Fiscal Cliff: Beginning of End Game

The Americans face a daunting dilemma as the year approaches end. At the end of year 2012, the spring that was holding uneasy equilibrium will snap, all the tax breaks in force will disappear coupled with spending cuts, will most certainly lead to another bout of depression. A depression will be bad for people, jobs will disappear therefore buyers will disappear kick starting a vicious cycle of surplus inventory leading to shutting down of part production therefore more jobs. But it will not be good for the debt laden country either; depression doesn't create wealth growth does therefore a lose lose situation much like situation in Europe  where unbridled borrowing saw collapse of several economies.  America is sitting on a mountain of debt and the exigency of a Democracy is such that leaders seek soft solutions, are partisan to their constituency having one focus that is to get reelected. Only a true leader with staggering confidence in his ability to convince the people can swim against the current and impose harsh policies.

                                         

We know what goes up will come down, America has been on top for a while the signs of fatigue are clearly visible. Predictably ‘Fiscal cliff’ will be dealt with in easy way out solution; the sense of well being would be extended for some more time but the doom will be brought so much nearer home. Whoever thought Soviet Union will collapse so dramatically, it wasn't the military weakness that led to its downfall, it was their bankrupt economy. I guess we have reached a state where all wars will be stalemates and we see it all around us, the Iraq, the Afghanistan. Even though these nations stood no chance at all against the might of the axis of coalition yet there has been no emphatic win, you can well imagine how the war would have played out if these nations had been more stubborn and endowed with, let us say, a perceived lethality of North Korea. It will be economy that will be the new paradigm of drift a nation takes. I don’t see any capable leader, least Obama, who will set in motion policies that will rectify flaws in its economy of living off borrowing. The economy will sink this Goliath. Unfortunately there is no reason for the enemy of US to celebrate, when Goliath falls it will shake the earth and with that the whole world will suffer.        

Joy Shooting in Newton and Gang Rape in Delhi

The repetition of history has gone much beyond farcical; it is now a combination of directionless anger and dumb bewilderment. The multitude is venting their frustration coming out in numbers and protesting at a formless monster. This time there is no convenient dartboard in sight for them to shoot their darts; not the government, not the police and not the leaders. They are dumbstruck, deep down they know they are themselves responsible for this tragic state. For too long this has gone on desensitized, it happens to people in TV, or fellows shown in newspapers; remote and faraway. Now it appears that the horror is staring them a little closer for comfort.

Once I was engaged in a spirited debate over cooperative living. My contention was, “Ethical behavior is hardwired into us else cooperative living would not be possible and the cases of lapse were aberrations’. An expert on evolution intervened and suggested, ‘We are likely to be opportunistic if there is little chance of getting caught and the reward substantial’

I can’t say about the play of psychology in the case of joy shooter but the rape is significantly a case of chance that they will not get caught and if they did even then they will get away scot free. The perpetrators acted in complete disregard of fear of law, the staggering sense confidence committing crime in a moving bus in a city crawling with policemen all over tells a nasty story. It is time harsh punishment is meted out to individual and made example of. It will be unfortunate for these fellows to but who said world is fair, they took their chance and got caught in a whirlpool of emotions running very high so they have to pay the price for their felony, albeit a very high price.  

We can’t discuss capital punishment in isolation, the moral pressure of society, state of safety apparatus and how primed a society is; all contribute to behavior of the criminal. The enormity of capital punishment in an evolved society and a society seeped in medieval morality is not the same. If the right to redeem one belongs to criminal then an honest citizen also has right to life and dignity. Is India primed for this? Why is a rape considered such a heinous crime, largely due to moral repercussion heaped upon the victim by the society. These are conflicting paradoxes that confront Indians. Yes incarcerate them for life but it is not enough, something more graphic and macabre to jolt the psyche of criminal minded is needed, chop their hand too; bad luck if they happen to be the ones to be made example of. A permanent reminder for those who throw acid on hapless victim is necessary.   

If the gun is holy cow for the Americans then rein in the bullets. Without bullets the Gun would be toothless tiger. In addition make the person owing Gun equally responsible of crime for letting it fall in the hands of minor.

