Dear Sender,
Today, I received my million-billion-zillionth forward of the year from you. Contrary to what you might think, I did end up reading more than 1/2 of them.
Your diversity is amazing. Help for Tsunami victims, concerns on my trying to get AIDS while sitting on an infected pin at a Delhi theatre, showing me " God's eye", calculating my age in Choclate math, funny airplane pictures,free Nokia phones, funny animal pictures, loads of paras on the meaning and wisdom of life, even one by Tillu a student of Class IIB who's lost his rubber( eraser for the uninitiated) !But your focus is even more incredibleWithout fail you ask me to a) send this to 7 people to survive the day on this planetb) send this to 10 people to have a really rocker of a dayc) send this to 15 people to have Peace on Earthd) send this to 20 people to save Humanity from Eternal Damnationor some 64 variants of the above.
Your concern for me is touching. Especially when you haven't even written to me for a while.But when accosted, you just turn around and say, " Dude, that's to let you know that I live and I have an active mailbox, so dontcha worry will get around to writing something soon". That you live cannot be doubted; flashes of what's happenning in your life do trickle down over the radio/ tv waves, friends, office gossip channels or other sources.The fact that you have an active mail id is not helping my cause one bit in any way, if all it does is send me forwards. The funny part is, all mails that you send, have atleast a thousand strangers addresses ! You don't even bother to delete them. I need to really hunt for the flowers in the weeds. What is uproarious however is the touching faith that those thousands have in this silly chain mail.
I just did a litle mathIf I send this letter to 10 people and they send to 10 more people it reaches 100 people. Mutiply that by 10 a coupla times more and then assume every person spends around even 6 minutes or 0.1 hrs spent reading that mail and you would be responsible for wasting a few thousand man hours on this planet ! Imagine, what havoc can just one single person on one dumb machine can wreak !
Interestingly there doesnt exist any technology in the world that can track how many people have received that particular mail.Ergo, all your efforts at financing Tilly his rubber ( the mail said " for every forward ICICI Bank will send me Rupee 0.01 Rs to get my new rubber), or someone get a free Nokia phone just get a hacker or a spammer access to a few thousand e-mail ids at no cost. I can feel what you go through when those deadly "luck" mails arrive ! Wow ! Eternal Redemption if I send this forward and Eternal Damnation if I don't. A no brainer ? Yes ?Well, that feeling of unease as you click the mail to the delete button ( especially if has a photo of your favorite diety) is not new. Nor is the sentiment.
In India even defaced statues of Gods and Godesses are given a proper burial / immersion by the priest.But then have you ever given a thought to what you have done today to make the life of someone a little better?( Not sending this forward; trust me, it didn't) I thought helping humanity in some small measure; lighting up someone's face- was the route most religions took to get closer to the Maker and not chain mails. Your faith in them however has had me thinking again. People who forward "forwards" seem to be pretty "backward"The funny ones you can send me anytime. They provide a definate break from the drudgery of life, management, targets, difficult clients et al. I have a confession to make here.I mercilessly delete ALL chain mails that come my way, whether I read them or not is a function of the available time at my disposal. Please therefore look for better signals to tell me that you are alive..
( P.S. Please dont send forwards on the cell phone either)
Waiting for your call!
Cheers
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