The attack of the Mouse Potato

Harnessing passion has been Shammi Kapoor’s forte. However, the yahoo that sends him is no longer from Junglee. Now, his heart beats for the search site Yahoo. Once he makes that familiar call, three hours of his day are booked for browsing. The chairman of the Internet Users Club of India, Kapoor also qualifies as the founder member of the Mouse Potato genus.

The species is diverse and has several sub-sections. For instance, you could cloak your real identity under the the garb of business, like Raj Lalchandani. The owner of Cyber Club, he spends around five hours daily in search of new sites. "The medium is so diverse and addictive that some spend even 18 hours on the Net," he says. Or, you could be the spouse of a Mouse Potato and enter the species by induction. Lalchandani’s wife Maya, an avid bookreader, now surfs for three hours daily. "I get a major high when I see the whole world at the click of a button," she says. Her adrenaline rush is shared by Rajesh Chhabria from the Merchant Navy.

The world is just a click away for these Mouse Potatoes who may be shy and retiring in real life, but on the Net there’s no holding them back. For instance, when Deve Gowda appeared on a chat show, he resorted to a politician’s ploy of answering in filmi rhetoric. More than 50 people flooded the site with, "Bring on Subhash Ghai, instead." Such is the power of that press, that the next month, the showman was on cyber air. Says P Rajendran, assistant editor, Rediff On The Net, "They are a bunch of intelligent people, inane answers won’t do." Prem Panicker, also assistant editor at Rediff, agrees. Once, he gave the wrong Cricket match venue and in no time, over 50 people had sent E-mails asking him to shape up or ship out. Beware, the Mouse Potato comes with a Cyber Police Force — the Mouse Police — that would put the Gestapo to shame.

Therefore, to ensure stringent quality control in the cyber world, the Mouse Potato takes matters into its own hands. Varsha Bhosle, daughter of Asha Bhosle, is one such defacto member of the Mouse Managing Committee. She spends upto six hours on the Net and also writes a political column. Her on-site job has her answering around 50 letters every day. "In a newspaper, you would be lucky if you get three responses in a year to your articles," she says.

At the same time, the extended family looks after its own. Mouse Potato Maya tells of a woman who spent hours on the Net and then one fine day, disappeared. Inquiries led to the knowledge that she had logged out because her husband suspected her of conducting a Cyber Love Affair. But that does happen. The Mouse Potato Matrimonial Club is the only marriage bureau that really subscribes to "age, caste and sex, no bar". Last month, Lalchandani attended a wedding — live on the Net — between an American man and an Australian woman who met’ over the Net, fell in love and decided to marry. The guests, including the priest, had logged in from all over the world and a Cyber Wedding took place.

The Mouse Potatoes may have worked out that marriages are no longer made in heaven but one question still throws them: What is the plural of Mouse?