Deadly Game: Euthanasia

We all know death is finality of life and the prospect of facing it, the biggest fear of our life, yet we don’t spend sleepless nights mulling over its eventuality. For death is something that occurs to others; to people in TV and newspapers. Even on rare occasions when someone close is stricken we are shocked momentarily, rue loss of close one but never fear death striking ourselves, it still is somewhere far away…..... . As a little boy I used to think that fellows in sixties would be living in mortal fear of dying but as I approach sixties I see no sign of fear, only the death looks as fudgy and pushed further away. Yet specter of dying overwhelms us.   

But there are people who wish to die. The ones stricken with crippling illness, people who have lost all hope and people who find living an impossible chore. There is something hardwired into us to fear death and defend life, even a terminally ill person, who may not live another day, if suddenly assaulted will defend himself with all available means at his disposable even though in leisure he may contemplate dying all the time. So in nutshell death frightens us only when we see it coming now. Most convicts in death row may experience its debilitating horror. So is the first knowledge of incurable disease like cancer or Aids numbing to us. We sometimes secretly wish to die sitting in armchair without any warning ..

Euthanasia is a raging debate, I have nothing to say for or against it but I have a design that would be humane to the fellows who have become vegetables in life. The thing is if death comes unannounced and without pain then it is the most desirable option to have. Therefore if we can emulate death in controlled way as it comes in real life then it is the most acceptable form of euthanasia. Take for instance a terminally sick person who has six months to live; this fellow may live more than six months or may die in a few days therefore if we can implant a lethal capsule that activates on a randomized date between now and a time when the life becomes unbearable for this fellow then we give him an option to live a healthy life that emulates death’s unannounced nature. Every fellow who is not well or crippled or has reason to dislike life can be given this option and also he/she can dictate the period over which a randomized date occurs. .. Surely this is a better way to die than live languishing on an armchair. 

Life of Pi a review

This movie falls in the realm of fantasy and hard realism; something in the twilight zone of Paul Coelho’s Alchemist’s spiritual conquest and Bear Grylls true adventures in the wild. If there is allusion to spiritualism it is for you to judge but there is unmistakable aura surrounding this eventful narrative. A business minded family deeply fragmented by business pragmatism and religious world reaches a flash point where the easy equilibrium, the cozy lifestyle is suddenly disturbed for the worst. A decisive point in life for family to take a call to define their future and they do so.  The father of protagonist, a zoo owner in Pondicherry winds up his business and sets out to migrate to Canada. They undertake their journey in a Japanese cargo ship so that animals a can also be transported. The major part of events take place after ship break in a fiery storm over the Altlantic. The narrative zigzags in Gulzaresque flashback style.

It opens with the protagonist now a wizened adult in Canada narrating his experience to the writer and the flashbacks happen during this conversation. Ang Lee succeeds in capturing Indian ethos, brings alive nuances of his early childhood as a curious young fellow. The compacted childhood nicely builds up character of the young hero, a bewildered young man in awe of the sublime. The meaty portion of the movie is all about special effects and apparently no expense was spared to recreate marine experience. The building up of relationship between the young fellow and the beast is done with finesse and subtlety. The floating island scene creates metaphor for search of spiritual mysticism. Also the incredulous response of Japanese investigators to his real experience, trying to unravel drowning of the cargo vessel and his quickly thought up fictitious story to make it palatable adds another set of mysticism.

I will not judge its production value for I seriously suspect substandard projection facility at Big Cinema, the bright sun appears fudgy as if a low resolution frame is exploded to fill up the space, the 3D effect at places unhinges all apparently fault of the theater. Overall a joyful experience with ‘paisa vasool’ and free popcorn.

I would rate this film four stars out of five stars

Let The Stranger Alone IV

The villagers looked at the house with suspicion but were too afraid of the Englishman. The house meanwhile would occasionally erupt in bizarre spectacle. Strong ritualistic happenings added to its already formidable aura of horror. Dogs wouldn’t bark around the house, the goats would stop in their gait stand still in terror. Then one wing of the house burned down completely. The villagers rushed to help with water but the ghostly Englishman came out with gun, fired in air and frightened them off. Thereafter the house was remained completely inert. It is now more than fifty years, nobody knows if the Englishman or his wife is still alive, no one saw any corpse taken out of the house. .. ..

