by Jeevanjyoti Chakraborty
[box] The idea of Nuovo Spark would not be new for the old reader. For the uninitiated, it is Jeevanjyoti’s avatar of the present-day Spark many centuries from now or more precisely, the revived version of Spark post what he calls the Big Crisis, after which the world transitions to a totally new way of living. Get ready to travel to the future. Jeevanjyoti Chakraborty writes a short story to represent the December 2011 issue themed ‘Time Machine’.[/box] [box type=”info”]MONTH: December 2011
THEME: TIME MACHINE
CONCEPT: Hop on to the Time Machine and revisit the past or zoom to the future. The issue turned out to be an amazing journey.
FEATURED WRITER OF DECEMBER 2011: Ashwin Sanghi, Author of ‘The Rozabal Line’ and ‘Chanakya’s Chant’.
The last issue of 2011. We have realised that when December approaches we are both relieved and excited. Relieved because we managed to pull off yet another year of publishing Spark successfully. Excited because we are all set to begin the next year. Time Machine is a theme that struck us almost in the last minute and while it was a rather small issue, the December 2011 edition was a revelation of sorts. Much to our delight we saw the contributions falling into an interesting scheme. It was about fantasy, introspection and human perception of Time. And with that we were all set to celebrate our second anniversary and more importantly, publish our 25th issue! [/box]
“Dad, you do remember about the speech you have been invited to give at our school, right?”
“What? Oh yeah… yeah… of course I remember …” answered Vidya’s father, a little absent-mindedly as he intently oversaw three of his junior colleagues poring over one of the clunky consoles in the giant ReVive Hall. He had always felt a special attachment to these machines bearing testimony to the reality of an ancient era.
“So, what are you going to talk about?”
“Hmm… uhh … I was thinking … well… given that I will be speaking as a representative of Nuovo SPARK, I could speak on the importance of cultivating the habit of writing for its own sake …”
“Oh come on, Dad… nobody wants to hear another lecture … can’t you come out with something more imaginative … you are the one always prodding me on to be creative and all that … ”
“Hmph.” Vidya’s Dad fell silent and went back to overseeing the repair of the console. Vidya went back to reading from an Old Print Sheet.
A little later, the machine flickered back to life. Vidya’s dad, palpably relieved, now sat down with an intelligent smile on his face. Vidya knew that look. “So, what is it?”
“I could speak about the inception of Nuovo SPARK itself, you know … from the last years of the Big Crisis.”
“Yes… yes… that will be cool!”
“Your love for those archaic words is growing into habitual usage, it seems… cool again! Anyway, I could dig up some old document … and that would set up an authentic historical …”
“Yes … that is definitely cooool…er … let’s do it now… let’s dig up an old dossier …”
“Now?! What’s the hurry?”
“Dad, you know, how much I love this vintage stuff … please let’s do it now… I can’t wait to see what treasure you find out for the speech … please!”
“Okay … I don’t see the harm… we are anyway already in the ReVive room! Let me see if I can find some of those earliest dossiers … ”
Vidya and her father spent the next hour rummaging through retrievals via the Old Platform Styler and cross-linking accession codes. Finally, when they saw it, they both knew what they were looking for. It was a letter addressed from the Editor of the old mother enterprise of Nuovo SPARK to the Secretary for Transition during the final days of the Big Crisis. In the description of that dossier it said: “This single letter is the primary reason Spark was not terminated and was allowed to make it across the Transition.”
“Come to think of it, Vidya, what you are about to read was written six centuries ago!” As Vidya pressed the dimly flashing ACCESS tab, she felt herself transported back to that historic day and age…
“Dear Mr. Secretary, Date: 2.564/5/10
You are a man of science. I am a man of letters. So is my enterprise. And, I know that we do not have anything to contribute to the needs of science and technology. This might seem to be reason enough to terminate our existence before the coming Transition. I also understand that at this crucial juncture when the very existence of mankind is at stake, when the unknown future looms large, sacrifices have to be made to prune all the frills, and retain the bare essential minimum to ensure the best possible chance for the persistence of mankind. I do appreciate that.
What I wish to bring to your attention, however, is that in this hurried preparation of biblical proportions for the upcoming transition when the greatest care is being taken to give man the best shot at existence, in a possible New Era, perhaps existence is being mistakenly equated with human life. It is not his capability of mere existence that makes man what he is or has been, even with all his follies, through these thousands of years. Rather it is his singular capacity for civilisation, his innate, irrepressible desire to live beyond the humdrum motions of existence, his love for beauty, his hunger for the abstract and his curiosity for the unknown that truly defines him. Take those away, and he will be no better than another animal, his existence perhaps moderated by the gifts of technology, but shorn of his higher passions, he is still an animal. For every bunch of stone spears found by archaeologists, there exists a cave painting.
Our enterprise is a product of this millennium. We were one of the pioneering few enterprises back in the early days of the first century to adopt, and not adapt to, the then radical paradigms both in writing and publishing. If there is any one enterprise that can lay claim to be the custodians of what have now become norms in the publishing industry, it is us. Also, more than anybody else, through the sheer strength of our active persistence over these last five-and-a-half centuries, we have the accumulated wealth of a substantial segment of the non-professional artistic output of the peoples of a number of nations. This veritable cornucopia of the expression of beauty and freedom is a heritage of human civilization itself as it rose, stumbled and tottered through all the days of this millennium. In the excruciatingly trying days to come, human beings deserve not to be denied this heritage, and the lessons it holds of life and human follies – perhaps even those that led, in part, to this dystopian Big Crisis.
Therefore, while we cannot make any product that will ensure the existence of humans, we can however try and ensure that the existence itself will indeed be humane. And so, if you feel that you have ensured enough stone spears, you will probably give our cave paintings a chance.
Hoping to exist, and then to live,
Editor, Spark”
Both father and daughter sat still with faraway looks while the console dimly flashed the accession date: 3.227/2/12
Jeevanjyoti Chakraborty is doing his PhD at IIT Kharagpur in Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, specifically theoretical Electrokinetics, after obtaining an Integrated Degree of B.Tech and M.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from the same place in 2009. Jeevan believes that in science and technology, it takes a lifetime of effort and discipline to be really creative within the rules, and genius to bend those or form new ones. As a welcome break from that discipline, he finds that in literature, creativity comes with ease and with the immediate gratification of momentary inspiration. Even in this paradise of carefree thoughts, he loves the wacky and the improbable. He adores delightful twists, clever word-plays and ideas which turn conventional wisdom on its head.
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