Skip to main content

Halley’s Fishes


Fiction

Arjun was contemplating with considerable amusement on how Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica came to be rejected by its first patron, the Royal Society. 

“You are under arrest.”  The steely voice jolted him out of his amusement. 

“But why?  What have I done?”  Arjun asked as he extended his arms for receiving the handcuff without realising what he was doing.  Life was always a mechanical thing for him.  When his wife served the meals he ate them.  If she was not there, he wouldn’t eat.  It wouldn’t make any difference.  When he saw the handcuffs, his hands stretched themselves as naturally as the sunflower turns towards the sun.

What was the action of mine which attracted this reaction?  He asked himself as he felt the steel of the handcuff scalding his skin.

They were silent, the cops, as they led him out of the National Museum where he was looking at a copy of the cover page of The History of Fishes which jettisoned Sir Newton’s Principia.  The cover showed a flying fish.  The book was written by the scientist Francis Willughby and sponsored by the Royal Society.  The Society went broke after publishing the book.  There were no takers for a book of ichthyology, study of fishes, that is.

It was then that Edmond Halley – yeah, that very same man after whom the comet is named – suggested the publication of Sir Newton’s masterpiece.  If fish cannot sell, how can mathematics?  The Royal Society put its foot down heavily on Halley’s recommendation of Newton. 

Halley sponsored the publication himself.  Sir Newton didn’t bother a bit to help.  He was as cool as when he inserted a bodkin into the space between his eyeball and the frontal bone and turned it there a number of times just to know what would happen.  It mattered little to him whether his book was published or not. 

“So, Mr Husain, you are antinational,” said the Inspector of Police as soon as Arjun was brought before him.  The Inspector’s face strangely reminded Arjun of a shark.

Arjun turned back to see the anti-national Husain.

“What the f**k are you turning back for?”  The inspector roared and implicitly accused Arjun of doing unimaginable things to his mother and sister.

“Answer my question, you BC MC,” demanded the Inspector.

“But I’m not Husain. I am Arjun.”

“What do you think this is?  Melon City?  To change your identity as you please?  We’ve got clear reports from our nationalist wing that you refused to stand up while the national anthem was played in the cinema hall.”

“I never visit a cinema hall.”  Arjun was flabbergasted.

None of the police tricks could establish beyond doubt that Arjun was Husain. 

“Do you have an ID card with you?” asked the Inspector finally.

“I have an Aadhar card, a ration card, a PAN card...”

“I see.  Then why the f**k don’t you show us one of them?”

“They are at home.  Even my cow is going to get an Aadhar soon.”  Arjun thought that the mention of a cow would prove his nationalism beyond doubt.

The Inspector glowered at him.

“Sir!” ventured one of the constables.

“What?”

“There’s one way of proving that he is not Husain.”

“What’s that?”

“Check his dick.”

The other constable giggled.

“Hey, I think you’re right.”  The Inspector turned to Arjun and ordered, “Come on, open up.”

Arjun stared blankly at the Inspector.

“Didn’t you hear, you BC MC, what I told you?  Open your zip and show us your dick.”

Arjun’s hands wanted to move to the zip but he was handcuffed.  Mahatma Gandhi winked from the faded portrait nailed behind the Inspector.

The Inspector motioned to a constable to open the handcuff.

Arjun stood with his trousers lying in a mocking curlicue around his ankles.  One of the constables tapped on his organ with his baton before raising it and staring at it. 

“This thing has that thing, Sir,” said the constable.  “He can’t be Husain.”

“Come and show us your Aadhar card tomorrow.”  The Inspector ordered as Arjun walked out of the police station.

Halley was working also as the Royal Society’s clerk.  Arjun continued recollecting the story from where he had stopped when the cops took on him.  Having run out of money after publishing Sir Newton’s Principia, when he demanded his pay, the Soceity gave him the unsold copies of The History of Fishes

Newton’s laws are wrong, chuckled Arjun, in the world of human affairs. 


Comments

  1. A masterpiece. A perfect blend of modern political scenario with history and science. Might I say a kafkaesque work. Somehow it reminded me the absurdism mr. K faced in The Trial by kafka. Yet another brilliant work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad to see you here after a long time.

      Yes, it is a Kafkaesque world. Similar to contemporary India.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country where humour died

Humour died a thousand deaths in India after May 2014. The reason – let me put it as someone put it on X.  The stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra called a politician some names like ‘traitor’ which made his audience laugh because they misunderstood it as a joke. Kunal Kamra has to explain the joke now in a court of justice. I hope his judge won’t be caught with crores of rupees of black money in his store room . India itself is the biggest joke now. Our courts of justice are huge jokes. Our universities are. Our temples, our textbooks, even our markets. Let alone our Parliament. I’m studying the Ramayana these days in detail because I’ve joined an A-to-Z blog challenge and my theme is Ramayana, as I wrote already in an earlier post . In order to understand the culture behind Ramayana, I even took the trouble to brush up my little knowledge of Sanskrit by attending a brief course. For proof, here’s part of a lesson in my handwriting.  The last day taught me some subhashit...

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...

Violence and Leaders

The latest issue of India Today magazine studies what it calls India’s Gross Domestic Behaviour (GDB). India is all poised to be an economic superpower. But what about its civic sense? Very poor, that’s what the study has found. Can GDP numbers and infrastructure projects alone determine a country’s development? Obviously, no. Will India be a really ‘developed’ country by 2030 although it may be $7-trillion economy by then? Again, no is the answer. India’s civic behaviour leaves a lot, lot to be desired. Ironically, the brand ambassador state of the country, Uttar Pradesh, is the worst on most parameters: civic behaviour, public safety, gender attitudes, and discrimination of various types. And UP is governed by a monk!  India Today Is there any correlation between the behaviour of a people and the values and principles displayed by their leaders? This is the question that arose in my mind as I read the India Today story. I put the question to ChatGPT. “Yes,” pat came the ...

The Ramayana Chronicles: 26 Stories, Endless Wisdom

I’m participating in the A2Z challenge of Blogchatter this year too. I have been regular with this every April for the last few years. It’s been sheer fun for me as well as a tremendous learning experience. I wrote mostly on books and literature in the past. This year, I wish to dwell on India’s great epic Ramayana for various reasons the prominent of which is the new palatial residence in Ayodhya that our Prime Minister has benignly constructed for a supposedly homeless god. “Our Ram Lalla will no longer reside in a tent,” intoned Modi with his characteristic histrionics. This new residence for Lord Rama has become the largest pilgrimage centre in India, drawing about 100,000 devotees every day. Not even the Taj Mahal, a world wonder, gets so many footfalls. Ayodhya is not what it ever was. Earlier it was a humble temple town that belonged to all. Several temples belonging to different castes made all devotees feel at home. There was a sense of belonging, and a sense of simplici...