Some villagers reported sighting of a pale and weak Englishman walking through the riverbed a gun slung over his shoulder at the dead of night. Once he disappears, a short exotic woman follows his footstep some distance then disappears. But this could be imagination of these excitable villagers.

This summer E Babu was in the village. He had come here earlier as an immature young man, an immensely gullible fellow. Then stories of mystery house excited him as well as terrified him. Now equipped with his knowledge of the world and as a rational thinker he rejected the mystery about the house with utter scorn. For him it was just an abandoned house; the spic and span condition of house was imagination of the villagers. During the evening gossiping, the matter of the mystery house came up for discussion at which E Babu silenced them with declaration, I will visit the house at the dead of night and settle the mystery once for all”.

Everyone looked at him shocked silence. An old fellow from the village counseled, “teri mat to nahiN maari gai hai!” which E Babu ignored.

Buddha Was Right And Wrong

 Once we are born and acquire some sense of life, our focus remains fixed on survival. Once survival becomes trivial then focus shifts to preserving life but when this also becomes trivial we move to other objectives in life like deviations into succeeding in our chosen vocation or in commerce, art, philosophy and through them peer recognition. One spin-off of this endeavor is acquiring the fittest companion for mating in a competitive society. But at more mature age we look at death critically and try to think of ways to deal with it. Death appears to us as a frightening eventuality since it undoes everything we have done all our life; it simply kills all our devices to keep the life going.  Death appears to us as a dark mystery we know nothing about with our first hand knowledge therefore the horror it evokes. Everything about it is speculative though some of the wisdom coming from sources we hold in very high esteem; it still is not firsthand knowledge. Most of us are lazy enough to accept the handed down wisdom coming from religion about meaning of life. But, is the faith in this wisdom enough convincing? I think we do not have unshakable conviction in our faith, if we do, the thought will penetrate our subconscious and kill the mystery of death. After all mystery of death is creation of our subconscious.

Buddha for instance was not satisfied with the accepted view of his time therefore embarked on a quest to unravel meaning of life so that he can understand death. Buddha found an explanation for life and his conviction about it was deep. So deep that it penetrated his subconscious therefore death appeared no more mysterious. Buddha was right in finding a meaning for his life but he was wrong in prescribing the same meaning to everyone. It doesn’t work; we are individuals and have our own subconscious that creates a spell around death. To penetrate that spell we have to find our meaning, a powerful meaning so convincing that it penetrates our subconscious and breaks the spell cast by it. Once we can do that we will be at peace. 

Let The Stranger Alone III

The mysterious Englishman wouldn’t interact with the villagers. There was no point; the villagers wouldn’t have understood him. The man remained aloof but respected village ethos, would not intrude in temple activity. The disinterest suited the villagers, who were anyway in no condition to challenge him. Only once he came to the temple, watched the deity curiously for a long time, then walked away without bothering to look at the worshippers. Once he came out of the house and fired from his gun in anger when villagers were performing some noisy ‘Puja’. Gun shots quietened them. Thereafter the villagers were careful not to make too much noise in their celebrations. Villagers always had fanciful stories about the white man mostly painting him in bad light. But the woman, the Bakki, wouldn’t come out of house. She was the butt of their ire yet evoked a sense terror being a clairvoyant. The mysterious woman remained aloof, talked only to Madan Bhai. Some years after the Englishman’s marriage the villagers began to hear noise of violent quarrels emanating from the mystery house. Much they would have liked to hear the details but the fear of the English man kept them away from the house. Then the quarrels stopped altogether instead complete silence greeted them.

       The Englishman came out one afternoon. He was a changed man, a poor copy of old self; a mere skeleton around which a layer of skin was grafted, eyes sunken into its sockets altogether a ghostly image. He briefly walked around the house then disappeared into the house.

Then children from villages began to disappear……………

Will be contd.  

Let The Stranger Alone II

The house has been in existence for some time, the oldest among the villagers remember it from their childhood. Its edifice is strong they say, though parts of it crumble and then mysteriously rebuild in time. How old is Madan Bhai? They can only speculate; the fellow did not belong to Badolgaon. He was brought in by the owner they say. Who lived in that house, you ask. They say, ‘Oh! It’s been lying unoccupied for a long time.’ There is a small hut not too far from the mystery house where Madan Bhai lives. Madan Bhai appears old but in that weak frame he has an agile body. The beady eyes shine in anger if you ask anything about the house.  Not even booze makes him talk about the house; seems like the ban on the subject has seeped deep in his subconscious. Besides Madan Bhai keeps himself busy in that house, seldom comes out for social interaction. Nothing changed in its appearance as well, so the villagers say. There are trees around the house but none tall enough to obstruct its maleficent façade. Even though the house looks in prime condition, the space around it remains untended. This contrast only adds to its overall deathly aura.

