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Will thou start a dotcom?

Menka Shivdasani

THESE days, if you really want to curse someone, you ought to say: ``Thou shalt start a dotcom''. Harsh words, coming from Mr Vijay Mukhi, India's best-known Internet guru, the man who even got married on the Net -- but at the rate at which d otcoms are dying, he has a point. Six months ago, Mr Mukhi adds, if a dotcom died, it made news in the American press; these days, it makes news if none of them die! Mr Mukhi, who was on one of CNN's newest shows, CNNindiadotcom, is fortun ately, not entirely pessimistic about the way the Net will go. ``The Net is going to be bigger and bigger. It is just that the players will change,'' he says.

As the world of information technology explodes around us, shows such as eFE on Air (CNBC India) and now CNNindiadotcom promise to bring it to our doorsteps. CNNindiadotcom's sweep is a little wider than most other dotcom shows one has seen -- it has a ` Nation Watch' section, for instance, which focusses on e-governance -- and its presenter, Mr Anish Trivedi, is an investment banker with radio and television experience, not to mention attitude. Where most Indian presenters would stick to the facts and n ot bring in their personal views, Mr Trivedi concluded a story on online computer education by saying, ``Personally, I feel interaction in a classroom is what makes education so enjoyable, but I guess it takes all kinds of people to learn whichever way t hey want.''

Still, it will be quite a while before any Indian show, even if it is on CNN, dares to do what one of the presenters on CNNdotcom, the other IT show on the channel, did last week. A pocket PC, one of the newest gadgets on display at COMDEX, ``the all-you -can-eat buffet for technophiles'' was being discussed, and the presenter, Mr Rick Lockridge, kept bouncing it around on the table because it was meant to be able to take such treatment. Then he got a little bolder. The gadget could survive a three-foot drop on a hard table, he said to his co-presenter, but the true test would be how it would handle a 12-foot drop down from where they were onto the COMDEX floor. Well, there was only one way to find out and ... oops! ``Someone will have to explain that t o Casio,'' he announced cheerfully, and advised viewers not to try the same thing at home!

What this episode of CNNindiadotcom did was visit the Infosys chief, Mr Narayana Murthy, for an interview. Now, since Mr Murthy has been the subject of many interviews, it would have been very easy to descend into the predictable, but Mr Trivedi's focus was clear; he personally believes that India is already an IT superpower, and he began by asking if we are still seen merely as a ``body-shopping paradise'' for those looking for cheap labour. Mr Murthy's response was that if one looked at the statistics , one would realise that Indian companies offered a great deal of value.

Then he said something that only someone who is truly confident of his own worth can say. ``The future of India lies in there being thousands of Infosys, thousand of companies that are much smarter than Infosys...We have to give in to a mindset that says , `We will become better than Infosys, not by denigrating Infosys, not by being cynical about Infosys, but by working harder, working smarter, and having strategies better than Infosys.' That is what India needs.''

Now here is a man with true style, one who knows he clearly is the best, and yet who comes across as truly humble and down to earth.

CNN's other new show especially for our region is called Style South Asia, and it is hosted by someone who is truly an epitome of style in our part of the world -- the danseuse, Ms Mallika Sarabhai.

The programme itself, however, was a bit of a disappointment. At the function held to announce the launch of the show, Ms Sarabhai had talked about how Style South Asia would move across the region because our culture did not stop merely at the borders o f India. Watching this Saturday's show, it seemed like our culture and style did not go beyond Mumbai's borders. All the stories were based in and around this city.

There was a feature on the designer duo -- Messrs Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla -- who recently caused huge ripples in the commercial capital with a star-studded fashion show; and there was a story on how city slickers were increasingly moving to Alibaug, a 40-minute ferry ride away from Mumbai, and learning to live with such things as non-existent phones and the sounds of silence.

Plus, there was a feature on Mr Dilip Chhabria, the car designer who transforms ordinary Marutis and Ambassadors into sophisticated works of art. This would have been very interesting except that Mr Chhabria's handiwork has already received enough attent ion in the media and there was nothing new to say. If Mr Chhabria had to be featured, the focus should have been on the co-branded special edition of Ikon he is doing for Ford, which is currently under test. As Mr Rajesh Bhatia, divisional manager of For d, told Style South Asia: ``D.C. (Dilip Chhabria) knows the likes and dislikes of the Indian market''. His design, coupled with Ford's manufacturing expertise, would make a winning combination.

Both the shows are produced by UTV, which was carefully handpicked by CNN for these programmes meant especially for the South Asian channel. It is too soon to say whether they will be able to combat BBC's presence in the Indian marketplace -- as they are clearly designed to do -- but it is nice to know that CNN is taking the Indian market seriously enough to make the effort.