{"id":928,"date":"2016-07-26T08:30:51","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T08:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=928"},"modified":"2016-07-26T08:30:51","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T08:30:51","slug":"delhi-india-whatsapp-vodafone-evil-twin-doppelganger-debt-evasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/?p=928","title":{"rendered":"My Daredevil Doppelg\u00e4nger"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"container page-content\"><p><span class=\"dropcap\">L<\/span><\/p><\/div><p>ast year, I surfaced on a very hot day at the peak of Delhi summer, all ready to conquer Monday morning blues because I was sure I\u2019d done a great job on a report that weekend. Little did I know that my doppelg\u00e4nger was about to ruin it all.\n\nWhen I breezed into office, my boss threw me a stormy look, and held his phone up with a single, raised eyebrow. It was a WhatsApp thread, and it was short. There were three frantic messages from him telling me he couldn\u2019t open a WinZip file (big-time Luddite), and asking when I could fix and send it back please? And then the reply from my phone number: \u201cHiee old man!\u201d\n\nI had a lot of explaining to do. But where to begin?\n\nIt had actually all started the previous month with a call from an unknown number. \u201cTanaya ji?\u201d said a rather gruff voice on the line. \u201cHaan ji,\u201d I said, assuming he\u2019d said \u201cTanya\u201d and I\u2019d misheard because of all the honking around me. \u201cMa\u2019am, I\u2019m calling from Bajaj. When will you pay your \u20b97 lakh loan, ma\u2019am? Due date is passed. We will take over your assets by the end of the month.\u201d I nearly fell out of the auto.\n\nIt turned out that the \u201cbrand new\u201d SIM card I\u2019d got (or so Vodafone had said) in April that year, used to belong to another woman before me. She also had almost the same name. And it turned out that she led a rather colourful \u2013 unhinged \u2013 life.\n\nOver the next few days, and many such calls later, I gauged that the person my SIM belonged to had an array of bank and card loans \u2013 RBI, Axis Bank, HDFC, ICICI. Attempts to get Vodafone to do something about the mix-up were hopeless. At first I was hopping mad, always on edge when an unknown number popped up. But eventually, going against everything my neurotic grandmother taught me about steering clear of dodgy folks, it started to feel absolutely normal, and even a little bit daredevil to be privy to someone\u2019s inner life and secrets.\n\nI tuned into the rhythm of indignant bank clerks calling me every day, asking aggressively when I planned to pay back my \u20b910 lakh loan. And warn that I was facing bankruptcy and possibly even eviction. It was a bit like having a dangerous crackpot doppelg\u00e4nger from a parallel universe, someone who clearly doesn\u2019t play nice like I do. What was she like in person?\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\"><p>It was like sometimes you get a window into someone\u2019s life, and with no intention of eavesdropping, you get caught up in \u2013 and hugely entertained by \u2013 your alter ego\u2019s antics.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nRemember how Monica from <em>Friends <\/em>meets a fraudster with the same name who turns out to be amazing at tap dancing and graffiti and teaches Monica to loosen up?\n\nBut this, alas, was real life, not an American sitcom. I caught on that my doppelg\u00e4nger also had a bunch of questionable friendships and hostile lovers. \u201cChodh ke dikhaoonga,\u201d was one charming SMS I got in the middle of the night. Another, suspiciously early in the morning, went \u201cPata hai peechhe se zyada maza aata hai tere ko\u201d (I know you like it better in the ass). From a fascination for her antics, I now began to feel for her as I witnessed this steady stream of vitriol.\n\nBizarre as it sounds, I realised I was capable of genuine empathy for someone I\u2019d never met, a solidarity of sorts based on rage against the straight-up shitty abuse women have to deal with from disgruntled exes or spurned lovers.\n\nI get the feeling she felt the same. Because, bless her soul, I realised Tanaya was also getting questionable messages from <em>my<\/em> friends who were texting her on the WhatsApp number that she still held (since I hadn\u2019t bothered to change my number on it). I was meant to go camping with a group of hilarious, but desperately single PhD students, who called themselves \u201cThe Lonely Guys\u2019 Express\u201d. And of course, they messaged Tanaya to say they\u2019d pick her up at 7 pm. When she replied seeming to have no clue about the plan, they told her that \u201cthe lonely guys are coming to get you!\u201d In reply, she sent them a Wikipedia entry about the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Raymond_Fernandez_and_Martha_Beck\">Lonely Hearts Killers<\/a>, a duo of serial murderers in America.\n\nWhatever else my doppelg\u00e4nger was, she was obviously a feminist \u2013 with bad luck in men. It was like sometimes you get a window into someone\u2019s life, and with no intention of eavesdropping, you get caught up in \u2013 and hugely entertained by \u2013 your alter ego\u2019s antics.\n\nShortly after the hiccup with the boss, though, there was the very annoying time that she accepted an invitation to a party on my behalf. Naturally, no one bothered to remind me, and I missed it. \u201cWe WhatsApped you yaar! And you said \u2018Yaas pakka\u2019!\u201d was my friends\u2019 defence. (How I wish my friends knew me a little better. I would never say \u201cYaas\u201d.) This doppelg\u00e4nger situation was becoming too much trouble. Ready to sacrifice my source of daily feminist solidarity, I decided to end it all with a firm complaint to Vodafone, and finally switched my WhatsApp to the one linked to my SIM card.\n\nExcept, I\u2019d now barged into doppelg\u00e4nger territory, full-throttle. After a day\u2019s lull, the inundation began. I got pop quizzes about vibrator preferences (let\u2019s just say I now know that Rampant Rabbit sex toys are worth the extra money). I even got a rather sweet, forgiving message from someone <em>she <\/em>had clearly dumped (\u201cSweetie, I will always love you. Gd lk in yr life\u201d).\n\nThe barrage of messages dwindled over time, though I still get the odd message at the odd hour that ranges from the benign to the ridiculous. Thankfully, no dick pics.\n\nI guess I now know that the golden advice to be wary of strangers is blown way out of proportion. Unexpected connections, at least with other women, aren\u2019t always bad or dangerous. They can just give you a wake-up call about how universal and regular the shit you face as a woman really is. Despite all the headaches, it still felt more like a fellowship than an intrusion.\n\nBut if I do ever meet my doppelg\u00e4nger, I\u2019ll be sure to tell her to at least pay her goddamn credit card bill.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u201cbrand new\u201d SIM card I\u2019d got in April last year, belonged to another woman before me. She also had almost the same name. And it turned out that she led a rather colourful \u2013 unhinged \u2013 life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1676,1677,334,1678,1679,1680,1681,19,1682,1683,939],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-axis-bank","tag-debt-evasion","tag-delhi","tag-doppelganger","tag-evil-twin","tag-hdfc","tag-icici","tag-india","tag-rbi","tag-vodafone","tag-whatsapp"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>My Daredevil Doppelg\u00e4nger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The \u201cbrand new\u201d SIM card I\u2019d got in April last year, belonged to another woman before me. She also had almost the same name. 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