Amalgamating the animate abode

Another novel morning, as usual, routined, filled with the monotonous note of intrigued interests masking the distress of desperate drudgery. Suddenly a coarse shriek pierced through the chill of the air, breaking into the silence of the day. Definitely, it was the voice of Mr. Chakraborty.

“Man please! I don’t like that at all”

“What am I doing that is so displeasing?”

“How can you do that intentionally? At least don't piss in my garden and consequently tell me that you're trying to help my plants grow.”

“Well, actually, urine has nitrates, so yeah, it will help your plants grow.”

“Oh, what a justification! You have the key to every intricacy of the world.”

“Actually, every rejection is a birth of rejuvenation. Matter is conserved. Our waste is the food of somebody else.”

“But how did you know that they were hungry and thirsty. It is not advised to surfeit someone. Food is a need, not a compulsion.”

“That is something I need to formulate. Okay, I will not disappoint you. See you then. Goodbye"

Mr. Iyer walked off. Mr. Chakraborty had always felt his neighbour to be an inquisitive being, always eager to investigate into latent lassitude of nature, questioning himself and resolving his own curiosity. At times, his demeanour becomes rather unbearable to others. Mr. Raghavendra Iyer practised coding as a free-lancer, though his particular interests were unknown. He was deeply a science-enthusiast. Mr. Vipul Chakraborty served as a teacher at Kendriya Vidyalaya. Both of them had been college mates, though coincidentally they became neighbours too. Mr. Chakraborty still remembers Mr. Iyer’s face lost in dreams, when they met for the first time during the annual meet. This dreaminess overcame him completely down the ages and went on augmenting with time.

One day when Mr. Chakraborty had visited him, he found him typing some codes onto his laptop. It looked provoking, perhaps designed to stimulate some program that runs on polyglot programming. Adjacent to him, lay a box, no bigger that a classical UPS, embedding an audio system, resembling a speaker, with the only exception that it had a display unit on its upper surface. It had some projections, perhaps were antenna for receiving some kinds of signals. It was wired with the laptop as if the codes were being fed into it.”

“What are you developing so keenly on this?”

“Nothing, just laying down my ideas into a set of codes, though I cannot guarantee its feasibility.”

“Feasibility…of what?”

“See, I cannot explain you everything at a stretch and appear a folly clown here.”

“Raghav…” Mr. Chakraborty placed his hands on Mr. Iyer’s shoulder, “Have I ever called you a fool before?”

“No…but…fine…I will tell you…If you pay heed to hearken. This programme which I am writing would erase completely the gaps that exists between humans and the biosphere. It can pick up their communications too and explain them to us in our way, helping us to cognise their emotions, so that we do not step against their will.”

“I think I got to some of your points, but how will this device be able to track their interactions, as we do not even have clues to understand what they want.”

“You will be surprised, but we actually have. The clues, though arduous to anticipate, yet can be traced with the artificial intelligence, as it will co-relate the instructions stored in the database. To explain you in detail, scientists all over world have done a lot of research to understand the body language displayed by animals. The frequency of blinking eyes, waving tail, prostration, pace of locomotion, salivating mouth etc are some of the large ranges of gestures that characterise the mood of animals. Even the pitch and amplitude of their cry can tell the intensity of their emotions and the depth of their thought. I have fed into this device every information I have collected till now, and will continue doing the same throughout my life. The visual unit is an input cum output device, that scans these postures of animals and the antennae records their voices. The after analysing it through all sorts of permutation and combination, the screen displays the recombined output indicating the mood of the animal.”

“Sounds interesting…would be a tech marvel, if recognised by the science and technology society! Have you tried it?”

"Yeah, at Mr. Arora’s clinic, I tried to figure out the pain of the animals being diagnosed there. However, he said that he cannot rely on this device completely, yet it served well to identify the required medicines.”

“Then, you have an opportunity to publish your research and popularise this device among people.”

