come, just to check if there is an envelope addressed to me.
Though very much connected, it is a detached life. No e-mail, no chat, no telephone call, no webcam can ever replace the physical closeness of a human. Those 50 paise inland letters had more warmth than today's monotonous e-mails. E-mails have killed the power of expression. No doubt they keep you connected all the time, thanks to that!
As technology advances, the quality time you spend with your beloved ones decreases. So busy are we with our own lives that there is little room left for those cherished family reunions. Living thousands of miles away, i have to be contented if i can see my dad/mom atleast for 1 day in a year. Maybe this explains me the reason why people in U.S and elsewhere have fabricated holidays such as Father's day and Mother's day. A reason to be with your close ones - makes sense to me.