Introduction to Cyber world - Part III (Final)

I came & settled down on my chair. I was so embarrassed then that I failed to notice, helper was a girl. ;) Damn, Now I cursed myself & the thick book even more. We looked at her & she flashed an assuring smile. We felt relaxed & we surrendered ourselves (and our precious 20 minutes) happily to her. She took charge of the desktop now. She closed all the windows we had opened so far. I got to know, whatever we had attempted so far wouldn’t have led us anywhere. Then she went to “Start” option, “Programs” & clicked on “Internet explorer” icon. Bingo, door to magical cave of internet was wide open in front of us. I started thinking what magic a knowledge can do to you. What took us 40+ minutes, she did in hardly 4 seconds. When she opened that window I felt like we should take the control back as we knew what we wanted. But very next moment, what we had done in last 40 minutes flashed in my mind & I controlled my urge, for good.

She asked me & my friend, “Guys, what you want to do? Emailing or chatting?” My friend replied, “Email”, randomly. Then she opened yahoo page & opened new user registration page. Then she turned to us & asked one of ours name. I got alerted. Sticking to childhood lesson of “Don’t tell your name to strangers (though she is a girl)”, I decided not to tell my name. And I told her my friend’s name. My friend did not believe I voluntarily suggested his name for the coveted new email id. He smiled at me with anticipation. Such a win-win situation it was for me.

Introduction to Cyber world - Part II

The day arrived finally. We had to take a train as cafes were yet to come in our area then. We reached the place only to see it full of crowd & super hot. We waited for our turn for almost like an hour. Our name was called & we were given with one system placed in a small chamber where we crammed ourselves. We had to rush as time was really expensive. While entering, probably café owner had sensed our amateur faces. He offered us a helper. We being in possession of “Complete reference of Windows 98”, simply turned down his request. Everybody out there presumed us to be proficient with cyber world. We felt happy about that.

As we sat down, we took our monstrous book out & reached the page where I had seen “Internet” icon. Below picture, instructions were given about how to reach that icon. I was in hold of the mouse (yeah, I had finally got to know) & Sandeep (other interested friend) was reading out the steps. “Go to Start, then go to control panel”. I followed as an obedient child and it paid off, I saw “Internet” icon (I was familiar with the icon itself) there. Without wasting any time I double clicked on it. A window called “Internet options” popped up on screen with various buttons in it.

Introduction to Cyber world - Part I

Back in year 2000, when I had just left my school after SSC & had joined a diploma course, a new trend had arrived. Personal Computers were abuzz then. I had no idea what it was & what it does. For me it was just a small TV with 2 other complementary dabbas (boxes). Later on we saw a tail (mouse) coming forward from one of the dabbas where one of the human hand will always rest & move here n there making some click-click sound. I always found it cute. I always had curiosity to touch it, to sit there, to see what it does, to operate that cute little thing.

Time passed on. By now, I had my hands on personal computers in our college labs. I was all for it I must confess. By entering few keys (“dir” command actually) & pressing enter key made my screen dance & fill with many characters neatly organized on screen. At times screen scrolled automatically so fast, it always amazed me. I was all praise for these 3 boxes which did magic. As I got well versed with PCs, I started hearing cyber cafes, chatting & emailing. K B Virkar dictionary failed to answer these questions. So I planned to pay a visit to “cyber café” on my own.

A 1300 kms adventure : 1. Bengaluru to Malwan (670 kms)

"Hello", my mom answered to my call. I replied "Hello Mom, I am starting from Bangalore to Malwan today. Will stay there for 2 days with 2 of my friends & then come to Mumbai". My mom with joy, "Great, how are you coming? By train or bus". To which I replied "By train". Then I finished the call in hurry as I really can not lie to anybody, especially to my mom. No, don't get me wrong here. It's not like I don't lie, but people catch me easily. But this one went well. My mom believed me & I was happy as my purpose to surprise them will be served. :D

Unwillingly but inevitably it started with a lie. It had been 5 months now I had bought my new bike Hero Honda Karizma R (yellow) & I was desperate to show my possession to my parents. I had finished 700 Kms long road-trip on my bike before which had induced confidence in me to cover 1000 kms distance from Bangalore to Mumbai. I was in search of an opportunity & this Diwali gave it to me with 2 long weekends in a week.