The legend of the house spread across the country. Curious visitors would come and pass by without venturing to trespass its foreboding portal. There is a story of an adventurous visitor forcing himself into the house. People waited for him to come out, somebody came out, it wasn’t him the say and the fellow was demented. Well, you can take that story with a pinch of salt. The villagers here are prone to tell stories out of their fancy imagination. The aura of the house kept growing with the passage of time. It’s secret if at all there was one, rested in the mind of laconic and pugnacious Madan Bhai.  Several stories abound, the primary being it was built by some reclusive Angrej Sahib. The Englishman, a rifle slung over his shoulder, would stomp the jungle, hunt the wild animals that abounded there. The villagers were terrified of him although he did not interact with them. The man married a local woman as it turned out that the woman was a Bakki….. 

to be contd.....

Let The Stranger Alone

The new under constructions road cuts through the village, dividing it into temple side and the slope side. Temple side has the Panchayat Ghar, another house and the erstwhile ‘Daand House’ and barren agricultural fields once toiled but now abandoned, the other side constitutes bulk of the village on the Chandakhal slope. It is a picturesque setting for an outsider but inert piece of land for the villagers. Nothing happens around here for months …..

Even though the road is still under construction, it is not too far off from completion.  A curious structure, an equivalent of a ‘Haveli’ in plains, exists where the road winds around the ‘Daand House’ hill and then disappears behind it. The house is not neglected but in prime condition yet nobody lives in that house. It is remote, sits on a vantage point on the landscape yet detached from the activity of village although there isn’t much of it anyway. Villagers avoid looking directly at the house as if it were a living thing, a malevolent apparition. After nightfall the house remains dark save a window on first floor at end of left wing. The light is not too bright but its radiance dances on the window pane as if it is lit by a large candle. The house almost merges into the dark background of rising slope Chandakhal, become one with it. The overall impact is frightening. Even if it is not haunted, it still evokes a sense horror. Nobody lives there is the refrain of Madan Bhai, a limping geriatric, who is responsible for its upkeep. Why he does it, he refuses to tell, if he is paid for his services, he refuses to tell that as well. But he is quite emphatic, nobody lives in that house.

To be contd........

Anna Hazare ,The Media and You!

When to Stop?

As a little boy I struggled for words. If someone asked me to write a couple of hundred words I would be completely lost; a cow has four legs, two horns, a tale and gives us milk blah-blah and that’s the end of a write up on a cow. Sometimes we would be made to sit on the ground on some fancy occasion like Independence Day when a hotshot government official would come and harangue us nonstop. Sitting under the hot sun waiting for the packet of ‘laddus,’ courtesy government of India, after this hotshot ends his discourse on morality and patriotism, I would marvel at the fellows ability to think up words and curse the same fellow for not knowing when to stop. Anna Hazare and his cohorts don’t know when to stop. All or nothing is zero sum game that nobody wins. All the goodwill dissipates when we feel exasperated at the snootiness of fellows unwilling to compromise. It was with the Baba Ramdev the first time over; three central ministers went to the airport to greet him, clearly the government was growling at his feet, he could have extracted some positive measures from the government for his cause but the stubborn stance ended in a resounding fiasco. Baba Ramdev ended up as another rabble rouser with considerable loss of credibility. If he had compromised, his influence and aura would have remained intact for future use. It is the same with the Anna Hazare, people empathize with his cause but are also impatient with their snootiness; my bill, my terms, my method no less. Even Mahatma Gandhi a thousand fold bigger persona than Anna Hazare disappointed the people for calling off agitation after Chaura Chauri incidence. So the trick is to know when to stop. The other guy will only concede to a point never all the way.

