Manu Joseph - Serious Men

The Round Table had begun to discuss the fate of Pluto. Oparna Goshmaulik was following every word carefully. She did not understand many things that were being said, but the melancholy induced by her basement office was being lifted. She had always liked the company of men who knew a lot. She tried to understand why they were talking about Pluto with so much seriousness. She liked Pluto. From the arguments around her, she pieced together that the planet had been recently dropped from the model of the solar system at a science exhibition in America. And that had caused, not for the first time it seemed, a fierce debate over whether it should be considered a planet or a diminished member of the Kuiper Belt.

‘Pluto is too small, too small. It can fit into America. It’s so small,’ one man said vehemently.

Even here, she told herself without malice, everything is a kind of penis.

Nambodri, who was turning towards her and throwing the glances of an aspiring mentor, asked, ‘What do you think, Oparna?’

She pretended to be coy because she wanted to convey that she believed she was not qualified to have an opinion. After all she was just an astrobiologist, not an astronomer. That meekness, she knew, the men would like.

She said, ‘I’ll be quite sad if Pluto goes. I am Scorpio.’ Once again a silence fell because of her. Oparna awkwardly explained, ‘Scorpio is ruled by Mars and Pluto.’

‘So she is a Scorpio. Like me,’ a man said in a low tone, hoping to set off a round of laughter, but somehow this did not happen.

‘What are the Scorpio traits?’ a voice asked derisively and chuckled. It was first a robust chuckle, but it soon faded into a self-conscious giggle when the source realized he had no support.

‘Intense, strong, confident,’ Nambodri said, looking at Oparna, ‘and passionate.’ A faint laughter died quickly. Oparna managed to smile and mumble, ‘Astrology is not a science, you know.’

‘That’s why it’s not in dispute,’ Nambodri said.

Matters slowly moved to another simmering issue: quotas for backward castes in colleges. There was a fear that the Institute of Theory and Research might be asked to allocate seats for the lower castes in the faculty and research positions. The general mood in the room turned sombre. Some men threw cautious glances at the secretaries and stray peons when there were comments on the political aggression of backward castes. Ayyan looked on impassively. He had heard all these arguments before and knew what their conclusion would be. The Brahmins would say graciously, ‘Past mistakes must be corrected; opportunities must be created,’ and then they would say, ‘But merit cannot be compromised.’ He imagined Nambodri cleaning a common toilet in the chawls and telling his son while he was at it, ‘Son, merit cannot be compromised.’ Brutal laughter echoed inside his head, showing in his face as nothing more than a faint twitch.

‘It’s foolish to think that we all come from a privileged background. I come from a humble family,’ Nambodri was saying, softly, with an air of mellow introspection. (Ayyan could mouth the words he was about to hear, and he would have got most of them right.) ‘I had to walk five miles to school. I remember one day, we went hungry because my father was caught in a storm and he could not come home for three days. I survived all that and managed to reach the cream of Indian science, not because I was a Brahmin but because I worked very hard. And put my IQ of 140 to good use.’

Unconsciously, he threw a look at Oparna to check if she was listening. ‘I think it is stupid of people to think we, I mean the Brahmins, are privileged and all that. You know, the richest boy in my class was a Dalit whose father owned a truck business. He had a big house, he had a car and all that. I do feel bad about what my forefathers did …’

The voice of Arvind Acharya cut through the air as though only silence had preceded it. ‘Your IQ is 140?’ he asked. There was a nervous laughter because no one was sure if he was capable of humour. Nambodri nodded with a sporting smile. Acharya fell silent again.

Ayyan watched patiently as the scientists discussed other issues. When they ran out of topics, a thoughtful silence descended. Acharya was about to rise when Nambodri said, ‘There is something else, Arvind.’ The way he said it, Ayyan’s heart began to beat faster. He knew things were about to get unpleasant. Finally.

Nambodri’s narrow eyes swept across the room and rested again on Acharya. ‘The Balloon Mission is not the only thing that is important in the Institute, it is not the only thing that should happen here,’ Nambodri said. His voice quivered at first, but it became increasingly more confident.

Oparna felt the stabs of cold stares. She wanted to hide. The silence in the room deepened.

‘There are other experiments, other things people want to do,’ Nambodri said. ‘Many of us in this room, especially the radio astronomers, are disturbed by your stand against the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. You have constantly refused to let The Giant Ear be used for the search for advanced civilizations. You have publicly stated that Seti is not science. Many of us in this room believe that you are being totally autocratic and unfair. I want to put the discontent on the table.’

‘You have,’ Acharya said. ‘Now I’ve better things to do.’

Nambodri said, with a resolute face, ‘I agree that the search for intelligent life is a bit fashionable, but it is important for such things to exist.’

‘It is not,’ Acharya screamed. ‘Look at how much money is being poured into this kind of shit. Millions on some rover that is supposed to search for water on Mars. Tell me why are we searching for water in space? Why should all life in the universe be dependent on water? There are Tamilians who can live without water. We spend millions and millions on such moronic missions. But there are not enough funds to find a way to predict earthquakes. Because earthquakes are not fashionable.’

He stood up, steering his trousers round his waist. Others began to rise. All eyes were on Nambodri who was still sitting. Obviously, there was something else.

‘Arvind,’ he said, ‘We are left with no other option but to involve the Ministry to resolve the issue.’

A silence fell that was not like other silences. Ayyan was ecstatic. This was turning out to be a lot of fun. Oparna, who would have normally laughed at the intensity of men, felt a chill run through her. The stillness around the oval desk was the stillness of an aspiring rebellion. Only silence could resolve it and she prayed for Acharya to be still, to be quiet.

Nothing showed on his face. He walked slowly around the desk towards Nambodri, but then — as if he had decided against assault — he walked behind his old friend to where he was standing before.

‘Why are you orbiting?’ Nambodri asked.

Ayyan understood the insult. It was in the league of other incomprehensible subtleties of the Institute. Usually, a lesser body like the Moon orbited a more important object like the Earth. Acharya left the room without a word.

THAT MORNING, ARVIND Acharya was lost in the unreasonable joy of trying to solve an old intractable problem. Did Time move continuously, like a smooth line, or did it move in minuscule jumps, like a dotted line? He was standing on the narrow balcony nine floors above the ground and glaring at the Arabian Sea. The summer air was still. A crow on the wooden railing began to hop sideways towards him.

He was wearing a blue tracksuit that had a white tick mark embroidered at the hip, as if he approved of something. It had been sent by his daughter in California who wanted him to go on morning walks. Such things that came through DHL, he now grudgingly conceded as love. Some days, when he was not contemplating a difficult problem, he remembered Shruti fondly as the little girl who on a distant afternoon had looked up nervously and asked if maths was important in life. He had lied, ‘No.’ He might have liked to see her more often than when she decided to visit. Probably, he stood in the tracksuit every morning not to succumb to the indignity of exercise but because it was touched by his girl and dispatched in a packet on which she had written his name in her beautiful handwriting. Yet he never really craved to see her. The success of an old man lies in not wishing for company.