Before Facebook, There were Autograph Books

As a mother of a seventeen-year-old who is shortly leaving school, I find it pretty amusing to see him with a greatly prized possession these days… his autograph book!

I wish I had preserved my own autograph books from my school days. I remember I had three of them. One was a red, plastic-covered book with coloured pages. (We couldn’t get any fancy ones in Palakkad some twenty-five-plus years ago.) This one was reserved for special friends who had sentimentally recorded pages and pages of the entire history of our friendship.

Another similar blue smaller slam book was given out to juniors and other acquaintances at school.

The third one, which was of a more fancy nature—something my mother had got for me from Muscat—was exclusively for my teachers.

Come to think of it, most of my teachers had penned down some great quote or proverb along with their wishes. How I wish I had understood the deeper meaning of those valuable words at the time!

Somewhere in the passing of time, my little autograph books lost their charm and value in my grown-up world and got left behind someplace…

Times have undoubtedly changed. The e-communication revolution and the era of mobile phones are playing a great part in keeping school friendships alive. The phrase ‘keep in touch’ is no longer said with a heavy heart, thanks to email, Skype, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

These children will never have to bear the pangs of separation like those of my generation, since they have the option of remaining connected with each other, no matter which part of the world they are in.

But unfortunately, they will never know the sweetness of discovering a long-lost friend on Facebook, or getting a call from a classmate who has somehow managed to dig out your phone number and gives you a late-night surprise call twenty-five years down the road.

They will never know the thrill of a school reunion decades later, where you bump into dozens of classmates and friends whom you have never met since your school days.

And most importantly, they will never, ever experience the thrill of receiving a friend’s letter by post, tearing it open in a hurry and savouring the delicious lines, word by word, with a song in your heart…