TAKEAWAY: It is only a matter of two months before Apple’s iPad officially comes to India, and the expectations are high as the tablet enters one of the world’s most coveted markets. PLUS: Local color from Delhi: monkeys and tamarind
Indians prepare for iPad arrival
One sees iPads in the cafes of Delhi, and I am sure there are even more visible ones in places like Mumbai or Bangalore, but the iPad has not officially entered the Indian market yet. People here buy their iPads abroad, or buy them here, paying as much as 45000 rupees (US$1000) for the 16GB 3G iPad, or even more, I am told.
Not that the iPad is the only tablet around. The Education Ministry has put out its own “tablet” which it sells for what a source describes as “ridiculously low prices, under $50”. But not all tablets are alike, and the young and tech savvy Indians want their iPads, just like they have their iPods and iPhones handy.
What will the arrival of the iPad mean for newspapers in this country where an average regional newspaper can be read by as many as 10 million daily readers——a fact that continues to mesmerize me no matter how many times I come to work in India?
iPad apps will satisfy the international community of Indian expats who live in cities across the world, specifically those who wish to read in their mother tongues. For example, an Indian from the south, Kerala, living in New York City, will definitely flock to an app for Malayala Manorama, in Malayalan; Bengalis from Calcutta will turn to Ananda Bazaar Patrika, to read in Bengali, and Toronto’s large Punjabi community will come to The Tribune to get the best coverage of their region in Punjabi.
Who will be the first?
This is probably a well kept secret, although I know that several Indian dailies are already taking steps to develop apps, including the Hindustantimes, my client here in Delhi, where they already have the iPhone app and are developing the iPad app to perhaps be “the first in the market” with one.
I also hear that The Hindu (based in Chennai) and Malayala Manorama (Kerala) are pursuing tablet apps aggressively to be ready when the iPad makes its Indian landing.
I have no doubt that Apple is looking at this incredible market with gusto, knowing that if the iPad becomes a hit here they may have to crank up production to the highest levels. This is already obvious: there are now 4 Apple stores in Delhi alone, two of them have opened only in the last six months (this does not include the many computer stores that sell Apple products throughout the city).
The Indian postcard this Wednesday
On the way to work today in bustling Delhi I ran into a langur monkey on a leash, carried by a man crossing the street just as someone else might walk a dog.
Upon asking about this lanky,long-tailed monkey with bushy eyebrows and a black face, I was told that langur monkeys have a job to do: to scare the many monkeys that terrorize people, get into offices and are “a horrible nuisance” in the city. I know they are a nuisance, as I had a baby monkey fall on me from a tree as I was running through the embassy district of Delhi, and it was not easy to get rid of this monkey with a penchant for pulling the chord off my iPod. I decided that one does not run in the streets of India after that incident, so it is running inside the carefully guarded walls of the hotel gym.
If I saw a langur monkey near me , I, too, would be scared.
Delicious tamarind
I often say that trips to India remind me of my native Cuba in certain areas:
After a heavy rainstorm, the smell of the earth takes me back to my childhood in Central Cuba, sitting outside the porch of my house, a difficult to describe aroma of the earth, happy after it gets a good bath. Now, with monsoon rains in India, I open the door of my room in the evenings, after the rainstorm, to just get that smell that sends me back 50 years.
Yesterday, Anup Gupta, art director of the Hindustantimes, treated me to another childhood memory: tamarind, that tangy fruit (not for every taste) which in Hindi is translated as Indian date. I sampled those tamarind seeds and was immediately transported to my grandparents’ home in Placetas, where a huge tamarind tree grew in the backyard; my cousins and I would pick the fruit off the branches, open those brown cartridges containing the seeds, and eat them right there.
While thinking tamarind the fruit, let me recommend Tamarind, the Michelin award winning Indian restaurant in London, with superb ambience, better food and one that my Indian friends consider among the best of Indian cuisine anywhere in the world.
If you go: Try my favorites—-as an appetizer, the Tamarind Salad, consisting of chard leaves, rocket, apples, plums and kumquats in a pine-nut and honey dressing topped with
sunflower seeds. For main course: Murgh Makhni , a delicious version of chicken tikka in creamed fresh tomatoes flavoured with ginger, green chillies and crushed fenugreek
leaves
Of related interest about the iPad
I was delighted to read this item about how the iPad helps autistic children in communicating with their families:
http://www.khou.com/news/local/Apple-I-Pad-changing-the-lives-of-autistic-children-102308209.html
Covering the iPad the fancy way
….and I don’t mean media coverage of iPad, of which there is plenty. I am referring to that fancy case you may put around your wonderful new gadget.
But spending $1,555 to hold a $499 tablet computer? Doubt it that many will go that route, but one never knows. I have already seen an iPad wrapped in a Louis Vuitton case (at Miami airport, of course). I have seen many little chihuahas and poodles protruding from Louis Vuitton cases as well!
My iPad is nicely covered by the Apple cover, thank you, but if I had to pick a fancy one, I would go with the Yves St. Laurent one: classy, elegant and at US$795 currently out of my budget—-but my children may take note of it for possible future Christmas present:
Go here for more:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/09/07/ipad-chic-seven-couture-cases/?source=yahoo_quote
TheMarioBlog post #625