Fib Factory

My opponent’s a formidable gizmo, one who’s seen through every kind of deception (several accused from across the country are brought here). Gutkha barons Manikchand Dhariwal and JM Joshi were grilled about their alleged links with the underworld at the lab.

The lie detector, which looks like a poor man’s DJ console, with various buttons, and four small plastic ink bottles, has also seen suspicious beaus (one got her boyfriend tested to find out if he’d strayed), and even a Nandurbar-based doctor who allegedly ‘‘injected his wife with the HIV virus’’.

Director JM Vyas explains that the polygraph machine works on some very basic principles: ‘‘Our consciousness is Satchitanand and accepts only what is true. It does accept the false, but doing so causes physiological changes over which we have no control.’’

Technically, what the machine does is monitor the pulse, blood pressure and even perspiration levels, which alter with every action and reaction.

The scientists maintain a large database of changes in heart rate, etc, on dummy questions and on case-specific questions. From the variations in the response, and from what they know of normal responses, they are able to determine if a person is lying or not. However, lie-detector results do not amount to evidence in court and are only accepted as investigative tools.

The time for my test arrives. Turns out they’re not interested in my private life. It’s going to be a simple card-based test. I’m handed five chits of paper and instructed by a scientific officer to number them from one to five.

There’s another small piece of paper, which I’m supposed to keep with myself after writing down any number from one to five. The officer then asks me to be calm and instructs me to reply in the negative to all the questions that will be directed to me. The Art of Lying begins. ‘‘Do you have number four?’’ ‘‘No’’. The questions that follow are all blocked with ‘No’ from my end. The polygraph machine is on the job and steadily registers my pulse on a graph paper.

Is it number five, asks the officer—‘No’ again. The same set of questions are repeated. A little later, as the the officer declares the test over, I think I stand a chance.

Five minutes later, an expert is scrutinising the graph sheet. ‘‘The number on your chit is five,’’ she tells me. It is indeed, and I’m stunned. Vyas shows me the printout, which has the readings of my BP, pulse rate and other reactions. At certain points, my blood pressure and pulse rate had indeed risen and the rise corresponded to my untruthful moments. I bow to the machine, turn around and make a hasty exit.