Net Gains (Apr 24, 96)
Missing Home ? Turn to the Internet
It's a very common phenomenon - an Indian leaves his janmabhoomi for further studies abroad or maybe a job elsewhere, and s/he begins to miss India - the culture, the people, the friendliness. In this state of mind s/he begins looking for others who feel the same way. Besides the usual word - of - mouth contacts and friends, one sure way to find other Indians is to turn to the Internet. All one does in such a case, is use a search engine to look up the word India or Indians on the World Wide Web. The search engine returns a whole list of web pages related to India, the vast majority being personal home pages put up by Indians all over the world. I've been following one such very well constructed home page for the last few months. From a rather plain start to a very professional, attractive, and eye - catching page, it has won 3 awards on the Internet already. In a poll conducted by : "Social Sciences, Humanities & Asian-Pacific Studies WWW Resources" The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, this page won in the following catagories :First rank for The Most Elegant Resource - 1995
First rank for The Best Overall WWW Resource - 1995
Second rank for The Most Popular WWW Resource - 1995The site I'm talking about is India - The Country I Love the Most - developed and maintained by Vipul Kapadia. He says, on his home page, that the purpose behind starting this network kind of service is to serve the Indian community and to those who'd like to get some information about this country. This home page is java - powered, which in this case translates into your ability to choose the background colours, see images moving, and even see a smiley face keeping a straight face, and then giving you a wide toothless smile seconds later. This "India Information Resource" has an image of a wall made of 15 blocks. Each block leads to another page with links to a specific topic. The Art & Culture covers topics right from vedic culture to Deepavali in India today. The images at this site were what first attracted me to this home page - images right from beautiful peacocks to mythological and religious pictures abound here. The Masala site has links ranging from what Indian names mean to Online matrimonial listings and connections. There are links to computer games, humour, and even a page where you could find out which famous people share your birthday ! Another of those building blocks dedicates itself to the two most popular Indian games - Cricket & Hockey, dedicated obviously, more to cricket than to hockey. If you're looking for pictures of some of the more famous cricketers - here's where you get off. The section on Country Information has a lil bit about our national anthem, our national this, our national that .... But the attraction here definitely is a link to an Interactive Map of India At the click of a button anywhere, this map gives you a zoom in on that particular state with some textual information about that place. There are also pages dealing with movies, music, magazines all Indian of course. This site is strongly recommended for all those feeling nostalgic, or those who are plain curious. If you think India as a country is too claustrophobic, Vipul has a global menu ready for your sampling. Called CyberWeb, it deals with most of the topics covered above but with a global perspective. There's information on the different countries of the world on a regional basis, and even a whole listing of famous TV channels and favourite shows. But the hot favourite is the modelling link page. But one disappointment after another result here as one link is not found, and another has shifted elswhere. Thankfully the Cindy Crawford Concentration Page has a forwarding address (URL) that makes the search easier. This is where I stop writing, and concentrate on the page, and guys, I mean really concentrate !!
CybersmileYOU KNOW YOU'VE BEEN ON THE COMPUTER TOO LONG...When not only do you check your email more often than your paper mail, but you remember your Internet address faster than your postal one.
Back to Net Gains 1996 archives.
© Lyndon Cerejo: email | www.strategist.net | search site | sitemap