THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An inventor from Venjaramoodu claims to have devised a wireless communication device which uses the medium of light. If you would care to listen, he would produce from his worn-out laptop bag a receiver stuck with duct tapes to a speaker unit. The input device looks equally crude- a torch with criss-cross wires in its belly.
Fearful that it may be judged by its looks, Y N Nandakumar asserts that it is superior to optical cables, which need wires for long-distance communication. The audio is mixed with the light using a mixer, he says. If a LASER beam is used in place of the torch light, and there is nothing to obstruct the line of sight, his simple invention can travel a long way, he says.
He has not patented any of his inventions. There are 68 of those. Among these there is an electroscope, which can detect static charge, and a crane which needs no power source. Asked about why he hesitate to file patent application, Nandakumar says that the patent fee is too high.
Most of the inventions seem to be a figment of imagination- there is a device which can transmit cold beams. “I am writing science fiction too,” he informs. If you are to ask of what use would these inventions would be, he starts narrating a story. There was this Indian scientist, C V Raman, who in 1928, had shown the scattering of light with a prism. The world did not know the applications of Raman Effect then, he says.
He is ready with that answer, everytime someone asks the question. For, he is asked that very often, he says. “I have put up my stalls at various science exhibitions. There, scientists call my devices toys,” he says.
His stalls are very popular. In 2013, he won the first prize in the individual innovator category, for his display at the 25th Kerala Science Congress Expo- Sasthra Jalakam.
His house is full of electronic scrap, which he has been hoarding, to make inventions. He also shares his uneasiness that the humble income he earns as a conductor with the KSRTC is hardly enough to fulfil his passion. As he remembers that once he had to pawn his watch at a shop in Chalai, to bring home parts of a microwave.
