The pendulum called time… (page 2)

Some children walking around the well shouted ‘Look at that old man, he is throwing stones into the well. Just like us!’ I made a gesture that frightened them away. They called me ‘old’, those rascals. I am over fifty years, but that’s not old by any standards! I wonder how Mithun would have aged! Does he wear spectacles with thick lens? does he wear dentures? Is he bald?

Both of us finished our schooling and entered college. We had to travel 8 miles from the village to college. Those days everyone rode in a cycle, so did we. A heavy breakfast would prepare us pertinently for the long day’s routine. Our academics went dexterously. By then we were the only two students who exhaustively used the library and lab facilities. I remember our first successful attempt at constructing a telescope. A pair of lens is all we bought from the optician spending a few annas. We were at the paddy field and gazed at the star lit sky through our telescope. Mithun cheerfully said, ‘look that’s the great bear constellation. Can you locate the bear’s paws!’. I was spell bound. ‘We are the greatest scientists’ he shouted. And then both of us cried ‘we are the greatest scientists!’ it echoed. I told him “ the great bear is linked to gods and goddesses, heavens and immortality” That day Mithun asked me a strange question ‘what do you think, Anand?’ ‘Is God a master to his slaves or is He a loving father to his children? I shrugged and said God is a loving father, always. And that He loves all his children. He laughed it away. And said emphatically ‘ If there was a God, there would have been no sorrows. Only love everywhere. There is no God. We are all slaves to someone who is more powerful. And some day I will become as powerful as He is’ The look in his eyes was strange. This is not Mithun, there was a kind of madness in his voice.

After that day, we never discussed God. We passed out jubilantly with Bachelor of Science. We opted for Master of science and later a doctorate in physics. Physics was more than what we had imagined. Physics was indeed the queen of sciences. There is a romance around the subject. Every idea, every concept so beautifully unfolds in the world of physics. And we continued to imbibe within us everything that was taught and more.

Time moved swiftly and our lives never crossed each other’s path after we finished post graduation. I got married. And moved to Calcutta, I got my doctorate in physics from Presidency college Calcutta. I live in Calcutta presently with my wife and two sons. Mithun, moved to Bangalore, he never married. He got his doctorate from the Indian institute of science. I only heard from him recently. He wanted me to visit him, here in Cochin.

My itinerant would finally end here, in Cochin.