How internet defines a generation

We adapt to ‘the new’ so quickly it becomes hard to think of how we coped without it just fine not long ago. Take the internet. I first opened an email account back in 2000 at one of the newfangled cybercafés at Ratopul. I was billed at the ‘introductory offer’ of 80 rupees an hour.

Those were the days when the Diversity Visa form had to be sent by the post. As the deadline to fill up the form approached, people thronged outside the General Post Office at Sundhara for a shot at the American Dream. Once, I remember a sizable room at the front of the post office being filled with DV applications. A whole room, top to bottom, front to back, crammed with nothing but letters with entreaties to be allowed into Uncle Sam’s shores! In 2001, my best friend studying in Ranchi was still sending me long, hand-written letters.