Manu Joseph - Serious Men

He sat on the black rocks and told the sea his version of the universe. A group of young doctoral students were gathered at a distance. They threw cautious looks at him. It was a tradition here to accept that sometimes men spoke to themselves. But Acharya had never been known to seek his own phantoms. They stared at him for a while, then they resumed their animated discussion about supersymmetry, occasionally glancing at him.

The breeze brought him the rudiments of their debate. He listened, his head inclined. Then he went to them and stood with his hands in his deep trouser pockets. They looked at him nervously. One boy tried to infect others with the smile of contempt.

‘Don’t look at me like that, son,’ Acharya told him. ‘When I was your age I was so smart that if you wanted to kiss my arse you would’ve had to take an entrance exam.’

That made the other boys laugh. Acharya laughed too. And he told them what he thought of supersymmetry. They listened, rooted to the ground. They asked him questions and he answered with deeper questions and an excited banter began to flow. His audience began to grow.

He started arriving every day, like a wandering bard. By the sea rocks, on the pathways and in the undulating backyard, students and scientists milled around him, and listened to the tales of his life, the day he met the Pope and how he was banned forever from the Vatican for whispering abuse in the pontiff’s ear, the hilarious insanities of great minds, their private chauvinism and how they believed wives were conspiracies, the temper of Fred Hoyle, the encounters with Hawking who was a cunning man, the impending shocks that would emerge from the Large Hadron Collider, and the bleak future of theoretical physics. The swarm around him began to grow with every passing day and their banter beneath the skies became a sudden culture.

It was a sight that Jana Nambodri caught every evening from his new window. And this evening, as he surveyed the resurrection with a face that was always a mask, he held his mobile to the ear and asked when the formal dismissal of Acharya could be arranged. He put the phone away and stared with such meditative forbearance that his mutant ears, which could gather even the voices of thought, did not hear the door open.

Ayyan Mani stood in the relief of finally catching this man alone. For several days he had been waiting for a quiet moment like this, but Nambodri was always surrounded by his inner circle of liberated radio astronomers.

‘Sir,’ Ayyan said, enjoying the startled jerk of his new master. ‘I wanted to have a word with you, Sir.’

Nambodri nodded without turning.

‘That day Oparna Goshmaulik had come here, Sir.’

‘Which day?’ Nambodri asked, now looking at Ayyan.

‘The day when everybody started talking about what Dr Acharya had done. She came here and told him why she contaminated the sampler. The door was not shut properly, Sir. So I heard everything.’

‘Why wasn’t the door shut?’

‘Her hairclip had fallen on the floor when she was entering and that jammed the door, Sir. She didn’t know that.’

‘She contaminated the sampler of her own free will? Arvind didn’t ask her to do it?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘She said that?’ Nambodri asked, sitting on the sofa.

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘And you heard it?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Why did she contaminate the sampler?’

‘Love problem, Sir.’

‘Why are you telling me this, Ayyan?’ Nambodri asked, collecting a newspaper from the centrepiece, and turning its pages casually. Ayyan interpreted this as a calculated move to make him feel that it was not a big issue. He knew the tactics of the Brahmins. They called it management.

‘I’m telling you this because I think you should know, Sir. What I am trying to tell you, Sir, is that even if I was called by the inquiry committee I would not have told them what I’d heard. I thought, for the good of all, the man has to go. I wanted you to be here in this room, Sir.’

Nambodri pointed to the sofa that was facing him and Ayyan sat down feeling strangely impertinent. Nambodri threw the paper away and asked with dead eyes, ‘What do you want, Ayyan?’

‘Nothing, Sir.’

Nambodri studied the floor. ‘I am so touched by your gesture,’ he said. ‘A personal secretary’s deposition would have meant nothing to the inquiry committee. We were interested only in the statements of scientists. But still, I am deeply moved.’

‘Shall I get you some coffee, Sir?’ Ayyan asked cheerfully, standing up. Nambodri shook his head. Ayyan went to the door. ‘Dr Acharya was a good man, Sir,’ he said from the doorway, ‘but sometimes he was very rude.’ He walked back into the room and said, ‘I will give you an example. My son loves the Institute. He talks about it every day. He wants to take the JET, Sir. He is only eleven but he says he will crack the entrance test. He is mad, my son. I asked Dr Acharya if Adi can sit for the entrance exam. He asked me to get out. He said the entrance exam is not a game. I thought that was very unfair.’

‘Your son wants to take our entrance test?’

‘Yes, Sir. People call him a genius, but I know he doesn’t have a chance to make it.’

‘He does not have a chance,’ Nambodri said.

‘I know, Sir. But Sir, do you think, you’ll let the boy take the test?’

Nambodri’s eyes studied his secretary with a mix of cunning and new respect. ‘Ayyan, how many people know about it?’ he asked.

‘About what, Sir?’

‘About what Oparna had told Arvind.’

‘No one, Sir.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘No one. Except me, Sir.’

The news of Adi’s application to the Institute of Theory and Research was covered in the English papers with a happy photograph of Jana Nambodri accepting a form from the boy. Two television channels interviewed them in the Director’s chamber.

‘He is a genius, so I thought, why not give him a chance?’ Nambodri explained.

‘I’ll pass,’ Adi said.

It was a fitting end to a great game. But three days later, the Marathi papers would tell this story with the picture of a man whose arrival on the scene unnerved Ayyan Mani. The game, he feared, had now gone too far.

NOT EVERYBODY IN the crowd knew what they were waiting for, but they stood in a festive murmur outside one of the many exits of the BDD chawl. Some people asked what was going to happen. Many did not bother to ask. Excited boys ran through the assembly, and little girls played a conspiratorial game among themselves, all hopping on one leg. At the head of the crowd was Ayyan Mani, and a man bearing a massive rose garland that could break the neck of the beneficiary.

On the pavement by the side of the road was planted a banner two storeys high. Even in the blow-up the celebrity appeared stunted. He stood in a safari suit, his palms joined in greeting. His face was a light pink because poster artists did not have the freedom to paint his face black. His little mop of hair was spread thinly over an almost flat scalp. And his thick moustache had sharp edges. Just above his head was an English introduction in large font — DYNAMIC PERSONALITY. A thinner line that followed said he was the honourable Minister S. Waman. It seemed appropriate that it was at Waman’s black shoes the author took credit, in Marathi and in diplomatically chosen small font — ‘Hoarding Presented By P. Bikaji’. Bikaji was the man who was holding the massive garland. His white kurta had become transparent in his own sweat and he was almost trembling under the weight of the garland.

‘When he comes,’ he told Ayyan, ‘I will give him the garland first and then you speak.’