Carrier Pigeons are looking for you!

The advent of internet (and more specifically, email) in India has unearthed many secret desires of our wannabe population. No, this post is NOT about porn sites. So you can stop reading if that was on your mind. However if you do choose to continue, at least wipe away that horny glint of expectation from your face.

The way I see it, email has brought out that innate aspiration of assuming a secret identity which until now only existed in our day dreams. And in most cases, it is not a good picture. Karl Marx should be happy that his age old theory of ‘Haves vs. Have Nots’ has been given a good digital twist.

If you were an early adapter of email, your email ID has vintage quotient. Of course age has a lot to do with it and so has maturity. But if I were to round up 100 people and ask them the first email ID they created, 90% would leave the room in a highly embarrassed state.

Creation of an email ID is a subtle way of power assertion. If you have a Firstname@gmail.com as your mail ID, I’d like to stop here, come to you and touch your feet. You really deserve all the respect that is usually reserved for superheroes. You – Sir/Ma’am – are a true legend, a pioneer and all other superlatives that come to mind. In a country of over a billion people with at least 80% sharing your first name (who said Indians were creative?), you were able to capture that rare mail ID. And that deserves an award, if there ever was one. A close second would be someone who got Firstname.Lastname@gmail.com (or vice versa). Considering that we have very common second names too, this again is a feat worth rewarding.

But if you have an email ID that reflects your state of drunken or psychopathic mind, I would seriously suggest seeking professional help before it is too late. I know a few people who have email IDs like sweetdoll21@xyz.com or dancelover@abc.com. You may think this is creative. But imagine when your ID comes up in a search for potential matches on a matrimonial website. After the parents stop laughing and get back on their chair, there are extremely high chances of you being rejected on the filter of sanity. In the rare chance that you make it through, the dowry potential is severely impacted. So naturally you would have let down your parents in a big way.

There is a subset of people who got so addicted to IM and SMS that they thought its cool to have email IDs in the same lingo. So we have clowns with IDs like cutie_luver@xyz.com or kewl.king@abc.com. I only have the deepest sympathies for you my friend. Imagine putting that email ID on your resume!

(and NO, iluvmyself@xyz.com or myself.harish@abc.com is neither cute not narcissist)

Actually most people don’t realize the worth of an email ID. It really is an extension of your personality. Gujjus may take pride in naming their kids Rimple and Hardik (really? You never thought of pronouncing THAT name before finalizing?). Similarly Punjabis love nicknames like Sunny or Cuckoo. But at some point parents need to sternly tell kids that these names are not to be broadcast outside home. If I were the HR manager of an MNC, I’m highly likely to just spam emails that come from bunny.is.me@xyz.com.

There are other categories of people with weirdness built into their mail IDs. To me that signifies either lack of real creativity or pure laziness. Just imagine that you’re on a date with this extremely hot chick. The movie went well, dinner was great and coffee is going fine too. Things are finally beginning to look bright for you. Being India, you can’t expect to get lucky on the first date. So while dropping her home, you casually reference to getting connected over Facebook/Linkedin. Naturally she asks for your mail ID and that’s when realization would sucker punch you in the face. Whatever chances you had for the second date would now be flowing down the drain when you tell her to mail you at imsakc@abc.com. You have officially lost the right to complain that you’re single.

Some people get so mesmerized by the company they work for that they create a personal mail ID containing the company name. I can never rationalize why would a sane person do that? I mean, unless you’re in a Government organization and plan to retire from there, there is absolutely no logic in having a mail ID like suresh.IBM@xyz.com. Dude, your official email ID already has your firm’s domain name. So why duplicate the effort? You aren’t married to the firm but you are to your mail ID right?

On the other hand, I have the deepest pity for government employees. As it is, they are forced to work (or at least pretend to) in inhumane conditions (e.g. old desktop computers running pirated Windows 98, cane-weave chairs, having to knit sweaters etc). On top of that their email IDs also reflect the sorry state of affairs. I recently had to interact with MTNL and it was not at all funny. Their mail IDs are crossword puzzles of an era gone by. Imagine trying to remember aotr3sfw2ccw1@mtnl.net.in! Worse – imagine having to print these on business cards! (sorry, if I hurt someone there, I forgot government employees don’t get those cute little glossy show off paper things).

Net-net I feel people should put in a little more thought when creating a mail ID. It’s like your digital identity that you’ll be required to use in many more places than you can imagine right now. That day is not far when you will be forced to communicate with your kids through email/Skype/Facebook etc. I’m sure you don’t want to give them another reason to make fun!