It's that time of year again when your various inboxes regardless of capacity, accessibility and associated devices will overflow with crud. From Big Ugly ASCII Art (BART as in Bart Simpson, a popular subject for this kind of flatulent viral meme) to cheesy flash videos to badly spelled phonetic Bangla, it all comes thundering in. Anyone who's ever grabbed your business card and run, from stoned TV repairmen, random shysters, ticket gougers, corrupt publishers, illiterate booksellers, incompetent car repairmen, chronically absent drunk students and the statutory addlepated commenter at every book launch you've ever conducted, they will all remember you with fondness this festive season. A small cottage industry in tacky Puja digital memorabilia will make a quick and nasty killing before the tax hounds twitch their noses. Ah! someone who's clearly been partying just wished me a Suva Biyoa.

Most of these come from unknown numbers that you didn't save for a very good reason. I have cleaned out my phone's inbox three times already this week and it's teetering on the brink of another barf session. People who would never dream of entering the lair of the monster SMS because they're still haven't got past the steep challenge of figuring out how to turn their phone to silent mode suddenly feel the urge to enter the digital age with both thumbs. Since their well meaning children often buy them touch phones in the mistaken belief that these are easier to use than normal phones, this usually results in wall to wall garbage on the digital airwaves into which Ma Durga sinks with completely misplaced dignity. If one more of these caterpillars asks me to 'take his pronams' I will comply and shove em where they belong.

But I think the prize goes to this unidentified person who was probably drunk on fermented shinni or the like, who clearly pressed the wrong button in the middle of his group SMS and informed me cryptically, 'Bhechcha Janai'.

And the same to you too.