Perhaps Greatest Writer (PGW) created a character who avoided school reunions like the plague. He explained it well. The last schoolmate he met had no teeth and sported a white beard. The man was younger, yet he shattered the image the character held of himself as youthful. MMM shares a similar hesitation. It is not about feeling young. It is about uncertainty. You never quite know what an old schoolmate has become over time, and such encounters become an unexpected personal archive of memories.

Archive

A Digital Archive of Unwanted Messages

This reality struck MMM strongly a few weeks ago. A classmate asked him to reconnect with another former classmate. In a moment of misplaced sentiment, MMM agreed. They reconnected through WhatsApp. After a brief exchange, MMM moved on. The other person did not. Within hours, messages began to pour in. These included film videos, political rants, and praise for a favoured leader. Then came tasteless jokes. They belonged to a much younger age. MMM chose to ignore the stream for the time being.

The Archive of Morning Forwards

The next morning, at 4 am, the phone buzzed again. A cheerful “good morning” arrived, along with flowers. Soon after came a corporate report. It discussed India’s growth prospects and even the poppet valve industry. That was enough for MMM. He responded clearly. He asked the sender to stop forwarding such messages. There was no reply, though the sender remained online. Silence followed through the day. MMM assumed the matter had ended. He was wrong. The next morning brought another greeting, this time with a deity’s image.

Disappearing Messages and a Curious Archive

This time, MMM decided to act firmly. Before responding, he checked the chat history. To his surprise, all earlier messages had disappeared. He repeated his request to stop the forwards. An apology followed quickly. The sender claimed MMM’s earlier message had vanished. He had therefore forgotten the instruction. The reason was simple. He had enabled disappearing messages. This feature, he said, helped him avoid storing unwanted content. Ironically, he failed to see that he himself kept sending such unwanted material to others.

Choosing to Archive or Block

The messages have stopped for now. MMM, however, remains watchful. At the first sign of another such message, the sender will be archived permanently. This feature on WhatsApp is quite useful. Archived chats no longer appear with every update. The sender continues messaging, unaware that their words sit in quiet limbo. For more serious cases, blocking remains an option. It is the final step when all else fails.

This article appeared in Madras Musings-https://madrasmusings.com/vol-35-no-22/short-n-snappy-239/

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