Until Steve Jobs came along, apple was just a fruit that made my salad delicious and Mango, the king of fruits as famously perceived by every Indian. But now who says technology can't be savoured? If some Apple phones are selling like hot cakes, some handsets religiously carry in them the Ice Cream Sandwich. Yummy indeed.
That sets me thinking what's in a name? Steve Jobs chose apple perhaps because he couldn't really think of anything better than his previous workplace, the Oregon apple farm, and we presume it was not because apple was the fruit Biblical character Eve had offered to Adam.
But I seriously wonder if it is because apple is eye-perfect just as his iPhone, iPad and iPod. Its taste eternally copyrighted by nature and none, I mean no rival, can improve upon its contoured shape and its patented colour.
When the word rival crops up, I can't be forgetting great competitors Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who are set to roll out their delightful dessert, Ice Cream Sandwich.
For Google, it is just continuation of the tradition of naming its operating systems based on a dessert in an alphabetical order: Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, and Honeycomb, but there is a possibility of it resulting in a greater appetite for yummy names. Going by Google's fantasy for hot 'n cold names, what will be the next one called? May be Jelly Bean or Jello Cream. For all that guesses, Google doesn't really mind such suggestions, of course quality ones.
The latest to tickle the technology taste buds is Microsoft's Mango phone. But have you ever wondered why is it Mango, and not Melon? Even if it was Microsoft's obsession with the letter M, I feel melon would have been better as one can't really make out from outside if it is ripe inside!
It seems a total disconnect to name man-made technology after nature's creations. Precisely, that's what makes technology delicious. How about a cookie byte or a cyber pizza on your menu?
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Close on the heels of West Bengal government's invitation to Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy to become the chief mentor of the government's expert committee on IT, the Gujarat Government has gone a step further and invited the IT legend to head the proposed youth incubation centre in the state.
The Infosys founder was all happy to react positively to the proposal, though he has not officially accepted the offer. “It is a great idea. I think Gujarat government will send a proposal to me in writing to steer its ambitious project,” Murthy was reportedly told reporters in Ahmedabad.
Murthy was in the city to deliver the convocation address of the American University in Ahmedabad, and during the visit he also called on Chief Minister Narendra Modi and discussed various programmes of the government, according to an official statement.
The proposed “Incubation Centre for Youths,” is aimed at preparing the new generation of professionals in the fields of human resource and other developmental activities.
“The chairman of a world-class IT company has reacted positively to the Gujarat government's offer to head a world-class Centre for the Youths proposed to come up in the state,” according to an official statement issued by Chief Minister Modi's office.
“I will be happy to be linked with this ambitious project, but how much time I will be able to devote towards it is to be seen and I shall discuss with the government later on,” it said Murthy as saying.
Murthy also talked regarding the opportunities available to the youths in the IT sector and showed interest in the progress of the specialized universities like Forensic Science University, Raksha Shakti University, Petroleum University, Sanskrit University, Teacher's University and Kamdhenu University.
Meanwhile, the Infosys founder also said in another function that Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are no longer the quality institutions they were in the 60s and 70s.
While speaking at IIT-Gandhinagar, he also encouraged students to become strategic learners and restore the lost glory of the IITs, according to media reports. When you read it along with the incubation centre proposal, you will get a picture that underscores the potential of the project.
In the recent times, Gujarat under Narendra Modi has been trying hard to shed the blood-stained image created by the Godhra carnage and the horrific developments thereafter, which have been haunting the government even after years.
The effort of the government to use Big B Amithabh Bachchan, who tweets day in and day out, to promote the tourism industry of Gujarat through their campaign “Khusboo Gujarat ki” (scent of Gujarat) is also part of the game plan, though everybody is not happy with it, including some Hollywood celebrities.
So, will the proposed incubation centre 'Modi'fy the business and social perspective of the youths in the state and help the state escape the ghost of Godhra?
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Well, we have heard a lot about the famous Moore, the Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore, and his even more famous law, the Moore's Law, which says that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years. This law when roughly translated means that world's data will double every 18-24 months, a phenomena that has been happening so for the past several decades.
Howsoever, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg - the famous (or more so the infamous) computer programmer, who wanted to make this 'world a more open place by helping people connect and share' and thus founded Facebook - likes to differ.
Recently, he went on to explain information sharing habit of social network users (of course in accordance with Facebook’s data). He said that 'the amount of stuff you shared today is double the amount of stuff you shared a year ago and the stuff that you will share a year from now will be double the amount you’ve shared today'.
