By now, everybody would have known about it. If you still don't know, Google Earth is mapping images of earth as viewed from the universe and it puts it right on your desktop. Yesterday they have mapped Bangalore, and here's a snap of my house as viewed from 3576 feet above sea level.

© Piyush Sarode. All rights reserved.

If everything goes well, within a week or two, I may be a proud owner of this sleek shining white piece of electronics. At 1.73Ghz of processing power, 512MB RAM, 80GB of Disk Space, and 15" of bright rich color wide-screen display, this machine (Sony Vaio FS640) is awesome.

This incident is quite similar to Airtel’s recent ads that run on TV these days.
We were sitting in the Hotel lobby waiting for someone to arrive. Within few minutes, a phone, with the typical Nokia tune, starts ringing. Me and my fiends check up our cell-phones but the ringing continues (obviously it is not our phone). The waiter serving at the nearest table checks up his cell-phone to find out that it wasn’t his cell-phone either. Lastly the guy, who was sweeping the floors till now, takes out a small shining object from his pocket, punches a button (The ringing stops at this point), balances the shining object between his ears and shoulder and starts conversation “Hello, HaanJi kahiye…”.

All we could do was to stare in amazement. The cell phone is no longer a symbol of status.

Till now, I have been used to seeing people carrying idol of lord Ganesh to their homes. Some arrange for processions from the shop to their homes accompanied with music, mainly consisting drums.

This time, instead of just being a plain watcher to these rituals, we, Dishawasi’s, have brought lord Ganesha idol at our house in a quite ceremony. May god bless all and ignore our shortcomings in puja’s if any.