The Clone

I had a hairline fracture in my left hand and was involuntarily wearing an elbow sling to support my arm. Dr. Desai, an Orthopedic, had warned me not to do any activity that would load my left hand. Not even drive a car as that would require me to use my left hand to frequently shift gears in Ahmedabad road traffic. I wanted to go to Pune very badly to attend our school-reunion. That evening I had gone to Dr. Desai to get a clearance for my visit to Pune.

Our 1964 school batch completed 50 years in March 2014 after passing out from our school after our final Board Exams. The Local Organizing Committee of eight of our batch-mates in Pune had worked for almost an year or so to make all the preparations to celebrate this occasion with a full day get-together on 30th March 2014 in the same school building. They had contacted as many teachers they could trace from those days who made us what we are today. Majority of my school-mates have now settled in Pune. A few like me who have settled outside were also invited to attend the function. A few others have settled abroad. Searching and contacting all the batch-mates was a big task in itself as all of us in the school grew in an era when there were no telephones, cell phones, emails and the Internet.

After examining my left hand under the screening machine, Dr. Desai told me that the hairline crack had healed completely and I could then remove the shoulder sling. But he emphatically negated my proposal to visit Pune even for a day. I had to wait for at least a week before starting my normal routine. I was thoroughly disappointed. I sighed with sorrow and said, "My friends in our school will never pardon me for ditching them on this once-in-a-life-time occasion. I wish we had a technology to make clones. I would have sent one for this job."

"Are you serious about sending a clone?" Dr. Desai asked me with a mischievous smile on his face.

"No, No. I was just joking." I said after giving him a broad smile.

"But I am serious. I can help you out."

"I don't get you. How can you help me? You will help me in attending my school reunion? You will make arrangements for my travel to Pune safely?"

"No! You will remain in Ahmedabad and still you will attend your school reunion in Pune."

"How is it possible? I could not possibly depute somebody else in my place. It's going to be an emotional get-together. It's just not a question of signing the attendance register there."

"I will explain. Believe me, it's very much possible. I have a scientist friend, Dr. Banerjee. He makes flash clones. He has not advertised the technique publicly but he is looking for volunteers who would use his facilities. The flash clone exists for a short period and is discarded once the assignment is over."

"Forget it! You are just kidding me doctor! Human Clones existed only in science fictions since 70's. For the last many decades many novels and stories have been written on them. But, so far, nobody could make one in reality."

"I can take you to my scientist friend if you want. You talk to him yourself. He is not interested in money. He always wants to work on the challenging problems. He worked very hard on this for the last few years. He always shares his excitements with me whenever we meet. He doesn't have any other friend with whom he can do it. Seeing your anxiety I just thought you will be interested in this idea. It will be just for the sake of some excitement in our otherwise dull life. Your friends will never know. But the choice is entirely yours. Call me whenever you want. Absolutely no obligation. You may decide not to go for it"

I just smiled and left Dr. Desai's cabin.

For the next two days I just forgot this conversation with Dr. Desai. But as I started receiving calls on my cell phone from my schoolmates urging me to visit Pune and be with them for the whole day, I started melting. I thought to myself, "Can I really send my clone in my place? This will be outright cheating on my friends. But it will at least save my face for the future. I will be appearing in many photographs, in particular, the group photo they will definitely arrange on the day. Not a bad idea. But is it really possible to get a clone made in such a short time? It must be possible. Otherwise why Dr. Desai would suggest it?"

The whole night my sleep got disturbed by these thoughts. After the morning breakfast the first thing I did was to make a phone call to Dr. Desai and ask him to fix up my meeting with Dr. Banerjee provided Dr.Desai himself accompanied me during the same. Dr. Desai readily agreed to do it.

