The Hundred and First SMS

Until a few months ago, I was working in a manufacturing facility and living in its associated township. The township had a strange rule. That it will not allow resident bachelors to go out of the township after midnight, citing reasons that the road traffic outside was unsafe. I found the rule rather disturbing and used to argue with the security at midnight to go out, usually to have a cup of tea from a roadside shop. I felt that I was held against my will and that it was a violation of my fundamental right of movement as a citizen. Sometimes during the course of argument, they relax the rule and open the gates, but with a condition that I should write down my name and purpose of going out. I deny saying, “I might be going out for a tea, or to meet my girlfriend or for a cosmetic surgery. It is my private wish. Why should I tell you?” Not only did they find it normal to stop my movement, but it was also okay to interrogate me.

I did not understand why the rule was applicable only to bachelors and not to married people. Maybe the accident gods don’t favour the married. Anyway, holding against will is not the way to tackle road accidents. We do not stop walking for the fear of falling. We just walk safely. The purpose of the law in a civilised society should ‘not [be] to abolish or restrain but to preserve and enlarge freedom.’
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The recent restriction of text messages reminds me of this township rule. To tackle unsolicited commercial SMSs, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) imposed a restriction on customers that they can send only one hundred SMS per connection per day, certain customers exempt. They say it all began when Pranab Mukherjee was interrupted by a telemarketer in Parliament. And they come up with a fancy law. Why was he using a mobile phone in the first place, in between the most important meeting of the country?

Well, spamming was not invented through SMS. It was around for quite a long time even when we relied on postal services. Imagine a restriction by postal department where one can send only 100 letters a day because a cabinet minister received a spam mail in his office. Then the invitations for our typical weddings would have to be posted by different people on different days.
After the SMS restriction, I don’t know how would one inform all their friends and relatives that he or she is ‘blessed with a baby girl’? They would have to wait for the next day to send to your hundred and first friend. Or how would you tell everyone that you just passed an important examination?

The interesting fact is that the consumers exempt are social networking sites, e-ticketing services etc., not the common man. The only chance for a common man to send more than 100 SMS a day are on festival days or blackout days. And who decides what my festivals are? Will a Tamilian living in Orissa get a blackout offer on Pongal? Will a Marathi living in Kerala get a blackout offer for Gudi Padwa? If it was not a regional public holiday, one can take leave from work and celebrate. But TRAI leaves us with no such possibilities. You are forced to celebrate the festivals what the TRAI or your mobile operator asks you to.

If TRAI was to deal with spamming, they should have found a more democratic way to do that like a forum for reporting spam and maybe even rewards for reporting, than to deal with it in a school teacher attitude as they did in my township.

3 comments:

sintoji said...

brilliant article written with feel

Anonymous said...

nice one :) keep writing
-nisha

Anand Iyer said...

Got the feel dear and remebered the old day when we we were rebel in township...:)