The F.L.R
Professor Vinayak looked up from the internet to refresh himself with a Revital pill. As he reached out for his mineral water bottle, his secretary Udhaya peeked in and called out hesitantly, “Sir...?”
Vinayak lowered the bottle. “Yes?”
“Tiwari, the industrialist, is here to see you. His son Sanjay has come with him.”
The professor looked at his digital wristwatch. It was already nine in the night. “Fine, ask them to come in. You may leave, if you’re done.”
Udhaya nodded, and shut the door behind her as she left. The professor switched off the computer and sat back to wait. The fifty-five-year-old Tiwari entered, along with his twenty-five-year-old son. They had the full, pink faces of people who were used to counting profits in crores.
Tiwari greeted him. “Sorry to disturb you at this hour, Professor.”
“No problem. Please come in, have a seat. I’ve seen several advertisements about Tiwari Enterprises in the media. Tell me, what can I do for you?”
Before Tiwari could reply, the cell phone in the professor’s pocket rang. He answered the call. It was from Doctor Chandramouli.
“Yes, tell me, Doctor.”
“The surgery was successful. Ramamirtham has survived. It’s a miracle; I still can’t believe it!”
Vinayak laughed, “I told you so, Doctor. My F.L.R. is infallible. You wouldn’t believe me; you swore that there was only a twenty percent success rate for this sort of surgery, that it was unlikely that Ramamirtham would survive. I had to force you to go ahead with the operation. You mark my words, Doctor; Ramamirtham will live for another twenty-two years.”
Vinayak disconnected the phone and looked at the duo in front of him.
“Sorry about that. Please tell me what you came for.”
Tiwari began hesitantly. “Actually, we wanted to discuss exactly the same matter that you were just talking about on the phone.”
“I don’t understand...?”
“We heard that you have invented a machine that can read a person’s fate.”
“Who told you that?”
“A colleague of yours.”
“What do you want to know about it?”
“If such a machine really exists, we’re interested in marketing it globally.”
“Sorry, Mr. Tiwari. It’s not for sale. I invented the F.L.R. for my personal research.”
Sanjay, who had been silent until then, asked, “What is this F.L.R.?”
“A Fate Language Reporter.”
“Can we see it?”
Vinayak hesitated a second, then got up. “Please come,” he said, and led them to the next room.
Inside the air-conditioned room was a state-of-the-art computer attached to a complicated-looking apparatus made of fibreglass.
“This is the F.L.R.,” said Professor Vinayak.
As both Tiwari and Sanjay stared at it skeptically, the professor switched on the computer. He produced a rectangular printout and gave it to Tiwari.
“Please have a look at this, Mr. Tiwari.”
The sheet was filled with strange graphs.
“What do you see?”
“Just a bunch of hen scratches!”
Vinayak laughed. “Would you believe me if I told you that this is a map of a man’s fate?”
“What? This is what fate looks like?”
“Yes! This is the fate of a dear friend of mine, Ramamirtham—the same Ramamirtham you heard me discuss with the doctor just now, on the phone. He’s a heart patient. I told the doctor that according to his fate report, Ramamirtham should live for another twenty-two years. And he has not only survived the surgery; he is also improving rapidly.”
Tiwari cut in. “There are many who would claim that there is no such thing as preordained fate, that it’s all just a superstition.”
“Superstition? None of the things mentioned in our mythologies are superstition, Mr. Tiwari. Even as science advances by leaps and bounds, all the latest discoveries are closely related to what our mythologies have always claimed was possible. The ancient texts told us of pushpaka vimanam, the flying vehicles of the gods; we used to think it was just a story. But today we fly across the world in airplanes. In the Mahabharatham, the charioteer Sanjayan related the events of the Kurukshetra war to the blind Dhritarashtran, even as those events were unfolding, despite the fact that Sanjayan sat hundreds of miles away. Today, with live telecasts on our telelvisions, such a feat has actually become possible. Our forefathers claimed that there was life in the heavens; today there is evidence from the Pathfinder mission that the planet Mars may support life.
“Our forefathers had logical explanations for all the fantastic feats they wrote about. It takes us time to rediscover that logic, but eventually we do—and then we have a scientific basis for accepting that the events in the epics are actually possible. Until then, though, we go on dismissing them as superstition. The same thing applies to fate.”
