You've got mail...

I still remember the day I opened my first email account. It was a hot and sultry afternoon in the summer of 1997 and I was surfing the Net at the British Council Information Centre. In those days, BCL hosted one of the few cybercafés in Kolkata.

Having an Internet connection was a status symbol that the rich and famous liked to showcase. And why not – one had to pay 10000 bucks for a 500 hour connection! And I had to pay 100 bucks for surfing the Net for an hour in BCL. Sounds unbelievable today, almost a decade down the line, but that is how it was then.

In those pre-Google days, one had to depend on the good old Yahoo for searching the Net. And Sabeer Bhatia and his Hotmail was the coolest thing on the terra firma.

But yours truly had to be different! Because of which I chose a career in journalism despite a degree in physics. And because of which I preferred to open my first mail account with Yahoo and not Hotmail.

It was nothing short of a status symbol, when I went back to office and told my colleagues about my latest acquisition. Till then most of us were using the common office ID. I was one of the first few to get a personal email ID. Immediately I contacted my administration department to get the same printed on my visiting card. But, sadly enough, to be rudely told that it was against corporate policies to print such personal mail IDs on business cards.

The eagerness with which I used to wait for a mail – albeit a spam– in my mailbox seems so ridiculous now. I would make it a point to go through every line of all spam mails to make myself feel more important. And if it was a personal mail from a friend, no one could stop me from skyrocketing to cloud nine – such was the ecstasy. And on days when my colleague got a mail but I didn’t – it was agony raised to the power of infinity!

A year passed by. Cupid struck and spam mails lost their significance. Expectedly, something else took the place. The long wait for a mail from someone special was a very soothing pain (if there is anything like that). Every comma, every full stop and every word weighed so much. One could read it over and over again. Find newer meanings every time he went through the same old words. Get excited at the slightest hint of the four-lettered word that we all want to hear during such times.

Another couple of years passed by. Cupid disappeared in the midst of harsh realities and infidel genes.

But the omnipresent (web-based) office mail ensured that the significance of emails still remained. Initially it was welcome. As always, the number of mails you received determined your seniority and position in office. But slowly the want for receiving mails nosedived. The fear factor crept in. Every time the new message flag stood up, one would get scared.

Was it another stinker from the boss? Was it a forwarded joke from the friend you tried to avoid? Or was it from someone you really want to get a mail from?

Keep watching this space till the next phase of email bug hits me.