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Telecom Money Bags….

Around this time last weekend I received an sms…which ran like this..

‘An interesting fact about October 2010. This has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays, all in one month. It happens once in 823 years……’…..The message went on, urging people to forward to others….

Normally I press the delete button for such forwards, but this time [probably because of the mathematical wonder in it], I instinctively forwarded the message to a few friends. No sooner that I had pressed the trigger – I suddenly realized there is something potentially amiss.

This situation of triple 5s, will happen whenever a 31 days month start on Friday. There are 5 months with 31 days and there is a good chance this will situation will happen more regularly than 823. I checked up the calendar and May 2009 too had ‘5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays’.

So all these forwards we receive that evoke mercy [1 paisa per sms to cancer patients], fear [forward or else…], greed [forward and get magic] irritate most, maybe give solace to many and give money bags to a select few. These are the telecom operators.

Laughable jokes and wise anecdotes are most welcome. Mobile companies will probably will do their patrons and themselves good service by initiating a bulk chain of such good sms-es. But initiating a bulk sms forward with a tag to forward to so many number to either get rewards is an awesomely ingenious trick perfected by many.

I suspect that all these forwards with juicy details – including some eminently saveable message at times – are probably initiated by mobile companies. I wont be surprised if they hire people and give them targets to send smses. It is quite possible that people would be busy racking their brains during the week to create compelling 160 character copys to push over the weekend to catch with the still targets. Something like the helmet checking spree with traffic policemen engage in towards the end of year [or before a festival] to swell their official or personal targets.

So may this be a nice reminder, that next time we get a sms to forward to so many friends to swell your bank balance, remember it wasn’t sent by a well-wisher to swell your account; but by someone who has got conned to swell the account of the mobile operator….you will be smart to smile at it not forward to unsuspecting friends and can dutifully forward a fraction of the amount you saved by into my bank account..:)

Bhubaneshwar
October 16, 2010

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