Wednesday, July 29, 2015

How Dumb Are We?

Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was declared dead on 27th July 2015. He left behind several inspiring thoughts and ideas for a balanced community.

It was after his death, that I realised one incredible truth about us.

No, not that we respect him alike. That was astounding. Its rather that we are really dumb. Really really dumb.

Hii guys....    Important
We should be very proud that we are         " THAMILAN " . Thats US President OBAMA is coming to madurai for OUR LEGENDRY "DR.A.P.J.ABDUL KALAM"   burial ceremony... through madurai airport he is going to rameshwaram & for every journey he will anounce his security before six months but now he is coming to madurai only for our THE GREAT LEGENTRY DR.A.P.J. A. KALAM JI. Atleast we can share it And proud to be tamilan...


I know! This forward from one of my whatsapp groups is so annoying, I do not know whether to cry for the mistakes in grammar or the absurdity of the statement made. Anushka Sharma's blunder is forgivable.

Messages like these were inevitable when mobile phones first came into our lives, 8 years ago. Forward chains, nonsense threats all gave us no option to verify its authenticity. But now, there is Google.

I woke up the past few days following the announcement of his death reading messages claiming everything under the sun. One said that the flag at the White House was flown at Half Mast to commemorate his death. And the tagline below every message is 'Proud to be an Indian' or even worse, 'Proud to be a Tamilian'. I sieved through halfstaff.org and I can tell you, it is not true. 

Petitions asking for 'His birthday to be celebrated as World Students Day' can be stomached. Though there could be better options, I can accept this statement. But what is stupid is that people forwarding posts that claim it has already been announced.

Arent we mature enough to take five seconds and verify the facts before we send them on our innumerous whatsapp groups. Did you know, the first result that came up when I searched for Abdul Kalam World Students Day was

http://www.crazyengineers.com/threads/october-15th-kalams-birthday-as-world-students-day.35359/

My sister of nine years has her own tab. I doubt she will believe the authenticity of a site with such a name.

But today even Yahoo News, Zee News and India TV followed suit. An Assamese minister also claims the same. That my friends, is a crowd funded lie becoming news on a national network. Just imagine the power that we as a common man hold over dumb people.

And honestly, did you love him so much that you want to see him on your currency? I look at it like a pressure cooker on stove. When the pressure is high, there is too much excitement, but it eventually dies off. Until the next build up.

It is not this week that we receive such posts on our groups. Its almost everytime. I sincerely implore you to take time and type the keywords of the forward on a search engine. If you find a website that sounds like 'crazyengineers.com', I say, stay away.

Its 2015, folks. People are becoming cyborgs today. Lets not be sheep.

Having said all these, I will be really sorry if the news mentioned here turn out to be true. But if it is true and you have sources claiming to be, please post here in comments. But double check your source's authenticity.

I know, too much gyan. Just letting off steam.