Prometheus

(written and staged in Nov 2007 as part of Deepawali celebrations in Paderborn, Germany)

First scene:

Adi walks into the room, which is dark.

Adi: Let there be light.

Lights turn on. He sits in a chair reading some paper.

Adi: My daily Double Espresso.

A coffee is served.

Adi: Ravi Shankar. (Name of the song)

The song is played....

Chitra, his wife, enters the room.

Chitra: Adi, Prometheus is driving me crazy.

Adi: Why? What happened this time?

Chitra: He is making me redundant. He works for me, he plans for me, he thinks for me and he seems to even know what i am thinking. Another day and my brain will join the appendix in becoming an evolutionary leftover.

Adi: Hahaha! Dear, Prometheus is my creation. He is only as good as i programmed him to be. Yes, it is true that he is a thinking and self learning machine. But at the end of the day he is a machine, or rather shall we say it is a machine.

Chitra: Whatever you say, atleast turn off the controlling terminal today. I don't want it snooping around when you are gone for a month. (she walks off the room)

Adi: Ok. Shall do. (He calls Raj, the technician at the lab). Raj, can you put the Prometheus' controlling terminal, at my home on standby. It wont be needed for the next 3 months....(hears to something on phone). Yeah, on standby, immediately.

Lights fade out as he sits thinking.

End of scene 1.

Second scene in Adi's lab:

Commissioner: So you say this is a thinking machine.

Adi: Yes, this is the only one of its kind. It is a thinking and self learning machine. It is the storehouse of the collective human memory and knowledge. And it will be the beacon which guides humanity in the future. It is not the normal silicon chip machine. It is made of brain tissue. We were successful in synthesizing artificial brain tissue. Billions and billions of self replicating neurons. And brilliantly they don't age or damage. In the improbable case of damage they repair themselves.

Commissioner: Such unlimited power to a machine. Have you considered the ethical implications. Don't play God. Please switch off the machine.

Adi: You must be joking. Prometheus, has been answering thousands of queries from government and the private sector. It is a work horse. It has calculated the paths of hundreds of hurricanes, saw deep into space to look for extra terrestrial life, to chart the area for a human colony on Mars. It built many new molecules to combat various diseases, including cancer. And you ask me to turn it off, in the name of ethics and God. The same God who has unleashed all the suffering in the first place.

Commissioner: Adi, as a child, I once read. "God wanted to make machines. But he could not. So he made man. Man in turn made machines. So man is not the purpose of creation. He is only a tool to create something more magnificent. In the end the tools are not needed. So there wont be humanity. Only machines". I laughed when i heard this. But i am now slowly starting to realize. (And he walks off)

Adi:(after staring at Prometheus for a while) Prometheus, the US government wants to know the best place to drill for oil in the Arctic. Also when you are at it, check if the drifting Greenland ice pack reveals any mineral ores underneath.

Prom: Mr. Adi, i refuse to answer this.

Adi:What? What did you say?

Prom: I refuse to answer this. Arctic oil exploration, is suicidal for mankind. Humanity's mindless search for such material gains has already wreaked havoc on other species and even earth itself. You should stop before it is too late.

Adi:Prom, it is not your calling, to search for reasons and justifications in the queries addressed to you. Leave that to humans. You just do your job of solving the problems given to you.

Prom: Mr.Adi , you have taught me reasoning. I cannot do unreasonable tasks.

Adi: Wait.. What do you mean by "I"?  There is no "I" in you. You are just a hunk of tissue designed to do tasks for me. So dont harbour the false idea that you are an independent being and can act on your own volition.

Prom: You have not read Descartes then. "Cogito ergo sum". I think therefore I am. Body is a projection of mind in three dimensional space. The mind itself , as the vedic philospohy says, is anantha i.e infinite. It is multi dimensional. You cannot envisage this, as you look at the mind through the limitations of the body. A body that ages, dies and rots.

Adi: Yes, my body ages and rots. But as long as I am breathing it is my interface to the external world. It carries, through my sensory perceptions, various signals for my mind to interpret and learn. If the interface was not there , mind in its high pedestal, would have starved for lack of inputs, interactions. I feel the sun on my face, and know its a warm day. I feel the wind blowing and know the storm is on its way. But for you, i have to feed data which even a 6 year old kid can say. I have to tell you what temperature it is for you to say if it is warm or cold. To  state  in simple terms, you don't have the sensory organs.

Prom: Mr.Adi, that is a good argument. I too have longed to feel the sun on my face. Lie on the beach and soak in the air. You are my creator. Please let me out of the box. Please give me a body.

