As I was collecting my mails from the mail box at my last residence this past weekend, I noticed a cover, so simple in its look, with the name arunachalam krishnasamy written on top of it. I figured, for our old and naive african american US postal delivery lady, the first 7 letters of the last name matched and she didnt have to match the rest of the name, so she must have dropped it into my mail box. Poor thing, she must have sure noticed the different first name, but perhaps thought i had new family member of something.
And there I noticed there was a spanish stamp for .70 Euro and the sender address on the left side read something like “El Gordo Mega Internation, espanalo” nd some more stuff in spanish. Since our arunachalam’s address was printed (not hand written) i thought this guy must have gotten some serious mail here. Thats when I realized that it didnt have any apartment number. Oops! it read 100 warren street. jersey city, nj, usa. Strange?
I knew the bummers at our apartment building management office under any circumstances, even if the earth is going to be blown up in 10 seconds, wouldnt share the “private” information of its residents. So there is no point in asking them for which apartment our to-be-friend arunachalam lives.
After locking up the mail box, I went through the deck of mails one by one and the everything was some crap except our supposedly genuine looking letter to arunachalam. Hmm? I figured since this is a fellow indian, i could take the liberty of opening up his mail and if its something absolutely important, i somehow could locate and hand this over to him and justify my intrusion of his private mail.
As i read the first few lines of the letter, i couldnt believe what I was reading “Award Notification…Final Notice…E750,000 REF NO: EGS/2551256003/03 BATCH NO: 4/0017/IPD. And it went on to describe how important it is to keep this confidential and so on, and finally insisted to contact them before october 14th.
Harini was standing next to me doing something. I looked at her and said, “Dude, this is some serious shit, we got to find this guy ya?” She had no clue whatsoever.
I said, “This guy has won a lottery in europe. Poor chap must have bought a ticket when he went for a vacation or something, and HE WON!, so we got to find this guy out somehow”. She could see that I was visibly restless. I felt helpless becoz I know this guys lives in the same high rise, How could I ever know which apartment he is on, in that 500+ apartments? I started minting ideas. I said, lets go home immdtly and somehow lets locate this guy. we got to do something. I mean, there is no way I am going to let this million dollars go into the drains. For a second i thought I should legally change my name! Who in whole of spain would know that Arunachalam and Sudharshan are different?
We drove back home. I had to do other things so left this in the back of my mind trying to figure out ideas to locate this to-be-rich guy. After all, the name also sounds he might be from tamilnadu, so atleast he would give me something. Dude, something is better than nothing. Atleast I am honestly trying so hard to locate him ya?
Brilliant was I, checked out first thing on verizon white pages and there he was. Called that 201 number. Damn, it goes to some voice mail. I said, “my name is sudharshan. This message is for Arunachalam Krishnasamy. Please call me back immediately at xxx number. This is important”. I made sure I pronounced my name and his name exactly and in the best possible INDIAN accent. I didnt want to take chances that he could miss my name or number or i could miss his name! Noone called me back that day.
You would think what else I would have done to locate him. Yes, I did run a google search. There were tons of Arunachalams and krishnasamys but NOT that one combination and one from new jersey!. I was only praying that this guy lives on the damn earth still. Dont anyone dare to tell me he is nomore!
On tuesday I said, why not just contact the spanish company and let them know that I am seriously working on locating this person and request them to hold the funds for another week or two. Good idea isnt it?
And so, I ran a search for “El Gordo”. As I scanned through the search results. I read a word that made my brain burst for a second. “El Gordo…Lottery…Scam…”
“F**K my OZONE !!!”
NOOOOOO! I told myself I am not that stupid. But I was. Couldnt believe it. Immediately tore off the envelope into uncountable pieces and dumped it into the garbage can. Dragged the garbage can out immediately and dumped it into the bigger one on the floor outside.
I didnt want to see or think about that damn thing again. Suckers! Wasted a few hours of my precious life! I didnt even want to save that stupid spanish stamp.
