E-mail id's

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Thus, William Shakespeare waxed eloquent in Romeo and Juliet.

With due respects to Shakespeare, a name for me - an otherwise non-entity - was a unique differentiator and a branding mechanism. This theorem of mine underwent a tragic demise when I tried to establish my virtual identity.

Simply, I wanted a new e-mail address.

I had not realized this single need of mine would lead to a host of discoveries. First, with a staunch believer in an individual identity linked to the name, I tried for an id with my name. Pat came the rejection, asking me to choose another id as the one requested was already in use. ‘No problems, I’ll switch to some other site.’ I tried to comfort myself. After all, doesn’t Internet offer a whole lot of freedom and opportunities?

After similar refusals from a whole lot of sites I realized that there was an entire gamut of individuals trying to confiscate my name….along with all the possible permutations and combinations. Tried for the id with an extra a or e’s instead of a’s. Bet, I gave all the K serials a run for their money in searching for an id for myself. None of the variants worked. I had never realized my name was so popular with parents.
Next best way was to prefix or suffix a number to the name. The site gave me varied options to pick up from. One glance at them and I realized that with my memory I would never be able to pass it on correctly to anyone.

Hence, since I am already too wary of numbers, what with my PAN number, various bank account numbers, internet banking numbers.. have difficulty remembering my car number. Did not want to add another one to my already overfilled kitty.

Hence, in this search of a virtual identity I entered a chat room. Just to gauge the current trend.
There was already a conversation going on wherein a majesticmayank was trying to woo an angelicankita. I was just trying to get a hang of the conversation and all the participants when suddenly an angrezkiaulad pops up on my window saying ‘asl, please’. Curiosity might not have had killed the cat (we would definitely delve on this topic, some other day) but it definitely landed me in a soup. On probing further, I realized asl stood for age, sex and location.

I was in no mood to start a conversation with anyone, least of all an angrez ki aulad undergoing an identity crunch. Amidst all the buzzing and the chaos there were windows popping up every sec. There was a man-cut-in-slices, I-am-without-shoes-please-help, twentythreeseconds, a facelessguy, shopliftersoftheworldunite trying to start an inane conversation, invariably with an asl request!

Already too disheartened at my failed attempt, I logged off. Right now am in the process of choosing a simpler id. .. somewhat like indiansweetchick4u, Cute-n-innocent, calvinnhobbes, takemeaway, addictedtolove……….hmm , net does offer you a whole lot of options. You just need to keep your mind open to all the variants, though.

Post my decision-taking phase I am signing off and you are at the liberty to scroll down to view other articles.

Virtually yours,