Sayonara Yahoo India

Computers are very recent. Sometime in mid-1990s, I was trying to learn computers. There used to be two institutes which were considered as very good and they ware APTECH and NIIT. They used to charge exorbitantly. Further, the penetration of the idea, that computers are the future, into human psyche was too slow. People used to think ‘what do we do with the computer? What can happen with it?’. Consider it as ignorance, lack of vision or refusing to accept reality…but my state continued to be that of a simpleton.

There were many websites in those days. It was the time of ‘dot com’ boom! Two of them survived the test of time in their own manner. One is the Yahoo.com and the other is the Reddifmail.com. Plethora of other emails used to exist which were competing for customer base were - Hotmail, Cool mail, Rocket Mail, Moon Mail …the list is unimaginable. Countless.

Mine was a self-taught Eklavya computer education. At least Eklavya had Dronacharya to observe (Indian Mythology – Mahabharat). I did not have the mythical Dronacharya to observe. Computers used to be too large, obscene, noise-making, heat-generating, electricity guzzling and space occupying. They were the terrifying machines in those days. For an ignorant person like me, spacewalk seemed to be much easier than sitting before the computer keyboard!

Thus, I grew up with Reddif.com and Yahoo.com. The news reporting in Yahoo, the images scattering the computer screen from yahoo website were mesmerizing. Equally mesmerizing were the salaries of computer professionals in those days. If you are good with MS Word, you can easily command a lakh of rupees per month and your ticket to America is certain. Gmail was yet to be conceived, forget conceiving…it was non-existent. The owners of Gmail must have been busy playing their childhood games like rugby, hide and seek! They dint even know that there would be a Gmail. And ‘G’ is more of a prohibitive word than a respectable word in India. ?And for Indians, Gmail is inconceivable. I opened my first e-mail account with yahoo with ‘raja66gopal’. With the same ID I have in Gmail and Rediff till date. I did not invent any other ID because there cannot be a sexier thing to me than my own name!

On 26th August,2021, I received a message stating Yahoo India has closed down its operations. It was like a jolt, a blow from the blue. Late Shri Shammi Kapoor’s ‘Yahoo’ was immortalized by Yahoo.com in India and that great Yahoo says that it has shut down its operations! You cannot see yahoo news; you cannot have a yahoo webpage though which you can continue to login to your email. The explanation given by Yahoo for closing down its Indian operations did not satisfy me. It angered me. My anger was with my sadness, my incompetency and helplessness. It was like a part of me dying. I can see the doctor severing a part of body and I watch helpless. I know that my leg is going. He is taking a see-saw and cutting it off and I am watching it as if nothing is happening. Many friends, many acquaintances, much news – sad well as well as happy - I read on yahoo. The greatest actor ever Shammi Kapoor of India with his inimitable yahoo walked into the sunset long ago and his echo yahoo followed his suit, though few years later. Very sad.

Economists, business analysts and other similar professionals may argue that the life cycle of a business is over; rules have changed; people’s liking and disliking have changed; 70% of market is captured by Gmail and many more reasons. But the fact is a part of you is amputated. What can I say? I will also go into my sunset with yahoo which I took it for granted all these years. R.I.P Yahoo India. I cannot say that. All I can say is ‘Sayonara Yahoo India’!