Well, well, well, that is huge, right!
The report also quotes Chris Dixon's tweet, who took the pain of calculating how much will that be in 20 years from now. Dixon finds, "People will be sharing 1,048,576 (2^20) times the items of information they are sharing today twenty years from now'.
Enormous the figure, even more enormous(ly) difficult it seems to be humanely possible to achieve it in real terms.
Having said that, however, we cannot be sure that it will be impossible... because 20 years back neither did many assume that the world's data lot will be touching the threshold of zettabyte age by 2015.
Not just that, the latest EMC-sponsored IDC study says that the world's data is growing than Moore's Law and will grow 50x in the next decade!
Thus, if zettabyte is just round the corner, then why not share '2^20'! (Although at this point of time while writing this piece neither can I comprehend how much will it amount to, nor do I see myself taking the time to even skim through all of my FB contacts' updates shared on my wall, let alone read them all!)
So one can only assume that maybe by then the FB CEO will come up with a new application which will do away with at least the manual part of FB updation. Whatsoever Mr Zuckerberg, if you are presuming that much of data on your platform, then the app and the 'sharings' better be something worthwhile, since then readers will no longer be even the skimmers!
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Normally a news travels from the first page to the inside pages, from headlines to the news brief. But here it is the other way round – the news of a celebrity pregnancy traveling from the gossip pages to a societal issue to a potential business news.
It all began with a tweet from none other than the senior Bachchan, who expresses himself inside out on Twitter. “News news news!! I am going to become a grandfather... Aishwarya expecting... so happy and thrilled!!!” read the father in-law's tweet on June 22.
A celebrity pregnancy is a hot news after all, whoever broke the news – the father-to-be or the grandpa-to-be. From a small news it grew day by day and soon embraced controversies, even though congratulatory messages poured in from all corners.
The first was sparked by a tweet and Facebook comments by actress and model Bhairavi Goswami, who was bit furious about the so-called “hypocrisy of the Bachchan family”.
“Nauseating 2 read superstars givg interviews abt wanting a girl baby whn she has gone 2 Bangkok to an IVF clinic which specializes in boy babies,” read the tweet.
She even blogged that the craze for a baby boy is a typical UP mentality. “No wonder that state has such high female foeticide.”
Though she did not mention Aishwarya's name (of course to be safe from legal hassles), the world knew about whom Goswami was talking.
“I don’t tweet about celebs as a policy. I tweet about social issues close to my heart. As a rule, I don’t tweet about celebs, actors or personalities of any field...” she clarified in an interview, in an escape act.
Talking about the Facebook comment she denied doing it own her own and attributed it to ‘Bhairavi Goswami fan club’.
Don't think the controversy ended there. The hot news of pregnancy assumed economic significance with a blog by director Madhur Bhandarkar blaming Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan for hiding the truth about her pregnancy.
Don's ask for how long can you hide pregnancy!
Also don't ask if you have to take the permission of others to become pregnant. He got upset because Ash was to be the heroine of the forthcoming movie 'Heroine'. Till the mummy-to-be is back from the maternity leave, he has to put the project in shelf, thus resulting in a financial loss of Rs 8 crore, according to him.
“We learnt about the entire thing (the pregnancy) from news channels like the rest of the world that the said actress was four months pregnant and she was due in November,” wrote Bhandarkar in a blog.
“If we had known the truth behind the maternal state of the actress, things could have been reworked… this crisis could have been averted,” he added.
An embarrassed senior Bachchan countered the allegation saying that the rumours of monetary loss are false.
“Everybody knew that Aishwarya was married when she signed the film. So you mean to say that actors can’t get married or have children? I don’t think this can be a part of any contract that you cannot get married or have children if you working in a project,” the angry young man of yesteryears countered in an interview.
Interestingly, Aishwarya is meaningfully silent on the controversy, as is husband Abhishek Bachchan. With over 12000 tweets to his credit, the junior preferred not to wash all the linen (even though not dirty) in public, it seems! Silence too has some business value, isn't it?
As the news traveled from the four walls of the house to page 3 to an issue of gender selection to finally end up as a potential business page news, 'Page-3' maker Bhandarkar can now think of another project maybe – 'The hidden pregnancy and the celebrity saga'!
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The anti-corruption crusade launched by Gandhian activists Anna Hazare and later taken up by the likes of Baba Ram Dev, is showing no signs of dying down, and is maintaining its pace.
