For people who travelled frequently it used to be customary for them to come back with beautiful and sometimes intricately carved what were known as refrigerator magnets. Famous among the landmarks highlighted included the Empire State Building, Disney world, the White House, Buckingham Palace, Eiffel Tower, the Niagara falls and a host of landmarks around the world.
While this gave your freezing machine a colorful outlook standing before your refrigerator you were also reminded of the pleasant time you had spent in these landmarks. While in some cases you will still find this and other similar artifacts on the doors of refrigerators there is another competitor for space on your refrigerator doors these days.
Most refrigerator doors are so to say overbooked for space as the doors are now covered with booking slips and hard cash. These booking slips are reminders of the online purchases you have made and as you wait for delivery many people attach the booking confirmation slip and the amount to be paid at delivery so that when the delivery person arrives there is no hitch and the transaction takes place smoothly.
Usually, it does but than sometimes the delivery person gets lost and then there is an endless back and forth with the eagerly awaiting recipient of the package trying to desperately outline the straightest path to his or her house and the rider constantly getting it wrong.
It is only after several trial and error attempts that the parcel gets safely delivered and the refrigerator door relieved of one of the delivery notes. The online order delivery boys and customers have other problems as well. Sometimes the delivery person arrives while the recipient is out shopping or not available for some other reason.
Yes, the rider is supposed to call before coming over with the goodies but sometimes the recipient’s phone is on silent and the rider assumes there will be someone at home to receive the goods but that not being the case it is a useless trip for the rider and a waste of his precious petrol.
Online shopping is now in full swing in the country and entire families are taking advantage of this phenomenon. What a contrast from the days gone by. About 60 years ago the only online shopping that people were exposed to were the vendors who would go from door to door selling their wares.
This would gain momentum as the festive seasons of Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha approached. The most popular vendor was the woman who would be selling bangles and Mehndi. She would come with this huge Wicker basket on her head and knock on doors. All residents would wait impatiently for their turn and hoping that she would not miss them or run out of the choicest offerings.
Also coming to the doorsteps would be the shoe seller who was the favorite of the boys in the household. Those were days when simplicity was the buzzword and shoes were a little expensive so most did not have their wishes fulfilled but that was how it was in those days and in spite of the austerity and having to suppress your wishes when required those were extremely satisfying times. In this context Eidi assumed new dimensions and every child on the three days of Eid would be on an Eidi-gathering mission with relentless enthusiasm.
How times have changed. Now sitting in the comfort of one’s home, one can like some ancient rulers have the best items available in the land paraded in front of you to be looked at, appraised, admired and if desired to be bought in the twinkling of an eye and have them delivered to your doorsteps within precisely the time promised and unless the rider goes astray to receive the chosen items in mint condition and without any hassle.
The most welcome addition to online buying is grocery as that has made the life of the housewife much more easier and now she can from the comfort of her house see, gauge, choose and order items for the kitchen and have them delivered packed neatly and as per her instructions.
While all this seems so revolutionary and modern to today who knows how it will be another 20 years down the road and one might than be wondering how outdated one was in this age and time.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
The writer is a well-known columnist
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