At any godly moment, you watch a Shammi Kapoor movie and it is an ultimate blast from the past, but the information that we are gonna share with you now will be your ‘aha’ moment.
This high-spirited superstar who swayed the world with his songs and became the epitome of a lover boy also had his way with technology way before anybody else.
Nobody is a better excavator than an Internet-vaasi and this #TIL moment of a Twitter user who goes by the name @prstb is simply a proof of that.
#TIL that Shammi Kapoor was one of the first users of the Internet in India
— pb (@prstb) July 21, 2022
He was the founder & chairman of the Internet Users Club of India. I can’t wrap my head around how someone like Shammi Kapoor was in the thick of the internet movement in India?
I did some digging 👇
So Shammi Kapoor, while being a lover boy, was also a next-door techie? Unfathomable.
I found this dead website https://t.co/dRGGDDIxFH on the Internet Archive. It was one of the first domains with a “.co.in” TLD.
— pb (@prstb) July 21, 2022
It was owned by this guy: Miheer Mafatlal and it hosted the IUCI webpage. As tech people stereotypes go, he sure does look the part. pic.twitter.com/hhWkORsaAE
If you pay close attention, amidst the funky aesthetics, you can spot Shammi Kapoor’s name.
This is how one of India’s first independent and private websites looked like.
— pb (@prstb) July 21, 2022
It couldn’t have a more 90s internet aesthetic if it tried. Love it! pic.twitter.com/a06zM9CAfR
No doubt, the first accessor of the Internet in India also needs to be the flag bearer of his culture. Shammi Kapoor did exactly that.
Shammi Kapoor and his internet club were also the self-proclaimed gatekeepers of the Indian internet culture.
— pb (@prstb) July 21, 2022
For instance, check this email sent by Shammi Kapoor, asking Indians in way too many words to basically be less horny on “CityTalk” – an IRC server from that time. pic.twitter.com/UnetySugSx
Page of Shame? Well, this went further than you’d expect.
They even set up a “Page of Shame” to name and shame Indians who were beings dicks on the internet. 😳 pic.twitter.com/hyM3pE7A3J
— pb (@prstb) July 21, 2022
So I opened this Page of Shame but to my disappointment, the list was empty. ☹️
— pb (@prstb) July 21, 2022
Maybe the updates to the page aren’t archived or they probably decided to drop the idea altogether. pic.twitter.com/xiC0a9c211
Coding and designing that most of today’s young India also dread to learn, he grasped it all by himself. Legend behaviour.
I’m still fascinated by how Shammi Kapoor, of all people, was at the helm of all of this. He had a cute personal website too. According to him, he learnt all the coding and designing himself.
— pb (@prstb) July 21, 2022
Tbh, this has more character and creativity than some of the personal websites of today pic.twitter.com/PchEbsBQte
He penned blogs when blogs were hardly a thing? This man was way ahead of his time.
He was into writing online as well and this was even before “blog” was even a term. Read this wild excerpt from a very random post about Librans being very accident-prone (??) pic.twitter.com/OIBE0FMIyA
— pb (@prstb) July 21, 2022
Man, this definitely calls for a full-blown show. Take. My. Money. Already.
Fin. The boys from the “Bombay Computer Club”. The pioneers of our internet. When are we getting an OTT series on them? pic.twitter.com/DYub2re4qt
— pb (@prstb) July 21, 2022