Serious Men

whether it is a rocky planet or a gaseous planet and whether there is water out there. That’s the game, my friend, that’s exactly the game.’
    The peon covered his mouth with his hand and giggled again, partly from lack of comprehension. Then he remembered something.
    ‘I’ve got something to show you, Mani,’ he said. He dug into his pocket and took out an ATM card. ‘I got it today,’ he said, and looked at it fondly. ‘All your work, Mani,’ he said.
    Ayyan had helped the peon to open a bank account. He somehow knew people everywhere who magically waived the requirement of difficult documents. Ayyan leaned towards the peon and said softly, ‘You know what I used to do when the money machines first came? When the machine would spit out the cash, I would pluck out only the central notes. I would leave the first and the last. It was a difficult art. It needed technique. I had to practise. The machine would swallow the two remaining notes and the way it was programmed then it would not register the transaction. It would spit out a paper that would say “zero rupees withdrawn”. Now these machines have become smarter.’
    The peon shook his head in easy awe. ‘You are such a clever man, Mani,’ he said. ‘If only you had the fathers that these men had, you would have had a room of your own today with your own secretary.’
    ‘There are bigger things in life than that,’ Ayyan said. ‘See where I go.’
    The main door outside opened, startling the peon who alwaysstood erect when surprised. Murmurs from the corridor filled the room like fresh air. Jana Nambodri, the convivial Deputy Director of the Institute and a radio astronomer who was incurably infatuated with corduroy trousers, stood in the doorway holding the door open. ‘Good morning,’ he said cheerfully. His hair always distracted Ayyan. It was a silver tidal wave that lent him an amicable flamboyance. And he had a long benevolent face that clever women usually mistrusted.
    There was always a quiet dignity about Nambodri, something very calm, even though he was at the heart of The Giant Ear Problem. He wanted to scan the skies with radio telescopes and search for alien signals, but Arvind Acharya would not let him.
    ‘I believe he has come,’ Nambodri said, making eyes at the inner door in a conspiratorial way.
    ‘Yes he is inside, Sir, but he has asked me not to disturb him for thirty minutes,’ Ayyan lied. He never missed the slightest chance to cause the smallest misery to a Brahmin. Nambodri stared at the floor for a moment and left.
    ‘There is something happening here, Mani,’ the peon said. ‘My chaps are telling me that something big is going to happen. Things have been very tense. Old men are speaking in whispers in the corridor. What is it?’
    ‘War of the Brahmins,’ Ayyan said. ‘That’s what is going to happen. It’s going to be fun.’
    ‘War? What war?’
    Ayyan studied his fingers thoughtfully. ‘It’s like this,’ he said slowly. ‘Some men here want to search for aliens in space by using something called a radio telescope. They think we might receive messages from life forms in outer space. But the Big Man inside says they are talking rubbish. He won’t let them search for aliens that way. He says there is only one way to search for aliens – his way.’
    ‘And what is his way?’
    ‘He says aliens are as small as germs. They are falling all the time from the heavens to the Earth. So he wants to send a balloon up and capture them.’
    ‘That’s it?’ the peon whispered.
    ‘Yes, that’s it,’ Ayyan said.
    After the peon left, Ayyan went through the research papers that the peon had brought for Arvind Acharya. There was a lot of maths in the pages and its incomprehensibility lent it an air of special wisdom. Ayyan had developed the habit of reading anything in front of him, even if it was something he did not really understand, because he believed that one reason why everybody was here, including the sons of municipal sweepers, was to collect as much information as possible before dying with a funny look on the face. All through his boyhood he had read anything he could lay his hands on. That’s how he had taught himself English. Even when he used to go with friends to art film festivals to watch the uncensored nudity in foreign films, he tried to read every word in the free brochures.
    Ayyan read the White Dwarf’s grim tale with his elbows on the table and fingers gathered around his temples.