“It’s all a bit difficult to believe.”
“But you must believe it, Mr. Tiwari; it is the truth. Every man’s fate is written when he is born.”
“Where exactly is it written?” asked Sanjay, somewhat sarcastically. “Inside the skull, or on the outside?”
“Neither.”
“Then?”
“In fact, fate is recorded in a human brain as electronic waves. My F.L.R. will translate those waves into a graphic language.”
“Professor, with these graphics… can you predict all the events in the life of a person?”
“That is what my analysis is all about. But so far, I have specialized in one area alone.”
“What is that?”
“With my analysis I can predict the lifespan of a person, but I cannot say how he will encounter death. It could be natural, accidental, maybe even a suicide.”
“Why, then, are you reluctant to make the F.L.R. public knowledge?”
“Sorry, but I’m not interested in becoming an astrologer. Also, my experiment is not yet complete. As of now, I can only predict when a person will die, not any other details. To be able to report the entire fate of a subject… that will take a very long time.”
Tiwari thought silently for a minute, and then asked, “Would you be able to use the F.L.R. to find out how long my son and I will live?”
“Of course. But...”
“But what?”
“A person’s ability to lead a joyful, exciting life depends upon his ignorance of when the time will come for him to die. That knowledge has the potential to consume one’s happiness. In fact, I have never used the F.L.R. to read my own fate, for that very reason.”
Tiwari smiled. “Professor, in a way, I agree with you. But my son and I would still like to know our fated lifespan. We won’t be devastated if the F.L.R. says our lives will be short. It’s just that, if we know how long we are going to be alive, then we can plan the progress of our business accordingly. We are not afraid to die.”
The professor shrugged and replied, “Okay. It wouldn’t be kind of me to refuse, when you seem so clear about it. Please come, have a seat on the fibreglass chair next to the F.L.R. It will take just two minutes to report your fate and then predict your lifespan.”
Tiwari thanked him, and sat on the chair. Vinayak opened a cabinet attached to the F.L.R. and removed a purple helmet, which he fixed onto Tiwari’s head. He then pressed a feather touch membrane button. The computer screen read:
Receiving Electronic Signals...
When precisely two minutes had passed, the screen flashed
Fate Language Report Generated
and a sheet covered with complicated-looking graphs emerged from the printer. Vinayak took the page of graphics and looked it over for a few minutes before turning to Tiwari.
“How old are you now?”
“Fifty-five.”
“Then you have thirty more years to live. That is, you will die at the age of eighty-five.”
Tiwari visibly bloomed. “Thirty years! There is a lot I can achieve with so much time!” he crowed.
Next, Sanjay sat on the chair, and had his fate read. Professor turned to him and asked, “And how old are you, Sanjay?”
“Twenty-five, sir.”
“You will live for another seventy years. That is, you will die at the age of ninety-five.”
Sanjay’s face shone as if dusted with a fresh layer of rouge.
Fifteen days passed. The professor was relaxing in his home when his cell phone rang.
“Yes?”
“Vinayak? This is Tiwari...”
The professor laughed. “I’ve been waiting to hear from you for two weeks now. So, how is Sanjay?”
“Wonderful! He’s very happy, eating regularly, coming to the office, chatting with his friends. For the past six months, he’s been obsessed with the fear of death. But he’s completely forgotten that now!”
“Tiwari, try to make sure that your son doesn’t go to any more quack astrologers. Those fellows are all the same. When they’re asked to make predictions for rich boys like Sanjay, they will deliberately invent some grave misfortunes in his future and then demand money for elaborate pujas to appease the planets. And it’s not only his money he’ll lose, but his peace of mind as well.”
Tiwari laughed. “Well, I don’t think he’ll ever go to another astrologer now. He has complete faith in your F.L.R.”
“I was nervous right up till the end. I was worried that Sanjay wouldn’t be fooled—that we wouldn’t be able to pass off that ordinary graphics printer as a ‘Fate Language Reporter’.”
“Vinayak, you are a true genius at computer graphics. There’s no way that Sanjay was going to think that you were conning him. Anyway, thank you so much for your help!”
“No need to thank me. Just be careful never to let Sanjay find out that we’ve been friends since childhood!”
continue to "Me", by Vidya Subramaniam