Whats Up?

Disclaimer : This is not my story. 

The choices before me are aplenty.

(a) stop reading or typing anything on my smartphone without wearing reading glasses;

(b) stop staring at the WhatsApp messages as soon as my eyes open in the morning;

(c) “resign” from the numerous WhatsApp groups so as to avoid the confusion of what to respond in each group, thereby reducing the potential from embarrassing posts;

(d) buy a bigger smartphone that would allow to hit the right letter on the tiny keypad thereby avoiding typos;

(e) prepare a standardised apology message for typos as and when a message is sent out - to save my face before it gets tanned;

(f) and, last but not least, uninstall WhatsApp and set off for some pilgrimage till the whole world forgets you.

I have read a plethora of experiences about the pros and cons of the so-called auto-correct feature available on smart phones. I recall once reading of three things that never come back : the spent arrow, the lost opportunity and the spoken word. But, today I stand to realise that there is an addition to the list which reads, “the sent WhatsApp group message”.

This is not my story.

I reminisce that, I was extra ordinarily careful sending out text messages yesterday (till falling asleep), but I could not recollect whether I had my reading glasses on. For sure, I was on alert mode because it was only the week before could I bounce back from a colossal blunder, thanks to the exasperating auto-correct feature of my phone.

Everything seemed fine until a message of mine was hurled upon me like a boomerang last week, with certain embellishments. The story goes like this: I was so excited to get in touch with a “lost and found” cousin of mine after almost a decade, who was kept at bay following her wedlock with a gentleman who happened to be different from our species and standards (of course, these are not my words, but the quoting of a few elders in our family) by virtue of genetics, nationality, geography & demography, region & religion etcetera, etcetera.

To cut a long story short; after the pleasantries, I had posed her a mundane query through the chat window – “How is your dear husband?”. I could not address him by name as I was not privy to any vital information of this particular person who has been considered an alien to our family. And, for the sake of courtesy, I didn’t wish to address him merely as “husband”. So, I added an appropriate adjective to make my cousin feel equally comfortable and convinced that there is someone in her clan who is willing to accept her other half and thereby have truce with her and family. Unfortunately, the adjective which I had chosen ended up too costly for me – as the villainous auto-correct combined with my laziness to sport the reading glasses and my hasty key strokes transmitted my innocent post to her as “How is your dead husband?”. I was almost dead reading the ricocheted response from the lost-found- and now-lost-again cousin of mine. In a nutshell, the chat which started with pleasantry was concluded sadly, with a rain of unpleasant words.

Following this appalling embarrassment, I decided to not even look at the icon of WhatsApp on my phone. I gave myself sufficient time and space to forget this ordeal and to cool my heels before trying to regain my lost vigour.

But, there was something more awaiting me in the pipeline. Contrary to the saying, something happened - but at the wrong time to the wrong person and for the worst reason.

This morning, in spite of my valiant efforts to maintain a self-controlled celibacy from all kinds of chatting applications, I was enticed by the notification of a new WhatsApp message, which popped up, on my phone. I peeped in and discovered some ongoing discussions in my school mates’ group on a hot topic. Assuming that the group was lacking my presence and my expert opinion on the matter, I decided to flex my muscles and pitch in. With all due credits to my excitement on the steaming topic, I typed back something hurriedly without cross checking either the spelling or grammar. Whilst typing out the message frantically with my eyes popped out, I remember declining few calls from my wife who was away on her vacation. I did not attend her calls, not because I did not want to speak to her, but I preferred not to lose my focus on the deluge of words in the group chat to which I was “contributing”.

15 missed calls! I mustered up courage to return the calls at one shot. While dialing, I could see two new WhatsApp message notifications – one from my wife which I could partially read (being a

notification) as “What are you doing there and ....” and another from the school group. To keep up the momentum of the chats, I cancelled the call and got back to the chat window and posted out a message, “Was kidding, please take it easy!!” and dialled my wife’s number again.

Let me take a deep breath. I am all set to register a plea to those concerned to do the needful in shifting the keys, “S” and “D” to some other location on the smartphone’s key pad so that they don’t stay adjacent to each other any more.

I recapped.

“What are you doing there and why are you not picking up my calls?” (with angry face emoticons).

To which, my reply read (mistakenly shot out to my wife instead of school group), “Was kissing, please
take it easy!!”

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of this newspaper.)