[Irrelevant to the general public]
Last night, just after I had turned off the computer (which would almost always mean I was turning in for the day), I got a SMS message from a good friend:
"Hi, I Know this may seem shocking n surprising 2 u.But ur invited 4 my engagement on 29th of next month. Venue- Hotel kamath,jlb road Bangalore. Plz do come.."
She was out of station and was supposed to be back only the next day or after that. So, when the SMS came, it was already something out-of-the-ordinary (- to put things more in context, she doesn't really go out of station every two days). She's around 22, most probably from a family tending to be conservative, and her marriage was far-fetched, yet possible. I knew that there was no serious plan of her being married off yet, but I did know parents of other girl peers were looking for suitable grooms for their daughters.
The first thing one thinks of after having received hundreds of SMS's is "Ok, this is another prank.".
The other half of my partially sleep inebriated brain thinks, "Yes, this is possible.".
I fire off an SMS asking whether she's got back to Bangalore. She says she got back home 5 minutes ago.
So, I do my syntax analysis - check the SMS for large gaps after the starting message before the oh-so-climactic giveaway - there are none.
I do my first level semantic analysis - Is she talking about herself .. yes.. Is 29th is a valid date ..yes.. next month is a valid month.. Kamath.. valid hotel.. Bangalore.. possible.
She'd been to Tirupathi and (some) Hindus do visit temples before they do auspicious things - case in point: visits of the Bachchans and Aishwarya before the (future) marriage of Abhishek and Aishwarya. The possible part of my brain thought about the possibility of the two families going there together, the auspicious date turning out to be early, and them getting back abruptly to immediately commence the preparations.
(You can stop laughing now.)
Now, I've to decide the next question to ask. I don't surely know whether the lucky? guy is of her choice or her parents, though I believed the latter was more likely at that point. Asking "Who's the guy?" wouldn't be correct. I couldn't have also asked "Really?", "How come?" or act totally surprised, because of reasons which would take about three paragraphs to explain. So, I ask whether the guy is from Bangalore. She says he's from Switzerland and is a doctor. Doctor, I'd immediately buy at that point. Swiss - a little too far fetched.
The prank part of my brain tells me to finally run a second level semantic check - there had to be something missing. I read the SMS again, put it in the brain memory and began its execution parallelly, and begin thinking of a reply to the next SMS - by the time I get the return value from this process - asking if she would go to Switzerland after marriage; the other process tells me the flaw.
...
Applause to the person who formulated the SMS.
Special applause to the person who sent the SMS to me at exactly the best ever instant she could have in time (whether or not it was inadvertant).
Random quote I conjured up: It's an art to play a good prank; though, like art, sometimes what you paint turns out better than you thought it would.
