'If science is questioning, religion is also equally questioning. That is what Hinduism is'

'In Sanatana Dharma, there is only questioning'

'But today, if you question a religion, you are called communalist'

28-year-old Dusyant Sridhar, an engineer by day and a Upanyasakar by night, speaks to Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com.

Photographs: Sriram Selvaraj/Rediff.com

Meet Dusyant Sridhar, 28, a Jekyl and Hyde character. During the day, he is a techie in jeans and T-shirt working for Tata Consultancy Services.

After office hours, he is an Upanyasakar in white veshti and angavastram with a naamam on his forehead, discoursing on ancient scriptures.

There is no conflict in these two roles for him, and he switches from one to another quite effortlessly.

His journey as an Upanyasakar started with a discourse in Tamil on Seetha Kalyanam when he was a young engineering student at BITS, Pilani, in 2004.

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'Hinduism should not lose its USP, and that is tolerance'

"Your mind is software. Program it. Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it. Extinction is approaching. Fight it." Transhumans, sometimes called Posthumans, are people who have exceeded the normal mental and physical abilities. The "how" that happened can be anything from magic to science, the only thing that's common among all of them is that they are better than was possible before. A positive portrayal of transhumanism generally places a work on the Enlightenment side of the Romanticism Versus Enlightenment spectrum while a negative portrayal or conspicuous absence of it does the opposite. In fact, most popular media deals with transhumanism and anything relating to it as being 'dehumanizing' or even comparable to Eugenics with little chance for anything different. Thus, it has become a cliche that transhumanists are Sci Fi Nazis or Evilutionary Biologists with a God complex, even though it has an equal potential to be used for good. Generally, anarcho-Cyber Punk writers focus on the evils of Transhumanism. So do religious Moral Guardians, when ironically, many religions espouse a Transhumanist plane of existence free from the sinfulness of flesh. On the other hand, transhumanists and utilitarians themselves focus on the benefits. The main reason why Transhumanism's opponents tend to be very uncomfortable about it, however, is because of the implied radical alteration of what it means to be human. It is therefore assumed by said opponents that, while the idea does have potential for positive outcomes, if there was to be a negative outcome, then it probably would not be reversible. Even though this trope is called Transhuman, it's not actually limited to humans. Other species or entities that are enhanced count as well. The word 'transhuman' is actually found in legitimate scientific and political debates far more often than in fiction, although this has began to change in recent years courtesy of authors such as Charles Stross, Alastair Reynolds and Greg Egan. In spite of this, being transhuman encompasses many of other science fiction staples with their distinct tropes: Artificial Human: A man-made biological/organic human, often with purposefully modified genes. Artificial Limbs: A limited form of enhancement that's specific to the limbs. Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The mystical or religious variant. Assimilation Plot: Transforming an entire species into a Hive Mind with an unified purpose. Badass Transplant: See Artificial Limbs above. Being Human Sucks/Humans Are Flawed: A major motivation. Beware the Superman: Where transhumanism has an overall negative net effect on the world. Bio-Augmentation: Biological enhancement, as compared to a Cyborg. Brain Uploading: The physical limitations of a body are outright removed. Cloning Blues: Are Clones People? Or just expendable? With LEGO Genetics, they may end up being more than we could ever imagine. Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Artificial limbs and organs make you less "human" in a way that has some sort of measurable or observable consequence. Used as a "balance" for being enhanced, usually seen in Cyberpunk RPGs. Cyborgs: Cybernetic enhancement. This is what most people think of when they think of transhumans. Designer Babies: Making a person better before they're even born. Emergency Transformation: If you become better than you were before. Better. Stronger. Faster. Evilutionary Biologist: A transhumanist who thinks that Utopia Justifies the Means and believes that what they do is the "natural" evolutionary path, rather than some controlled change. Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Genetics = magic. Humans Are Psychic in the Future: The concept is self-explanatory, if not the science. Magic Enhancement: Magical transhumansim, when applied to people, at least. Nanomachines: One of the most common ways to become Transhuman is through them. Pro-Human Transhuman: Despite no longer being (fully) human, the character still identifies with humanity. Super Breeding Program: Using genetic trait inheritance to create better people. Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: Nearly always have advanced themselves to god-like power instead of starting out like that. Super Human Trafficking: Abuse of transhumans via slavery, organ trafficking, and other means. Super Serum: One of the ways to become one, but be wary of it's Psycho Serum cousin. Super Soldier: This one usually relies on the physical aspect of transhumanism for war. The Singularity: A hypothetical scenario where we become transhumans due to acceleration of progress. Transhuman Aliens: Where what appears to be a species of aliens turns out to actually be transhumans. Transhuman Treachery: For when this makes you go bad. Touched by Vorlons: Aliens or whatnot might be the cause. bermensch: Gratuitous German, meaning "Over-man" or "superman". Transhumans are likely to be transcendent not just on physical, but also on psychological and moral perspectives. Ultimate Life Form: The end-all and be-all of transhumanism (if they were purposely made). Uplifted Animal: A Trans-Animal, basically. We Can Rebuild Him: Forced to be enhanced due to injury, instead of personally seeking it out. Working for a Body Upgrade: Enhanced because they earned it as a job perk. For some of the abilities a Transhuman might have, see Stock Superpowers. See also No Transhumanism Allowed. This may be used as an aspect of a Cyberpunk or Post-Cyberpunk setting.

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'Cause it's gonna be the future soon, I won't always be this way/As the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away...

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Transhuman - TV Tropes

AUSTIN, TEXASYou've seen Her. You've heard about the upcoming Ex Machina movie. Now, meet Martine Rothblatt, a transgender, transhumanist who wants to help you live forever by creating your own personal mind clone. If that sounds like science fiction, it is a fiction the board of her company, United Therapeutics, is sold onlast year she was the highest paid female CEO in the nation, earning $38 million.

Siri is just the beginning, she told the crowd at this year's SXSW conference here in Austin.

"There will be continued advances in software that we see throughout our lives. Eventually, these advances in software will rise to the level of consciousness," Rothblatt said, predicting that at that point, there will be no reason why the human consciousness can't live on indefinitely.

The core idea of transhumanism is that technology will someday free us of our mortal coil. The first step is creating what she calls a mind file. A mind file is a digital record that encapsulates your thoughts, mannerisms, relationships, and morebasically, it's a digital record of your entire self. And if you have a Facebook profile, according to Rothblatt, your mind file is well underway.

"We are living in a world where all of your life is captured," she said. "There is work going on at Amazon, Google, and Apple that is Mindware. It is software designed to process and recreate all of these inputs to create a consciousness."

Once the Mindware has its inputs, it just needs a robot to host it, Rothblatt said. Trust her, she's already done it.

Rothblatt hired a team of roboticists to create a "mind clone" of her wife, Bina Aspen. The mind clone, named Bina48, is a head and torso, albeit one that looks eerily like the real Bina Aspen. Bina48 is remarkably sophisticated for a home-built mind clone: she carries on a conversation, she tweets, and she expresses novel ideas. Rothblatt says soon everyone will be able to have a mind clone like Bina48.

"If I can do this as one person with a robotics team, what happens when we have 100 million makers in the world?" Rothblatt challenged the crowd. "What happens when open-source mindware gets put up on the Web for anyone to download?"

Extending human life isn't just a software problem for Rothblatt; she is also at the forefront of organ transplant technology. One of her current projects involves breeding genetically modified pigs to reduce the rates of organ transplant rejection.

"When we started doing this, the longest a genetically-modified pig organ could survive was two hours, and now we are up to over eight days. It's mind-blowing," she said.

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Tranhumanist CEO Wants to Help You Live Forever