by Ruskin Bond
All this time while the conversation was going on between Virendra and Rajendra, Urmi did not say anything. She quietly and keenly listened. At some time she had crossed her legs, had her elbow vertically resting on her right knee, and her chin resting on her right palm with a tilt towards the intermediate direction between Virendra and Rajendra. At the pause, she said, 'Sir, shall we go and sit on the grass over there? Now it will be cool there, and we can sit in a relaxed way.'
Virendra did not immediately respond to her suggestion. Rajendra waited for Virendra to say something. Virendra seemed to be in two minds. He was already with them for quite a while; he did not feel quite enthusiastic for a very long discourse. But he also felt the relaxing element the students provided after a monstrous day. He said, 'All right, let us sit there for a while. But don't you have to go?'
'No, sir. Not right away. We have finished all the other jobs. We are taking the late evening train; so after dinner if we take the nine o'clock bus, that would be fine,' Urmi said.
Virendra got up from his chair, and so did Rajendra and Urmi. They walked some steps to the fringe of the field and stopped where the grass had still remained green. Virendra sat down along with the students. When he was seated, he let his sandals go, and let his feet feel the softness of the grass. He actually felt like stretching his body on the grass, but refrained because of his company. He remained quiet; he was thinking how beautiful the simple grass was. And how exquisitely beautiful were the tiny little flowers of grass. It struck him that beauty was distance dependent; an object was beautiful only between two distances; it was not when one was too close or too far away. He recalled his young days in Calcutta, when he and his friends would go to play at the fields near the large lake they had near their home, and after the games would sit down or lie down on the field near the lake shore and relax before walking back home. When he was older, it had happened several times that on some lonely evenings he had gone to a nearby park, sat down, then lay down on the grass, and did not realise when he had fallen asleep; woke up late in the night to find himself all alone under the stars; the people were gone, and at a distance on the main road outside the park enclosure the last tram was going past. Even later, when he occasionally went out with his family or other families to picnics, whenever he would get an opportunity he would let himself go on any available bed of grass. How does one connect, recollect, incidents of past information stored in memory using stimuli from the present! It has a world of its own.
Virendra looked around. Rajendra and Urmi were also looking around the field, watching the activities there. The level of the ambient light indicated that it was the onset of the dusk. The air was much cooler now. Virendra was still among his thoughts. 'Have either of you ever thought how we recall information stored in our memories?' Virendra floated an inquiry.
Both Rajendra and Urmi were unprepared for this rather abrupt change in the course of conversation. They received the question, but there was no immediate answer. Urmi was the first to respond, 'All I know sir, is that sometimes in examinations I know that I know the answer to some question, but cannot recall exactly what it is. It is a terrible feeling. But nothing happens, I finally get a zero.'
Both Virendra and Rajendra laughed. Urmi said, more addressing Rajendra, 'Why do you laugh? Has it never happened to you, that you know you know, but cannot recall the exact information?'
Rajendra did not respond, but kept smiling, amused at Urmi's apparent annoyance. Virendra responded affectionately, 'Of course, you are right. Fortunately I am spared from taking examinations, but it is happening to me more and more often that, saying it your way, I know I know, but cannot recall the precise information. It is a most agonising experience. Actually what I think is that it needs a precise trigger; if that trigger is missing, you cannot retrieve information from memory, although your brain may be full of information. Probably there is a scan mechanism, which activates these triggers – perhaps the questions that you are given in the examination act as the trigger, but there could be a slight mismatch. Imperfections can always occur.'
'Sir, your entropy again,' Urmi said.
'Not my entropy, it is everybody's entropy!' Virendra said smilingly.
All of them laughed. 'Returning to memory retrieval again,' Virendra said, 'let me amuse you with my observations. I have speculated about it, and my conclusion is that we store information in our brains the same way we index books, through cross references, identifying each information material with some key words or images, and without ordinarily realising that we do it that way. For example, this evening's meeting of ours we would probably store with the following phrases: last day at the university, evening in a stadium, old teacher or graduating students, entropy, and now, memory retrieval. Whenever in future we consider any of these items or words deeply, they will act as triggers or stimuli, and this evening's meeting would surface from the memory, as fresh as it is with us just now. For example, when you consider entropy next time, today's discussion will emerge along with all that you have read or thought about entropy thus far, because they too are connected in memory with key words.'
'I agree sir,' Urmi said, 'whenever anybody would mention "hostel mess," all that will come to my mind would be "terrible food".'
Rajendra laughed audibly; Virendra just smiled.
'Same here,' Rajendra said. 'But other things have been nice; so, even that thought about the mess comes affectionately. If everything else were bad, the same thought would be revolting.' Then after a pause he asked, 'Sir, do you believe that memory fades?'
