{"id":7453,"date":"2016-07-22T21:02:13","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T15:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=7453"},"modified":"2016-07-22T21:02:13","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T15:32:13","slug":"casettes-cards-and-flowers-why-the-world-needs-to-express-through-objects-rather-than-emojis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=7453","title":{"rendered":"Cassettes, Cards and Flowers: Why The World Needs To Express Through Objects Rather Than Emojis"},"content":{"rendered":"\nW<\/span>hen I was 15, I started writing postcards to my friends, every time I traveled. I am 93% sure I was imitating a character from a TV show hoping that I would too someday carry the same cultural cache. What I hadn\u2019t expected, was how much my friends would grow to like it. \n\nMy dad has a cassette collection that he can\u2019t get rid of. His neat print resides on the back of the cases\u2014’Best of Rafi\u2019 or \u2018Pankaj Udhas #1\u2019. One glance and I know he loved Talat Mahmood. His taste may have evolved but these physical tapes are proof of his musical roots. As if the things we loved cannot be erased as long as they can be touched and felt.\n\nMy father clearly had friends who cared enough to burn tapes for him. When he plays them back, I bet he thinks of them. I don\u2019t listen to Kishore Kumar\u2014I am strictly a Taylor Swift gal\u2014but when I do, I think of my dad. It is incredible to me, the many layers of memories\u2014my dad\u2019s and mine\u2014that can be tucked away on this roll of brown tape. Which makes me sad that my generation, with our Spotify accounts and online playlists, doesn\u2019t have anything similarly tangible to pass onto the next generation.\n\n

As if the things we loved cannot be erased as long as they can be touched and felt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nMy best friend in fifth standard made me a greeting card for my birthday. She finger-painted it and I was awestruck. We don\u2019t speak anymore but when I now look at the card, all I feel is love. This past year, I ordered a birthday gift for a friend online. When she got it, she texted to say thanks and I didn\u2019t feel anything. In previous years, we have had a tradition of her trying to guess the gift. I would get impatient as she slowly undid the paper. Her confusion and suspense would turn into realization. Her face would light up when she realized what she\u2019d received. Watching her go through that rollercoaster of emotions made me feel better connected to her. It\u2019s not about the object, but the fact that we can imbue said object with a happy memory, a loving feeling, or maybe with time, a feeling of longing. There\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with online gifting but it\u2019s too impersonal and pragmatic for my taste.\n\nWhen I moved to California, I printed out photos of my friends and stuck them to my wall. It made me feel less homesick. My favourite was that of me and my two best friends. We\u2019re laughing at someone off-camera. You can tell that we were posing moments ago, but there are cracks in those Insta-worthy tight smiles as the laughter burst forth. It reminds me of the photos from my mom\u2019s albums. The people in them are usually mid-blink, badly lit and blurred.\n\n

It\u2019s not about the object, but the fact that we can imbue said object with a happy memory, a loving feeling, or maybe with time, a feeling of longing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nWe spend so much time with our filters, perfect lighting and \u201838 selfies before you upload the right one\u2019 that sometimes we forget that the digital world is a poor imitation of the real one. My mom\u2019s photos are not perfect, but they are an honest account of a moment lost to time. Perfection, especially photoshopped perfection, is boring. I\u2019d rather have something original\u2014a photo that\u2019s organic, messy and makes me feel like I know the person in it.\n\nI don\u2019t want to take away the internet (as if it were even possible). I spend most of my time on the internet. But in our increasingly digitalized world, I do wish for love, an abstract concept, to be tangible. It\u2019s hard to argue, or doubt that which can be felt or touched. It\u2019s why I love heirlooms. My dadi has these pressed silk saris that she never wears, lovingly folded with paper in the back of her closet. I have never worn a sari, but I want to wear hers. I want to feel the cloth between my fingers and know that it once draped her body. I want my mom\u2019s old oil paintings and grandpa\u2019s empty whiskey bottles. And yes, even my dad\u2019s tapes. These objects are how I\u2019ll carry them.\n\n

I\u2019d rather have something original\u2014a photo that\u2019s organic, messy and makes me feel like I know the person in it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nThis past year and a half of Zoom-hell has schooled me about the future I want. Social media is not an adequate substitute for real interaction. Text messages are undeniably efficient but rushed. Our lives are rushed. I want a world where I can sit, pen and paper in hand, and take a moment to think about the person I\u2019m writing to. It\u2019s also about the effort. I can\u2019t deny the time it takes to wait by the radio to burn a song onto a tape, or paint a greeting card, or look for the perfect flowers despite knowing that they\u2019ll die overnight. It\u2019s not the life these objects have that matters, it is the effort and love that went into creating and choosing them withstands both the ruins of time and aging.\n\n\u00a0\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a world overrun with links and emojis, I want to resurrect mix-tapes, love letters, and physical greeting cards, not out of a misguided romantic notion of the pre-digital era but as tangible evidence of the relationships I\u2019ve had and worked hard to keep alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":439,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[11426,3619,3620,9418,11427,11428],"class_list":["post-7453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pov","tag-birthday-gift","tag-gifts","tag-greeting-cards","tag-letters","tag-love-letters","tag-mix-tapes"],"yoast_head":"\nCassettes, Cards and Flowers: Why The World Needs To Express Through Objects Rather Than Emojis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a world overrun with links and emojis, I want to resurrect mix-tapes, love letters, and physical greeting cards, not out 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