Today morning as I was leafing through the newspaper I found first four pages about Michael Phelps’s new girlfriend, his likes and dislikes along with eloquent paens in Rajiv Gandhi’s name. Towards the bottom of the fifth or sixth page, relegated to one corner, is a 4 liner regarding a child in West Bengal killing his classmate’s sister to acquire an ipod. No, this news is not sensational enough to make it to the front page headlines. We are more interested in Jade Goody leaving Big Boss and Shilpa Shetty raking in millions for the new TV reality show. I am really scared now. Scared because my son is eight and half. Scared because he is not a gadget freak, but like most kids of his age nowadays, he is well aware of Ipods and computers. He loves to download songs on my Ipod, and occasionally gives me intelligent inputs on the latest trends. As a mother, sometimes I feel secretly proud of my son’s feat. But now I have a nagging fear...how will I know when this might turn into an obsessive compulsive disorder? Are we wrong in trying to give the best possible exposure to our kids regarding the latest gizmos and gadgets to hit the market?

The child, who has murdered I read, was calm and composed throughout his interrogation at the police station. He had previously been caught many times by neighbours for stealing cell phones, but nobody had paid heed to this. And to top it all, this has happened not in any metro, but a so called sleepy town in Birbhum district of West Bengal. Where are we heading then? I know people will say I am over reacting. This is only a stray incident, unlikely to happen again. But, I am appalled at the way the child has reacted. What do you call this...apocalyptic boon of technology?