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Thursday, May 13, 2004

Case of A Mis(interpreted)nomer

We were a group of tamil friends in a predominantly hindi- speaking campus. The language bonded us closer than usual and we knew each other so well that we were each quite a character for the other. We bickered, fought, loved and stayed put together as only family members can! We had Venkat the most idiosyncratic of all-Rajini fanatic, and a guy with one helluva attitude and
confidence. He had an engineering degree in Computer Science and was very comfortable with coding, softwares and actually anything to do with Information Techonology (IT). Then there was
Krishna-amazing singing talent, quickwit, and such an amiable character!

Our summer Project scattered us to different cities. I and Krishna were in Mumbai while Venkat was based in distant Coimbatore. Embroiled as we were in work and the leisure of our respective cities, we hardly spoke or even mailed each other for a month. And then came our term grades.

There was a flurry of mails across each asking the other's grades, consoling and congragulating and feeling worse or better at the end of the day. Krishna too sent a mail to Venkat asking his term grades and informing him his.

The eagerly awaited mail from Venkat, alas, was blocked by an Anti-Spam Software . An automated mail arrived mentioning that the mail was identified as a spam and hence blocked. Krishna was
asked to reply in case the mail was not a spam and was valid and personal. Krishna immediately replied that the mail was from his friend and surely not spam. The reply mail from the Network
Administration was a bombshell. It said, 'We are sorry to say that according to the Network Management Policy of this Company mails containing sexual content cannot be delivered to the recipients. We regret the inconvience caused. All the best in the future. Regards, Irfan Ahmed, System Administrator'

Krishna was flustered. Not only was he a very uprighteous guy; he maintained restraint and decorum in such matters that he found it very ironical such a thing should happen to him. He wondered what sexy mail could Venkat have sent in reply to a mail that discussed something as sober and grave as one's term grades!! He called me immediately to share his woes, wondering loudly over the telephone wires just what could have been the dubious content of Venkat's mail...I too listened with curiosity and interest. It was a sleepy afternoon you see, such interventions were very welcome.

I assuaged him that no one can do much about such spams and he should be treating this a minor issue. Krishna was worried of infamy. He said that it reminded him of the predictions of a
certain astrologer who coupla years back stated that Krishna shall lose face in his Company on a 'ladies issue' as he had delicately termed it. As I was wondering how to reason him out of this line of thinking, it suddenly struck me...

'Krishna which ID did Venkat reply from..?'
'From his yahoo id...'
'Oh ok,' I beamed 'the venkatit one..?'
'what...?'
This time I spelt the ID again, slow and meaningfully,
'venka-tit!!'

No wonder the automated software smelt something sexy in the id which actually should have been read as venkat-it. Anyway how could the software have known it was venkat's expression of his career interests and not of other shady fetishes! Krishna revealed a sigh. Sadly, my efforts to push the matters along the line of further fun by inducing Krishna into explaining this subtle matter to the Network Administrator failed though.


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