After a long time I received an email from a friend. The subject said ‘IMP, Please Read’. The email contained a long story of how some foreign politician, some actor and many others, ended up with severe bad luck just because they had ignored the warning in this email. At the end of the email was a note in BOLD which threatened the reader saying that, if the email didn’t get forwarded to at least a dozen others, then doom was inevitable. Reading this email brought about mixed feelings. I was a little saddened at the thought that my friend, whom I had assumed to be a sensible chap, believed in this superstitious crap. But at the same time it was quite gratifying to know that I actually featured amongst the top 12 list of people he remembered when he thought his life was in distress.

This email once again raised questions that have been boggling my mind for long time now - questions, not about the authenticity of this email, but in general about forwarded emails. I have always wondered on where do these ‘forwards’ originate? Who writes them? Since the time I started using emails, I have received umpteen forwards, but yet not a single what I would term as a ‘firsthand’ forward. By the time I receive the forwarded email it has usually passed through the mailboxes of so many people that in ALL cases the original writer’s name or identity is lost in the hierarchy. I have NEVER received a ‘firsthand’ forward – an email that someone I knew wrote and sent it to me (and others), that eventually went on to become a ‘forward’. Whatever be the kind of forwards– be it an email about Yahoo and Microsoft paying money to forwards emails; a Banta/Santa joke; pictures of some funny hoardings; some pretty/weird looking artistic decorations; a video on cannibalism; a PowerPoint presentation reminding me on how attitude is only thing that matters; a hopelessly romantic story that they think would make me cry; or just a calculation on how every misfortune in the world till date, right from JFK assassination, to Diana’s accident, to 9/11 is somehow associated with the number 11 – I have never received any of these emails directly from the writer. Now there are some people I know who always sign their name at the bottom of these forwarded emails hoping to take credit for the work, but I know too well that they are not the originators of these emails.

But that’s fine. Most people I know aren’t creative enough to come up with their original stuff. But what really surprises me is how come the stuff I write never ends up becoming a ‘forward’? I write good stuff, don’t I? How come those very people who claim to enjoy reading my blogs, send out forwarded emails written by anonymous people (and sometimes include me in their ‘undisclosed-recipients’ – bcc list), but don’t send out my writings to others? When the essay written by an IAS aspirant on ‘The Cow’ can end up becoming a ‘forward’, why can’t my writings become one too? Hmmm, maybe I should start forwarding my own writings and also put a warning in BOLD RED at the bottom saying that if you don’t forward my writings to at least 20 people and don’t laugh for at least 30 seconds on reading it, you will be engulfed by the dark clouds of misery and misfortune. He ha ha ha ha ha ha (that’s my evil laugh by the way!).

Well someday I plan to publish my writings as a book. Till then, at least let my writings end up as email forwards. So readers, please forward my stuff :) but yes, please don’t let my name and identity get lost in the process.