Mystery of MindNet

The Mystery of MindNet

The Mystery of MindNet by Aniruddha Sen Gupta, published by Scholastic India, 188 pages, Price: Rs 175

Reviewed by Mia Marie Lourenço

I recently read the book ‘The Mystery of MindNet.’ The author of the book is Aniruddha Sen Gupta. It is published by Scholastic. It is about four friends – Mani, Amay, Fatima and Piyali. Mani’s parents happen to be scientists at a company called the Cemtech. Since Mani’s friends were very close to Mani’s family, one day his parents called Amay’s, Piyali’s and Fatima’s parents and told them to come over to their house along with their children because they wanted to test a project called ‘MindNet’ on the children and they also needed their parents’ permission.

This MindNet consists of a big helmet with electrodes around their head and on the wrist. There is a small button which switches on the MindNet. Once you enter MindNet, a small spider comes crawling down the screen. He calls himself Spy D. He helps when you don’t understand. In MindNet you can send messages to other users who are logged in it – it is called Thought Cast. It is like the internet but you must just think of what you want to search. And then command Searchlight.

Every week the four children had to run the sessions till they got the hang of it. The MindNet device was installed on each of their computers at home. But they were allowed to go only on certain days at a certain time. Once Fatima met a friend online called Jeeplon 93. It so happens that this person tells her secret codes and how to break into different places. So she tells the other three and they go on the MindNet when they are not supposed to. So that night they fell asleep with the device on them. Next day Mani gets up to find that he and his friends have superpowers, because of the electrodes. The same day, a stranger kidnaps Piyali and then the rest of them go to find her in the place called ‘Haunted Hill’ and they rescue her with their superpowers. Then Mani’s parents explain how the stranger happens to be working with them and had betrayed them. And then they all live happily ever after.

What I liked about the story is that it would be great fun to have a device called the MindNet. And it would also be nice to just to think of something and having it come on your screen, rather than type it on the keyboard and then press search.

The character I liked most is Mani because in the story he is deaf because he had mumps when he was six. He also catches up in life because of his friends and family. I also like him because he gets an extraordinary superpower. His superpower is that whenever he stares at anything his eyesight gets magnified and he can see every detail on an object.

The whole story was extraordinary because you don’t get this type devices in the world. The Haunted Hill part reminded me of one of the Famous Five stories by Enid Blyton. The outer cover is very nice. I didn’t understand the word ‘demeanour’ and some other hard words. I would like more pictures in the book since there is only one or two pictures. But the rest of the story and everything was very good. I liked it a lot.

-The End-

Mia Marie Lourenço

Std 8 – Fatima Convent, Margao