Monday, September 3, 2001		Article

IT had been around four years when I last met my classmate and best friend Roopak (name changed) in Patiala. After that he joined a software developing company in New Delhi. His company then sent him to UK. Both of us did not know each other’s whereabouts. One day, I suddenly got an idea to search for my friend on the Net. I started Yahoo! messenger. From menu I selected Tools > Manage Friend List > Search For A Friend...

In the text box, I wrote full name of my friend and pressed search button. After sometime, I got a list of persons with that name who were using Yahoo Messenger. I started viewing profiles of all of them. One of the profiles contained picture of my friend.

Then I played a trick. I opened a new e-mail account with my name mentioned as "Funny Punjabi". From this account I sent him an e-mail that had the subject ‘Remembrance of the time spent in Patiala.’ I reminded him all about Modi College, Patiala, and asked him to guess who I was??

Roopak was astonished to get the mail and replied promptly. He replied: "I can never forget my old friends, especially those from Modi College. Though it is not possible for me to know who you are but I am sure you must be one of my best friends. The only problem is that it is hard to recall your name unless you let me know. Where are you these days? In India or the USA?

I told him my name and he was happy to know that. After that the Internet became a medium between us for daily chatting. Instead of spending money by calling up his parents through ISD, Roopak now gives me his messages that I convey to his parents.

I told this procedure to another friend and he too was able to locate his "lost" friend using MSN Messenger.