Though the over-enthusiasm is no longer there, people are still actively discussing the issue – both online and offline.
Interestingly, The Central Bank of Direct Taxes (CBDT), which opened an e-mail for the people to send their views on black money has reportedly got thousands of email within days. The email ID was the result of the public outrage over the issue of corruption and black money.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, tax officials at North Block received 2708 emails in less than a week on their newly created official email identity asking citizens to send their suggestions.
Even though some emails are more humorous than serious, like suggesting the board to distribute free condoms in semi-urban and rural areas to check the growth of population and also suggesting rationing of fuel – 500 litres of petrol/diesel for a politician, 300 litres for a bureaucrat and 100 litres for a commoner, the emails reflect an overall sentiment against black money and corruption.
Though the crusade has resulted in the government negotiating with the civil society activists, the conflicting opinions are not yet solved. The civil society's recommendations and the government's recommendations are not matching with each other.
To see a comparative chart on the government's Lokpal Bill Vs Jan Lokpal Bill visit http://www.box.net/shared/oakrbzxf35c2znx4xi3j
Interestingly, the government feels that the civil society representatives wanted to create a "parallel government". However, the Anna Hazare-led crusaders promptly rubbished the allegation and said their draft anti-graft bill is aimed for an autonomous Lokpal free of government interference. Hazare even accused the government of trying to mislead the people on the legislation.
Even there is an email campaign by indiaagainstcorruption.org, comparing the Govt's Lokpal Bill Vs Jan Lokpal Bill. The campaigners say that rather than gunning for the corrupt and corruption, government's Lokpal seems to be gunning for those who complain against corruption. The site also has the complete details of both the versions of the Lokpal bills, as well as other materials.
Interestingly, the organization has also released a Twitter app to take the fight to the next level. The app will read your tweets online, sees who you follow, follows new people, update your profile and post tweets on your behalf.
Unlike many other campaigns that rock the physical space and virtual space like a storm and die down without your knowledge, this one campaign seems to maintain its momentum, though it cannot be said that it is “gaining strength day by day”.
Even if Anna Hazare decides to call it a day on his campaigns, in all probability it will not come to a standstill soon. After all, corruption is something that even the most corrupt cannot approve of!
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BANGALORE, INDIA: The latest hue and cry over the 'chewing gum on the walls of Finance Ministry', and the possibility of some spying activity behind it, has once again given rise to the question on the security behind the walls of the highly secure North Block that houses the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The issue of security popped up all of a sudden when 'The Indian Express' reported on Tuesday that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had, in September, written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about a “serious breach of security” in his office.
Though Mukherjee clarified, citing the report of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), that it was just some chewing gum pasted on the walls of the ministry, no one is willing to 'chew' this explanation for granted.
Even as the minister said there was no microphone or recording devices found in these offices, the paper pointed out to the possibility of some microchip being planted inside the adhesives that resembled chewing gum. And in this age of technological revolution, there is the possibility of a hidden spy inside the adhesive too! According to the newspaper the adhesives were seen at crucial places, including Mukherjee's table.
In his letter, Mukherjee apparently claimed that 'planted adhesives' were found in 16 locations including at his office, the offices of his advisor Omita Paul and private secretary Manoj Pant and two conference rooms used by the ministry. Too many people chewing the gum in north block?! Height of unemployment, or the zenith of work pressure?
So is it that the spy has already got the information? Or was there a real spying activity or just a prank? The walls of any building in Delhi will have such 'decorative' works. Spitting on the walls after chewing pan is a way of life and the characteristic of the city of tombs! But when it reaches the North Block, the story becomes bit weird.
And the alleged rivalry between Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee adds further spice to the spy theory.
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, calling 'chewing gum theory' of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) a 'joke' is no joke!
“IB's chewing gum theory is a joke. A childish argument like this...if they want the country to believe that it was a chewing gum, people will laugh,” said the BJP leader.
“From where such intelligent chewing gum came, which goes to the Finance Minister's room, his OSD's room, advisor's room, to the conference hall, and sticks?” she asked.
It is this question that points to the possibility of some surveillance equipment being planted inside the so-called chewing gum.
Anyhow, after the incident the IB has reportedly strengthened the anti-bugging exercise inside the Finance Ministry, and now there is this ritual called 'technical sweeping'. Hope there is no spy in the guise of the 'hi-tech sweeper' too!
