ays were when people shopped hours for greeting cards - birthday greetings, anniversary greetings, Christmas greetings, New Year greetings et al - carefully selecting each card to suit the occasion and the personality of the recipient. They took pains to pen down a warmly-worded personalised message on each card, and then made the effort to walk across to the red letterbox standing on the kerb.

Today, when people want to send a greeting, they mostly reach for their cell phones, key in a short text message or pull out a suitable MMS clip and forward it to those listed in their phone book. Or they simply log onto the Internet and mass mail an e-greeting to everyone in their address book. Much to the dismay of greeting card brands such as Archies Greetings and Gifts, which became virtually synonymous with paper greeting cards in India during the eighties and nineties, the number of people who still prefer to shop for greeting cards is dwindling. ... more