Buying an Amazon Kindle 2 in India? Bollywood estyle!

Scene 0 – The hero spots the heroine. Love at first sight – General Specs

First off, I purchased a Kindle 2 and am very happy with the product. It is what it is said to be and then some!

But acquiring this neat gadget is not so easy if you are in India. It makes for a neat story with a whole lot of bollywood style twists. Read: kicking the ass of the hero(me) for the whole movie and then unite with the heroine (kindle 2 global) right at the end. o-O.

Like everyone else outside the US, The hero went crazy for a few seconds when he learnt about the Kindle going international global :D He simply had to have it. Any science fiction bookworm would agree. Reading about awesome alien worlds and insane time-travel ideas on a comparably cool gadget is boundless fun.

So sit back, relax and enjoy the saga.

Aside from being extremely hot, the Kindle 2 is an amazing device. It’s form factor is surprisingly thin and E-Ink is so clear and easy on your eyes that it looks even better in the sun unlike other displays we are accustomed to. It can show a whole variety of file formats and for those it cant, one can find even more converters to get the job done. The Wispernet is great and covers almost all over the world. Via EVDO and falls back to 3G, EDGE and GPRS respectively based on the cellular service. It can charge via USB too and functions as a pen drive when plugged in.

Scene 1 -  The seduction – Geek specs

It uses a Lithium-polymer battery which does not degrade after each charge cycle. It has a processor faster then the Iphone. It has a Cellular modem that has hidden GPS features. It is extremely easy to use as it follows the minimalism  methodology set by google. It has stereo speakers albeit not a full blown MP3 player. It runs linux! and with some cool software you can easily be looking at the root prompt and happily compiling a custom kernel. It has many experimental features like a browser, picture viewer (manga), MP3 player, audio books and Text 2 Speech in addition to the million and one hacks out there in the wild due to the OS being linux. Oh and did I mention, an internet access is free.

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All this in a 290 gram, super sleek, white hot body. The hero yells within ‘just take me. take me right here…’

Scene 2 – First date, her daddy is strict, no dates before marriage - Import fees and ways around

So, The hero trotted of to her home (Amazon.com) all giggly and bubbly and gobble up all the information on the new release and decided to ask her out on a date (check out the payment options).

The large import fees really made me mad and like all desi people couldn’t find it easy to pay the proper fees, need a jugaad shortcut. So I scour google with all the search trick i know. I find a few options like using one of those sites that provide you with a US address where you can ship the item and they forward it to you for a modest fee. The other one was a Chinese site selling Kindle at a much reduced price. However since kindle has a tiny cell phone for its eyes and ears I couldn't risk one of those options due to the fear of void warranty or wispernet not working.

So our hero wastes a lot of time on her from afar and finally succumbed to the Righteous ways. Marriage with the full 7 rounds. (i.e. the displayed $259 become $378.57). That is what girls do a guy’s pocket so the hero shouldn’t be surprised :)

Scene 3 – Family wants NRI - Payment options Credit card only

Soon thereafter the first hurdle comes, You have to have a credit card which I dont have (a whole other rebellious policy I subscribe to but best left out of this post). It wiped the smile off my face. More days pass searching and looking for options. Come up with only two. Either get someone to buy it for you or get someone to buy you a gift card which can then be used to make the purchase. I was a bit worried as, like other mobile devices, they get tagged to the purchaser.

The hero doesn’t want some random NRI to marry her and bring her to him. She is too hot to be trusted with anyone else.

After some talk here and there I find another in the middle option, Get someone to buy it for you as a gift ! In such a case the kindle is unregistered and one can then register it themselves. However, that options is some what hidden and not easy to catch. There is only one option and that is gift wrapping and that costs further more money. God help our hero. However after reading a lot more text in amazon support on the not so easy on eye non E-Ink monitor I find that just select gift wrap and dont select any wrapping method and add some gift message text and you are done. The purchase is made via a trusted friend

The heroine will stay single! All roads appear clear and our hero sings a couple of melodies. But he doesn’t know the mafia (whole shipping industry) is after her. The Mafia sends their minions all over the route. Will the heroine survive? Will they unite? The mafia is sure to be badass, what will the hero do?

Stay tuned for the next episode.