The
Silicon Mind: Manikarnika Lagu: Become Shakespeare.com: Pages 367: Price Rs
250/-
The book belongs to the genre of science fiction and it is
Manikarnika Lagu’s first novel. She has a doctorate in physics and as a teacher
and researcher has contributed many research papers in scientific journals.
This background eminently suits her to write a science fiction novel based on a
subject as complicated and sophisticated as the neural chip project.
The story centres around the protagonist- young, handsome
and successful medical practitioner Dr Aman Kapoor who is involved in a horrific
car crash and falls into a state of comatose. Another important character in
the story is Prof. Narayan Murthy aka Ray who is a brilliant neuroscientist and
the founder of ‘Chetna Coma Clinic’, India’s state-of-the-art specialized care
hospital located at Bengaluru. Ray has been collaborating with Prof John Smith
also a neuroscientist based in USA in the pioneering neural chip project. They
have jointly developed a neural chip, an Artificial Intelligence device,
considered to be top of the line and way ahead of competition. It has the
capability of enhancing human memory and substantially increasing computational
skills. Though this discovery has been an outstanding success in theory, there
really has been no volunteer yet prepared to take the risk of having a neural
chip implanted in his/her brain even after a year of its discovery. This is a
source of great disappointment, frustration and desperation to both Ray and
John. As pioneers of a breakthrough scientific development, both the
neuroscientists are deeply disturbed at the cold reception the neural chip has
received. It has dashed all their hopes of receiving international recognition,
money and fame. It had become imperative to urgently get hold of an unconscious
patient in a state of coma to implant their neural chip into the human brain to
find out its performance. This objective had to be achieved by means fair or
foul, as time was running out.
Immediately after the car accident, Aman is admitted to ‘Get
Well’ hospital in Bengaluru. Ray’s technical assistant Murthy is able to have
Aman transferred to ‘Chetna Coma Clinic’ in spite of resistance from Dr Tapan
Dutta, Director of ‘Get Well’, who has excellent coma care facilities in his
hospital. Murthy is helped in this illegal activity by one Velu Swamy- a crook,
blackmailer and a money-extracting peddler who provides patients to doctors for
their experiments. Aman now comes under the direct care of Ray. The arrival of
a comatose patient in their clinic, gives Ray and his team hope and a golden
opportunity to implant their discovery in Aman’s brain which would given them a
testing ground and invaluable feedback on how it performs in the company of the
natural brain.
The chip implant takes place under the supervision of Ray
and John and a few specialists from the US. The complicated surgery is
performed by a talking robot Haku. Haku has feelings and emotions too!
A 2mm hole is drilled at a predetermined spot and an
extremely sophisticated silicon chip coated with collagen is installed in
Aman’s brain. The operation turns out to be successful though Ray keeps his
fingers crossed hoping that complications should not arise at a later date.
Unfortunately for Ray after some lapse of time, Aman starts
facing some burning problems in his hand and depletion of physical energy. He
approaches Ray to seek answers to these unwelcome manifestations. Ray’s responses
are unconvincing to Aman. He gradually loses faith in Ray and asks Manasi, a
clinical psychologist, to study his CAT scans. Aman is able to obtain these
images through Ishan, a journalist and Manasi’s friend. Ishan uses his contacts
to break into Murthy’s office and is able to steal the floppy containing the
required images. Manasi was sure that the scans would help in giving a clue to
identify the probable causes of these weird occurrences. Manasi, a strong-willed
woman puts her heart and soul into this project to ascertain the cause of these
bizarre incidents. She is single-mindedly focused to enhance her reputation in
her field. Aman meanwhile gets further perplexed as he seems to be exhibiting
miraculous healing powers which he suspects will not last long. He accidentally
discovers this when he attends to a young boy Sameer’s knee injury. The
youngster is amazed that there is not even a scar where the wound near the knee
which was dressed by Aman had occurred. Aman is deeply concerned that this
would bring him fame and later a bad name if this newly acquired power faded
away. He disappears for a while from the glare of the media. With the help of
Ishan, Mandira makes rapid progress with her investigation albeit a few
setbacks and is on the verge of almost hitting the bull’s eye. By a stroke of
good luck, Sameer and his friend Sakshi meet Manasi. After finding out that
Sakshi is Ray’s daughter, Manasi asks her to convince her father to remove the
chip from Aman’s brain because that alone can save him. Manasi is convinced
that the neural chip is the culprit. Sakshi who is a brilliant and smart girl
agrees to help them for Aman’s sake as she respects him as a kind doctor.
Sakshi has the ability to make her doting father Ray run around her in circles.
But she insists on proof of the presence of the neural chip in Aman’s brain. Sakshi
is convinced. She confronts her father. Ray realizes that the game is up and
that his reputation will be in tatters. He realizes that prudence is the better
part of valour. He and his team of John and Haku and other specialists perform
the chip removal surgery.
Though a scientist by training, Manikarnika Lagu has shown
great flair in writing. This sci-fi book has a lot of imagination and style in
it. She provides just enough scientific and technical information on the neuron
chip and its implantation without making it excessively boring for the lay
reader. The conversations between the various interesting characters laced with
Hindi expressions make the book humorous and a fun to read. She has even
provided a glossary at the end of the book for those not so familiar with the
Hindi language. As a clever author, she has also brought in an element of sex
to keep the interest of the reader stimulated. There is an entire chapter where
Mandira, a bored wife and patient of Aman, gets excited by his touch during her
physical examination to the extent that her sexual fantasies enable her to have
an orgasm.
Sci-fi writers and ‘futurists’ have a common vision. This is
called singularity, a point when technology and our bodies meet. We then become
different people and at a higher stage of evolution. There are already some
courageous people (cyborgs) who have had technological implants into their
bodies for a number of reasons and are reaping the benefit of enhanced functions
of their body parts. ‘The Silicon Mind’ is a trailblazer and welcome book by
Manikarnika Lagu. We need more and more books in this category. Suitably
adapted, ‘The Silicon Mind’ has the potential of being turned into a Bollywood
movie.
