The eye of the lion

Shailesh Vajpayee looked at the bottle of Scotch in front of him, to one side of his computer keyboard, deep in somber thoughts.

He had been sitting there for a long time, in the cold artificial atmosphere required by delicate super-computers in order to function adequately, contemplating his life, his family, his career, and - with growing anxiety - the work he found himself involved in.

Finally he made up his mind, and with a firm hand he poured himself a glass of whiskey.

He thought about the religion his parents and grand-parents practiced fervently, in distant Uthar Pradesh, which prohibited the ingestion of alcoholic beverages, but he waved the thought away like an annoying fly. He took a sip and let the delicate taste of malt caress his throat and help him chase away the demons that surrounded him, but it didn’t help much. He looked at his

reflection in one of the computer screens on his desk, and for a few seconds he didn’t recognize himself. The tired-looking man, his face pale from lack of sleep, (despite his dark skin) didn’t much resemble the vibrant young man who hardly a year before had surprised the world by becoming the youngest Nobel Prize winner, in the Biology category.

The prize, presented by his majesty the King of Sweden, had been awarded to him for his extraordinary work in the study of the role played by complex proteins in the new cloning processes. The prize had rendered him world-famous overnight, and had made him a celebrity in his native India. His telephone, just like his father had predicted many years before, started ringing on that great day, and didn’t stop.

But now, a year later, he was an exhausted, spent young man. An exhaustion that was more than physical, it was moral, a spiritual burnout. And it wasn’t because of the work itself. Hard work had always been a part of his life, since his early childhood. And lately, before Nobel. God only knew how hard he had worked, sublimating that mind that many called genius, in order to unearth the most hidden secrets of the human gene.

But no, it wasn’t the hard work that his body and mind were used to that had driven to him to that state of collapse. No, he knew that. It was the nature of the work, its ethico-moral

implications. Its cosmic significance. That was what was consuming him.

It had all started when Voquessi, the great Cardinal, had entered his life, hardly had he won the prize.

The future was promising, and the numerous offers of work in large corporations, from all over the world, were juicy and tempting.

They ranged from key positions in food or pharmaceutical industries, with astronomical salaries and enviable benefits, to highly coveted jobs such as that of professor in famous universities.

In those days, Vajpayee was still at Stanford, tying up a few loose ends, when people started to approach him with offers. Among them, one fine day Monsignor Bruno Voquessi appeared.

Vajpayee was not surprised that the priest should pay him a visit, as it was because of his role in the public domain that Voquessi, as well as administrating the powerful Ambrosian bank and swelling the Vatican’s piggy-bank, had interest in the food and farming industries. So it wasn’t strange for the Cardinal to show interest in the promising young genius, but it was strange that he should pay him a personal visit.

Voquessi had gotten straight to the point almost immediately after the customary greetings and congratulations.

“I won’t waste your time, my young friend, or my own, in formalities. Would you be interested in participating in one of the most extraordinary genetic projects in history, and what is more, making a fortune doing it?”

Vajpayee had looked at him, his eyes half-closed, but with a gleam that betrayed his interest, completely ignoring the monetary part of the question.

“What are you talking about, father?”

Voquessi had smiled enigmatically before answering,

“About immortality.”