A SUCKER AND A CHUMP!

                                                  A sucker and a chump!




I vividly remember that day. It was the sixteenth of March, 2014. We had partaken of lunch and sleepily watched an insipid episode of a saas-bahu serial. It was the holy siesta hour of a lazy Sunday afternoon, when you languidly slip into  blissful slumber and do not welcome any impolite intrusions on your privacy.
Suddenly, the telephone struck a strident note. Raj picked up the instrument, mumbling something incoherent under her breath.
“It is your brother Rupji from Pune,” she announced.
I was intrigued. Rupji is not a frequent caller and he would normally respect the sacredness of a post-prandial nap on the holy day of Sabbath.  Something extraordinary must have happened to jolt him into action.
“Yes, Rupji, is everything all right?” I asked a little petulantly.
He did not try to elaborate. Without any introduction, he  said, “ So you are in Delhi. I thought so, I thought so. I told Neeta as much. Did you go to London by any chance?”
I was flummoxed. What was he talking about?  I said,” Look, Rupji, I don’t understand what you are talking about. Why should I go to London? Who would send me to London?”
Rupji sensed the annoyance in my tone. He deigned to elaborate, “ Bhai Sahib, I am not making an idle query. Obviously, some hacker has got into your account and sent a fictitious mail to some of your friends.”
I was jolted into wakefulness. “”Hacker, what are you talking about? What letter?”
“you obviously don’t know. Some miscreant has hacked your e mail account, busted your password and mailed an SOS to some of your friends. The mail says that you are in London and in serious trouble. You have asked me to send you a thousand pounds at a particular address. It is a loan and you have promised to repay it at the soonest. Have you sent out any such call for help?”
I was perplexed. “ Who could have done such a thing and why?” I bleated.
“Well, such pranks made sense a few years back when we were new to internet and telephonic communication was difficult. I am sure any friend of yours who receives this letter will pick up the phone and ring you up. Hardly anyone would send the money without verifying the facts.”
“ What do I need to do?” I asked Rupji.
“For one thing you must change your password. Make it as difficult as possible. Do not use the names of your wife, siblings, children or grandchildren. Do not use the numerals from your date of birth , residential or office address. Put as many spanners as you can—punctuation marks, spaces, capital letters, slashes, hyphens and so on. Also send a counter mail to your friends.”
I thanked Rupji and got to work. As I set about undoing the damage, I discovered that my facebook account had also been hacked. So I changed my passwords, informed all my contacts through a mass mailer and complained to Google mail.
During the next three hours, I was repeatedly called to the phone. A.K.Jalla was in London. Gautam Kaul had rung him from New Delhi and told him about the prank. My batchmate A.K.Das rang up from Lucknow. Incidentally, he informed me about the release of his next book of verse. My nephew Vaibhav researched in Bangalore and found out that the miscreant had first attempted the hacking on 12th March. Google mail got back to say that they were keeping a close watch on my accounts.
Incidentally, many of the mails I sent out to my contacts came back undelivered, as the addresses were wrong.
No friend of mine has so far reported that he was taken in by the prank and sent the desired thousand pounds at the address given. One friend commented that the hacking was not a professional job. No one would send money to a hotel address these days.
When the dust settled down somewhat, my mother made a pertinent remark. “Why did they target my poor son, of all persons?”
No one answered her query. The answer stared us in the face. I was reminded of a prank played on Bertie Wooster in a Wodehouse story. Bertie asked the miscreant why he had targeted him. He replied, “ You looked such a chump I thought you would be an easy victim.”
All my life, people have committed the mistake of taking me for a ride, because I looked such a chump. I am a sucker, but not such a chump as people thought.

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