“Hey dad, my iPhone 50C hasn't arrived yet….” – My geeky son seemed to be rather annoyed as he slowly walked down to me. His accuracy level with respect to predicting the exact delivery timings has been immaculate till date; in-fact e-Bay has already specified their Service levels in-case of an unlikely delay in delivery. Those stringent time-lines have been practically adhered to for most of the occasions till now. Exception? No!
“When did you order the stuff? There might have been a technical glitch nevertheless…” - I calmly retorted. I was very close to solving the e-Sudoku; didn't want to stem the flow.
“It’s been 10 minutes already; they had categorically mentioned 12 on their website….does it take so long to reach India from their headquarters in the US?” – He didn't seem to be too amused. I was!
“Whoa…what!?... 12 minutes for a shipment delivery straight from the US! Wait! Wait…Kolkata hasn't transformed into London yet, the distance still remains the same….….and you saying......they are late? Are you kidding me? Unbelievable” – I was literally flabbergasted. This kid was riding deep into dreamland; I guess, too much of gaming & social networking has pre-occupied a 'substantial zone' of his brain, eluding him…..in short, he was out of his mind. I threw away my kindle in astonishment; those words were shocking enough.
“Should I take him to the doctor immediately?” – I was fighting with myself, deep within.
And he stood there quietly in the corner, with a blank look on his face.....; his trance was perhaps broken. PERHAPS!'
PIN DROP Silence….
“Come on speak up….”- I was literally fuming by then….but he was dead silent. His eyes were pointing straight to me, gutting me with the 'shine'... those expressive eyes.
The one sided articulation ended with a hysteric laughter.
“Hahaha…let me show you then”- he conjectured in a light-hearted tone & slowly brought out his pocket laptop….
What unfurled in front of me was literally unbelievable…..
He quickly logged into the mini system, connected it to the Wi-Fi network & launched the browser; a solitary click on the top right hand corner of the window transported me in to another word al-together.
“This is eBay v.2030 …the ultimate shopping destination….you can try, test, verify, validate and then purchase a product of your choice”- He looked super-excited as he switched on to the Haptic mode. Could you believe it?
Gosh the entire set of items were virtually floating right in-front of our eyes, we could feel them, touch them, try them & even virtually talk to their sellers; the incognito mode could be activated if you wanted to buy a product as a visitor, concealing identity.