Interestingly, after the incident, the CBDT is reportedly using a private detective agency to carry out the “sweeping” exercise, in addition to the IB. Too many sweeps too points to something fishy isn't it?
The chip technology has developed in a such a way that one cannot rule out the possibility of the spying eyes and ears hiding inside the so-called chewing gum. While some of these gadgets can make our life easier some other can further complicate too.
The recent revelations involving British undercover police officer using a customized G-Shock watch to record conversations on a case shows to the 'James Bond' aspect of many tiny gadgets. Likewise, there are many such watches that can record voice and even capture video footage and photographs. Is the government so sure that no such gadget or chip was planted inside the gum? We are living in an age where even the car-key alarm hides a recorder in it.
That is why we are forced to be apprehensive. In a world where a chip can be hidden in a soap “to find out the hygienic measures taken by people in rural areas”, nothing is an imagination. So, make sure there is no microchip in the chewing gum you enjoy!
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On a day when Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa decided to wear jewels after a gap of fourteen years, opposition DMK got a not-so-bright jewel in its crown of scams with a shocking report by 'The New Indian Express' S Gurumurthy, who said that Dayanidhi Maran had literally built a telephone exchange at his Chennai residence with 323 telephone lines!
The revelation based on a CBI report comes at a time Maran's name is also slowly being part of the 2G scam, which is pet-named the mother of all scams, and DMK is facing many a political nemesis after it was routed in the Assembly elections.
Of course, the happiest person on earth to see one more DMK leader's name being dragged into the episode is Amma only, who wants the DMK to be vanished from the surface of the earth. The moment the news of Maran's alleged involvement in the 2G licensing episode made headlines Amma didn't waste any time in demanding his resignation, so was BJP which sees it as the duty of the opposition to demand the resignation of the corrupt.
And if we add Baba Ramdev's threat of fasting to end corruption in the government machinery, then the 'anti-corruption' script will have all the ingredients that our anti-political bandwagon in the country will enjoy.
The allegation is that Maran's official decisions as telecommunications minister had indirectly benefited his brother's company. Though Maran denied the allegations raised by Tehelka magazine, it seems that the 2G ghost will haunt him too, especially when DMK is literally a voiceless coalition partner in the centre. Already there are many DMK leaders are in the 2G soup, while the likes of A.Raja and Kanimozhi are having a 'non-commercial' break behind the bars.
The whole scandal has ultimately impacted the share price of Sun TV, as is the case of DMK in the political market.
And for Jayalalithaa, this is a golden opportunity to avenge. It was the corruption allegations a decade and a half back that saw her being thrown away from power, following which she vowed not to wear any jewels till she is proved innocent (Some epic dimension that reminds of a Mahabharata story, isn't it?).
Though she has not been exonerated from the case, now that the magnitude of the corruption allegation she faced is dismal when compared to the 2G scam, Amma's decision to symbolically start wearing jewels is justified, especially at a time some party members threatened self-immolation over the issue. Yes, severing tongue, finger and so on is also part of the political game in Tamil Nadu, and so you have to be extremely careful regarding such immolation threats.
Leave Amma there and let's come back to Maran.
In the report Gurumurthy says that Maran's act was indeed a shocking, daring robbery. Interestingly, he got all the 323 home lines listed in the name of the Chief General Manager BSNL Chennai and these lines were exclusively used for his family business and to install these lines 3.4 km long secret cable were laid along public roads.
The first 23 of the 323 lines bore numbers ‘243722 11’ to ‘24372301’ and the next 300 lines bore numbers ‘24371500’ to ‘24371799’. Since the first four digits ‘2437’ were common for all 323 lines, the lines constituted a home telephone exchange, says the report.
A brilliant politician, Maran was smart enough to keep the entire episode secret, but one day the cat is bound to come out of the bag. No secret is a secret in this age of information highway!
Maran reportedly used these special telephone connections, which were ISDN lines, for his Sun TV Network only, to carry tons and tons of TV news and programmes faster than satellites to any part of the world.
According to CBI, these lines are “normally used by medium to large commercial enterprises to meet special needs such as video conferencing, transmission of huge volume of digital data of audio and video”.
With this revelation Maran's so-called clean image has gone for a toss and now Amma can wear more jewels for sure!
Finally, one doubt. Is Maran maintaining the same approach in Textile Ministry as well? If so, you can dig out an investigative story of epic dimension from his wardrobe too!