'No; if you are asking about absolute impression and crispness of what is in storage, I can remember vividly some events that took place thirty years ago. That is not a short time. As long as there is a trigger for recall and as long as it was recorded with clarity and resolution. But surely, one thinks about events long past relatively less; that could very well have to do with the increasing size of information base, profusion of triggers that retrieve relatively recent information more. And this less-frequent recall of events long past generates a feeling that they have faded.
How about corruption by biological decay? That, of course, is a disease, a dysfunction; I am not talking about that. But I have noted another thing that is interesting, although I have no explanations to offer. It is about pleasant experience versus unpleasant experience, as a function of time.'
'Something like good things live in memory for a longer period of time, bad experiences decay relatively fast? Or as it is said: time is the best healer,' Rajendra asked.
'Yes, something along that line. But it has also to do with physical proximity of the place. Suppose you have had both equally intense good and bad experiences here. Imagine yourself quickly moved to a distant place. My observation is: one feels more nostalgic for the good experience part than feels bad about that bad experience part.'
'Why so?'
'I have no speculation except that there is probably a built in absolute measurement device in our brains, which can differentiate between absolute good and bad. And because of an inherent survival mechanism it weighs positively more the good experiences; otherwise humanity would destroy itself in a massive suicide.' Virendra paused.
'Sir, do you think nonbiological objects think?' Urmi asked.
'Maybe calcium carbonate does,' Virendra said with a smile, and a deliberate pause. And then continued, 'In its own way.'
Rajendra smiled. Urmi did not.
'How do we know all that we say based on science is absolute and ultimate,' Urmi asked.
'We do not. Science is like an extra sense besides the senses of sight, sound, etc; it perceives something more, it is capable of doing something more.'
'But there may exist a superior ability than science.'
'Possible.'
'But how does one test that that indeed is a superior ability?'
'Usually, with every truly additional ability, it is possible to accomplish something new and tangible that was not possible without it. That
could be one way to test.'
There was silence. The light had faded some more. Most of the people in the field had left. In another half hour it would be dark. Virendra thought that it was perhaps time that he went his way and let the students go and prepare for their journey. But he had to take the initiative; out of politeness the students on their own might not suggest it. When the silence had gone on for some time, and the trace of the last statement Virendra had made faded, Virendra said, 'It was nice of you to look me up before you left. I greatly enjoyed your company this evening.' He meant every word he uttered.
'Sir, it was so nice of you to sit down with us,' Urmi said.
'It was my pleasure. Now go out into the world, do a good job of studies, and let us hear about you unravelling some mystery of nature which we are all immersed in but do not yet fully comprehend. Keep your concentration on only a few things, and concentrate on quality. "Few, but excellent," remember Gauss's maxim.'
They all got up. Virendra put on the sandals. They turned from the field, walked towards the canteen area. Then they walked to the place where Rajendra and Urmi had parked their bicycles. They took their bicycles and together they walked to the main road. In the faded light they stood momentarily.
'Well, take care. Do write, when you feel like. And work, work ceaselessly. The last sentence is not mine. It is Dostoevsky's.' Virendra paused. 'All right then. Goodbye, and best wishes,' Virendra made a pleasant nod and moved. As he was about to move and almost turned, he heard them saying almost in one voice, 'Goodbye, sir.' Virendra had already turned; without looking behind he walked towards the main crossing.
As he walked, he wondered what he should do. It was still not the time when Parvati would have returned. If he went home he would have to open the entire house and air it. He did not like the idea of returning home right away. Further, he had a cup of tea, of whatever quality it might have been; he did not need anything immediately for his stomach. He would probably feel hungry a little later, but he would be able to manage without much discomfort.
But where would he go? Where could he go? The same realisation, which had appeared many times in situations where he needed some company and nobody was in his own home, occurred again. He did not have too many close friends; anyhow he did not quite like the idea of visiting a friend's house this evening. There he would not quite feel at ease. He could not remain expressionless either as was possible in an indifferent company, but he was also not in a mood to open up even among friends with all his anguish that had accumulated during the day. He felt his mood was to cry and cry until he was fully relieved, but while at it he would not like to be seen by anyone. This was one great virtue of a big city, one could physically exist and yet be lost from everybody for as long as one wished.
If he did not want to go home, and he could not go to someone else's house, then there was only one logical answer; he had to be on the streets. The thought shook Virendra, but he quickly realised that that was the only course left to him if he had already decided about the other alternatives. But wandering around the streets of the campus was not possible; he never really liked it, and the thought of meeting known people and continually nodding and exchanging superficial pleasantries appalled him. He would rather go out of the campus for a long walk. As this thought arose in his mind, he was just entering the main street crossing. Rather than turn right at the intersection for his house and towards the campus residential quarters, he turned left.