The same evening, myself and Dr. Desai met Dr. Banerjee in his laboratory. Contrary to my expectations Dr. Banerjee was a very jovial and confident personality. He told me that he could definitely produce a flash clone for me to attend my school reunion. He just needed to take my body-scan. He also would need to map my brain-state that will be loaded into the brain of the clone. The clone will then have all my past memories. As the life of the flash clone is limited further memory updates will be not needed and and I could happily continue my life as before. He further warned me that the limitation of this technique would be that I would never know about what exactly my clone said or did to others for the short time span in which he existed. I must remember this and smartly tackle in future the people he would have met during that period. He further commented that the school reunion was a harmless affair from this point of view and I need not be unduly worried about it.

He then made me sit in a spacious chair in a small chamber and connected many sensors all over my body and head. The sensors were connected to a computer through cables. He operated the instruments from a computer terminal outside the chamber on his table. After my body and brain scan he entered the date and the START and END time for which the clone would exist. The entire process took a little more than half an hour. I was quite comfortable during all this time. He later signaled me to come out of the chamber.

When I asked him how much I needed to pay him for this work he said, "Nothing. Not a single Rupee." He further said smilingly, "It's all part of my passion and, in fact, if at all, I must pay you for giving me the opportunity to use my research facility."

He then continued, "Your clone will come into existence at 8 a.m. on the morning of 30th March 2014 at the gate of your Pune school building and will be automatically discarded on 8 p.m. on the same day. So, for all practical purposes you will be able to attend your school reunion. Good luck!"

Thanking Dr. Banerjee I came out along with Dr. Desai. Now I needed to do nothing further. The Organizing Committee had promised to publish a colorful Smaranika giving details of what happened on that day along with the photographs. The group photo was to be printed separately on a big paper as they expected more than one hundred participants to attend the function on that day.

On 1st April 2014 I received an email from the organizing committee thanking me for attending the reunion and making it a great success. It was obviously a group email. They also informed me that the Smaranika was to take a little more time and would be sent to me by post later along with the group photo. I felt extremely relieved and peaceful.

My peace of mind was shattered though when Shirish phoned me from Pune on 1st May 2014 banging me for returning to Ahmedabad without meeting him in spite of me being in Pune for the whole month. He was very upset as it seemed I had met him and promised him on 2nd April that I would definitely visit him before I returned to Ahmedabad.

Shirish is not from our school although he appeared his Board Exams from some other school in Pune during the same year. There was no chance that he attended our school reunion. And moreover my clone had ceased to exist on 30th March evening. Then who was the person who met Shirish?

"I don't remember our meeting. May be I was in a hurry and must have promised you just like that. I do it many times to you, you know!" I said this just because I had to say something. I needed some time to grasp the gravity of the situation which was definitely ringing alarm bells in my head. I waited him to say something that would throw some more light. May be he was also pulling a fast one on me, I thought.

What Shirish said further swept the ground off my feet. Suddenly my throat went dry and I was almost on the verge of collapsing right there.

It seems that day me and Shirish had talked for an hour. Shirish further threw a bombshell on me when he continued, "Look, even if we were not in the same school we have many common friends from your school who met us later in the science and engineering college we went together. I happened to meet a few of them a few days after your school reunion. They only told me what all you did together with your school mates during the last month."

"What...what did...I.. do..?"

"You went with some of them on a night trekking adventure to Simhagadh. You attended a three night Sangeet Mahostava in Pune with another group of friends from your school. You joined a Bridge Club and took lessons on Bridge from Krishna who is a big fan of this card game. You just did not have any time for me though. That's not fair. I just feel like terminating our friendship. Never ever try to meet me when you come."

"Aarey aarey, don't get angry so much. I am coming to Pune next week and will stay with you only. Promise." I then tried to pacify him for some more time and disconnected the phone.

What was that? That only meant that my clone was still floating. I immediately contacted Dr. Banerjee and took his appointment for the same evening.

I narrated to Dr. Banerjee the entire conversation I had with Shirish that morning. He was also shocked to hear about this development. He had never faced this before. He kept quiet for quite some time. I was losing patience. I then asked him, "Can you not RESET him from here?"