The Media

The media has whipped up a non-issue and put it up on the prime time discussion. It is like Picasso’s Guernica is on display and the panel of experts are discussing the frame of the painting. The issue is corruption and the empathy of the people with its eradication is well known yet the ‘Media’ is discussing the lack of substantial crowd gathering at Jantar Mantar. Our media apes the west and then moralizes; our culture, our values and our ethos are different. When Obama came to India, you would think heavier issues of real politics would be discussed thread bare but what you got was saturation coverage of items on the dinner menu. The whole thing was whipped in such a manner that it became a suspense thriller from Bollywood. There were scoops, reporters taking risk going into the sanctum sanctorum of the hotel and trying to eek out a response from the chef and chef predictably acting pricy about it. In the end of it all we were made to realize that the revelation that is was Hydrabadi Biryani and not Luckhnavi Chicken Tikka, was worth the wait.  This is our media

And You?

The entire act is for you. You are the central object of this exercise. Corruption matters to you and you are indeed incensed that no action has been taken for its eradication. You know that the people who will take action are themselves corrupt and will not move unless pushed to move. You like Anna Hazare for doing what he is doing and would like to contribute is some way. There is oblique inference in their effort that makes you guilty for not going out and supporting him. You are not to be blamed. You are doing what you are supposed to do. Average behavior is designed behavior therefore you are behaving in the manner you are designed to behave. It is OK to send SMS in support of Anna Hazare movement and also go out and peek at the gathering if you happen to pass through that place but to expect that you will take leave from your job and make effort to reach at the gathering in support of the movement is to say the least foolhardy. An individual runs cost benefit analysis in his head and decides accordingly. Sure send SMS in Anna’s in support, write comments in blogs etc. and generally help out if it is not too much bother. I say you are doing just fine so relax and cast off that guilt from your head. 

Bakki : Our own homegrown Oracle

Like other Asians, we too are a paradoxical lot; in part tribal, in part urbane perhaps a little more tribal than others. Think about the tradition of ‘parnaam’, the touching of feet of elders and the toll it takes on a child.  Marriage or other social gathering; a child is submerged in a crowd of old people mechanical touching feet of anybody who has wrinkles on his face. There is absolutely no sense of recognition nor respect, it is just a chore for him and the immediate urge is to get over with it. We have no compunction adopting western attire, eating habits, table manners blah blah but wouldn't let go our tribal mannerism. This tribalism manifest is several ways; existence and awe that a ‘Bakki’ evokes is one such instance.

Bakki is gender neutral i.e. it can be male or a female. Given the power they have on our psyche you would think they are a successful people like the doctors leading an economically successful life but you would be surprised. There is always a caveat in our system; good things come with a price. Bakki probably is corrupted derivative of ‘bak-bak’ or ‘bakwas’ having an Arabic-Persian root meaning idle gossip. Bakki as you can guess speaks, speaks rapidly, sometimes coherently sometimes incoherently which then is left to others to interpret. Bakki lets you into secrets of past and tells in advance future outcome of some tricky issue very important to you. If the outcome is not favorable then they also suggest means to amend the outcome suitably. In essence Bakki is a witch doctor providing remedy for sometimes unexplainable diseases or persistent issues that bother us  etc.   

There is a Bakki somewhere near Kotdwara, a Kala woman you can access her services through the courtesy of Manyawar Diwakar. Sir Prabhakar, Master Brajesh are regulars there. If you ask me, I am skeptical about this whole thing, I doesn’t quite gel with our rational thought.    

Pier of The Dead

We have a word 'marghat' usually a place near 'shamshaan'. Hindus cremate their dead except those who die of snake bite or some unknown illness. All the dead whether in body or as ash are then immersed in water. Shamshaan is a cremation ground. Earlier it used to be at the edge of a pond, a river or any body of water not anymore. Ever since electric crematoriums have been constructed the need of water body is done away with. Now people collect the ashes of the dead and take it to water body for immersion. 'marghat' is the place where this final act is played out. It is fascinating word made up of 'mar' meaning dead and 'ghat' a contraction of the word 'ghaat' meaning a small pier therefore 'marghat' means 'pier of the dead'. Significance the word 'marghat' should not be lost. A pier is place where people are ferried to far off places across a body of water so does 'marghat' means a place where dead are ferried across an unknown monolithic space which we can only speculate.... 




Death after all is journey into unknown.........

