Having friends in right places help. It helped to get a nice email ID. I was an proud owner of email id where i had to share my first name alone and not append any redundant information like some random number or waist size or birthday year or birthday date or your profession or your spouse name and the endless list.
I used to flaunt it. Everyone was amused when i shared my coveted ID. I was filled with pride and honor when anyone ( mostly it was everyone) asked about how i managed to get the ID. I started cooking stories which ranged from telling them winning a tough contest to being the first one to register in the site before it became a huge hit. I was basking in all glory. But as they say, there is an expiry date to all the things including the pride and comfort of having a nice email ID.
One fine day, i got a mail from a lady. She had written about her feelings for certain Subhankar and had marked the mail to all the possible mail ID possible in the world which contained the word of her beloved one. I thought it was an aberration. But i was wrong. It was just the tip of the iceberg.
Next in line, there was a deluge of emails from service providers to certain Subhankar who has evaded paying his bills. As these were automated, the provider did not heed to my request to verify the email ID. I continued marking those as spams but service provider found ingenuous ways to hit my inbox. Slowly the quantum of those email increased as the concerned person was a serial offender and had duped most of the companies. Still it constituted 10% of my inbox quantity. Regular cleansing was not possible and i learnt to live with it. With great power comes great responsibility - and i was responsible for the great power i had with the simplified mail ID.
With growing internet adoption and more subhankar having accessing the net, my email ID slowly became the convenient secondary email address. In some cases, their lack of proper english ended up registering my email address as well. Now proactive customer service meant the companies sending their updates to all the registered email ID. Some of the notable consequences are:
1.) Some people requesting to buy my non existent vacuum cleaner at olx and even rebuking me for not posting the picture in OLX.
2.) Some salaries Mismanagement at the vendor side blaming me for all the rampant corruption practice.
3.) Request to start the "Save the tiger" campaign at Sunderbans.
4.) Request to share my photo to an matrimonial site - My wife will be so happy !!!
Slowly and steadily, all these emails have eaten up my mailbox. Finding my emails is like searching a needle in the haystack. You can understand the pain as i immediately wrote this piece after seeing over 10k unread mails in my personal email ID. Next time if i don't share my email address and ask you to join my social network, hopefully you can empathize with me.
