A few hours ago I received an email forward from Ratna that exhorted people to be kind in forwarding the email because AOL will contribute 5 cents per email ID! And then some Nirosha Sharma could have another 2 lakhs collected for her husband whose brain is damaged (because a drunk lorry driver hit them which also killed her little girl)!
While I have no means of investigating the veracity of the claims made in the email, I did check it on Hoax-slayer and it turned out that the claims made in the mail cannot be fully correct! Besides the language of exhortation itself raises doubts.
I don’t really get many spam mails but I do spend a few seconds to a few minutes reading them and enjoying them (especially when it is of the above type)! My friend and senior Wasi who is a newcomer to the world of internet is overwhelmed by such mails and reads each one of them diligently and naively wonders how he is winning lotteries!
I engaged one Mrs Theresa White of London who sent me an email on my Yahoo ID few months ago when she was looking for someone who would take care of her late husband’s property and use it for public welfare! We exchanged a few emails, she showered me with praise and told me how I was the ‘blessed one’ and whatnot. Then she asked my photo and I sent her a Shahrukh Khan stamp size pic. Satisfied, she asked me to call her lawyer in the UK! The rest is history!
As I am typing this post, two young handsome men knock at my door and ask me money for some camp for the displaced from Jammu and kashmir. I tell them flatly that it is all fake, captured a photo of their request document and proceeded to shoot their photos (with the reminder that it will be sent to the police commissioner). They showed a clean pair of heels!
***
When I was a newcomer to the world of mobile phones (late 2005), I had got an SMS message forward from Alaknanda exhorting me to give blood for a newborn baby. Moved by the content (and not realizing that the protocol is only to forward the SMS msg so that it meets a suitable donor), I had immediately made a wall poster for the cause and pasted it at many places in JNU campus suggesting people to give blood to the baby! While I am only happy for what I did, I do smile whenever I recall the incident. I have never reacted to any SMS msg in this way thereafter.
and don’t get me started about the you have won 18000000000000000… $ ..! mail.
@oorja
I always check chain mails on hoax slayer, if I have time. Little faith in them after I read an article in Outlook annual issue explaining how some (useless) NRIs create these chain emails about India’s achievements. Dod you hear about that 40% Indians in NASA and what nots, that was all flase and created by an Indian abroad who seemed to have lot of time on hands.
@Poonam,
Yes! I recall how the TOI and a minister of state had fallen prey to that 36 per cent of NASA staff being Indian!
In this connection I also recall Pen Pricks, a media-critiquing blog which created a fake story around a Nazi activist being caught which was published by many mainstream newspapers including the Times of India!
And about the one where a girl is suffering from some blood cancer for the last 10 years and she is still 6 years old..:)
U really did that SRK thingy.. hahhaaha
@Oxy,
Yeah, there are so many such mails!
Yes, I did the SRK thing! I should have followed it even more!
Another story of misuse of altruistic paradox.
@Gargi Dixit,
Thanks for the link Gargi. I am aware of your popular blog and will soon visit it to read the story.
Dude, its hard to tell these days, whats true and what’s photoshoped. I am not even sure weather we landed on the moon !!!
Well..I deleted all the mails which ask me for money, including my brothers 
Dude, its hard to tell these days, whats true and what’s photoshoped. I am not even sure weather we landed on the moon !!!
Well..I deleted all the mails which ask me for money, including my brothers 
@Chirag
I recall I have a documentary video which suggests that first moon landing images could not be true!
You are a really nice person!
I’ve written about this long ago: http://allthatbothers.blogspot.com/2004/07/forward-this-email-or-else.html
@Ashish,
Yes Ashish, I am a nice person like you! I recall a quote: ‘no person describes his/her character better than while defining the character of another person!’
However, I am more rational these days. Some days ago when Lakshmi di, the phone attendant in our hostel asked me for blood for her mother I told her that I don’t have the time but I will make her an advertisement which she could paste in various JNU hostels. I did exactly that and it worked. Later Prasant sir, who donated blood, told me that Lakshmi’s own family had robust adult members who could have easily donated blood!
Thanks for the hyperlink to your story. I am a new kid on the block but you are an old blogger now. It shows my thinking matches with good bloggers! I will soon go to your post.
Ashish
I read your post on your defunct blog. Liked it; it had a lot of humour!
Good bloggers don’t get mere single digit audiences!!
Here is another on blood donations if you haven’t seen http://clutterfrommymind.blogspot.com/2008/11/not-down-drain.html
@Ashish,
Yes, good bloggers don’t get mere single digit audiences! By good I meant good-hearted people.
However, I do believe that me you or anyone could become Amit Agarwal or Nita Jatar Kulkarni if we dedicated ourselves to blogging completely. It is just that we have some other irons in fire which get primacy more than anything else.