TIME - REVERSAL

One concept of reversal of time is that everything, i.e. radiation, expansion of space, particle etc suddenly stops and begins to move backwards at the same speed. Will it be the movement of time backwards? No, time would still be moving forward only it may appear to be going backwards. But there are things that are not reversible i.e. for instance radiation cannot come out of a black hole ….

We can’t go back in time. No such restriction on moving up in time.

T I M E

I now realize that taking you own belief of being an atheist to extreme is also a kind of fundamentalism. It is alright to be agnostic but it is also all right for others to be faithful. In this context I saw the Stephen Hawking’s program tackling the fundamental question, ‘Is there a God?’ with keen interest.

The logic he followed was simple; he attacked the most essential attribute of God i.e. creation of Universe. He pronounced emphatically, there is no God, no one, not God could have been responsible for the creation of Universe. Now every scientist agrees that the Universe came into being with the mother of all bangs, the Big Bang. Our journey after the Big Bang, i.e. formation of Stars, Galaxies etc is pretty much accurately mapped and there is hardly any disagreement on that. We know we exist in time and space both these attributes began with the big bang. The Space was shrunk to the confines of a point and Time was frozen. Think of it this way, the gravity puts break on drift of time and it is not only a proven fact but we even acknowledge it by making suitable correction in satellite clocks circling earth else entire GPS system will go haywire. The time on earth’s surface is slower than it is at the level of satellites even if it is a few nanoseconds in a year, the clocks of satellite are slowed down by that much time every year. Similarly as you approach a black hole the time begins to slow down and as you enter a black hole time completely stops………

The essential argument in favor of existence of God is that all events are consequence of some other event/events. For instance the rivers are consequence of rains and melting snow both caused by condensation of water vapor. Vapor comes from ocean getting heat from Sun and Sun gets heat from fusion of Hydrogen into Helium. Question is where does Hydrogen come from? It was created in the Big Bang. Who created Big Bang? No one!

According to Stephen Hawking, Big Bang happened on its own, no event or events influenced its occurrence. Why, because time did not exist before Big Bang and since no one can exists outside of space and time therefore no event occurred before it. Universe came into being on its own to begin time!

Dicey! Yes but think of it this way, ever seen a movie with frozen frames? What happens? Everything freezes, men/women and other animate objects are stuck in frozen time they become like Stones statues captured in frozen time. They stop being living things…That’s what it means…there was no time before Big bang.

har zarra(h) chamakta hai, anwaar e ilaahi se

har saaNs ye kahti hai ham haiN to KHuda bhi hai

Beta interceptor

by Kali Hawa

I gathered a handful of dust 
And holding up my fist 
Foolishly asked for 
As many years of life 
As the grains of sand in the dust 
I forgot to add that 
They be years of youth. 

-                      Ovid’s Metamorphosis

Circa 2037, AMD (Advance Medical Lab) Noida

  

Friday, 1130 PM, January 9^th 2037

 

It was past midnight. E Babu, now quite exhausted began collecting his things; in fact he gathered them with the swipe of his hand, dumped them into his briefcase. He felt a deep sense of emptiness, something when you expect a burst of euphoria but instead get dissipated joy. He was at the threshold of an extraordinary event yet there was this nagging sense of foreboding bothering him. Unable to make a decision he slumped back into his cushy chair. It is now roughly two years that he had stumbled upon this discovery. That seemingly innocuous protein had the unusual property of intercepting cell transformation process; he had called it GI (Gene Interceptor). In two years he had perfected its structure for harmless release on humans. Now he was ready for Beta Interceptor the stable and beneficial version of GI.

He looked at his wrist; the watch like device much oversized with bold geometric features looked very rugged, gave impression of being uncomfortably heavy but in reality was quite light. Fitted with Cluzide superconducting power storage, it didn’t need a refill until another year. E Babu sighed,

 ‘Osho, activate’

A translucent blue light hologram over the device began to make pleasant figures accompanying soft music, a lotus meting into a lithe celestial nymph with a harp.’

‘Oh, cut that bullshit Osho’, yelled E Babu.

