Sending out Eid cards to friends and family members was never a simple exercise for me. It required a series of elaborate rituals, each one of which brought me a lot of happiness. I started to send out Eid cards when I was nine years old. Forty years later, I still do.
The first step involved making a schedule for the project during the first two days of Ramzan. The first batch of cards – the one that was sent overseas – had to be mailed on the tenth day of Ramzan. Cards with Pakistani addresses were sent out on the twentieth of Ramzan.
Ally Adnan, far left, with his family in Lahore
I always started by compiling a list of recipients with the help of my mother. Recipients fell in different categories, each requiring a different type of card. The first category was that of religious people; their cards could not have any figural images. I bought cards with floral patterns for them. Then there were those who did not know English and needed cards that were in Urdu. A third category was that of my personal friends. I bought cards with funny messages for them. Family members got cards with artistic images. Teachers received cards with images related to Pakistan and Pakistani history. The people that I liked the most – my paternal Uncle and all three of my maternal aunts – got what I considered fancy cards. These always cost more than the other cards and were often layered.
[quote]Imperial Book Depot used to carry an incredible variety of Eid cards[/quote]
The next step was to buy the cards. I was allowed a generous three hours for this purpose by my mother. This was barely enough time for a task I took so seriously. Armed with my categorized list and money that I had saved, I would go to my favorite shop in Lahore, the Imperial Book Depot, on the Mall. The staff at the store knew me well – I used to go there two or three times a week – and had learnt to deal with my obsessive behavior mainly by letting me be on my own, without any help or interruptions. Imperial used to carry an incredible variety of Eid cards, forcing me to use my three hours wisely. After purchasing the cards, I would head further down the Mall to the General Post Office to buy stamps. The GPO carried a larger variety of stamps than smaller post offices. Strangely, they never had Eid-themed stamps. I did not like this because I used to see Eid stamps of other countries and wished that Pakistan would issue some as well. It wasn’t until much later that the Pakistan Post Office started releasing stamps for Eid.
[quote]Handmade cards were replaced by mass-produced ones [/quote]
The custom of sending greeting cards at Eid, in India and in what is now Pakistan, started towards the end of the 19th century. Handwritten messages wishing you a happy Eid had been sent using messengers for some centuries before that time. This was an expensive process and few could afford it. The advent of a postal system, advances in printing and mechanization, and the ready availability of printed cards revolutionized the custom. Expensive, handmade and hand-delivered cards were replaced by mass-produced ones sent through the mail.
Vintage Eid postcard with a pre-written message
Repurposed postcard from Europe
The first Eid cards came to India from Europe and were, in fact, Christmas cards that had been repurposed for Eid. The modifications were often crude and were done with stamping and handwriting. Images on the early Eid cards were lithograph prints, woodcuts or broadsides because technologies for the mass printing of artwork were not available in the 19th century. The 20th century saw great advances in printing and it became possible to print large quantities of cards at reasonable costs. The first cards that came to undivided India were printed in the Saxony state of Germany. These were imported by local companies for distribution all over India. H. A. Mirza & Sons in Delhi, Shunker Dass & Company in Lahore, Rewachand Motunul & Sons in Karachi, Moorli Dhar & Sons in Ambala, and Clifton & Company in Bombay were some of the biggest distributors of Eid cards at the time. Early cards were flat postcards. Folded Eid cards did not appear until the middle of the century. As the custom of sending cards on Eid became popular, local presses started printing the cards in the country. Eastern Commercial Agency in Bombay, Hafiz Qammaruddin & Sons in Lahore, and Bolton Fine Art Lithographers in Bombay were amongst the companies that first printed Eid cards in the region. Images on the cards almost always depicted friendship, Islam, love, and travel. A breed of poets emerged that wrote short, and very charming, poems to be used in the cards.
We will rejoice in the blessings of the new month
We will rejoice in the delights of the wonderful weather
The sounds of felicitations will be heard everywhere
We will rejoice in the wealth of the company of friends
Best wishes of Eid to my friends
Best wishes of Eid to my well-wishers
The lover and the beloved, the pious and the sinful
Best wishes of Eid to all four
Personal messages were often printed on early Eid cards to cater to buyers who were not literate and, perhaps, those who did not have the time to write personal messages.
[quote]Sending cards with photographs of actors became popular in the 1960s[/quote]
Most of the Eid cards used in Pakistan continued to be printed in India for several years after the Partition. The custom gained greater popularity with affordable airmail services. As time passed, companies in Pakistan started manufacturing Eid cards. Architectural images started appearing on Eid cards at this time. Sending cards with photographs of actors became popular in the 1960s. Corporations found Eid cards to be good for inexpensive advertising and targeted marketing, in addition to being a means for staying in touch with customers. Corporate cards were a sizable portion of the Eid cards produced in Pakistan in the 1960s. These cards were often high quality and printed exclusively for corporations by publishers such as Sheikh Ghulam Ali & Sons. A few years later, charities such as UNICEF started selling cards to raise funds. As the years passed, sending cards on Eid became a part of the traditional fabric of Pakistani society and a staggering variety of them was displayed in stores all over the country during the month of Ramzan.
Early Eid card with an image of a star
The tradition prospered until the advent of electronic communication. Now people found it easier to wish one another Eid over email; it was free and more convenient. As electronic communication became more powerful, the quality and content of messages improved tremendously. It became possible to incorporate images, videos, sound files, and a lot else into messages sent electronically. The new bells and whistles encouraged more people to give up sending paper cards. The advent of social media resulted in people having thousands of “friends” all over the globe. Sending wishes to such a large number of people was feasible only by using electronic communication. A beautiful wish could be sent to thousands of people with the click of a button at no cost.
Sending paper Eid cards requires time, money and effort. All three have become dearer as time has passed, encouraging people to abandon the custom. Sadly, the very reason people have stopped sending Eid cards is the reason that they should be sending them. Friends and family members deserve some of our time, money and effort. And very little of each is needed to mail cards.
Pakistani Eid Postage Stamps - 2012
No amount of email messages can kindle the emotions I experience when I go through a few of the more than 3,000 cards that I have received during the last forty or so years and that I have saved with great care. If only people knew what a veritable documentation of personal history – coming of age, gain and loss, love and betrayal, success and failure, birth and passing, and a whole lot else – a collection of Eid cards is!
As I sit in Dallas writing Eid cards this Ramzan, I hope they will bring a smile to the faces of the recipients. I want my friends and family members to think of me at Eid and know that they were in my thoughts during the celebration. More importantly, I want them to know that I enjoy spending time, money and energy sending Eid cards to people that I care about. Sending wishes with the click of a button is not the way to tell someone they are valued. In my opinion, it is cheap, irreverent and uncaring.
Ally Adnan lives in Dallas, Texas, where he works in the field of mobile telecommunications and writes about culture and the arts. He loves to receive Eid cards – the paper kind – and can be reached at allyadnan@outlook.com. All vintage Eid cards used in this article are from the personal collection of the author
