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The Adventure

Professor Gaitonde wanders into a public lecture in progress in Azad Maidan and sits in the unoccupied presidential chair, but the audience ejects him for interrupting. He plans to visit the library to research history and speak to Rajendra Deshpande. At the library, he's surprised to read an alternate account of the Battle of Panipat where the Marathas won. Rajendra later explains Professor Gaitonde's experience of an alternate history by citing theories of catastrophe and non-determination in quantum physics - that many historical outcomes are possible and the observer experiences only one at a time.

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Ramita Udayashankar
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6K views

The Adventure

Professor Gaitonde wanders into a public lecture in progress in Azad Maidan and sits in the unoccupied presidential chair, but the audience ejects him for interrupting. He plans to visit the library to research history and speak to Rajendra Deshpande. At the library, he's surprised to read an alternate account of the Battle of Panipat where the Marathas won. Rajendra later explains Professor Gaitonde's experience of an alternate history by citing theories of catastrophe and non-determination in quantum physics - that many historical outcomes are possible and the observer experiences only one at a time.

Uploaded by

Ramita Udayashankar
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF or read online on Scribd
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The Adventure

2 marks
Describe the debacle at Azad Maidan.
Professor Gaitonde was very fond of chairing public lecture meetings. He strolled in
Azad Maidan and found a lecture in progress there. He saw a table and a chair on the
platform but the presidential chair was unoccupied. He occupied the vacant seat. The
public roughed him up, hurled tomatoes and eggs at him. Finally, the audience
swarmed to the stage to eject him bodily.

What plan of action had Professor Gaitonde arrived at?


Professor Gaitonde, as a historian felt he should go to a big library and browse
through history books. That was the surest way of finding out how the current state of
affairs was reached. He also planned to return to Pune and have a long talk with
Rajendra Deshpande.

List the various things noticed by Professor Gaitonde when he was wandering in
the British Raj.
Professor Gaitonde noticed an Anglo Indian in uniform checking permits. There was a
tiny union Jack on each carriage. He saw the headquarters of the East India Company.
The buildings were of Victorian style and there were offices of British companies.
There were Boots and Woolworth departmental stores and British banks.

How did the shops and offices along Hornby Road differ from those he knew
well?
Professor Gaitonde found a different set of shops and office buildings along Hornby
Road. There was no Handloom House building. Instead, there were Boots and
Woolworth department stores. There were offices of Lloyds, Barclays and other
British banks as can be seen in a high street in England.

What ‘was a blow’ at Forbes building?


Professor went to the English receptionist at Forbes building and asked to meet Mr.
Vinay Gaitonde, his son. He was unable to meet him as he was at his office in modern
day Bombay. The receptionist told him that she could not find his name there. It was a
blow but not an unexpected one as his son was not even born then.

Which facts of history surprised the Professor?


At the library, Professor Gaitonde went through the different volumes of history. The
fifth volume claimed that the Battle of Panipat was won by the Marathas led by
Sadashivrao Bhau and his nephew Vishwasrao and that Abdali was chased away.

Which account did Professor Gaitonde read through eagerly? Why?


Professor Gaitonde read the account of consequences for the power struggle in India.
It was in the book describing the Battle of Panipat. The style of writing was
unmistakably his own, yet he was reading it for the first time. So, he read it eagerly.

How did the Victory in the Battle of Panipat affect the balance of power?
The Battle of Panipat established the supremacy of the Marathas in northern India. It
was a great moral booster. The East India Company temporarily shelved its
expansionist programme.

How did the East India Company meet its match in the new Maratha ruler?
The new Maratha ruler Vishwasrao and his brother Madhavrao combined political
acumen with valour and systematically expanded their influence all over India. The
East India Company was reduced only in areas near Bombay, Calcutta and Madras
just like its European rivals, the Portuguese and the French.

How did the Peshwas involve the East India Company?


The Peshwas were rulers from Pune who were shrewd enough to recognize the
importance of the technological age beginning in Europe. They set up their centres for
science and technology. The East India Company offered aid and experts. The
Peshwas accepted it only to make the local centres self sufficient.

What were the changes brought about in the twentieth century India?
In the twentieth century, India moved towards a democracy as changes were inspired
by the West. The Peshwas had lost their enterprise and were replaced by
democratically elected bodies. The Sultanate of Delhi survived the transition because
it wielded no real influence. The Shahenshah of Delhi was a figurehead to give
official approval to recommendations of the Parliament.

Why did Gangadharpant begin to appreciate the India he had read about?
India had not been subjected to slavery. It had learnt to stand on its feet and knew
what self-respect was. From a position of strength and for purely commercial reasons,
it had allowed the British to retain Bombay as the sole outpost on the subcontinent. So
he began to appreciate that India.

How did the audience react to Professor Gaitonde’s remark ‘an unchained
lecture is like Shakespeare’s Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark’?
The audience was in no mood to listen. That lecture series had no chairperson. They
were sick of remarks from the chair, of vote of thanks, of long introductions and had
abolished the old custom long ago. The chair was symbolic. They only wanted to
listen to the speaker. They firmly asked him to vacate the chair and keep the platform
empty and finally ejected him bodily.

Why was Rajendra’s smile replaced by a grave expression?


Professor Gaitonde narrated his strange experience. Rajendra was smiling. He
assumed that his friends' mind was playing tricks and his imagination was running
amok. On seeing the printed page, Rajendra’s face underwent a change and he was
visibly moved.

How did Professor Gaitonde meet with an accident?


Professor Gaitonde was hit by a truck while he was going for his evening stroll. He
lost consciousness. Though physically he was inactive, his mind was moving from
place to place.

Why did Rajendra Deshpande say that Gangadharpant neither travelled to the
past nor the future?
Professor Gaitonde after a collision with a truck saw different mental pictures in his
active mind. He had made a transition from one world to another and back again. He
was in the present but experiencing a different world.

After listening to Professor Gaitonde, what logical explanation was given by


Rajendra Deshpande?
Rajendra Deshpande connected science with history. He applied the theories of
catastrophe and non determination in quantum theory to explain Professor Gaitonde’s
experience.

How according to Rajendra was Gangadharpant able to experience two worlds?


According to Rajendra, Gangadharpant thought process was focused on one particular
event of the history and the mind elaborated these very points to create a different
world picture. Gangadharpant had made a transition from one world to another and
back again. By doing so, he was able to experience two worlds although one at a time.

What had Professor Gaitonde been thinking at the time of the collision?
At the time of the collision with a truck, Professor Gaitonde was preparing for a
lecture on the course history would have taken in the result of the Battle of Panipat
had gone the other way i.e. if the Marathas had won and so he visualized a very
different India from the present one.

10 marks
How does Rajendra Deshpande try to rationalize Professor Gaitonde about his
transition to another world and back?
Rajendra Deshpande was a physicist and felt that everything that occurred to us had a
logical and scientific explanation. He felt that Professor Gaitonde had passed through
a fantastic experience and tried to rationalize it on the basis of two scientific theories.
One was the catastrophic theory which explained the Battle of Panipat and its result.
The result of the Battle was determined by the act of leaders and the morale of troops.
If Vishwasrao had not died, the morale of the troops would have been boosted and
they might have won the battle. Next he talked about Quantum Theory. Lack of
determination in the Quantum Theory when applied to history suggests that there can
be many views of the world at one time. All alternatives are viable as far as reality is
concerned. However, the observer can experience only one at a time. Professor made
a transition from one world to the other as he had been thinking of the Battle of
Panipat but he experienced them one at a time.

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