After turning he started walking straight, his direction was now towards the rear boundary of the campus. He had decided tentatively about taking a walk outside the campus, but had not thought anything more. Now he thought that if he went straight he would reach the campus boundary and would be able to get out, but there were no proper roads, it would be straight into a village. One could not go for a walk there. He thought of an alternate route. He could take a left turn ahead and go by the road behind the stadium, and then along the road between the postgraduate hostels. After that take a left towards the swimming pool and finally get out of the campus walking across the large field behind the swimming pool. The periphery of the field was the campus boundary which had a high wall, but at the far end where Virendra would head there was a break in the wall – most likely made by those nearby villagers who wanted to cut through the campus. Through that break he could get out. Outside, a metalled road ran parallel to the wall; he could walk on it part of the way up to the concrete bridge where it crossed an irrigation canal. He could leave the paved road at the canal, take a long walk along the dirt road that ran along the canal, and return.
Soon Virendra took another left turn to get into the street behind the stadium. He was now walking with a goal, and although not briskly, confidently. He walked past the rear side of the stadium, and went through the road between the post-graduate hostels. There were some students in that street, returning from the playing field, none Virendra knew. He took a left turn on the swimming pool road. It was desolate; it was near an extremity of the campus. Near the swimming pool gate, a dirt track went down into the field; there Virendra got off the road and took the track.
It was a beaten track, used by villagers on bicycles who had regular business to transact in the campus. A number of them were milkmen. Some of the staff who lived nearby in that area also used the path. During the rainy season it would be a marshy land, and was not easily negotiable. Even then the determined managed to negotiate it, though with difficulty. When the earth dried again, the muddy soil solidified in an uneven way, and slowly tended to become even. In summer heat some of the dry earth would get loose and it would be very dusty, as it was now. Throughout the year, villagers would bring cattle for grazing, and village women would come to use the cowdung to make and dry dung cakes for their eventual use as fuel.
It was getting dark. But one could still see the track clearly because it was totally devoid of grass; it went on in a serpentine way across the field. Virendra walked at a good pace but absentmindedly, mostly with his eyes fixed on the track, his mind occupied with a clutter of thoughts. They were mainly revolving around the day's events in the laboratory, and about the utter failure of his efforts. He had come across similar situations in the past and fought back fiercely with every strength, but today he was having an irrepressible feeling of defeat.
How long could this go on, when there was no support inside, and no support available from outside. When there was nothing to sustain such work in the country. In the presence of so much of politics in the national committees which held the purse strings. And why must one carry on? Who cared? His university did not care; very few people even knew what he was trying to do. But if the evolution is predetermined then perhaps none could be blamed. Each object is carrying out its destined role, his adversaries included. All are tied to their respective genes; all prisoners of genes; no parole, no execution, no release. But then how does one respond to the real world? It was impossible to fight at every front. How could one tackle a half-competent and a half-crook of a foreign equipment company with their matching counterpart? If one had to go to a law court to settle the issues what was the purpose of embarking on scientific work anyway? There had been enough of stupidity; it must stop forthwith.
But it was so difficult to erase everything. A lifelong effort to establish something, even if it was premature. A know-how that did not exist in the country. Acquired, brought in, and nurtured. And what about the efforts of the students; first inspiring them to get into it, making them go through some immeasurable toil, and then dismissing the project by saying that it could not be done? What attitude would be transmitted to the next generation? Cleverly staying away from difficult work?
And how would this country ever catch up with the developed nations if they gave up like this? This was not like technology import that one could do at any time for a specific item, if one wished to distribute a facility. But a deep scientific and technological ability could not be imported; it had to be grown in the nation's soil. He had watched for the
last twenty years; nothing happened. He could see the signs all around; nothing was going to happen in the next twenty years. One can say that from the way they were losing their best talent. The irony was that they had to strive to catch up with a country which they were pushing further forward with their best. That much prediction he had the ability to make.
Virendra had now reached close to the boundary wall beyond which lay the main road. He walked a little further down and could see the break in the wall; it was still there. He reached the wall, stooped a bit to go through the opening and then emerged on the other side.
He had to walk up a slope to be on the road; the road was already in the region of a curve as well as the ramp leading to the concrete bridge over the canal. The road usually did not have much traffic; whatever it had consisted mostly of trucks and suburban buses; but on market days one could find a number of tractors ferrying produce and shoppers back and forth between the marketplace and nearby villages. And of course, bullock carts, and there was one ahead of Virendra as he walked towards the bridge.
It was only a short stretch to the bridge. The cart went across the bridge; Virendra left the road before it reached the bridge and took the dirt road to the left along the canal. The canal was to his right; there were fields on either side of the canal. To the far right at a distance were brick manufacturing companies – from here their kilns and chimneys were prominently visible; and far ahead on the other side of the canal stood the regional power plant – a huge structure with several tall chimneys billowing smoke. From the university main building, one could see the power plant; Virendra had noticed that in foggy winter days it developed a magical charm, standing at a distance like a huge ocean-going ship.
The path was still visible, although it was getting dark all the time. But there was not much to see here; it was a straight path. In the daytime there would be cyclists using this as a short-cut to the power plant market, but now there were no signs of them. A few lights in the distant plant colony were already showing.