Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Mind Matters

"This post has been published by me as a part of IBL; the Battle of Blogs, sponsored by WriteupCafe.com. Join us at our official website and Facebook page.www.indianbloggersleague.com www.facebook.com/IndianBloggersLeague 

 
I am not sure as to which year you are from. This letter has been sent to the Time Vortex and it may land anywhere either in the past or in the future. It's the year 3052. The long cherished dream of the World being one country has been achieved. The World now functions as one. Science and Technology has now made it possible for the rich to hold the process of aging. You may compare us to the folklore of the Vampires of the 20th Century AD. I once remained 25 years old for 50 years, before I decided to grow old and be still at my current age of 35.

Medical Science too has truly reached its zenith. The true potential of human mind is but only minor adjustments away. The mind's power's can now be increased exponentially and used to cent percent of its capacity. The power of communicating minus the words, expressing ourselves using the mind waves are the most common adjustments done in adults today. People speak only to their families. I must not blame others when I haven't spoken a word in public for the last 75 years or so.  We use our mind for all the activities, be it pleasure or education. We receive multimedia and computer operation signals directly to our minds. Sounds exciting eh? But, this too has its drawbacks. Every mind wave has a unique signature and it can be traced from anywhere by the police and law enforcers. And so, one mistake and you are labelled a criminal offender. Even if the mistake is in your thoughts. This ensured that there hasn't been any murder for the last 100 years.


The story I intend to narrate took place in the year 3012 A.D. 


I had planned to run for the post of the President of the World State.  I along with my supporters started working on the strategy for elections and campaigning, as the Presidential elections were conducted after a long gap of 40 years. My main competitor was Peter Burg from England who hailed from a very rich family. The election in our time is very much like any sports tournament. Everyone has to first compete in knockout rounds. After successfully winning the inter-state elections and so on the Top two candidates have to contest against each other. And for each round we have to participate in a debate where in we put on our ideas and points via mind waves without speaking, which are then deciphered by computers so that voters could understand what we meant. Anyone from around the world could ask us questions using their mind waves. I had managed to beat everyone on my way to the finals and was confident and ready to become the next president.

Finally the D-Day arrived, when I had the final debate scheduled with Peter before the vote which would decide the next President. It began with Peter questioning the integrity and sincerity of my plans and policies. The debate went on calmly for few hours but soon escalated to very heated arguments. We were still careful as we had to maintain the decorum and the pressure of being from distinguished families too had its limitations. 

Peter, suddenly left his arguments and started abusing me and my family. He took to the old method of sledging started making racist remarks and made some very derogatory comments about my daughters and my relatives. I lost my cool and for the first time in years, I thundered in anger,


"How dare you speak about my family like that you bastard? I Will Kill You!"


And the next second Peter dropped dead with stunned expressions. I was surprised too as, although I was angry, I did not intend any harm. But it was too late by then. My mind waves had perhaps killed him or at least so thought everyone.   My bodyguards whisked me away to safety lest someone tried to attack me too. 

I was worried about who would have committed a heinous crime like this. This was first time in more than 250 years that a rich person had died. And it was potentially a murder for the first time in more than 100 years. I wanted to get away from all this and was preparing to leave for a remote island to relax and unwind. But I was placed under arrest for the potential murder of Peter Burg. According to the police, he was killed by my mind waves which had overpowered his mind waves and murdered him. Judge ruled that I was guilty beyond doubt as all the scenarios pointed there too. Judge Rogers gravely announced his verdict:

"I hereby announce you guilty of Peter Burg's murder and since it appears to be a crime of passion I will sentence you to 200 years prison time. You are eligible to appeal against the verdict in higher court. Guards take him away to his cell now."

I was pronounced guilty. No one believed in my innocence. Everyone had seen me threatening Peter's life moments before he was killed. But I was sure to be a victim of a very big conspiracy and somehow came to the conclusion that someone had got the access to my mind waves and used them to kill Peter. But how, I had no idea.

