Serious Men

for probably over two hours. Then he heard the voice of Ayyan Mani.
    ‘Would you like some coffee, Sir?’
    Acharya nodded, without turning. A few minutes later, a peon walked down the winding pathway to the sea holding a cup of coffee, fruit and three unopened biscuit packets on a tray.
    This soon became a common sight. Acharya would be sitting on the rocks, alone or in the company of animated students and scientists, or ambling in the lawns or lying beneath a tree with a book, and a peon would walk towards him with a tray.
    On days when Ayyan found Acharya sitting by himself, he would go to him and talk. In the tone of banter between old friends who had gone through life together, Ayyan would ask how scientists knew that the universe must be so big and no more, or how they could say so confidently that a planet that was an unimaginable distance away had water, or how they could claim from a single bone of an ancient beast that it used to fly. ‘It’s like this,’ Acharya would always begin. On occasions, he defended science and insisted that it had no choice but to make very smart guesses from little information. On other occasions he would laugh with Ayyan at the absurdity of scientific claims.
    ‘Sir,’ Ayyan asked one late noon when Acharya was sitting beneath a tree and studying the progression of red ants. ‘How many dimensions do you think there are?’
    ‘Four,’ Acharya said, without taking his eyes off from the ants.
    ‘Up–down, left–right, front–back,’ Ayyan said. ‘Then?’
    ‘Think of time ticking away as these ants try to go somewherein a universe that has length, breadth and height. That’s another dimension,’ he said.
    Ayyan tried to imagine it, and reluctantly ceded the point. ‘OK, four. But why do they say there are ten dimensions?’
    ‘I don’t know, Ayyan. I used to know but I don’t any more.’
    ‘Some men have been working on that for twenty years, Sir.’
    ‘You’re right.’
    ‘And that’s their job? To prove that there are ten dimensions?’
    ‘Yes, that’s their job.’
    A peon arrived with coffee and said to Ayyan, ‘You are here? Director is looking for you.’ He stuck his tongue out like a terrified little boy and glanced apologetically at Acharya for using ‘Director’ in reference to another man.
    Acharya simply asked, ‘No biscuits today?’
    Ayyan knew there was trouble when he saw the face of Nambodri, who was sitting with the grim inner circle on the white sofas.
    ‘Who writes the Thought For The Day?’ Nambodri asked.
    ‘What thought, Sir?’ Ayyan said.
    ‘The daily quote on the blackboard. Who writes it?’
    ‘Oh, that. I write it sometimes, Sir.’
    ‘Not every day?’
    ‘Most of the days, Sir.’
    ‘Did it you write it today?’
    ‘Yes, Sir.’
    ‘Today’s quote was, “A greater crime than the Holocaust was untouchability. Nazis have paid the price, but the Brahmins are still reaping the rewards for torturing others.” Is that correct, Ayyan?’
    ‘Yes, Sir.’
    ‘The blackboard says Albert Einstein said this.’
    ‘Yes, Sir, that’s what was written on the chit.’
    ‘What chit?’
    ‘I get the Thought For The Day every morning from Administration, Sir.’
    ‘Who in Admin sends it to you?’
    ‘I don’t know, Sir. A peon leaves it on my table.’
    ‘What is the name of the peon who leaves it on your table?’
    ‘I don’t know his name, Sir.’
    Nambodri folded his hands and crossed his legs. ‘A week ago,’ he said with a smile, ‘the Thought For The Day read, “If souls are indeed reborn as the Brahmins say, then what accounts for population growth? Rebirth is the most foolish mathematical concept ever.” Apparently Isaac Newton said that.’
    ‘That’s what the chit said, Sir.’
    ‘Ayyan, how long have you been writing the Thought For The Day?’
    ‘A few years, Sir.’
    ‘And who asked you to write it?’
    ‘Administration, Sir.’
    ‘Who exactly?’
    ‘I don’t remember, Sir.’
    ‘Stop this bullshit,’ Professor Jal said rising angrily. Others asked him to calm down. Jal sat down breathing hard, glasses trembling on his nose-bridge.
    ‘You know Professor Jal, of course,’ Nambodri said kindly to Ayyan. ‘And you know what BBC
Mastermind
is?’
    ‘Yes, Sir, I used to watch
Mastermind.
My wife would fight with me. Because, you know, she wanted to watch …’
    ‘Jal once won
Mastermind.
His area of specialization was Einstein. He knows every word that man ever wrote, every word that