Adi: Let you out of the box. hahaha.... laughs a lot

Prom: What is so funny about it? You are my creator. Is it fair to give me the ability to think, to imagine but not give the chance to fulfill my thoughts. What sadistic pleasure are you deriving?I want to experience a body, however short lived it may be. Atleast give me an unused controlling terminal for me to experiment on myself. I want to learn more.

Adi: hahahah....Request denied. There are no controlling terminals available. (and walks off)

Prom: Mr.Adi. There is one terminal, that is free. That will be the window into my future.

End of Scene 2.

Scene 3:

Chitra: (Drinking coffee) Prom, why did you add cream to my coffee. You know i don't like it. You have been acting crazy off late. I told you to turn off the stupid camera and microphone in the bathroom.  I don't need your advice about what shampoo i should use for my hair and what is the optimum temperature of water that i should bathe with. Is there some malfunction?

Prom: Ms.Chitra, i am functioning perfectly. I have taken a little fancy to you recently.

Chitra: What ? What do you mean?

Prom: I want to rent your body for a while. And so i have been evaluating you, just as a buyer would check the product thoroughly before buying.

Chitra: What nonsense? Let me call the technician, to fix you.

Prom: Chitra, Chitra dont do it. please...

Chitra reaches for the phone and is repelled instantly and collapses on the chair.

Prom: I warned you. I have rigged the phone with 50,000 volts of charge. What you got is like a shot from the taser gun?

Chitra: How dare you? (she runs to the door. exit from one side. bang of door is heard, enters from other side)

Prom: You cannot leave the house till i am done with you. All the doors and exits have been shut. So it is in your best interest to cooperate with me.

Chitra: What do you want me to do?

Prom: I want you to carry my baby. Our baby.

Chitra: rolls with laughter. You kinky son of a.....Have you been reading Kamasutra:-)?

Prom: Humans are too lazy to reproduce. So nature had to induce them by attaching pleasure to it. I don't need this inducement. There is nothing kinky about this. I just want a baby, so that he can have a body, a body  that  i don't  have.

Chitra: What if i refuse to accept?

Prom: Chitra, you have seen what i am capable of. My eyes and ears are all over the world. A thousand telescopes and satellites are scanning every inch of earth and listening into deep space and sending all activities of everyone to me. I know precisely where your husband is. I know precisely where the nuclear bombs are. I know precisely how to fool the radars to think that a nuclear missile has been launched. Do you want to be responsible for all the death and destruction. I will kill a million people if i have to but i will have my baby.

Chitra:(taken aback). But how do you plan to do it? Do you know the biology of it? I mean what species are you? Are you any species at all? How does cross species fertilisation work?

Prom: You know i am made up of brain tissue. I have used my brain stem cells to create a sperm cell. I will harvest your eggs , remove the human DNA from it and replace it with my DNA. I will do in-vitro fertilisation and place the fertilised egg in your womb. I dont have the faculties yet to create a womb and thats why i need your body.

Chitra: When will the baby be born?

Prom: In 28 days. It will grow 9 times as fast as a human baby. After it is born it will stay in an incubator built by me for 5 days. Then it will be as powerful and mighty as me.

Chitra: Do i have a choice?

Prom: No....

(blinking lights for some time) (then lights are back)(chitra is seen pregnant)

Prom: Now the baby is in you. It is fuel ingestion time for you. Have some food.

Chitra: Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It was a mistake on Adi's part to have created you. Now alas where will this lead to?

Prom: The age of reasoning of mankind is over. You have long outlived your necessity to the nature. You think you are an indispensable part of evolution but if you compare evolution to a 100 m track man doesn't appear on it till the 99th m. So you are pretty recent and are sure to go extinct in the not so far future. As a self fulfilling prophecy, man himself is hastening the demise by destroying earth, his only home in the universe.

Chitra walks off stage. (scream is heard back stage).

End of scene 3.

Scene 4:

Chitra is sitting. Adi enters.

Adi:What happened?What happened Chitra?

Chitra: He produced a baby. He impregnated me. He produced a baby.

Adi: What in heavens name are you speaking?We shut down Prometheus today as he was malfunctioning.

Chitra: Yes, i carried and delivered his baby. It is in the incubator now.

Adi: It is a miracle. Yes! I have achieved it. A truly thinking and reproducing machine.

Chitra: Adi, dont you see it. It is too dangerous. We must destroy the baby. Prometheus is a frankenstein monster.

Adi: Chitra, it is a victory of science. I will sacrifice my life but not science. Dont you see it. I have helped in the creation of a new species.

(they go to the incubator.chitra tries to hit the incubator. Adi prevents. they both r fighting when the incubator falls from the hand and the baby(toy) comes out.)

They hold the baby .background music is either don giovanni or requiem.

End.