I fall short of words (bad ones actually) when it comes to expressing my angst against people who forward me these emotionally blackmailing chain mails. Usually I delete the blackmailing lines and then forward these messages. But I am still up in arms against them. Such mails catch you off guard where the headlines are mostly Miracle, Full-fill all your wishes, Believe it to be true, See it carefully, See it to believe it. Then there is a picture of some deity and its importance. At the bottom of which begins a long list of examples of how the deity in the picture blesses those who forwarded them to 20 people, 30 people, even infinite people. How a man got his lost job, how a girl go her love back, how it cured a Man’s disease, Blessed couple with a child and the list continues.
And then comes the flip side, marked in red ink and bold font are the terrible repercussions of what doom will befall us if we do not forward the mail to others. Or even practically delete the mail from our inbox. There are short stories of how one lost his love, his leg, his job, his son and practically everything he owned including his dentures because he took this mail very lightly and was too ignorant to forward it!
Frankly when I read this sentence, I relate it to some gangster forcing me to shell out my expensive belongings at gun point! The undertone of the mail is if you don’t forward it then you pay!! And you pay big-time for it!
And then you end up harassing your other poor friends in return by sending them the message to save your ass and set theirs on fire! Once forwarded, you get a soothing relaxed feeling that probably Atlas would have got after he kept the earth down from his shoulders. It’s then the problem of the people whom now you have passed the heavy emotional burden.
I get at least a dozen of these mails every week and I finally decided to voice my opinions brutally against this enforced cruelty. So when I got such a mail today, I gave it back royally to the person in question. I just sent him a mail, the content of which was as follows:-
Thanks for considering me the lucky one (or the vulnerable one) to be part of your prestigious chain mail group. I am forwarding this message back to you, as I think it’s my duty after the huge help you have been doing mankind in spreading wrong stories about our gods
and killing your productive time at work behind this entire time pass even in the days of recession when our jobs need to be guarded the most.
If you don’t forward this same message to yourself 50 times then something terrible might happen to you!
The probable list of which is as follows:-
Your husband might run away with your servant
You might go blank in midst of a presentation in front of your MD
Your new car will start giving less average everyday
Your cat will turn out to be gay and will fall in love with the neighbor’s Pit bull
You will have a bi-polar boss as a new year’s gift
Your atm card will get stolen on your Salary Day
You will have a 500 Rs. note and the Autowala won’t have any change
The guy you love will fall for your best friend
Your expensive Reebok shoes will be stolen from a temple
Your promotion will be given to your assistant
You will be transferred to Pakistan on official duty
Your inherited jewelry with turn out to be a faux pas bought from Crawford Market
Your wife will catch you with a porn magazine AGAIN!!!
You get selected in Dus Ka Dum and loose badly to a 6 year old child
You will be the lead model but for a Viagra ad
You will pay hi-taxes for the next 5 years
You will become bald but beautiful
I am not a skeptic, I believe in god and his goodness and that whatever happens happens for the best! But I find it hard imagining the gods sitting up and relaxing in heaven really deriving great pleasure in scaring poor mortal souls and punishing them for not forwarding their messages. I think they are too occupied with other important issues rather than resorting to these kind of self- promoting endeavors! And I thought this was a prerogative of our Politicians……….or wasn’t it? : )
Gods arent defintely angry. These things are the works of empty minds who indulge in such frivolous things to structure their own time and satisfy thier ulterior motives of gaining money, fame or troubling others.
This is similar to the experience one has when one goes to all those Baba Bengali & Tantrik's etc who exhort you to do some pooja/sacrifice or other to gain monies from you.
Yes now here is something I totally completely wholeheartedly endorse your stand with. I used to get a lot of these kind of mails too. I hate them. So much so that I used to tell the person sending me such mails personally that they need to back off and will not send me such stuff again. If we ever got all good just by forwarding such mails to en number of people, then we would be doing this kinda stuff all day and reap the great rewards. And so the people deprived of the internet (which are many by the way), will never get good? What a load of rubbish eh!
And the best part is that if you don't comply, some crap will happen in your life. Well let me tell those people that I have seen a lot of crap already and nothing worse can happen.
For God's sake, God didn't invent the internet and emails, man did. And for a matter of fact, many rules and regulations we and our society follow are all man made. Religions, castes, creeds, etc all man made. God makes us all equals. And we die equals. No one dies rich or poor, his last ceremony can be anything, but he takes NOTHING with him.
And lemme end by saying, people who forward and believe in such mails have nothing better to do in life.
(excuse me if I went overboard)
frankly speaking........thats one of the way to pretend working for the utterly jobless ppl, resting besides their office desk. :)
Such mails have huge mass of text to be read, so passing and reading one such mail can easily help them rip off 15 min's from 8hrs!!