Breaking the silence and breaking a knee

I never intended this blog to be just a chronicle of events I go through in life and so I have consciously refrained from making posts that are purely personal. This one is an exception since the last month has been one which offered one of those ‘first time experiences’….difficult to forget. That…and somewhere I am feeling very guilty about the silence on the blog for over a month.

Aug 2006…most part of the month was spent limping around the streets of Bangalore (thanks to a bad knee)…begging auto drivers to take me back to my house…which is located in an area that is clearly not amongst one of their favorites. Finding an auto from home is even worse. I can never spot one close to home and ironically whenever I spot one at a distance craning my neck and waving my hands desperately trying to catch his attention…people mysteriously appear around me making their way towards that same lone auto…with me limping in the background…muttering under my breath. ‘Heartless creature…just because you can walk faster than me… does not give you any right to steal the auto that I spotted first’

What can be worse than a painfully stiff knee? I don’t have to think much about that answer. Its is a painfully stiff knee PLUS not knowing what caused it to happen. Have spent the last 3 weeks trying to conjure up possible reasons for its occurrence, asking doctors who have - paraphrased my questions and thrown those back at me, explaining to people that I honestly don’t know how it happened and getting strange looks from them in return and then there are people who know me really well…who nod their head in resignment as though to suggest ‘such things can only happen to you…why am I not surprised?’

The long ride to the operation theatre lying down i recall was quite a disorienting experience. All I could see was bright tube lights on the ceiling alternatively flashing at me and disappearing. Each time I tried to raise my neck up to see how far I had reached I heard a stern voice from behind me…madame…please lie down…I have half a mind to say ‘but why…why should I lie down - when I can sit enjoy the ride and smile at strangers along the way…its just my knee which is affected...the rest of me is fine.

As I entered a rather somber looking zone - ensconced within which lay the rooms where people like me would be operated…I wonder how people who opt for cosmetic surgical procedures are insane enough to willing put themselves through such an experience. I am made to wait in room where there are 4 others like me clothed in green and absolutely silent. The atmosphere is closest to one I have seen at airports…people on stretchers are made to queue up - like air planes on a tarmac waiting before take off. It’s as busy in there as well. 25 – 30 operations per days between the 2 operation theaters – I am told. The silence in the waiting area breaks by the sound of the 98.3 Radio FM jockey…which has been turned on at my request to compensate for my I-Pod which has been taken away despite my doctors promise that I would be allowed to carry it with me inside. The song cannot be more opportune…sunidhi chauhan crooning…marne se pehle jeena… seekh le. By this time, tired of lying down, I have defied the orders and am sitting up straight on my wheelie bed following the grim faced, green masked denizens as they pace up and down with surgical instruments in hand. A rather chirpy doctor – anesthetist pair wave out at me from the other end of the waiting room before coming close and realizing that I am not the patient they are supposed to operate on. We break into a giggle and while I am still gazing in amazement at their high spirits – distinctly out of place - with the rest of the ambience…in a split second I am made to lie down and am taken in.

I have lost my vantage point and all I can see now is bright lights atop with pale blue tiles on the surround walls and about 6 – 7 men / women – some bespectacled – asking me a rapid fire of questions…

Right knee or left knee?
Are you allergic to any medications?
Is this your first surgery? ….

Post a spinal anesthesia - I am given some drug that has me partially sedated. The music player is perched on one corner of the room and I continue to listen to a mélange of doctor speak and FM radio. I shiver…not out of fear but due to the spine chilling room temperature. My teeth chatter and in my partially sedated state I try to recollect when the anesthetist asked me the night before whether I have any lose teeth – is this what he meant? I have only a semi conscious recollection of what transpires during the next 1.5 hours. More FM radio, conversations that ranged from my profession…to my interest in how surgery is performed under hypnosis…to my stay in Ireland…to Guinness beer. Of course I also see the entire arthroscopic surgery on the TV screen which at the time seemed like I was just watching a science video.

