" Hurry along nithin", my mom sounded impatiently.I was standing rooted to the spot not knowing what to be done.The street seemed deserted which was not unusual considering it was a sunday and it so happened to be the Boxing day, day after Christmas.I looked at my watch 11:30 am ,December 26 2004..I had been having a quite holiday till that morning when the news of tsunami striking the coast flashed all over the television screens.My mom had asked me to accompany her to foreshore estate, which had been affected by the tsunami.So midway through we had to abandon and return.It was then i caught sight of that man talking over his cell-phone animatedly his voice carrying through in the morning breeze. " Yes ,MRC nagar is flooded,people are scampering for shelter;running helter-skelter"..I was bewildered.What on earth is that guy blabbering about, spreading wrong information???
Nevertheless i moved on to keep pace with my mother heading home. A few days later i was relating this incident to my relatives and we were laughing about it. What a great joke that man would have played on his listener.But what consequence it would have had ? This minced-off information would have changed hands many times and someone residing in some far distant place would have been told " whole chennai is wiped out in the tidal wave".Thankfully such a rumor would be too far-fetched and be rubbished thanks to the awareness created by a "responsible" section of the Visual media .
Imagine living in such a world; no news media no internet.Let us hypothesize,the only way to reach out to others is through a human chain.Now researchers have said that it is possible to associate any 2 persons living across the globe by means of 5 intermediate persons.I would nt want to assess the soundness of this theory.But if this were to be true , then there is a possibility( or probabilty) of the information being skimmed off at every link.Thus the chopped off message would have a high probability of being 100 percent contradictory to what was intended.How outlandish???
I am reminded of a comedy scene from a tamil movie starring vadivelu.He plays the role of a desperate bachelor trying to get himself chained( wedded lol...).He will ask someone for a " chombu( jug) of water".That guy would in-turn inform another that" mappillai chombu kekkararu".This minced off information would be further hashed " mappillai chombu kodutha thaan thaaliya kattuvar" ..What would have eventually transpired is but anyone's imagination.The poor bride groom would again be left in the lurch after receiving a proper thrashing..lol..
Perhaps the best rumor mills which has ever existed till now is the one doing the rounds in the
field of show- biz and the tinsel town.Every now and then we hear of a Tom Cruise jumping the couch on Oprah Winfrey, lambasting at a Brooke Shields or an Aamir Khan writing about his dog named Shah Rukh or Little Superstar Simbu opening on his personal life and Nayanthara.Hardly a day passes before they come up with an explanation or an apology that they have never castigated or that they have been misquoted by some " Sections of the media"...phew...Gossips and Page-3 news sell like hot cakes.what better way to rake in the moolah other than rumor mills which churns out spicy tittle-tattle..
Everything is funny until it happens to us.When stories of mole-hills turning into mountains happen in our personal lives, what eventually stems up is disasterous.Personal relations are strained ,images are shattered and good-will is lost;sometimes forever.A single out of context remark or a misplaced adjective can have a catastrophic effect....How many text messages we would have received alluding to some bull-shit and tall claims with request for subsequent forwards to others.So the next time you receive a dubious SMS , ponder for a while if you are ready to partake in a larger conspiracy(lol ..as i would prefer to label it) before believing and forwarding it to others.....
