Human cloning, or rather the collective imagination of it, has arguably set the maximum number of tongues wagging. To a rather uncomplicated person like myself, unused to zigzag explanations, human cloning is the art of reproduction without, ahem, getting into the act. Such an explanation lends itself to immense possibilities. Designer babies with a shelf life and an operating manual might no longer be the pumped up fantasy of a Hollywood scriptwriter. And with Marx and his revolution long dead and buried and the moneybags romping around the world in gay abandon, branded babies might well be the next evolutionary step. Soon after, parents might have to make toughest decision of their lives -- whether to go in for the big McDonald guy or the cute Pizza Hut girl. But, while the West is still agog with the prospect of the double trouble cloning might cause, Indians have been practising -- I say this with my tongue completely in my cheek -- this art for years now. Many of us are either carbon copies ourselves, or are in the process of becoming one. Invariably, Indian families always have a role model, whose specifications, academic or otherwise, become standards to which all the other children are expected to conform. And this role model, almost every time, is a doctor or an engineer. And for all the fancy degrees of the role model, other happy-go-lucky kids in the family are made to pay the price. This ONE person acquires the status of a demi-god, and at an age when you are more interested in the Demi Moores of the world, you are asked, nay forced, to follow Mr Perfect's exalted footsteps. And that's not where it ends. The compilation of stories associated with him can give a Booker Prize-winner a complex. Then there are the countless relatives who claim to have spotted his brilliance early on, something that our role model would never have figured out himself. The role model, for his part, will be more than happy to dish out tips, tricks and short-cuts to success, all of course free to boot, to be lapped up by eager parents impatient to transform their toad-like kids into charming princes. In this more often than not successful cloning exercise, many artists, poets, leaders, writers and sportsmen are stifled in their infancy. Now, did I hear someone say that s/he is against human cloning? Surely, you must be joking. Manish Khandelwal is trying his best to get out of his cloned self. Tell us what you think of this diary Be part of an exciting venture! Write a Diary!
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