Unit number 2118. Not the year. Although I wish it was 99 years in the future. What would 12 days in the hospital look like?
Nanobots injected in the bloodstream to perform detailed topographical scans of the capillaries and brain. Sent back to a 3D software model on which artificial intelligence algorithms, coupled with the genetic profile of the patient, perform hundreds of tests to arrive at the best prognosis of the ailment.
In this case, a major brain hemorrhage necessitated surgery performed by robot surgeons. The only difference being that no scar tissue was allowed to be formed, instead any portion of the brain that was damaged was immediately allowed to grow back using nanobots and patient's stem cells. Mental faculties are re-developed with virtual training sessions tailored to the patient's individual mental profile.
Kidney failure requires new kidneys to be grown in a lab using the patients' stem cells. These are surgically replaced one at a time by robotic surgeons.
Alas, it all happened too early. and none of the above technologies currently exist to help Dad recover. It's just a waiting game, a numbers game, a reactionary game. Read the numbers, react with dialysis, wait, repeat.
While Dad's health deteriorates, outside in the streets of Delhi, there are protests. Protests against a law passed by cruel men whose agenda is exclusion and division. Rational and higher-order thought is amiss. Just as Dad's was suspended after his surgery. The more basic, tribal thinking dominated the mainstream. Intelligence faded away.
And now, the India of old is on the brink. Dad's health seems to mirror the state of democracy in India. The old order of a pluralistic, inclusive, progressive India is on life support. As is Dad.
In many ways, Dad's professional trajectory has mirrored that of India. Starting in the late 70s through the 80s, the violence in Punjab and Indira Gandhi's emergency manifest most starkly in Ferozpur and such places. Dad was in the center of it.
The 90s started off with the liberalization of the economy, spearheaded by Dr Manmohan Singh. Dad's professional life mirrored this trend with many positions held in the financial sector.
In the 2000s, Dad moved to Delhi where the Congress party was in power, with Manmohan Singh at the helm. Dad worked for many years to finally make it to the Ministry of Finance working closely with P. Chidambaram. He was now guiding the economic direction of India. Then came the zenith of his career as Chief Secretary, Punjab. Finally, his long and illustrious career topped off as Secretary Steel.
Then came the drop. In 2016, the world shifted. The economic-political landscape shifted. And a giant fell. He was propped up, but never the same again.
So here we are 3 years later. It's 2019, not 2118. Because in the year 2118, we would have more control over our destinies, and our bodies. But 99 years earlier, in 2019, we are here.
- December 20, 2019
