Hi,
It was a Sunday evening. I was in a cyber-caffe near my PG rooms, checking my mails, and reading posts on the various Yahoo groups that I am a member of.
Just then, a middle-aged person walked in. He was bald-headed, wearing khaadi clothes and a dhoti.. In short, not the kind of guy you usually find in a cyber-caffe.
The peasant guy walked straight to the caffe-owner. The owner nodded to him, and logged in to a G-Mail account. He read some mails from the inbox and conveyed those to the peasant guy, who listened attentively. This activity over, the peasant told the owner some matters, such as, the heat here has been unbearable, but we have had some showers during last few days; the mother is well, the sister is enjoying summer holidays, etc... which the cyber-caffe guy typed and sent off as an e-mail.
The peasant thanked the owner and left.
I was damn curious to know what was going on. Being somewhat friendly with the cyber-caffe owner, I asked him what it was all about.
It seems that the peasant person's son has got admission to IISc-Bangalore on basis of some scholarship. The family doesn't have a telephone, and with postal department striving hard to live up to its reputation of 'snail-mail', letters would have taken years to reach.
So the young boy came up with a bright idea: he created a G-Mail account in name of his father and provided the cyber-caffe owner with the ID and password. About once a month, the father comes to the caffe, the owner logs into the G-mail account and reads the mails sent by the son, translating them into Marathi, of course. Next, he types the matter as dictated by the father and sends the reply to son.
If you ask me, this must be the best application of IT in a country like India..
I do not know whom to applaud.. the son, for this fantastic scheme; or the father, for taking up this adventure at such an old age; or the cybe-caffe owner, who doesn't charge a penny for his services...