And now as the top two candidates were no longer in the fray, the current President got an extension for another 20 years as per the rules. President Raul Travis was a very good man and had played an important role in bringing the world to the current state. But somehow he was my suspect. I hired best detectives to find out the truth, while the justice system handling my case, making sure that I be punished most severely for the crime, a crime I did not even commit.

And soon enough we were able to uncover the truth.  The mind wave technology changed every few years and we got updates in the form of new hardware and software  versions. The norms said that the obsolete parts were to be destroyed but that wasn't the case. The older parts were not destroyed and were either sold to the black market or kept in storage in case the current module developed some issues. Raul didn't want to step down as President and to accomplish his mission; he came up with this idea or removing both of us from his path ensuring that he got to continue as President. He somehow arranged for mind wave parts that belonged to Peter and Me. 

And hence it was proven that the abuses I heard were not from Peter, but the person wearing the device with Peter's mind waves and someone else with my mind waves killed Peter. We provided all the findings to the Supreme Justice Department, which verified our findings to be correct. The assassins, when caught gave away Raul's name as their master. Finally the verdict came which acquitted me and found President and his henchmen to be guilty. Judge Khan presiding over the case, announced the verdict. 


"The Court announces Dr. Prateek to be not guilty and acquits him of all the charges. We also want to apologize to cause you discomfort in reaching a verdict hastily. Ex President Raul Travis will be sentenced to 500 years of jail on the charges of Murder, Conspiracy of Murder, Assisting in Murder, Treachery, Sedition. We are also sentencing Mr. Buido and Mr. Tacko to 200 years and 400 years to jail respectively on charges of Murder and assisting in Murder."


I was formally appointed the President and first thing I did was to change the rules for President Elections, to ensure that nothing like my case ever happens again. I realized that though we had developed technically, our mind was still primal and we were still governed by the age old feelings of   Greed, Jealousy and lust for power. Politics remained politics, dirty and treacherous and it has never changed since the very beginning of politics in the Roman Ages. 

This ends my story.
Your President from year 3012 - 3032
Dr. Vishnu Prateek


38 comments:

  1. Now this is something. Mind power has been utilized since time immemorial. excellently woven.
    I have heard of a man who could kill bird on tree, with his mind power thought. best wishes.

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    1. Thanks MV for the wonderful appreciation. Comments like yours motivate me to write more and better. Thanks Again.

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  2. Woah, "In Time" fused with "Minority Report". Initially I thought it was lacking in originality but towards the end it made me look like a fool. Too good.

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    1. Hmm Though I haven't seen "In Time" I know that the plot line revolves around stopping age but this story is not at all about age that's just a small part told in passing, just to brag about future :). Age is no worry here. Minority Report I have seen twice but don't think future crime capture is too much of a factor here too. I would think that this story is too far in the future even 500 or so years after those movies that the techs are kinda common now. And last but not the least I am happy that I could surprise you. Thanks for the appreciation Nitin. Thanks once again. We will rock this IBL.

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  3. Unique !! And nice :) Waves huh? Well presented. And lets hope such things don't actually happen ;) Although, at times, I wish I had such a power

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    1. Thanks Prashanth for commenting and appreciating the effort. Waves yes :) Future will be what it will be and everyone dreams of such powers. All The Best Buddy for IBL, your effort was nice too :)

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  4. Year 3012. Mind waves go on and commit murders. And in between all this scientific mumbo-jumbo, we have basic human instincts and emotions of treachery come meandering to tell us that science still has a long way to go.
    Reading the story was almost like watching the Hollywood flicks dealing with this genre... however, an attempt that is brave and different.

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    1. Arvind Sir Thank you very much for the comment and appreciation. I really do wish that you liked the post more too. We do wish that everyone likes our post. :)

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  5. Good read and storyline - thoroughly enjoyable! Best of luck.

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    1. Thanks Helen for liking the story and appreciating the effort. Thank you all your wishes.