“I know it is a great invention. Yet, I want to inv

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olve the entire biosphere. Man, actually I am dissatisfied, and in brief, you are the reason for it. “

Mr. Iyer gave an archaic smile. Mr. Chakraborty looked apprehensive. A sign of anxiousness was vividly magnifying on his countenance.

“What! What did I do?”

“That day you said that it is not advised to water plants unnecessarily, if they do not require. Moreover, urine has high concentration of nutrients and cannot be poured on plants, if proper proportions are not maintained. Plants are different from animals in their demeanour. They are less expressive and cannot convey their pains though cries. Yet some predictions have been made on their response to external stimuli, their trophic and nastic movements and regulation of their hormones as well as some of the adaptive modifications shown by them. But I feel these are just the consequences, encapsulating the actual thought behind them. Now I am afraid, that I would never be able to make out their thought process. However, I have a last chance to manifest upon…”

“That’s true indeed. By the way, what is that chance? How are you going to advance from here?”

“Plants might have brains. Our brains generate alpha and beta waves. Alpha waves signify relaxation and calmness, while beta waves mean alertness and attention. Their brains might be generating similar kinds of waves. May be someday, I can figure it out. Once I do that I will be make some changes with this device and will demolish the barrier between man and nature”

“Great, I hope the consequence will be more interesting than your words. I have to visit my students now, it’s already late. See you another day. Till then, keep moulding your ideas.”

Mr. Chakraborty departed. Mr. Iyer closed the door and glanced at the wall clock. A long day awaiting him to challenge him with the furtherance of his scheme abandoning him from any kind of siesta or repose.

It was just the day before weekends. Mr. Chakraborty’s phone rang in the mid of his class. It was Mr. Iyer. He went outside for a momentary pause and picked up the call.

“I established it man finally. The day when the world will witness the upheaval of an age where plants can communicate with humans. I am modifying this machine a bit. It will require some electrical installations.”

“Are you serious? That’s unbelievable. I will visit you right after my class. “

Negotiating with his exuberance and answering to his duty, Mr. Chakraborty returned to his class, hiding his capering heart. But his mind was enslaved at this enthusiastic discovery.

A successive call rang his phone right after twenty minutes. Second appearance of anything gives rise to intense suspicion. Anyways, forethoughts are not meant to be relied upon. He picked up this call which was from Mr. Awasti, his colleague and neighbour.

“I cannot gather the courage to tell you, but pls return if possible.”

“What is the matter? Tell me in detail.”

“Flames have encapsulated him. A wrath beyond words.”

Mr. Awasti hung up. Mr. Chakraborty dashed home and was taken aback by the staggering scene there, shattering him to the core.

Scorched to intense heat of flames, lay the half-burnt body of Mr. Iyer, wrapped in clothes and being carried onto the ambulance. The device was destroyed and it metal pieces had got melted to the heat. Tragic scene that took place before anyone got the notice of it. Had really nobody got the notice of it?

“The death was because if a short circuit in his laboratory during the implementation of high voltage source”, the report revealed.

The next day began with the funeral rituals, overcasting the day with gloom for the departure of someone, whom nobody could understand. Or maybe nobody tried to. The materialistic world was least interested in investing in intricacies of emotions than negotiating with nature.

Standing next to his funeral pyre, throughout the day, a panorama of thoughts inflicted upon Mr. Chakraborty’s inner eyes, drenching his soul with the tears of memories: the nostalgia of college days, the time they spent together, his words, his stubbornness and the device he made. And no doubt the last phone call, “world will witness the upheaval of an age where plants can communicate with humans”.

“May his dreams come true someday. He is not dead; he is present within each one of us. Only we need to discover the interaction between the existent species. Indeed, man is a social animal. We are the undetachable part of the biosphere and we are inexistent without it.”

Mr. Chakraborty left. He carried with him, the reminiscent fragments of the device. “He is alive. I know he cannot die. Every fragment of the living world whispers of him, the immortal soul.”