‘But I detect subtle slowdown in heart rate, and BP. Nerves signaling a mild bout of depression E Babu’

‘That’s is my script you are parroting’

“I am only trying to help’

‘Now run BI (Beta Interceptor) data’

Hologram morphed into a monitor, began running statistical data. It automatically began to scroll in sync with E Babu’s need, sensing his nerve signals. E Babu had seen these figures several times over but this time he was very alert giving close attention to BI simulation results. Finally he asked his e-aide,

‘OK! Osho, tell me, is it ethical to release BI?’

‘I can’t give a subjective answer E Babu.’ 

‘Could you run BI simulation?’

‘BI simulation has proved beyond doubt that it intercepts dying process of cell regeneration therefore the person injected with BI remain in his state of health perpetually in other words a young person injected with BI does not die of old age. GI protein had two nucleotides that acted as switches. One switch kept the regeneration process on while the other switched accelerated aging. Aging switch remained dormant until in a complex process a specific segment in protein called ‘Beta String’ is oxidized. Once that happens the aging process takes over. You succeeded in isolating that segment of protein that switched aging. No government will allow its release fearing several trajectories of drift. Most governments would fear complete loss of interest in population renewal, a sense of invincibility in folks leading to increase in homicides, high dose of violence in society and behavior alteration towards recklessness. Paranoia over resources will lead to a highly strung society ready for skirmishes even for insignificant resources. After an initially surge in population its number will decline to reach a lower equilibrium. It will be a very wild society.’

‘How does coded BI pan out?’

‘There is no way it can be released legally, not even trials will be allowed, there is too much at stake for governments. The coded version has inert Sulzium nucleotide removed from all twenty one spots, replace by a combination of E-Philtine, N-Cultium, Para-Glydine …   etc. These sixteen nucleotides docked in Sulzium spot in GI protein structure communicate with each other. When N-Cultium, E-Philtine etc align they oxidize BI string thereby turning the aging switch on. The computer randomizing of their sequence fixes time for counter reaction. You have succeeded in emulating normal dying ages with randomly coded GI protein i.e coded BI release does not alter average human age. The only benefit is that they don’t grow old but die abruptly in a super aging process. The randomization program is deep encrypted with seed prime number erased. Now nobody can manipulate his age by deciphering code sequence of BI. There is ethical issues to settle i.e. BI injected humans will not have their natural age but an age randomized by a computer program, this apart, impact on society will be generally calming. Aware that they could abruptly die any day and bereft of aging worry, there will be no panic or paranoia over resource crunch therefore human response becomes much more rational.’

‘OK I am ready. Make preparation for first randomized coded BI dose.’

Osho, his e-aide got busy for a few seconds then sent infra red signal to a machine resembling a complex drinks dispenser. The machine began to blink several colored lights and with muted whirring sound came to life. In a few seconds first vial of codes BI came out. E Babu got up looked around, sighed at such a bland setting for a momentous occasion in human history. Without further ado he injected the glistening liquid into his arm, slumped back at his chair waiting for to effect to take place.’

In ten minutes he felt very unusual.

‘What have you done, Osho?’

Monday, 12^th January, 2037: AMD, Noida

There was a panicky knock at Director Farzana’s room, immediately floor attended walked in,

‘There a dead old man in Dr E Babu’s room?’

‘What?’

‘Yes Ma’am, an exceedingly old man; dead in his room!’

They hurriedly walked down to E Babu’s room which was only one floor below. They saw an old fellow slumped on E Babu’s chair. Dr Carl Chakra was already investigation the stranger. Said,

‘This dead man is E Babu. I have checked his identity from national DNA register, his DNA matches E Babu’s; absolutely no doubt about the identity.

So they run his e-aide, the emergency log does not need password verification; his last half hour recorded interaction. A blue hologram projected E Babu’s image at the same place where the old man was lying. E Babu looked very tired and listless and at least ten years older,

‘Is there a God, Osho?

‘The issue is not settled with finality.’

‘Is there an afterlife?’

‘The issue is not settled with finality.’

‘What a dumb machine you are!’

‘Really! Humans are the ones who miss out the obvious. Like the Ovid’s character you sought a long life but forgot to seek they be years of youth. Coded BI has to be punched with Seldium solution to make it work. I did my best as a safety response to punch the coded BI with Seldium but it needs four days at room temperature to stabilize. Raw Seldium activated aging switch and turned off regeneration switch. You will be ageing super fast E Babu. There is nothing anybody can do now. Now tell me who is dumb?’  

* * * * * * * *