🪶 Backstory
I started speaking when I was 9 months old, they say, and started writing when I was around 3 years old, I remember. Very soon, thereafter, I discovered books! I realised I could enter different worlds, at will, and spend hours wandering inside those worlds. I devoured books, and I remembered most of what I read. Thus it’s come to pass that I vividly remember (together with the illustrations that accompanied it) a story I read in one of the old books that my father had read as a child. Allow me to recap the story here.
Arun was the zamindar's child. He spent all his days with Dinu, his caretaker, an old retainer who pampered and admonished Arun in equal measure. The bond between them was strong; Arun never slept without Dinu at his side, and Dinu never ate before feeding Arun first.
And then, one day, Dinu died. Arun cried a lot, but grew up like all boys do. He went off to the big city for education and then, when his father died, returned to the village to handle the zamindari. It was during one of his strolls around his vast fields that he saw Dinu sitting under the shade of the mango tree.
"Dinu kaka", exclaimed Arun in bewilderment. "Aren't you dead?"
"That I am", laughed Dinu. "I am now an assistant to Yamaraj. You see that man there, by the side of the pond your grandfather got dug?"
Arun looked towards his left, spotted a man thrashing his dhoti on the stone slab at the pond's bank, and nodded. "Yes, I do."
"I've come to take him", said Dinu.
"Oh?" Arun turned and looked at that man again and there, right in front of his eyes, he saw the wet dhoti slip from the man's hand and the man toppling over the stone slab and lying still. Arun turned towards Dinu, and found him gone.
Months passed. Another day, another stroll through his property, and Arun saw Dinu again.
"Dinu kaka?"
Dinu smiled. "Yes, child."
Arun looked around him. His gaze landed on a caravan of carts far away on the village road. He looked back at Dinu, who nodded, still smiling.
"May I ask something of you", Arun said.
"Sure", responded Dinu.
"When you know it's my time, will you give me some indication, some signal, some sort of warning that it's time? So that I can prepare."
"Sure child", said Dinu.
Arun looked at the bullock cart procession. It had halted, and there seemed to be some commotion there. When he looked back at Dinu, he saw no one.
Years passed. One day, Arun was nodding off in his easy chair when he saw Dinu.
"Kaka?"
Dinu nodded.
Arun looked around. There was no one else that he could see. "Kaka?!" Arun's voice assumed a pitch that was higher than normal.
Dinu nodded again.
"But, but, you said you'll warn me", Arun was stammering now.
Dinu's eyes were gentle. "I did warn you. I first took away your eyesight. I then took your teeth one by one. And then, I took away your gait. You're almost blind, you can no longer eat anything except khichuri, and can't walk without a helper by your side. How many more warnings do you need?"
"But, Kaka, my affairs aren't in order yet", Arun panicked.
"You didn't heed the warnings, child, what can I do? It's time now."
Minutes passed. The sun had set. A retainer came in to place a lamp on the table, and found Arun's motionless body.
We are warned. We’re given ample warnings, well ahead of time, to indicate that our time on this plane is almost over.
We choose to ignore those signs.
I was reminded of this story, very powerfully, last week at a hospital I’d gone to with my mother for a follow-up check after her surgery three weeks ago. While we were waiting, a young doctor came around and asked whether I’d like to volunteer to be part of a study they were doing to gather metrics that could help detect early signs of neurological disorder. I agreed.
The tests took almost 45 minutes, and consisted of mental arithmetic, verbal reasoning, short term memory recall, vocabulary, current affairs, and several tests around hand motor functions. One of these tests was about having to write 10 or 12 sentences about my last vacation.
That test became the trigger for InkSlate. Handwriting is closely related to brain-muscle coordination and precision. What if there was a fun app that could detect the signs?
