Serious Men

force of public perception would, inevitably, decree that a man who could seduce a woman almost half his age in a basement lab was probably involved in other nefarious activities. Even his powerful friends who were once flattered to serve him when he deigned to call for their help, now distanced themselves from him. Some would not take his calls; others said that he should fight his battles (probably till eternity) in court. Scientific bodies that had once begged him to endorse them with his name would tell him, with formal regret, that his association was not necessary any more. Friends and fans would write to him from all corners of the world affirming their faith in him, but even in those letters he would see the strength of old boyish love and not the conviction that he was innocent.
    After the declaration at the gates, Nambodri and Basu went to the third floor. As they walked down the long corridor, doors opened. Some scientists nodded in appreciation. Many stared bleakly. An old wizard of Number Theory handed an envelope to Nambodri and said he was quitting. But the mood was somewhat festive. As the two men walked, a swarm of speechlessscientists began to follow. And this swarm grew until they stood outside the door that said Director. Basu opened the door and in a ritual that had no tradition, he extended his hand graciously asking Nambodri to walk in first. The applause shook the furtive labour of Ayyan Mani.
    Ayyan was trying to stick together the shreds of Acharya’s letter to Basu. He believed it might have a use in the future. He hid the almost-repaired note in the drawer as the crowd entered the anteroom, like the Pathans who followed John Simpson during the BBC’s liberation of Kabul. Basu opened the inner door and the swarm moved in. Ayyan followed them inside to watch the rare physical gaiety of the Brahmins. He planted himself in a corner.
    Basu stood at the desk and said amidst laughter and applause, ‘All yours.’
    Nambodri sat in the huge black leather chair and said in a deep voice, ‘There was no Big Bang. There never was.’ And everyone laughed.
    He spotted Ayyan, who quickly laughed in a belated appreciation of a joke he was not expected to understand. ‘Would you like to work with me, Sir?’ Nambodri asked.
    ‘It’ll be my honour, Sir,’ Ayyan said.
    ‘How is your son, the genius?’
    ‘He keeps talking about you, Sir,’ Ayyan said. ‘He loved the posters in your room.’
    Those framed film posters would soon move in a procession in the feeble hands of dark peons. From the office of the Deputy Director they would pass the corner fiefdom of Ayyan and vanish through a door that was now stripped of the gold-plated mascot of the old world – Arvind Acharya. The blank textured walls of what used to be Acharya’s office were now adorned with the visuals of
ET, Men in Black, Superman, Mars Attacks,
and a blowup of an introspective Carl Sagan captured before he began to die.
    Acharya had left everything behind except Oparna’s photographs, some journals, his collection of
Topolov’s Superman,
andthe piece of meteorite that he used as paperweight. Nambodri threw most of his things out and altered the look of the room. He shifted the snow-white sofas to the window and arranged the desk in the corner that was diagonal to the door. The only time Ayyan had seen Acharya on the sofa was when he had met Adi. But the new regime was run from the sofas, and in the boisterous chatter of radio astronomers who spent the whole day against the backdrop of the Arabian Sea, plotting their future. They did not have to wait with Ayyan any more in the anteroom, and it was inevitable that they would throw a glance of simple triumph at the man every time they bypassed his clerical authority and went straight in to meet the new Director.
    One evening in the changed world, Professor Jal rushed in barefoot and almost sprinted through the inner door. He stood by the window and told Nambodri’s happy caucus, ‘Look outside.’ The astronomers came to where he was standing, and looked. On the tarred driveway that meandered to the sea went Arvind Acharya. His trousers lay precariously at the lower waist, one sleeve of his shirt was folded and the other was not. He stumbled on a small pothole and one of the bathroom slippers came off. He flipped it over with his foot and slipped into it. He appeared to contemplate his feet for a moment. Then he resumed his slow, laborious walk. Scores of still figures looked