It all ends with my surgeon asking me – so what do you like better…Ireland or our operation theatre…and my reply…I don’t think I enjoyed my stay in Ireland as much as I enjoyed my experience here. After exchanging the thank you(s) and goodbyes - my surgeon and anesthetist leave.

Out of the operation theatre once again I crane my neck out to look up at the world outside and I see a bee line of eager smiling strangers looking back at me.

The journey in and out of that operation theatre - on the wheelie bed has changed my perspective about operations…hospitals…doctors – forever! Of course…if I could just get over my fear of the MRI scan machine…and stop thinking that if I look straight ahead at it…it will suck me in…I’d say…I’ve done it!!!

Meeting AIBO

Think of a robot…and what comes to your mind?

A creature (…one I cannot define or slot as something I have seen / encountered before)…that moves in a slow, deliberate fashion…something that is pre-programmed to do a set of simple tasks…perhaps walk a short distance, pick up an object and reach it to you. If it trips and falls down…something that would make a buzzing noise to catch the owner’s attention…

I would not certainly associate emotions…feelings…moods…with robots. In fact the two I would have thought were on diametrically opposite ends of a spectrum.

Robot = something mechanical…someone or something that responds automatically without thought / emotion. And by extension…the character of a robot (as opposed to that of a living being) would define one's interaction with it. So if I had to think about myself interacting with the robot, I would imagine myself giving it ‘directions’...to do things...at best. I could not imagine ‘talking’ to one…and quite honestly If I would see someone ‘talking’ to a robot / playing with it…I’d think the person has either lost his sanity, is terribly lonely or is one of those with the ‘geek strain’ who gets excited at the thought of gizmos.

I know that I never had that ‘geek strain’. Since like most women (and here I make an assumption that technology does not excite women), and at the risk of sounding absolutely sacrilegious to my male counterparts…I’d say that for me an IPOD was a music player, much like any other…or a mobile phone was a mobile phone…whether it is my basic Nokia 3310 or the one with the latest alphanumeric code suffixed to it. I seriously would not get that ‘butterfly in my stomach feeling’ at the launch of the next generation X-Box.

But last week I met AIBO and it changed my perspective on robots and technology.

At first I stood at a safe distance and just watched people…the whole experience of watching humans interact with a robot was so captivating that I stood there for more than half a day watching people stroke its head and rub its back…hold their hand forward to its paw. I watched AIBO respond to it being called by name, it played in its pen, sat down when it was tired, tried to grab its bone and even made a sad face :( when it dropped the bone.

I saw people talk to him…Good boy…hear take this…as naturally as they would. There was no feeling of hesitation, embarrassment or of ‘being watched’ by others in the crowd

I saw children giggle and play

I saw men from the museum staff… (and I thought men would not do that at the risk of sounding stupid)…come up to him at the end of the day and say…Bye AIBO…see you tomo

For the whole time that I stood next to that exhibit in a museum, not for once did I realize that it was not a dog…it was a robot!

By the end of the day, I had grown to like AIBO and wanted to take back a picture of him with me…AIBO surprised me by standing up and posing for the picture :)

It amazes me to see that what technology can accomplish. That robots can recognize voices and people and faces…that they can talk…dance…sing to you…emote. They respond to what you tell them, they learn and remember what you teach them (one can teach AIBO new tricks that it will remember).

Sony, has circumvented the conventional concept of robots and positioned AIBO and later QRIO as ‘entertainment robots’ that don’t do anything. AIBO is just there as an entertaining and lovable pet that no one would expect to be useful and as for QRIO, it’s more like a playful child…“QRIO’s dreams are limitless. But one is clear: to make your life fun and happy” explains the promotional text on Sony’s Web site

At the end of this post I feel calling AIBO and QRIO robots would be doing injustice to their character, (etymologically the word robot is derived from roots that connote ‘labor’ or 'slave labor'...there is always some reference to ‘work’) Perhaps just as a new category of robots is born, we’ll soon see a new word in the lexicon that describes these complex creatures…playbots perhaps…pardon my lack of creativity!

Categories: Wandering Around_ ,