omg!!! reason behind the fake voices!!!

The space of international patents has seen little participation yet from India. So, it is a little more than startling to find that several patents submitted over the last six months at the wipo has been from Mumbai, India. But what shifts this from strange to bizarre is that the patents have been filed from the office of Balaji Telefilms, which is a producer of well-known soap operas in local indian languages. An unlikely candidate to file patents in the space of genetic analysis and genetic cloning -- of HUMAN BEINGS!

The company has quietly been filing these patents for the last six months. Clearly, they had meant to keep it quiet.

However, it all came to light when this newspaper reporter received an anonymous tip (referred to henceforth as "AT") about actors on the Balaji show ''Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil''.

For the last one month, apparently the lead actors on the show -- who have a reputation in the industry for a chemistry that has never been seen before -- have looked perfectly like themselves, acted like themselves as deserving of their multiple ''Best Jodi'' awards. However, their voices have been strangely off-key (''Their phhandoohs are pherphect, but their voices are not?? Something stinks in the state of Denmark, I tell you! It stinks!'' said the emotional AT.)

Now, this is not unheard of in the television industry, of course. There have often been cases of scheduling problems when production houses overcommit the actors or the editing teams. However, the consistency of the voice mismatches, especially in crucial scenes between the lead actors was a puzzle, pointed out the AT. These could not be the result of mere scheduling problems. The last line in the AT suggested a deeper reason -- genetic cloning -- and suggested checking out the patents registered from India at the regional Asian WIPA offices.

That is when this reporter uncovered the patent trail leading to Balaji Telefilms. It was not easy; even after collecting the proof of patent registrations by the company, the top management remained stubbornly silent on this score. But persistent efforts by this reporter paid off. The turning point came last week, when an agent of the company was caught on video-tape offering this reporter first a bribe and then a death threat to stop following this case. When we threatened to post this video on YOUTUBE, the management buckled. In a top-secret meeting with ''Mz. E'' at her research labs, we were given some details that we could publish.

The entry of this company into human cloning was as a solution to one of the biggest source of problems for the production house: scheduling times of their actors and their production teams.

Since they run the production of several shows at any given time, there was always a problem of using either stand-ins (called ''body doubles'' in the industry) or voices dubbed by other artistes.

However, these were also the boiling points for the fans of these shows, who appeared to find these very solutions the most intolerable. After trying to find ''bodies/voices'' with the best match and failing most of the time, they came up with the last desparate solution: clone the actors themeslves! A perfect solution indeed!

Five years ago, the company hired a team of top-notch genetic biologists and engineers to crack the problem of cloning human beings. This team has been working underground (literally -- the lab is set underground in a unregistered location on the outskirts of outer Bombay) on this problem. While scientists around the world have had the flexibility of having a ''work life'' and a ''non-work life'', this international team of scientists have been kept to job of cracking the problem for salaries five times that of the scientific community.

By last year, they arrived at a workable replication methodology. Their first test-bed was the actors of ''Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil'', on whom they have been experimenting on in a small way since early 2009.

While the scientists have been able to create the general look of the human body, it is clear that they have not solved the problem of matching every single aspect -- their last bug bear being the voice. Cloned human beings do not necessarily have the same timber and pitch of the original human being. And all the research in the dark labs have come to naught on this problem.

''it's been quite frustrating, let me tell you,'' confessed ''Mz. E'' in her interview. ''To have come so close in capturing the look for all practical purposes. in addition to the biological engineering efforts, we have also put effort into rapid-training the clones to perform like the original actors. This becomes especially easy when you clone this lead pair -- for some reason, the body chemistry is easier to replicate than the voice quality. Actually a lot of this work has been path-breaking revelations and should cause quite a stir in the reserach community once we start publishing our findings -- but that will have to wait for awhile.'' she scowled, definitely not pleased at our having uncovered her secret so soon.

The lack of perfection in vocal quality is turning out to be quite a problem for ''Mz. E''.

''Beyond the fact that we have not solved our original problem, we are now running into a human resource management problem. I am beginning to lose quite a few of my scientists to depression. Coming so close to success and yet not achieving perfection, has led quite a few of them to repeated episodes where they will be found banging their heads against the wall once the clones open their mouth to speak. I have to constantly take people off the human cloning project and put them into goat cloning problems for periods at a stretch to get them to think calmly and reasonably again.''

She didn't sound too worried about the failures from the commercial side though. ''No, i don't think that this is an economic show-stopper. Of course, I still have to find a solution to my original problem. But from the viewpoint of the economics, this is obviously not a commercial disaster for the company. There is quite a market for look-alikes of the lead pair in the show. Our inital assessment of the sale price of a prem/heer clone in the black market has led us to believe that people will pay incredibly high prices to have a prem-heer clone pair as ... er ... pets. Apparently, there is a high-demand to have a ''best jodi'' pair around in a house.'' said ''Mz. E'' shaking her head, in smiling disbelief. Why shouldn't she smile when even her failures were revenue earners for her shareholders?

What was next for the team? ''Oh, of COURSE, we will continue on our quest for the perfect clone.'' said ''Mz. E'' ''Ee started this endeavour to solve my serial production problems, not to make millions of dollars selling prem/heer clones on the black market. Till then, i am signing the actors up on long-term contracts as they are crucial benchmarks for our cloning process. Once we have perfected the process, the world opens up for us in terms of who we can be using for our serials. It will all just be a question of what we will have to pay to get cloning permissions.'' She beamed widely as she showed us out the door.

the world opens up indeed. so, do not be surprised if in the next one year, we get the next generation version of ''Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi'' with Shahrukh Khan as ''Karan Virani'' and Kajol Mukherjee as ''Nandini Virani''. Beause any thing will truly be possible in the world of ''Mz. E'''s Balaji Telefilms. Only question that remains is: will they have their voices intact or not?

😆 hi where have u been? thought u had run off too.

E!!

... and this is a reason to dig out the Estee AT again... *evil laugh*

🤣

Should've known. 🤣

E, you have been working really hard on your reasearch!!! no wonder you have been awol from the phorum off and on!! and here i was worrying about you! you dark horse!!!!! 😆