Living in a virtual world

The world has just opened up for Moushumi Chatterjee, a 43-year-old housewife in south Kolkata8217;s Tollygunje.

The world has just opened up for Moushumi Chatterjee, a 43-year-old housewife in south Kolkata8217;s Tollygunje. Ever since her family got an Internet connection last month, Chatterjee has spent much of her spare time trying to get a hang of the bewildering virtual world. 8220;My children spend a lot of time on social networking websites. I decided to familiarise myself with the Net to keep a tab on what they were up to. But now, I am discovering new things every day,8221; she says.

For the longest time, the written word dominated our world. We would wake up to the ritualistic thud of the morning paper as it landed on the balcony in a perfect arc, return home at the end of the day to the task of going through the evening post. All that changed in the early 8217;90s, with the birth of the personal computer.

It had Subhra Banerjee, a retired professor of Rammohan College, travelling all the way to north Kolkata from her home in Salt Lake for lessons in MS DOS and later, Internet, so she could keep in touch with her sons abroad. In Chennai, Meena Sairam spent her afternoons on an old typewriter trying to improve her typing skills. 8220;My husband who is a doctor would tell me about this incredible machine they had introduced at the hospital. I was so curious, I just had to see it for myself,8221; says the 50-something Sairam.

Over the years, the novelty has waned, and people of all ages are part of the Internet revolution. If septuagenarian Raj Kumar Kalra, a retired major general, skims the headlines on the Net and catches up with his NRI son through skype.com, Anish Sarkar and his wife Anuradha, who teach at the Indian Statistical Institute and Lady Shriram College in Delhi, respectively, pay their electricity bills and recharge their set-top boxes online.

It is not just about utility and convenience. The Internet has changed the way people connect with each other. The moment you hit 8216;Enter8217;, there is an audience at your disposal. Even before Abhinav Bindra bagged his gold at the Olympics, the shooting star8217;s blog closely followed the run-up to the medal. You could take pointers from Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan and post banalities about colleagues on your blog. Or you can pour your angst out and bank on some sympathetic listeners.

As if all this wasn8217;t enough, the Internet is a universe of movies, music and games. And with broadband connectivity set to permeate remote corners of India, the virtual trip has just begun.