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  6. "Minority Report" would be the easiest (if unfair) comparison to make, but I know this script is much much better. This was refreshing, in the attempt to weave a sci-fi kinda theme, and I loved it. This took a lot of imagination, and that is the stuff good stories spring out of. Hats off sir!

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    1. Thank you very much Sandy for liking the story and for writing such a wonderful comment. Comments like yours really help me strive to write better and produce more such stories. Thanks

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    1. Thanks Sm for taking out time to post the comment and show your appreciation.

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  8. Whoa! A sci-fi murder mystery is not what I was expecting for the given sub-topic. Absolutely delightful to read.

    Best of luck from Kolkata Knight Writers! :)

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    1. Thank you very much Sudeshna for liking the post and I am glad that you got to read something you weren't expecting :) All The Best to you and your team too.

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  9. A murder using mind waves..hmm.. now this is something i would like to try :P

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    1. :D don't forget you would be instantly caught too using your Unique signature :) Thanks for posting. All The Best

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    1. Thanks Atul for liking and appreciating the post.

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    1. Thanks Debdatta for the encouraging comment.

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  12. minority report....exactly my thoughts as n how the story grew...n best part the narration....just grips u tight...sci-fic built up just awesome...:)

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    1. Thanks Vaisakhi for liking and appreciating the story. Its always good to know that you guys like the post which contains efforts of an entire team.

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  13. The concept is really brilliant! Taking us to the future years, this post I think was a really innovative one and one hell of a brave attempt! Kudos to you for penning this! I loved it! :)

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    1. Thank you very much Amar, this appreciation is really something coming from you I loved your story too. That was brilliant too. And once again Thanks Buddy for appreciating the effort, here's to a long friendship may be we would collaborate on something sometime in the future. Here's to unknown future. :) All the Best to you too.

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  14. Vikas....it's a mindblowing entry !! Descriptively...it's high-tech, fantasy space opera!!!
    Superbly written, intelligent, and utterly engrossing science 'sci-fi' :)))

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    1. Thanks Panchaliji for the wonderful comment and appreciating the post. Of course I can't take all the credit, my team was intrumental in ensuring that we got the very first entry absolutely right and by the amount of praise we are getting it looks like we are successful in producing a good first entry. All the Best to you for BAT.

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  15. A wonderfully crafted story..the flow is very good and kept me bound till the end...and the plot is excellent...way to go....:)

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    1. Thanks very much Ankita for stopping by to comment and appreciate. Always wonderful to know that people loved your work. :) Thanks once again.

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  16. prosaic and perspicuous.. Yet a delightful read, all because of the ingenuity. A little pretentious adornment and some more techno elements, inserted scrupulously would have made it better but, at the same time the story would have become lengthy and eventually unsavoury to your opponents ! Quite a dillema, but in the end a nice and laconic opus.
    Well done and congratulations.

    ... and sorry if my comment sounds impertinent.

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    1. No Problems at all Sir, and congrats you made me turn to dictionary after a very long time :D. I am glad that so many readers loved what I wrote and it is due to all of your commnets and appreciation that I find strength and energy to write further. Please provide your valuable feedback about my other stories too. :)

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  17. ha ha :D
    I'll try to read your other stories.
    You are blessed with the most pivotal ingredient of fiction writing, that is 'the power of imagination' ( which I always yearn).
    So keep writing & bonjour mon ami !

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  18. Thanks Buddy its wishes like yours which keep my imagination churning something new once in a while but I am a lazy person so always need a challenge like BAT or IBL to write something, otherwise I keep on thinking that I should save my thought lest it come in handy during some competition. Thanks again.

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  19. great post Vikas,
    With talents like you in our team, i am sure we are going to do wonders in this season.

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    1. Thanks Shohdah very much for the appreciative words.

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  20. mind blowing as usual Vikas! U should really write more often!

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    1. Thank you very much Titli. Thanks for the comment and praise I would definitely try to write more often but inadvertently it keeps on happening that I drift towards other activities and my poor blog remains postless for a long time. BAT used to be a monthly excuse to write something but that too unfortunately is not that regular now ...

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