Data warehouse of the future!

The house rang with voices and laughter as Vindhya went around with a tray of Rasna glasses. The kids merrily snatched a glass of Rasna whenever they felt like, while the adults hesitated and hemmed and hawed before taking a glass. It was the day after her sister’s wedding, and Vindhya felt drained of all energy. She wished she could have just gone to work as usual. The constant smiling, exchanging of pleasantries, the idle gossip, were all taxing for her.

Raghu, her husband had conveniently slipped off to work, unmindful of Vindhya’ s predicament. Being scientists on the same team at work helped when it came to sparing time for their child or domestic work. But on such occasions, Raghu slipped away like an eel from his responsibilities. “I wonder if he’s got any ideas for our new project”, wondered Vindhya as she went about her chores.

An old aunt was just enquiring about the exact measurements of spices in her Rasam when she heard a loud cry. Instinctively, she knew it was Sanju, her daughter. She rushed outside to the courtyard where the children had been playing. “Ammaaaaaa!!!” Sanju’s voice pierced the air as Vindhya appeared, and Sanju came running up to her and hugged her, tears streaming down her face.

“What’s wrong, Sanju? Did anyone hurt you?” asked Vindhya, concerned and upset to see Sanju so distressed. She was their only child, and the apple of their eye. She looked around and saw the other children standing sheepishly. She could see that Sanju was the youngest of the lot, and had probably been bullied by the rest.

“Amma, that- that – Akka- told me- I am adopted— not your child— and that I don’t look like you—or Appa— and—” Sanju said in between sobs. “They --laughed at me and refused to --play with me!”
Vindhya almost laughed in relief. It was just a silly fight among kids. Just some frivolous teasing. But her heart skipped a beat, when she thought of how close it had come to that being a reality. Years of not having a child, years of waiting, wanting and praying. And almost at the moment they were about to give up, they had been blessed with Sanju. It was quite a miracle.

“Well, they’re all wrong”, said Vindhya, lovingly stroking Sanju’s hair. “You’re our very own child.” Then, turning to the other children, she asked, “As older children, is this how you treat your little cousin? How could you be so mean? And just so know, there’s nothing wrong about being an adopted child. It’s not just blood ties that last, it’s ties of love and affection that really thrive.”
Vindhya wasn’t sure how much of that little speech any of them understood, but she didn’t wait.
“Come, Sanju, let’s go inside. You’ll feel better when you have some of that delicious payasam.”
As Sanju sat in the kitchen with her mother, slowly slurping the payasam and drying her eyes, she asked, “Amma, don’t I look like you?” “Of course you do”, said Vindhya, while washing up the huge mountain of vessels that had piled up.

“Then why were they so mean to me Amma? I don’t want to look like anyone else. I only want to look like you and Appa”, said Sanju. “Who said you don’t look like us? You look exactly like how I used to look when I was your age”, said Vindhya. “Really? Can you show me your photographs Amma?” said Sanju, her face brightening up. “Of course”, said Vindhya. “And what’s more, we have photos and videos of you from the day you were born; pictures of you crawling around, standing up for the first time, a recording of your first baby chatter—”

Sanju giggled. “Give them all to me, Amma”, she said eagerly. “I want to show them how wrong they’ve been.” Vindhya went around looking for her old albums. Where had she kept them? It seemed like ages since she had looked at them. At last, she found them. Sanju was beside herself with joy as she took the treasure from her mother’s hands. But she gave cries of indignation as she opened the albums: every single picture had been spoilt! Some were yellowed and stained, most were brittle and falling to pieces. “Amma, you can’t make out anything in these pictures!” she cried. “Please tell me there are other albums!”

But there were no other. In a bid to satisfy her, Vindhya looked for the CD in which Raghu had saved all of Sanju’s photographs and videos. After a long search, she finally found it, but realized that the files were corrupted. In the end, all she found was an audio recording of Sanju singing a nursery rhyme. Sanju was beside herself with disappointment. The other children did not speak to her again, and they passed her snide looks from time to time.

Vindhya didn’t generally care about proving anything to anyone, but in this particular case, she couldn’t see Sanju so dejected. She was quite upset herself that all those valuable memories that they had recorded, had got lost despite being stored in a digital form. She wished there was some way of storing their memories without any fear of losing them. As soon as Raghu came back that evening, she told him about the day’s events and tried to push him into searching for a copy of all the lost data on his laptop.

“I tell you Vindhya, I don’t have it! I have enough tensions about our new project without you worrying me about these trivial things. Ask me if I have a vial of the DNA that we used for our old experiment and I can give you that. Don’t ask me for such silly things”, Raghu said.
“DNA? DNA? Of course, that’s it! Raghu, I have got a very good idea for our next project!” Vindhya said excitedly.

Raghu looked baffled. “What?”
“Raghu, how is information stored digitally?” asked Vindhya. “In the binary form, of course! Even the most complex data is broken down into zeroes and ones!” he replied. “Well, think of how much more data can be stored, if we use DNA, our genetic material to store information! Just like how DNA stores information about the proteins in our body, our physical characteristics and so on, it can store our data too! And DNA is basically a code made of different combinations of four different nucleotides, which means that more complex information can be stored!” said Vindhya triumphantly.

“And DNA doesn’t get spoilt or damaged so easily either!” shouted Raghu gleefully. “Vindhya, you’re a genius!” Vindhya and Raghu set down to mastering the art of storing data on DNA. After several trials and failed attempts, they found a way to record Sanju’s rendition of the nursery rhyme on DNA, proving that any kind of data could be stored on DNA. It was a huge success. Several awards and felicitations came their way, and it was breaking news in the media.

After all the excitement had died down, Sanju pointed to the vial of DNA and told Raghu, “Now play it Appa!” “Play what?” asked Raghu, bewildered. “The audio. My song”, said Sanju. Vindhya started explaining. “Oh, it doesn’t happen like that, dear. You need to take it back to the lab, decode it, convert it into the digital form again, and then—” Sanju looked bored. “What’s the point then? I can’t play it for my friends when they come. What a waste!” She walked away, unimpressed. “We accomplish the impossible for her, and she’s still not impressed!” Raghu laughed.