Ok here is my situation and i need your opinion plus how do you handle such. It seems that some of my friends sitting in Pakistan have too much of time in their hands (nope, i am not trying to start another Pakistani vs western desis thread, just sharing my experience, which could be different than yours). I dont get equal number of SMS from elsewhere that i get collectively from these handful of people. Jokes, fuzool kee shaeri, fabricated quotes, jaali wazeefay with request of forwarding it to ten more people … you name it.
No problem as i can always ignore such messages. Thank God to the unlimited SmS plan that i have. But when you get this one day for not replying to such messages - " Asalam 0 Alikum kaha ho bhai kese ho naraz ho kia", - then what do you do? I am not sure if this particular person is insecure, or culturally i am obligated to reply to all the spam through SMS because it’s coming to me from a friend.
It seems that reloading your SIM card is not very expensive in Pakistan. Also I was told by this person that he has registered my number on his account (details i don’t know), which makes sending me SmS even cheaper.
But i know that such exchange of text messages is very common in Pakistan
No, you are not obligated to reply to those SMS’s, but it keeps your old friendships, i do get those SMS’s (now its whatsapp messages, mostly) and i reply them whenever possible. If a SMS reply from you brightens someones day, do it.
And then after a few days, send a reply saying, yaar so sorry. Thanks for keeping me in the loop but I’m unable to reply as I don’t use my “mobile” at work, aur phir ghar pe begum bohot tung kerti hai, mera phone chupa deyti hai.
