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5 Jan 2005: It's really sad to see one
of the most useful of modern inversions, e-mail,
can fall into such abysmal levels of misuse. What
surprises me even more is that we actually care to
read these forwarded messages like gullible
idiots.
Over the years, I have been bombarded with
hundreds, or may be thousands of such forwards.
Most of these actually suffer a "shift -
Delete" the very moment they arrive in my
mail box.
In my earlier days, when I was innocent,
curious and gullible; I used to actually spend
time and read the forwards. These precarious mails
used to come in a few distinct categories. These
categories speak volumes about the lack of
creativity among the mail forwarding sources.
These forwards come in these well defined
categories:
The oh-so-sadly-ill-fund-raiser:
Typically, it has a sad story followed by a
request for funds or monitory help
("money" doesn't sound too great, you
see). It goes something like this: I am So and So,
and my wife/child/mother/dog is suffering from
Lymphosarcoma of the toe nail and the doctor says
she/he/it will die in a month. The only way to
make me live longer is spend a $ 1 million per
day. See, I am so sad and lonely. I need the
dollars because who knows, for every extra day my
wife/child/mother/dog live, they may do some great
deed which will go down in history! So if you are
worth your salt on this planet; please forward
this mail to 100 people. I need the contribution
real fast.
The alert mail:
1) Please do not visit a theatre, restaurant
or any public place. There are way too many people
just waiting for you to visit those places. These
people will somehow inject HIV virus or something
into your veins (without you having a clue) and
bingo! You are dead in a few month. These
activities with the HIV virus provide cheap
thrills to all the crooks who are out to get you.
So beware!
2) Please do not use mobile phones/land
lines and any modern means of communication
because you can get a 4000 volts shock and you
will die in no time. It happened to my uncle's
nephew last month.
3) Please do not ever consume a soft drink,
you will be dead before you can even get to know
the full form of DTD. Actually soft drinks like
Coke were launched as poison/insecticide/toilet
cleaner during the 1st World War but the soldiers
started drinking them out of ignorance and got
hooked to the stuff. You, the enlightened one,
shall not consume such poison. Drink only
municipal water.
Needless to say, you are asked to forward these
to as many ignorant fools as you know for the
greater service to mankind.
The blessing from God Himself:
Sometimes God Himself, and the innumerable
Godmen and Godwomen descend in your mail box at
regular intervals. The mail actually has a symbol
(the more "Tantric", the better),
pictures of obscure looking Gurus, some deeply
philosophical message ("We all die
someday"). The requirement is simple, you are
asked to forward this to 500 people in the next 3
seconds or God Himself will blow your mailbox off.
If you do manage it to forward it the said number
of people, all your wishes will be fulfilled (that
means, you will never need to work again and spend
all your live in Switzerland amidst great luxury).
That's enough.
Now, please forward this to 1 million people in
the next 5 seconds, or else….
BY VIKAS TRIPATHI |
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