"I need to check my computer." Saying this he went to his computer terminal and tried something. Then he almost shouted, "Oh no! He has removed his wrist-band. He is not supposed to do that!"

"What does it mean?" I asked him with a great concern.

"The clones I make wear a wrist-band. After the time of expiry of the clone my computer automatically sends a RESET command to the clone and the clone is discarded. The wrist-band works as a receiver for the commands sent from here. Now I see that the command was sent at 8 p.m. on that day as scheduled. And it is now clear from what you told me today that the command was not executed. That means your clone had removed the wrist-band. The clones I make can never do that. This action is not programmed for them and they have no intelligence to take this action on their own."

I was terribly frightened. I could not imagine the consequences of this development on my life in future. I asked Dr. Banerjee, "What do we do now?"

"Please give me some more time to think." Dr. Banerjee looked very worried when he said this. After intensely thinking for about ten minutes he said, "The only way out for you is to contact your clone and pursue him to wear an another wrist-band that I will give you."

"Why he should obey me? Particularly if he has intentionally removed it?" I was not believing in this solution at all.

"They will normally obey the masters. In this case you are the master. and he is after all a slave to you."

"I still have my own doubts. You have never faced this situation. How are you so sure about this solution? And he has shown enough intelligence in removing the band and mingling with my friends for over a month. Moreover where do I look for him in this whole world?"

"I give you one assurance that your clone has been programmed to be in Pune only. He cannot move out of Pune. His geographical range of movement is kept very limited by design." Dr. Banerjee was trying to give me some assurance though I was not sure whether he himself was convinced about the success of the plan he was suggesting.

"But Dr. Banerjee, Pune is a very big city. We do not know where he is staying and what is his routine. Hope, he is not staying with one of my friends. Even if I myself go to Pune what are the chances that we will come face to face with each other?"

"You have to take your friend Shirish in to confidence and ask him to do some spying on your other friends and try to gather your clone's whereabouts. Once Shirish locates him then you have to lay a trap and catch him. I don't think he will resist you. They can't. Let's hope this is just a small aberration in my design."

I returned from Dr. Banerjee's laboratory absolutely unconvinced about his plan of action. But I had no other way out. My clone had to be discarded as early as possible if I had to live peacefully later.

It took a number of phone calls to Shirish to convince him about the unbelievable and make him join this expedition. I tried to reason with him that I could not come to Pune unless he located the whereabouts of my clone. If I come before that there will be predictable consequences. Shirish finally agreed to help.

After about a week Shirish phoned me and informed me that he had got in touch with my clone and found out that he was staying in Hotel Meghdoot on J M Road, a decent but crowded area of modern Pune city. We both then made a plan to trap my clone in his hotel room one evening.

We made a plan on the following lines. After making sure that the clone was comfortably relaxing in his room Shirish would enter the room under the pretext of a chit-chat session. At an appropriate moment I would reach the hotel and stand outside the hotel room. Shirish would then inform me by giving a missed call on my cell phone and come out of the room on a silly excuse and at the next moment I would enter the room. This would give the clone no chance to escape. I would then try to convince him somehow to wear the wrist-band. Dr. Banerjee would send the RESET command once he got the green signal from me. I discussed the entire plan with Shirish a number of times to see if there were any obvious loop holes in it. We then fixed a date for the D-day.

Our plan was surprisingly going smooth except a small hitch at the hotel counter where the receptionist suspiciously looked at me when I walked past the reception desk to take the staircase as the clone's room was on the first floor. The receptionist continued to look at me making me a little nervous. But after a few seconds he smiled and said, "You look exactly like your brother. Twins? Am I right?"

I just whispered "Yes" and hurriedly started climbing the steps. I stood outside the room. After a few minutes I received a missed call on my cell phone from Shirish who opened the door and came out as casually as possible. I just caught the doorknob to block any possible attempt by the clone to escape. I closed the door behind me after entering the room.

