I would let do the video do most of the talking but writing some text to give you a little context. Debojit was at Noida to perform for a event at ‘Great India Place’ mall. Yashita and Pratibha were also there but I spent more time with Debojit.

Debo is 23 year young lad from Kolkata and at times he sings like god. There have been at least two performances where all the ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ judges came running on the stage after he finished. A little less worldly-smart, the son of scientists parents, Deb is now participating in the now iconic show ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2009′ which airs on Zee TV every friday and staurday at 10.00 PM.

After having a sumptuous dinner at Rajdhani, the famous Thali joint of Mumbai, at GIP, I had a little chat with him, while we were waiting for some of the other folks, here are some bytes. There is lot of background noise and I have further down-sampled the video to make it light enough for quick loading, so please raise the volume up.

This is what the reporter looks like in his new moustache look, these days.

And one more video to wind-up.

I am probably one of the earliest Indian in India who might have exercised E-commerce to buy a book. I really wish that some day someone hunts me down and I am felicitated for this act at some mega event. It was in year 1998 or may be 1999 (I guess), at that point of time I was working with ‘Newgen Software, Okhla, Delhi’, a small software company with great promise, testing their flagship product ‘Newgen Omnidocs’. I had recently read ‘The Midnight’s children’ and became an ardent fan of Salman Rushdie, have also read one more of his book called ‘The moor’s last sigh’. A new book has recently come out by Salman, ‘The ground beneath her feet’ and I ordered that book at rediff.com

I chose to pay through VPP (Value Paid at Post), which means that I would pay once I get the goods. I did the transaction and my wait started. Interestingly nothing happened so I mailed the relevant folks at rediff and I remember that I was asked to wait for some more time. I dont exactly remember but I did receive a call from some bookseller in Bangalore confirming my order. Finally one fine morning, I was called in by my front office staff at Newgen and there lay the hard-bound edition of the book. While I looked at the the packet with novelty in my eyes, the world around me didn’t notice anything. History was being created in that office.

I asked around to see if there is anyone waiting for me to collect the money but I could not find any one. I even left a note at office security which is at the main entrance of the office to contact me if someone comes looking for money and me. But no one came. My first e-commerce transaction turned into a gift. I was never charged anything. In fact if I remember correctly, the guy from Bangalore said that since they can’t source a paperback edition, they are sending me a hard-bound edition without any extra charge. It turned out to be without any charge.

The book is still lying on my huge 6 rows , 3 columns end-to-end wall mounted book rack.

Over time, e-commerce caught up. VPP became a thing of past, now you punch in your credit card no and you are good. In less then a week you get a book at your doorstep and they never forget to charge you.

My most recent purchase has been a technical book. Its called “Programming in C” by “Ritchie and Kernighan”. My niece is now going to college and she would start learning C in her first semester so I gifted her this book. This time the process was very simple, do a search, find a seller who is in India and who sort of looks trust worthy, order it and you are done.

I bought this from www.flipkart.com and they delivered the book in 5 odd days including weekend, not bad. It was a Rs 125 worth transaction, shipping included. All done over a matter of 15 minutes.

The world has changed a lot in last 10 years. If you are an E-commerce expert then please try to find out that whether I am one of the first e-commerce customer or not.