Of Chain Mails

I have just been left tottering by a chain mail that had royally ensconced itself in my inbox:

You are most fortunate to be a recipient, a link in the world’s most coveted mail chain. This chain mail contains the benedictions of Lord Venkateshwara. Recipients of this mail who have furthered this humanitarian gesture have found themselves miraculously ascending the ladders of success. You can have success on a platter too. Just forward this mail to 25 people and you will strike gold. This is not an exaggeration. People have hit jackpots, won lotteries. If you forward it to 15 people within 10 minutes of receiving this mail, you will find that all your bad days will pass before nictitating an eyelid. But beware! If you neglect the mail, your life will be beset with catastrophes. You will be bitten by a scabbed temple mongrel and will have to stomach 16 injections. You will be reduced to cadging on the street and more terrible calamities will befall you.

Apostles of the Lord

Apostles of the Lord indeed! What’s worse: this mail was sent to my father, a devoutly pious soul, who was instantly petrified by the ominous threats of disaster and promptly dispatched it to a list of fifteen people (which included me), roping us all into the world’s most coveted chain!

Chain mails often have me fuming in exasperation. And what's more, they are from friends in an e-group that I am part of; from close relatives and well-wishers. Something that I cannot even brush aside. I daresay that the mails seem to cause quite a few of us (from what I gather) a fair amount of discomfiture. But of course, before anyone begins to take me amiss, let me clarify that our problems are those pertinent to our own idiosyncrasies on the web and our inability to cope with the impending danger.

For my part, I did not know what to do with the black-mail either; I was equally stupefied. But I was lucky; I had some friends whose contacts I had reserved specifically meting out such special treatment; punching bags, so to speak. I religiously forwarded this mail to the group. Though I realised they would be sufficiently irked, I did not expect the lashing that arrived through subsequent mails. I wonder if the temple mongrel part of the mail bit their conscience; the replies were rabid, to say the least!

I am reminded of a certain friend of mine who used to take these things very seriously; so seriously that he used to religiously make an effort to forward the generically varied chain mails only to the appropriate coteries. He actually enjoyed, more than the mails themselves, tracing out the labyrinthine paths that these mails traversed. Never did he grow to realise that he spent only a tenth of his time actually reading the contents of the mail; he spent eons just peeking into the various people whom the mail had traversed through. Needless to say, the only part of his mails that I read before dumping it in the trashcan is the subject which is highlighted in my inbox!

Chain-mails, though all proponents of good wishes (or bad), are categorically varied. The above mail is a classic example targeted at the middle-aged, pious or expectant lot. There are chain mails that prescribe success in love. Needless to say, those mails are the ones that elicit the most diligent responses! There are chain mails which exhort people to contribute for social causes; the average recipient sees them resolves to contribute, accidentally trashes them and never thinks of them again. There are chain mails for almost every cause. Why, I received a chain mail just before the World Cup finals between India and Australia which prayed for India’s victory. In a burst of patriotic fervour, I ended up forwarding the mail to fifty people! That was just before Australia horsewhipped India to end up at 359/2!

Actually, my own sufferings with these mails are characterised by, more than any vehement disinclination, my inability pick out names from my address book to pass on the mail. If I pass them on to girls, I, an already ineligible bachelor, can sit back rest assured that contacts with the few girls I know will be severed. So I refrain from sending these to girls. And of course, sending these to the boys would make me the butt of many a ridicule and rebuke. So I have to be very careful in picking out mawkish people (either in love or just out of love) like the bloke who sent it. And he, I must admit, is one of his kind (and a rarity), which makes it doubly difficult for me to handpick these people in my address list. So these days I have resorted to sending these mails back to the sender! If I am instructed to send the mail to ten people, I sometimes wonder how it would be to send it back ten times to the sender himself. It would be interesting to note his face all purple with rage when he sees ten more copies of his favourite mail sitting side-by-side snugly in his inbox.

I hope that I am merely echoing the throes of many others who languish in their inability to pick out people to send these mails. I am sure the blessed sender does not wish that ill luck befalls us hapless creatures as do the mails. I feel like pleading out to him that if he feels so beholden about these things or about his role as the custodian of all love interests, let him continue to send them; only I pray that he removes the part which threatens to throw us irrevocable curses if we fail to pass them on!

Today, chain mail is an ineluctable phenomenon. No spam filter can filter them out; they come from known contacts! Everyone wilts under them and grits his teeth but smiles politely and says ‘How do you do!’ when he sees the sender in a get-together. I am waiting for the day when a scandalised philosopher will plaintively cry out: Man, today, is born free but always held in chain mails!

- posted by Dileepan @ 2:17:00 am

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