My clone was relaxing on the bed. I was seeing him for the first time in my life. I was impressed and appreciated Dr. Banerjee's technique to make an exact replica of mine. Nobody in the world would suspect about him I thought to myself. I was not sure whether I was angry with him or felt pity on him.

I also did not know how to begin but my clone solved my problem. He smiled at me and said, "Welcome. I knew one day you will reach me. You must pardon me for all this. I overstayed in your world."

"But why are you doing this? What do you want?" I was shocked to see his response that I was expecting the least.

"I will explain to you. I know the time has come for me to go. But I must clarify my actions before I take an exit.

"The moment I was born on 30th March 2014 morning I knew I was a clone and also knew that I had a limited role to play. I entered the hall in your school and saw that there were about hundred of your friends waiting for me. Everybody in the hall including your teachers were thrilled to see me as I was one of the outstation participants who had specially come to Pune to attend the get-together. The clones have no emotions but somewhere inside me I was deeply moved to see this response.

"Later, we had a sheer fun during the entire day. There were speeches. We felicitated the teachers who all were in tears of joy. All of them were in their eighties. The present school principal who also attended the function even joked that he was the youngest in the hall and instead of giving blessings to us he would expect us to give them to him.

"We sang Hindi songs and danced on filmy tunes. Played games. Had fantastic feast ordered from outside. After lunch a few enthusiasts played the musical instruments they had brought with them. We remembered the good old days and decided to meet at least once in a month there onward. In short, the whole atmosphere was charged with emotions that ran so high that I fell in love with your friends. Uncharacteristically for me as a clone I developed a desire to prolong my stay in your world.

"I did not know how that could be possible. Suddenly, by chance, I looked at my wrist-band. That looked little odd. I had your entire life stored in my brain. You never wore a wrist-band in your life. That was not a part of your personality. I then thought that there was something in the wrist-band that separated you from me. I decided to remove the wrist-band at once and throw it in a dustbin. That trick worked. I continued to exist beyond 8 p.m.

"Your friends were planning to go on a night trek to Simhagadh after a couple of days. They planned to attend a Sangeet Mahostava later next week. I learnt to play Bridge from Krishna, one of your fast friends. Fortunately, for you and me, as a policy, your friends had decided not to allow their family members to join these excursions. That was good. You had not seen the families of your friends anyway. If in future you meet them by chance you will not be embarrassed I thought. I had a very good time for the last one month with your friends. But believe me I have not done anything in the last one month that would spoil your reputation. In fact, I did many things that you always wanted to do but could not do because of a few unnecessary prejudices you have had about them."

"How do these things help me? Those were after all, your experiences, not mine." I had to interrupt him and show his place in my life.

"Well you are right. But your friends will always think that you did them. And it was alright, I thought.

Anyway, let us not waste your time anymore. Please give me the wrist-band Dr. Banerjee gave you. Let me wear it and prepare for my exit."

My clone looked completely composed when he said that. "Clones do not have any emotions and that's how it should be," I told myself. I then pulled out the wrist-band from my pocket and handed it over to my clone. He wore it without any expressions on his face. I called Dr. Banerjee on phone. He must be waiting for this. At the next moment the clone vanished from his bed.

I felt little sad that I should have at least said something to him before he vanished. Of course, there was no meaning telling him, "Hope to see you soon..."

I then called Shirish in the room. He had a question mark on his face. I signaled him that the clone was gone. But Shirish went all around the room, even the attached bathroom, to confirm that there was only one occupant in the room.

He then smiled and said, "Now I can say that the one who vanished was the clone. For the last few days I was in touch with both of you one at a time but was never sure whether I was dealing with the real you or your clone whenever I was doing that..."

We just looked at each other and smiled. No words were necessary.

So, friends, my clone was finally discarded. You can meet me as before. But just be a little more careful before dealing with me. Nobody knows whether Dr. Banerjee's machine produced only one clone or made many copies without his knowledge. Accidents do take place when a scientist like Dr. Banerjee does experiments all alone....