SURF’S UP

Introduction

One would hardly call me a 'techno savvy' person. Infact they would never call me that at all. For somebody who takes three minutes to distinguish between the forward and the rewind button of the tape recorder, this adjective seems as much a misfit for me as poor and needy would be for Veronica Lodge. When it comes to existence, electronic equipments and me have a mutual understanding. Only our understanding is mutual, not our existence!

I don’t even want to be reminded of the day I tried to make popcorn in the microwave oven. In all my excitement to convert my house into a mini theatre, what with the Dolby sound L.D. print of  'Pretty Woman', coke cans, plush velvet seats I almost forgot my disability to operate electronic gadgets. At the end of the day my house really did resemble a movie theatre .The only other thing I had forgotten was to display the 'Warning against fire' notice before the movie started! So you can imagine my utmost horror when my parents suggested that I take up a computer course! The only thing common between the computer and me is that we both have a pet mouse. But even their colour is not the same! But you know how parents can be. No matter how I tried to dissuade them, they refused to lend me a ear.

So here I was stuck in front of a white idiot box trying my level best to figure out why the hell the Start button is used to shut down the damn thing! Me thinks the computer needs a visit to the shrink as much as my parents do. I mean, who else would nod his head in approval to their crazy 'say yes, do no' behaviour?? So guess what??? Since both

the computer and my old man obediently operate on the fundamentals of reverse psychology, they teemed up and decided that it was not fair that I should be the only sane one around. So they unleashed their pesky Internet spider to come 'bug' me too! And in no time the creeping, crawling pest was all over me, spinning his web furiously around me; clutching, choking, grasping, seizing, drowning me...... “Heeeeelp!!!! Spider Man, oops wrong hero call, Super Man come rescue me!!!!!!!”

But no nothing could save me ... not my frantic rosary bead chant, not Hercules and not even the entire SOS army put together. I was trapped, caught, captured in the vicious and enticing world wide web. And believe me, once you are in it, you get hooked on. Information, pictures, music, cards, jokes wizzed by me, making me dizzy with excitement. I could never get enough. The 'bug' kind of grew on me and before I knew it I was a hostage of this immensely pulsating and electrifying Internet world. All my initial fears, hesitation and mental block towards the Internet dissipitated from the moment I realized how simple it was to enter this webbed universe. A click here, a click there and I was transported from the ramps of Milan to the cook books of chef Gaston, from the penguins in Antarctica to the beaches in Miami. The whole world was on my fingertips. So push over Leonardo, a mere ride on the Titanic does not make you the only 'king of the world'. And hey, you too can share this experience with me. All you need to do is get connected and follow me around!

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank a number of people who were responsible for the book being written.

First and foremost, thanks to Shammi Kapoor, Chairman, Internet Users Community of India (IUCI) for writing the foreword of the book

Thanks to Manish Jain, BPB publication for publishing the book.

To my co-authors, Sejal Gupta and Shanta Chainani, who have patiently continued working on the book so that it meets this day.

Thanks to my cover designers, Altaf Hemani and Kishore Rohra, for designing the cover in a very short notice.

Thanks to Manish Purohit who has painstakingly resized the screens many a times so that they look clean and clear. His creativity in design work is very well seen here.

Thanks to my wife, Sonal Mukhi for her ideas, cooperation and coordination on every aspect of this book.

To Akhil Gupta for his creative support

To, Pradeep Mukhi and Shivanand Shetty, who made it simple for me and my co-authors to come up with the book.

Finally, to my friends, relatives and the Internet newbies who constantly kept inquiring about the workings of the net thereby being one of the many reasons for writing this book. This book will now guide them and help them enter a new world of technology, communication and information

-Vijay Mukhi