“Forward This” Can End Friendships

 

“Forward This” Can End Friendships

I know the mobile has brought a revolution in our lives and when I say that it has also done a disservice, the supporters of the gadget (of which there are many) will not agree with me. In no way do I want to underwrite its merits – I myself use it all the time – but the fact remains that I have had the misfortune of losing contact with some friends, thanks to this indispensable, constant companion.
The messaging option is a great way of communicating. When we call a person and that person decides that it is his or her gossip-away day, we’ve had it. Heaven forbid if it is some important talkative relative on the other side whom you cannot politely say that you will call up later. At such times even the text matter of two  or three messages is much cheaper and more convenient.
There are other times too when an sms can be quite a saviour. Had a fight with your spouse and don’t want to be the first one to say sorry? Just message across some mundane stuff and the patch-up has occurred. Don’t want to call up someone to inform about a programme you have made and are quite convinced that the other person is not going to approve of? Sms and your job is done .
Even with a limited friends’ circle, I was living a life of contentment when I started getting forwarded messages which invoked the blessings of some god/goddess and asked me to forward them to seven or nine people, otherwise something inauspicious would happen. If I did forward those messages, Lady Luck would favour me. I am quite a religious person, superstitious too at times, but I refuse to fall for this ploy, knowing it to be another brainchild of the telephone companies. In the beginning I understood the problem of my friends who forwarded such messages to me and sent up a short prayer before deleting them without complying with the demand. But there came a time when I found that the only time some friends of mine took the initiative to contact me was when they were in a dilemma about  meeting the numbers for such messages.
Post 3-4 such messages, I somehow distanced myself from these friends and began maintaining a dignified silence. I guess the message was conveyed because those smses stopped, but then so did all other forms of communication. Now I find that my limited circle of friends has shrunk further and it is all thanks to those forwarded messages – the bearers of good tidings for some (by raking in the moolah) but definitely not for me. Come to think of it, something inauspicious did happen, did it not? I lost some friends. So should I be advocating that all those who receive these messages should diligently sit and forward them to as many people as the smses ask them to? What do you think?