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INVISIBLE IRRITATION
By Meena Yeggina

Like water in a spring stream, e-mail has become a torrential pour of bad prose, crude jokes and aggressive demands. Hiding under an anonymous mask, its practitioners spin out intellectual (?) cracks, wise remarks or porno jokes and to top it all demand immediate response. They expect that you deal with it quickly. Ignoring the message will produce another slightly derogative query, "Did you get my last e-mail?"

It's estimated that at least ten million people in the US use e-mail everyday. A technical by-product of the internet, e-mail was first used by the defense services. It connected a very few services and was limited mainly to the universities. Dealing with it once a week would have been sufficient. But technology has a way to spread. Within a few years e-mail is available to all and sundry as it has become as cheap as a can of Coke. Everyone's wired and everyone has something to say!

Today I'll receive at least 60 electronic messages. Only about ten will be relevant for the magazine -- letters, articles, subscriptions and ad queries -- the rest are messages (about a stamp collection or a dress color) remarks (not about the magazine but in general about the world!) and jokes (horrible, horrible, horrible). And worse, the prose is badly composed with twisted grammar and convulsed spelling!

Why such tremendous urge to communicate on the e-mail? I think the need comes from an urge to share your thoughts and as e-mail is not a one-to-one communication but one to many it kind of fulfills your urge. Moreover the sender can remain anonymous and this encourages many -- who would otherwise panic to write even a letter -- to dabble in the art of writing. This could work out great to the sender, who is sheltered under anonymity, but to the one at the receiving end, these messages are a nightmare!

E-mail is also used as a check -- to ensure if your co-workers are doing their job. But can't we use the other book-keeping methods like in the olden days?

I'm as much in favor of technology as anybody else is. Personally, I think e-mail is a great time saver. But if you want to inquire about me or are eager to know how I've been doing, please do me a favor and use the phone.

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