ThatsApp 3

Sh: So, you have more points towrite about WhatsApp?

N: Yeh, a few. I am going to start with a request to you. I need your help.

Sh: My help? What can I do? I don’t even have a smartphone.

N: Then go get one. Why you do not have a smartphone? These days everyone has.

Sh:  If I start using the smartphone and whatsapp, even my customers will stop talking to me.

N: Why? What have your customers got to do, about you using your whatsapp? That is purely private.

Sh: No. There is nothing private nowadays. The omnipresent Gods in the cyberworld can hear everything, see everything, know everything.

N: So?

Sh: So, there is nothing private.

N: OK, but why should your customers stop talking to you?

Sh: They are now at least calling me and ordering dosa and tea. Once in a while they ask me, ‘how are you etc.’ Even that they will start doing through whatsapp, if I have a smartphone.

N: Yeh, I agree with you. I had not thought of that.

Sh: Now you tell me what help you need from me?

N: I want you to operate my whatsapp and email accounts.

Sh: How can I operate your accounts? Those are your private affairs. Do you think I want to announce to the world that ‘such and such private and confidential letter to Naradaa is now with me. Anyone can buy it from me. Charges, terms and conditions apply....

N: No, no.  Everyday after I go through the mail and whatsapp and save the useful ones (only about 2 or three of them usually), rest of the mails and messages I want you to delete.

Sh: You want me to delete your mails and messages?

N: Yes

Sh: Why can’t you do it yourself? It is your messages

N: Look, I get about half percent of useful messages. I have to look for such messages like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystalk. And I can’t concentrate so much that there is a good possibility that I may delete the useful mails.

Sh: I understand. But where is the time. This is a full time job and I do not have that much time. I have to run my TKS because people want to be fed with my Dosas. I think you must employ someone to do the deleting. Any other point about WhatsApp?

N: Yeh, of course. It is these pictures and videos. People always want to send the greetings like Good Morning and Good Night through videos and pictures....

Sh: But that is a good thing, no? You feel nice when someone wishes you and that too with beautiful pictures of flowers, rivers and mountains, Gods and Goddesses etc.

N: True but then you start wondering which one to delete and which one to keep. But now I think I will have to delete every one of them and avoid opening the new ones coming.

Sh: Why?

N: Because someone says that these messages are made by people who hide some secret code in them and all the data from your phone will be stolen by them. They would use it for hacking into bank accounts and other private information and may even start blackmailing you. The irony is that the guys who send such messages, in turn, are themselves sending such pictures and videos.

Sh: See, you don’t miss anything by not seeing them. Just delete them.

N: Then there are so many rumours and fake news coming through. And the long essays what they call ‘forwards’. We do not know which one is true and which one is fake.

Sh: But this part of the development, no? The solution is again just ignore them. Do not open even slightly suspicious ones. Just consider that, 'what you didn’t see does not exist..... '