En Iniya Iyandira (My Dear Machine in English)

If ever I was asked to pick one tele-serial I enjoyed in my whatever short life, I would pick this serial amidst the heaps of junk-mega-serials like Gayathri, Chithi, Varisu, Varpugal, Kula Vilakku.... The televised version of this serial was a trashy rehash of a real science fiction by the same name written by a legendary Late Mr. Sujatha. Most (I think all) of his works are in tamil and I never quite had the chance to read them while I was back in India. In London, for the 33% tax that you pay a library is one good value you get (apart from the clean air, gardens, parks etc). After I enrolled myself in the Barham Park Library, I was amazed by the amount of tamil books they had and read my first book from this legend. The story was "Priya" which was made into a movie with the same name starring Rajinikanth. The original story, which is a proper detective thriller was rehashed to be an action movie with 3-4 fight sequences and toned in some places to suit the tamil movie industry. After that I have read novels like "September Bali", "Pirivom Sandhipom 1 & 2".....stop stop where were we? Ok, En Iniya Iyandira.

This is a story written in the 70s I believe (or in the late 80s) and Sujatha lays this story in the year 2032 where

• Robots are employed for all manual chores
• Birth and death are controlled - you need to have a government order to give birth to a kid
  
• Everyone has a identification number and you are a "number" to the government
• Infrastructure is well developed
• Robots are used as pets from doing small chores to entertaining people.

The heroine Nila has got a Government Order allowing her to have a kid, I think the allowance is for a girl kid and if it happens to a boy kid the government takes care of killing it (Yes, Infant murder still prevails....) On the same night her husband has committed a crime against the government and is taken by the government. Nila is not given any details about why he is arrested or where he is kept or if he is alive etc.

All Nila has is a small robot dog called "Juno" to win the game that is extremely loaded against her. "Juno" has been taught heuristic algorithms and machine learning, so during the start of the story Juno starts as a powerless harmless servile Robot but towards the end of the story, Juno has used his machine learning and improved his knowledge so much that he starts to develop feelings like fear, love, pleasance and starts appreciating beauty (He says that he would love Nila if he was a human).

Now Juno is portrayed extremely well by Sujatha that I would go on to say it was the best character portrayal among all the novels I have ever read (English included). It starts out to be a Robo and through the course of things learns most things and ends up uncovering the fact that the President of India, is just a holographic projection (Apparently a student from IIT Chennai has sent a detailed letter in the 80s to Sujatha the writer stating that this holographic thing is technically impossible).

All in all, if you ever get a chance to lay your hands on this book dont miss it!!!! It has traces of Matrix, i-robot but remember this was written in the 80s. Some nice lines from the story (translated in english)

Nila: Tell me Juno, I am so confused, should I go into the cell or not?
Juno: I am not the one to make decisions, I can present only statistical figures on probability.

Another charactar: Will it pain Juno if they shoot us with that laser gun?
Juno: I dont understand what you say (Obviously a robot doesnt know pain yet).

Nila: Did you say the garden is beautiful?
Juno: Yes I seem to feel certain things. I can see the garden is beautiful, and so are you :)