The search has just begun

My sister used to be a google fanatic.

(Who isn't?)

So I'm checking email while my sis is checking whether baby Aish needs a change of diaper, when something strikes me.

"Sis..."

"Hmm...." She says, still looking at the baby.

"I've not seen you get online at all since the baby was born. How do you do it man?"

"Hahaha..."

"No seriously, how can you survive without the Internet? I'd die. Seriously."

"Wait till you have a baby. Phir Internet gaya bhaad mein! Your baby becomes your world wide web."

"Hahaha!"

Now that the baby keeps her hands full, she has no time to get on the net, but she often asks me to check up things - mostly baby stuff - on google.

The last time she said, "Oh, google can tell us!" Mom asked, "Ok who is this google and how come he can tell us everything?"

When you're really excited about something, you want others to be as excited. And if they are not, you feel disappointed. You also feel as if you have let down the thing you're excited about.

So my sister and I started to convince my Mom about great google is.

"Google is this really cool search engine that can give you any information you want. You just type the words on any topic in the world and you'll get so much information that you can't even read it all!"

"Any information I want? On anything?" Mom asked.

"Yeah! Anything at all!"

Mom looked interested. And seeing my Mom vaguely take an interest in anything related to computers was such a treat I jumped at the chance.

"Mom, I'll teach you how to use the computer and then you'll see how cool google is."

Some time ago, I'd blogged about how she used to think that my PC would explode if she touched it. Well, looks like laptops do not explode when touched. 'Cos Mom readily agreed.

And then the tutorial started.

"Now I'm gonna teach you how to double-click. You know, once you learn how to double-click, you've mastered half of whatever there is to learn about computers."

"Ha ha ha." goes my sis.

No, seriously.

So it takes her a while before she's able to double-click effortlessly.

Then we accessed google.

"Okay Mom, what do you wanna know?"

"Ummm...."

"Gimme any topic - your area of interest, something you wanna find out..."

"Ummm... Recipes?"

"Recipes! Great! Which recipe do you want?"

"Does it have Hyderabadi biryani?"

"Of course! Great! Hyderabad biryani!" I started typing.

"No no, wait wait. I want Hyderabad's Paradise Hotel's Hyderabadi biryani's recipe." Mom said.

(Paradise Hotel's Hyderabadi biryani is the ultimate biryani in the world. We used to go there twice a week when Dad was posted in Hyderabad. Any attempt to even begin to describe how yummy it is, is an insult to the dish. You gotta try it yourself to know.)

My sis and I looked at each other.

"Uhhh... let me try, but you may not get the authentic recipe..."

"Arre, then what's the point?"

"I mean you will get many recipes of Hyderabadi biryani, but maybe not that of Paradise Hotel's..."

"Why not?"

"Because Paradise Hotel won't put up their recipe on the Internet na..." my sis tried to help me.

"But you just said that your google-shoogle can give me any information I want!"

"Errr... maybe not everything..."

"Hmmm..."

"Errr... why don't you read some of the recipes, Mom?"

Mom read a few recipes.

"So? How are they?"

"Hmmm... okay... chalega..."

"Okay Mom, that's all for today. Tomorrow we will learn something else." I said.

"That's all?" My sister asked.

"Yeah, enough for today. We don't want an overdose. Today I just wanted her to explore the power of the Internet." I said.

"Mom, you're Internet Explorer today. Ha ha ha." I added.

I look back and Baby Aish is the only one grinning at my sad li'l joke.