WANT to book a Maruti? It's just a mouse click away. If you are staying in Thane, near Mumbai, how about having an e-mail address as abc@thanecity.com? For convenience, there's little to match shopping for the month's groceries via the computer.
Everything's possible over the Internet. Well, almost. Right now, Delhiites can order groceries and other items at www. bababazar.com or gifts at www.thehaat. com, not to mention several other sites. One of south Delhi's popular shopping centres, Lajpat Nagar, has its own website, lajpatnagar.com. Soon other Delhi markets like Connaught Place, Nehru Place and South Extension will be on the web.
Ensuring that fun happens on the Net is serious business. "A lot of effort goes into designing a website so that it attracts visitors," says Rajesh Taneja of Value Web Computers, which created lajpatnagar. com. Hundreds, of Indian tour operators and tourist information centres across the country now have homepages to attract tourists from all parts of the globe. The same holds good for exporters, hotels and companies looking for overseas clients.
Even God has moved onto the Net. Mumbai's Siddhivinayak temple is online (www.siddhivinayak.org). Cities like Mangalore, Kanchipuram and Pondicherry similarly have webpages to attract tourists. At indiacity.com, there will soon be all the information one needs about the top 50 cities of India.
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam, the basic telecom service provider to Delhi and Mumbai, now offers a host of customer-care services on the Internet: forms for registration and shifting of telephones, for instance, are available via the Net.
Want ayurvedic advice? Go to Partap Chauhan's ayurveda clinic on the net. Apart from advice through online chat and e-mail, Chauhan sells ayurvedic products on his website. "I don't know them, but they manage to find me and my site," says Chauhan, as he fishes out the latest inquiry. Chauhan lives in Faridabad, just outside Delhi. The query has come from Brazil. That's global.
A meal ordered through the Internet is now a reality. But what is not yet a reality is a hot cup of capuccino to round it off with. Perhaps it's already percolating.
