It was early morning in the month of March. Dr. Ranjit Singh Ahluwalia was getting ready for an important day in office. His maid has laid the breakfast on the table. Eggs, sandwiches and a glass of orange juice, this is what he preferred to have every day. Today he was going to reveal his invention to important people. He ate slowly looking intermittently at the clock hung on the opposite wall. His maid got ready in the meantime. She was to accompany him to his office for the meeting. They took the slated 9' o clock bus to the Defence Electronic and Application Laboratory (DEAL).

DEAL is an arm of Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO) of the Indian Government. It works to develop electronic products to aid primarily the Indian military. It is situated in the Indian city of Dehradun. The red and white main building of DEAL was standing radiant in the sun when the bus arrived on the campus. Dr. Ahluwalia, a senior scientist in the laboratory got down along with his maid and walked to his office.

On the table in his office were kept two head gears. The gears were in the shape of a headset microphone attached to a spectacle. There were buttons all over the gear. It’s shiny black colour gave it an appearance of a helmet of the old New Zealand cricket team. Dr. Ahluwalia put one gear on the maid’s head and other on his. Then they went to the special lab where the supercomputer Param-10 was kept. There was a lab assistant looking seriously at the monitor. Param-10 was a modern supercomputer, the size of a laptop. Dr. Ahluwalia picked up Param-10 and brought it to his office. He opened the software ‘IMAGED’ on the screen. Two users were seen present with a green dot blinking beside their name: RSA1 and RSA2. Below the names was the button ‘Connect’. He checked the box besides the two users and pressed connect.

A red light came up on both the head gears.

‘Now listen to your inner voice. I will think of something and you have to tell me what it is.’ He spoke to the maid. Closing his eyes, he thought in Hindi: The clothes of this office boy are dirty. He should wash them.

The maid smiled at it and repeated what he had said.

‘Now you close your eyes. I will make a body movement and you repeat it.’

She did what he had asked. Dr. Ahluwalia made a slight effort to keep his eyes open. He raised his right hand. In reaction, the maid raised her right hand too. Then he raised his left leg. She repeated this movement.

 ‘This is working fine.’

He pressed a button. An office boy appeared.

‘Take madam to the audience room.’ He gave the keys to the office boy and the maid followed him.

The presentation was to follow in fifteen minutes. He adjusted his turban (he had taken off the head gear), checked his tie and lifted Param-10 to walk towards the presentation room.

The delegates were coming in. Anusha K, the DEAL head was standing at the door.

‘Good morning Dr. Ahluwalia. Please come in.’

‘Thanks Anusha.’ He walked in to set up the equipment near the presentation board.

The Defence Minister of India entered. Along with him were the three chiefs of Defence: Air, Naval and Army. They were accompanied by a group of politicians and policymakers. The presentation room was full. After five minutes, the doors were locked and the presentation started.

‘Good morning respected members, I am here to show you the workings of a technology created at DEAL after ten years of extensive research and hard work. The technology is named IMAGED. A slide presentation appeared on the presentation board. On it was written:

§  Brain to brain mapping

§  Transmission of thoughts

§  Transmission of motor signals

§  Virtual Presence

Dr. Ahluwalia explained each of these terms in the next slides. The audience was deeply engrossed in what he was saying. It took him five slides to explain the workings of the technology. On the sixth slide was the whole electronic model including Parama-10 and the head gears. He was explaining an electronic circuit to them. He kept it short. The seventh slide had the big heading: WIRELESS MAPPING written on it. Dr. Ahluwalia explained, ‘Instead of mapping through the head gear, we also have the means to map through an electronic paper embedded with a chip with letters written in nanotech grade fluorinated carbon material. The special arrangement maps the DNA of the reader through the retina of the eyes and connects the reader directly to the supercomputer. This method of mapping was made possible through our collaboration with the Nanomaterials laboratory of IIT Kharagpur. Even though the other uses of the technology have been reported in scientific research, this method of mapping is highly original. We have already applied for the necessary patent and should get it this month. With this, I would like to end my presentation and give you a demonstration of IMAGED.’

He directed the office boy to switch on the large TV screen attached to the wall beside the projector. When the screen came on, the maid appeared sitting in a room along with the office boy. She had the head gear on her.

