You've Got Mail !

PIN Reversal (Good thing to know)

The subject of the email which I received the most in all the inboxes I have. And perhaps all the people who I know have sent this to me already; multiple times over.

One of those typical emails which one of your “concerned” friends/relatives or perhaps someone you met yesterday wants you to be aware and save you from harm’s way. Ending invariably in a request to forward this to as many people as you know and warn them that danger is around the corner – and that the world must be saved – NOW!

Each time I receive this email, it makes a smile come to my face to see all the people who initiated this and all the addresses and forwards and forwards – the entire chain which no one even bothers to delete before forwarding.

This technology still amazes me. At the same time it makes the world so accessible and yet inaccessible. I use to hear about technology making the world into a global village ( I never know why they prefer to all things high tech and modern, a village and not a mega polis or a cosmopolitan).

Accessible; because the world is at your finger tips. All you need is an ID and a password and you instantly have at your command the Trillions of Dollars of hi tech put in place over many many years. You can unleash a mail to unsuspecting people in the blink of an eye. It is such a wonderful feeling. Even though I am in the business of IT and have done this so many times over and again, I still feel the awe everytimg I copy paste a list of addresses from multiple organizations, multiple countries, multiple nationalities and diverse background.

In one instant – I have the power to connect to all these people. I feel more powerful than Superman or Spiderman or any of those guys who wear their underwear over their pants. They can affect and take care of just one person at a time in that part of the city that they are in and see in trouble.

All I need to do is get to know a threat which possibly will erase mankind from the face of this planet, or a threat which will make millions without a penny in their bank account. And in an instant, I, like a master of the universe; like God Almighty himself, can choose to connect and “save” multitude people I care about at the press of an Enter key or a mouse click. This is the power I hold on my fingertips without even getting up from my dumb box. Instantly a surge of electrons travel through millions of miles of cables through oceans, continents, the skies – places I have never heard of or perhaps ever will. And in another instant that surge has done its job.

“You have mail”

Can Superman really do it any better ?

And yet at the same time that this makes the world so open and available, it puts a wall and divides relations. The last I spoke intimately to my wife was when I sent her an email or perhaps the best I am in touch with friends from the past (or even the now) is by sending forwards.

In an age; when relations can be made and managed electronically, people we never meet seem closer than the ones we live with or meet. Have we lost the value of people who really matter to us or are there for us?

I wonder - Have I actually “found” or “lost” the people and relations – by seeing them as just an email ID or a cell phone number I can SMS to anytime we want? It has become so convenient to break relations and make new ones at the press of a button, or the enter key or a mouse click. Living in this networked global village (I still don’t know why it’s a village) – where everything in life is a record in some database – relations included. You delete records for relations you want to grow out of and leave behind and add records of relations which you are comfortable with and find convenient to live with.

It is so very easy to delete memories by just deleting the email ID from your address book and the mobile number from your cell phone. No facing the emotion, No facing the pain nor feeling the grief of parting with a loved one or a friend who was the world to us till morning – conveniently deleted in the evening…