Recently an interesting and amusing thing has happened on my network. One Italian artist who now resides in the US uploaded some new pictures in the gallery of the network and sent me a message in which he asked me to send his old pictures back to him. I was a bit amused and puzzled. How could I send uploaded images back to anyone? I told him to delete them if he didn’t want to display them on the network anymore. Then he said, “No, no, Dr. Krishna, I gave my works to you to display them in your gallery. As I gave you new photos, please send me back my old ones”. “How can I,” I asked him, “They are just images of your art work and the gallery is a virtual one!” But he was adamant and wanted his “art work” back. I thought a bit about it. He was an intelligent artist. But he was unable to realize the difference between the real photos and virtual images. He was asking me to send virtual images as if he gave me the real ones! He sent me messages for six days non-stop. To satisfy this artist, I downloaded his work and sent the images to his mail ID. Then he felt very happy and sent me a “Thank You” message!

Many people here cry when they watch emotional scenes in soap operas and movies. A few days back I heard on BBC radio that one South Korean couple left their three-month-old baby to starve and die while they raised a virtual baby in an internet café!

What is happening here? Are people failing to differentiate between the real world and the virtual world? Electronic media is so developed that people started believing what they are watching is the real world!