The Adventure

Jayant Narlikar
PART 2
 The Adventure an overview
• Professor Gangadhar Pant Gaitonde finds himself in a
strange world.
• No doubt he is in Pune, but the facts do not agree with
history.
• He decides to go to Bombay and consult history books.
• Bombay is not what he expected to find it. East India
Company is still ruling there. According to the history known
to him, the East India Company was wound up just after the
events of 1857. He goes to the library and finds the answer.
• The events took a different course after the battle of
Panipat. The Marathas had won the battle, not lost it.
• Rajendra Deshpande rationalizes Gangadharpant’s
experience with the help of two scientific theories ,
catastrophe theory and lack of determinism in quantum
theory.
 The Adventure – an overview
• Professor Gaitonde: Professor Gaitonde, a historian is
going to give a lecture on the implications of
Catastrophe Theory in the Third Battle of Panipat. On
the way his car collides with a truck and he goes into
coma. In his unconscious state, he experiences another
world where history is different from how we know in
the real world. In the Third Battle of Panipat, Afghans
defeated Marathas killing their leader Viswas Rao. But
in the parallel world, Marathas win the war as Viswas
Rao escapes narrowly from the bullet. The victory of
Marathas brings about diverse changes and reforms in
the country. He gains consciousness and his friend
Rajendra Deshpande rationalizes his strange
experience on the basis of two scientific theories, viz.
Catastrophe Theory and the lack of determinism in
Quantum Theory.
 The Parallel world
Professor Gaitonde is on his way to Bombay from
Pune.
The stations en route
– Lonavala
– Karjat no change
– Kalyan
– Sarhad an Anglo-Indian un uniform went
through train checking
permits
Dadar
Victoria Terminus - The destination
 Khan Sahib’s journey and what it
signifies
• Bombay to Delhi
• Delhi to Lahore
• Lahore to Peshvar

India in the parallel world is undivided and free

from the bloody legacy of partition
 The East India Company - alive and
flourishing
• In his familiar world, the East India company
had been wound up after the events of 1857.
• In the parallel world, the imposing building of
East India House, the Headquarter of the
company proves it is alive and flourishing.

So Peshvar is in India but Bombay is under the

control of the British
His enquiries about his son
No such man worked in the firm
 His investigations at the Town Hall
• Volume 1 - Ashoka

History as he knew it
• Volume 2 -Samudragupta
• Volume 3 - Mohammed Ghori
• Volume 4 - Aurangazeb

• The last volume ------- changes observed

 The precise moment of history
• The Battle of Panipat
• Marathas won it handsomely
• Abdali was routed and chased back to Kabul
• The triumphant Maratha army was led by
Sadashivrao Bhau and his nephew the young
Vishwasrao
 The consequences for the power
struggle in India
• Victory
– a great moral booster to the Marathas
– Established their supremacy in northern India.
– Made the East India Company shelve its expansionist
programme.
– The company was reduced to pockets of influence
near Bombay, Calcutta and Madras like other
Europeans
• The peshwas kept the puppet Mughal regime alive
in Delhi.
• Set up their own centres of science and
technology
• Took aid and experts from The East India Company
to make the local centres self sufficient
 Twentieth Century Reforms
• India moved towards a democracy

• Peshwas were gradually replaced by democratically

elected bodies.

• Sultanate at Delhi survived even this transition.

Shahenshah of Delhi was the figurehead to
rubber-stamp the ‘recommendations’ of the Central
government
• Marathas allowed the British to retain Bombay as the
sole outpost till 2001
How did the Marathas win the Battle?
The one that gave him the clue
Bhausahebanchi Bakhar

It describes how Vishwasrao came close to being

killed. A bullet missed him.
 The closing time of the library
When the closing time for the library arrived,
the professor shoved some notes into his right
pocket. Absent-mindedly shoved the Bakhar into
his left pocket.
 Azad Madan incident
• During his stroll , he reaches the Azad Maidan where a
lecture is going on.
• The absence of chairman for the meeting grabs his
attention
• The crowd does not want one
• The professor protests
• He gets on to the stage, snatches the mike and starts
speaking
• The crowd throws him out and he is lost on the crowd
• The Professor’s strange experience ends
 Rajendra’s explanation

• Rajendra explains the bizarre experience of

the Professor on the basis of two scientific
theories, viz. Catastrophe Theory and the lack
of determinism in Quantum theory.
• Catastrophe theory states that a small change
in circumstance can bring sudden shift in
behavior. If we apply this theory to the battle
of Panipat, we can find that there was a crucial
moment when the Marathas lost both their
leaders-Viswas Rao and Bhausaheb. So, the
Marathas lost their morale and lost the battle.
• But in the parallel world Prof. Gaitonde saw
the bullet missing Viswas Rao and Marathas
winning the battle. A crucial event gone other
way can change the course of history (the
bullet missing/hitting the leader). The
Professor produced a torn page of
Bhausahebanchi bakhar from his pocket. The
bullet hitting Viswas rao was the catastrophic
incident in the battle.
• The present state of affairs has been reached
because of such catastrophic incidents in
history. We can apply this theory to any other
battle or historical incident and see how
history takes a different turn
 Lack of determinism in Quantum
theory
The behaviour of electrons orbiting the nucleus in
an atom cannot be predicted. There are different
states of energy-higher and lower. It can make a
jump from high to low energy level and send out a
pulse of radiation or a pulse of radiation can
knock it out of state no.2 to state no. 1. The
transitions are common in microscopic systems. If
it happened on a macroscopic level, it could be an
interesting food for thought.
• Professor Gaitonde made a transition from the
world we live in to a parallel world. One world has
the history we know, the other a different history.
He neither travelled to the past nor to the future.
He was in the present but experiencing a different
world. At the time of the collision with the truck,
he was thinking about the catastrophe theory and
its implications in war. He was probably pondering
about the battle of Panipat. Perhaps the neurons
in his brain acted as a trigger.
Like the electron jumping from one
state to another, he made a jump from this
world to the parallel world. Any catastrophic
situation will provide various alternatives for us
to proceed. But only one can be accepted by us
at one time as we live in a unique world with a
unique history.
But why did he make such a transition? An
interaction is must for any such transition. The
collision and the thoughts at that moment
brought it about.
 Will Gangadharpant recount his real life
experience in the seminar rather than just
speculating?
No,he would never again preside at public
functions .
He has conveyed his regrets to the organisers of
the panipat seminar