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Even though the government has brought about changes (very quietly) last month in the IT Act in view of security breaches taking across cyber space and to send a strong message to the world on security, the same has invited criticism from different quarters.
While many players including Google, as well as the Internet community, are upset about the government's stand on objectionable content, as per which the Internet-service providers and social-networking sites are supposed to remove 'blasphemous content' within 36 hours of being notified by authorities, industry bodies are upset about the financial implications.
Issued on April 13, the new Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011 is applicable to all organisations that collect and use personal data and information in India.
Though the government thinks that the new rules will boost offshore outsourcing by showing international companies that their data is safe in India, industry bodies like NASSCOM are upset. In a letter NASSCOM reportedly said the new rules would adversely impact the $76 billion Indian IT-BPO industry.
According to the new rule, electronic service providers are supposed to maintain transactions, receipts, vouchers in specific formats and also produce the same for inspection and audit by a government nominated agency or person.
This will have an impact on the IT/BPO industry says NASSCOM, because when they handle the works of banks or financial companies, they need to collect the sensitive information like the details of credit card and other financial information. But to do that they will have to take the consent of the users, which may complicate their works.
“The body corporate or any person on behalf of body corporate collects, receives, possess, stores, deals or handle information of provider of information, shall provide a privacy policy for handling of or dealing in personal information including sensitive personal data or information and ensure that the same are available for view by such providers of information who has provided such information under lawful contract,” says the amended rule.
“Such an explicit consent requirement will put additional burden on the body corporate,” NASSCOM said in the letter to the IT ministry. “This provision was not present in the draft rules that were made available for public review,” it added.
What is sensitive?
According to the new rule, the sensitive information include: password, financial information such as bank account or credit card or debit card or other payment instrument details, physical, physiological and mental health condition, sexual orientation, medical records and history, biometric information etc.
According to Alistair Maughan, a partner at international law firm Morrison & Foerster, in some respects the Indian laws are more restrictive than typical Western rules – especially when it comes to the treatment of so-called ‘sensitive data’.
He said the new rules apply in addition to any existing data protection rules in the source country of the data. So effectively there’s a ‘double-dip’ effect of a project having to comply with two sets of privacy rules which are similar, but slightly different.
“Rather, the issue of concern to foreign governments and customers that outsource to India is that they need to be able to pursue rogue employees of service providers that misuse or misappropriate data in ways that are not permitted by the contract. Such enforcement remains very slow,” he said.
The new rule also says that all cyber cafes shall be registered with a unique registration number with an agency called as registration agency as notified by the Appropriate Government in this regard. The amended rule stipulates that a cyber cafe shall not allow any user to use its computer resource without the identity of the user being established.
Also the new rules restricts the 'privacy' of the cubicle in an Internet cafe, so that the users would be always under surveillance!
It is feared that such rules may adversely affect the business of BPO industry, cyber cafes and even the Internet users. Even a 'blasphemous' remark in your blog is enough to put you in soup. Beware! You are being watched.
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Website Download Time is always considered to be a major factor in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is believed that the website download time plays an important role in achieving high ranking for a website on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
Website Download Time is a scale used by Google to understand the time taken by a website home page to load when opened in a web browser. As the above scale shows, it is differentiated into two parts the FAST (Green in color) and SLOW (Light Pink in color); the Blue line shows How the website download time has improvised or declined over a period of time (on monthly basis)? One can gague whether the home page of the website is becoming heavier or light over the period of time (on monthly basis) and also can decide upon to add more content to it or take measures which can decrease the heavyness of the page. The above mentioned image shows How the website download time is bifercated on monthly basis (you can see the website download time graph from November to May)?
Ofcourse, the website download time is also considered as one of the SEO Factor which helps in website to rank on search engine result pages. It also has a Non-SEO factor as well which is also a important one to be taken into consideration.
Google, the worlds largest search engine, considers Website Download Time to be a decisive factor in ranking the website on its SERP's. Google, whenever crawls a website home page collects the download time in real-time environment (using its remote servers located at different geographical location). This is frequently done to understand whether the download time has gotten better or not. In the above mentioned instance you can clearly see that the last time Google has checked the website download time on 1st of May 2011. So, from the above image you can come to a conclusion that the graph which is exhibiting the download time is being showcased from November 2010 till May 2011.