‘Now I will wear the gear and connect to the woman you can see on screen. The woman cannot see us in any way. Her only connection will be with me through this technology.’

He connected to her through the software on Param-10.

‘Now I will lift my right hand. She will do the same.’ The heads turned from Dr. Ahluwalia to the screen. The maid lifted her right hand.

‘I will move my head up and down.’ And she did the same with the difference in time being a fraction of a second. He asked the audience to suggest something.

‘Lift your right leg,’ suggested the Defence Minister. The action was repeated by the maid.

‘This is terrific,’ said the chief of army staff.

‘I call this technology IMAGED. This is not it. Can one of you say something unknown to the rest of us?’

‘Yes, my son turned out to be a brat,’ spoke one of the politicians. A giggle spread in the room.

‘Please wait for a minute.’ Dr. Ahluwalia looked down for some time as if he was looking minutely at a small particle lying on the floor. Everybody was focused on this tall well built man wearing a red turban and carrying a beard. Contrary to his personality, his voice was soft and gentle.

‘Please look at the screen.’ They saw the woman saying something to the office boy. He took out a chart paper and wrote the same thing the politician had uttered few moments ago in red ink and pointed it towards the camera. It was in Hindi with the same meaning.

‘This is mind blowing. Mind to mind communication without speaking anything. I have never heard of it,’ exclaimed the politician.

‘One demonstration is still left. For that I would need to scan one of you. This the most innovative part of the technology. Does anyone volunteer?’

Everybody raised their hands. There was only one woman in the audience apart from Anusha K. She was a policymaker, part of the Defence Ministry. Dr. Ahluwalia called her near the projector. She rose up, straightened her sari and reached him in few steps. He took out an electronic paper from his bag and asked her to read the contents of the paper slowly, sitting on a chair. She did so. Her DNA was scanned and sent to the supercomputer. On the Param-10 screen, there was a third user named RSA-3. Dr. Ahluwalia disconnected himself from the maid and connected both the women checking the two boxes besides their username.

‘Now both the ladies are connected,’ the audience looked wide eyed. The maid was sitting still, so was the lady from the Defence department.

‘Do something Madamji,’ encouraged the Defence Minister.

She stood up. The maid stood up too.

‘Are you sure she cannot see us?’ asked the Chief of Army staff quizzically.

‘For sure. She is in a sealed room with only a camera.’

Dr. Ahluwalia went to Param-10.

‘Now I will show you something which this technology can achieve, something never seen before.’ He checked a button on the software. Entering a new page, there were three options: RSA1,RSA3, Both.  He clicked on RSA-1. The lady jumped up on this.

‘Oh god. How is this possible?’ she smiled. ‘I can see the nice lady sitting just in front of me. In fact I can even touch her.’ A murmur rose in the crowd.

‘Would you like to tell her something?’ Dr. Ahluwalia prodded her.

‘Yes. Yes. Thank you for this wonderful experience. And its a beautiful day,’ she said stammering all the while. They all looked at the maid. There was no reaction.

‘She can’t hear it when you speak from your mouth. You have to reach your inner voice and say it in your mind in Hindi for her to hear and understand. Try saying this quickly in your mind in Hindi.’

She focused for a while. The maid raised her eyebrows and then gave a smile.

‘Thank you madam,’ he went to Param-10 and unchecked her username and pressed the delete button. This disIMAGED her and removed her connection. She went and sat at her place still not believing what had happened.

‘Please tell us in detail Dr. Ahluwalia. We also wish to experience the joys of this technology,’ spoke the Defence Minister softly.

‘In short, you can see the person to whom to you are connected in real time. That is made possible by this technology.’

‘It means that if I am connected via this technology to the Prime Minister, I can see him working in real time.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

‘This is nothing less than magic,’ the defence minister started laughing. ‘I cannot believe my eyes. Can you see everything, I mean the surroundings of the other person as well?’

‘The surroundings cannot be seen clearly as of yet, they are fractionally clear. We are working to make them completely clear till a certain distance.’

‘Good. Anything else left for us to see?’ asked the minister.

‘No Sir, this was it.’

‘I hear you have already submitted a report of its applications to the military to all the three chiefs?’

‘Yes sir, I have.’

‘Good, ladies and gentlemen. Lets applaud our scientist here. I think this is wonderful work.’

Everybody clapped heartily as they left the room.