Conversations
The Last Banter
“Did you see the newspaper yesterday?”
“No, why?”
The two thin men sat on their haunches on the wooden
platform, passing to each other a fast disappearing beedi.
“There has been a shortage of onion crop this year. The
prices are going up.”
“First, they will take our jobs away, and now we can’t
afford onions!”
“Oh well, at least we won’t need the onions to cry. Our
tears will be real.”
A moment’s pause and they both broke into guffaws.
However, silence followed laughter as both sat reflecting on
the misfortune that was about to befall them.
There had been a memo stuck with pins to the notice board.
It went onto inform them that their division was overstaffed and that volume of
the work did not justify the volume of the staff. Some people would be losing
their jobs.
The news was accepted with a sense of inevitability. These
two brothers, bonded by a common labour, could see the writing on the wall. The
suspense though was overbearing. Would one of them lose their job? Or, would both?
Will this be their last act of bravura? Would it be the last beedi they shared
thus?
“Did you check it?”
“Yes, it’s tight. Everything is in order.”
The pride in their work was obvious in their demeanour. They
believed that their work was a solemn duty.
The beedi was put out.
“It’s about time. He should be here.”
A bevy of men walked in through the door. The focus was one
on a lean bespectacled man in the center. He walked with the grave air of a person
lost in thought.
The two men saw him and wondered who the more condemned one
was. With a careful leap, they got down from the gallows.
Conversion
“What’s your name?”
The tone of the question had all the marking of a rough
interrogation.
“Pinocchio.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Where are you from?”
“Italy.”
“Pinocchio is a strange name. Are you a real boy or a wooden
puppet?”
The sentence was delivered in a derisory tone and laughter
was heard across the room.
“I suppose you just need to see whether my nose grows when I
lie.”
The laughter died out in the hall. People nervously shifted
in their seats. The answer was unexpected. It was mean. It was anything but
what they had expected out of Pinocchio.
“That’s a little rude, don’t you think?” the tone softened a
bit. “Never mind. Let’s continue.”
“Solve this riddle for me. A man is on an airplane with his
wife and child. The plane catches fire and they have only one parachute between
them. What would they do?”
“How old is the child?”
“Three.”
“That means that its chances of survival by itself are
fairly remote. In that case, I would say that the woman should jump leaving the
man and the child behind.”
“Why is that?”
“Logically, the survival of the species is dependent more on
women than it is on men.”
“But couldn’t the woman take a chance and carry the child
along?”
“Perhaps, but the probability of survival would reduce too
much to make that viable.”
Heads shook in the room. The project file was shut down with
a large thump. The subject should no signs of empathy humans are capable of.
Their only currency was logic. The plan to humanize subject CRN-11 was going
nowhere. A hundred years had gone by since the Turing Test was passed. What
Alan Turing didn’t know is that even when he asked “Can Machines think?” he
couldn’t have imagined that the only thinking they would ever be capable of was
being logical.
Perfection
Prasoon was fascinated by the ten avatars of Vishnu. There
was a comic book on ‘Dashavatar’ (ten avatars of Vishnu), an animated movie on
it, photos and idols of most of the avatars in the wood-crafted temple next to
the kitchen, and at least one or two names in the extended family named after
them.
Prasoon’s ten-year-old mind wrapped itself around the many
possibilities that Vishnu had to offer as a superhero. His parents were happy
that in the era of the Ironman and Superman and all other forms of men and
women doing super-deeds, their son was found peering over his Hindu mythology book
at quiet moments on a sleepy Sunday. What they were not prepared for was the
many questions his enthrallment would bring about.
“Papa?” he asked his father, who was hidden behind the
sports pages of the newspaper.
“Vishnu is very powerful, right?”
“Yes.”
“And he can take many forms at the same time?”
“Yes.”
“Can he take any form he wants?”
“Yes, he can.” said his father, a tinge of irritation
building up.
“Does he always fight against evil?”
“Yes, yes, we have spoken about this many times before,
Prasoon!”
“But he is always good, right? So why does he fight against
himself?”
The paper was folded down and a face with a quizzical look
peered at the boy.
“What do you mean?”
“In the book it says that when Rama goes to marry Sita, Parshurama
comes and is very angry with him. He challenges Rama to string his bow which he
claims is as powerful as the one Rama has broken. When Rama strings it, he says
that an arrow has to be fired and he aims it at Parshurama. Doesn’t that mean
that he is fighting against himself?”
“Why do you say he is fighting against himself?”
“Papa, you forgot? Rama is an avatar of Vishnu. Parshurama is
also an avatar of Vishnu. Doesn’t that mean he is fighting himself?”
“You have a point here, Prasoon!”
After a pause, the father added “Rama was a really good man.
Maybe even better than Parshurama, and he needed to prove that point. Set that
standard.”
And the explanation expanded some more. “It is not that Parshurama
was bad, but Rama was perfect. Not all of us can be perfect all the time like
Rama. We may be more like Parshurama. Sometimes we make good choices and sometimes
we don’t.”
“Are you saying that we may make mistakes and it is ok to
fail?”
“Yes. You know, Rama didn’t punish Parshurama. He let him go.”
“Oh!”
Prasoon rushed into his room and came back with a sheet of
paper, handing it gingerly to his father.
“Papa, can you please sign this? You are my Rama,” he said
with a sheepish smile, as his father pored over the red lines in his son’s
report card.
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