Google considers the website download time to be an important factor of SEO, because Google always thrives for the betterment of the way search results are showcased in its SERP's and the quality of its search results. As a result, to avoid those websites which take more time to load on the web browsers when opened by a user; Google stresses more upon website download time. The reason is, Google loves to hold its search users base intact and attract more and more users over the time; and instead do not loose the market cap. Thus Google tries as much as possible to rank those websites with good content and loads faster on the web browser in its search results for the related keywords. This enables Google to keep its users interested with its search services or else if it showcases slow loading websites in its search results, as a result it irritates the users in the process of finding necessary information they are looking for, and users may opt for its rivals over it in this fast virtual world. So, it may end up in Google loosing its market share.
The Non-SEO factor related to website download time is that, if users find your website to be slower than your compititors website (even possessing better content) when loading on the web browser, they will opt for the better loading website instead of wasting time or waiting for the website to load on the web browser.
So, instead of keeping your websites loading time slower and loosing the market share and the website visitors to your compitition. Find better ways to enhance it and make your website load faster on the web browser, thus improvise your growth graph in the market which you are active.
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Long back.... Just out of college and roaming around in my village, which was yet to become a small town, in uncertainty, I too decided to learn typewriting. A typewriting institute was the window open to the horizons of a career in big cities, I had heard from my neighbours who worked in big cities like Madras and Bombay, which were yet to transform into Chennai and Mumbai.
It was at 40 words per minute that Malayalees and Tamilians conquered Delhi and Bombay, a friend of mine used to say thus further provoking me to give a direction to my career planning.
So, with great difficulty I, along with two other friends, went to the typewriting institute on the first floor of an old building, which also had a photo studio in the same room. Fifteen rupees a month was a huge amount then, especially for the one who did not have the luxury of pocket money (Frankly speaking, my father was not very keen about me learning typing, which was bit too feminine, according to him!). In that situation, I had to raise the money on my own.
Thus, with the money I earned by giving private tuitions, I decided to make the first career leap. The moment I entered the classroom, I was welcomed by the monotonous sound of the hitting on the keyboard.. Woodpeckers in search of worms beneath the tree barks... asdfg; lkjh... asdfg; lkjh... asdfg; lkjh...
Yes, my father was right! Most of the ambitious students were girls and the MCP in me could not digest it. So were my friends. Without thinking much about the fifteen rupees paid in advance, we left the place. A career move failed before it took off!
Next time I touched a typewriter was almost one year later when I joined a small publication. But, it was just a touch because I was not permitted to type on that old Remington typewriter, of which our typist Mary was the master! But I had the luxury to lay my hands on a Mac computer on which the magazine was designed. My job was not to type, but to correct the copy for typographic errors. But, there, in my first job, again, I failed to learn typing, and a career too, as the magazine was closed. I cursed the MCP in me.
A few years, while working for a smalltime magazine in Delhi, the typewriter became my comrade in work. An electronic typewriter which had a screen. So with two fingers I typed in ecstasy. Typing, reading on the screen, correcting, and then only taking print to send to the page-maker to retype the copy.
Since my boss was sensible in economics, next week he got me a PC, which had a black and white monitor and a brain in MBs. My happiness knew no bounds. In one month, we replaced the first keyboard, as it could not bear my two-finger exercise.
Even now, it is the same for me! Hitting hard on the keyboard with just two fingers. Though I could not conquer Delhi or Mumbai with 40 words per minute, I conquered the keyboard, in a brutal manner though!
When I just read a report in Business Standard that Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Co, which was the last company in the world to make the typewriter stopped the production of the once ubiquitous devices in 2009, and now, it only has 500 left in stock, those nostalgic memories once again came to mind.
When, typing was the way of the world for India Godrej's production peaked at 50,000 a year in the 1990s and then it came down to 10,000-12,000.... and slowly it stopped. A slow death, isn't it? But, in a sense it was the old typewriter that opened the doors for India to become the back office of the world.
A couple of months back, when I went into that old building where the typing institute and the studio was located, both of it were not there. Both of them had fallen victims to the e-revolution in the digital era.
A typewriter is not just a piece of memory. It is something more than that. There are certain things that can be filled with typewriter only. So if you are really nostalgic about it, it is not yet late to get a fresh piece for Rs 12,000. Or else, you can get a second-hand one from the nearby scrap store now, but maybe not tomorrow. It is fast becoming an antique piece.
But, thinking in terms of gigabytes and terrabytes, don't forget that long back there was a device that had no memory in it, but still it enabled us to memorize anything and everything. A device that is connected to the first romance for at least a few of us!
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