There were broken pieces of glass, food, drinks, and blood everywhere. The fear that filled the place was palpable.
Krish got out from under the table and grabbed his phone. He carefully stepped on shards of broken glass and felt the slippery, crunchy sensation as he walked out of the building. He, along with a few others, got out the back door. They were asked by the police to raise their hands and remain still. Krish immediately got hold of a paramedic and told him about the waiter who was shot.
Krish sat under a tree away from the scene. Exhausted, physically and emotionally drained, observing it from a distance, Krish thought that everything seemed surreal. He had come face-to-face with death twice in twenty-four hours. Everything was happening so fast. He couldn’t wrap his head around it all.
His thoughts went to the guy who had pointed the gun at him from under the table. Who was he? What did he want? Was he partnered with the shooter? Or was he after me, specifically? Krish wondered. As exhausted as he was, thinking about it all made Krish realize that he still had a reserve of energy from his fight or flight response. The mysterious gunman’s accent sounded Eastern European or Russian. Who was he working for? Krish wondered. He was lost in his thoughts as a paramedic approached him.
“Are you all right, sir?” the medic asked. Krish was feeling dizzy and about to lose consciousness. In the chaos that ensued in the restaurant, his would-be assailant had pulled the trigger—either due to the sudden noise or by intent. The bullet had more than grazed Krish; he had been bleeding steadily and the shock to his body was finally setting in. He hadn’t noticed the shot as his body was pumped full of adrenaline to survive.
The paramedic performed some first aid, put him on a stretcher, and sent Krish to the hospital. When he awoke, he inhaled the undeniable smell of hospital and looked around. He was surrounded by medical devices, tubes, flickering LED lights, beeps, and graphs.
“I need to talk to my parents,” Krish told the cute blonde nurse on duty. “I’m a scientist at Cal Tech… figuring out the secrets of the universe,” he added, making a feeble attempt at flirting.
“Very cool,” she said politely, her ponytail bouncing as she shook her head. “I’m an intern, trying to figure out the secrets of the human body,” she said with a smile. After the pleasant moment had passed, Krish was reminded of his sucky day.
“Please get my cell phone. I need to call my parents. The coverage of the shooting is probably all over the news. My parents will be worried.” As an after-thought, he added, “How is my wound, anything serious?”
“You had a long day. The doctor will provide more details. The wound is superficial, nothing to worry about,” she said in a practiced, soothing voice, touching him lightly to put him at ease.
Krish called his parents and assured them everything was okay.
They were relieved to hear from him. “Come back home, enough with your research,” his mother said, the weight of worry obvious in her voice.
A strange thought occurred to Krish. Was I shot by the crazy scumbag shooter or by that other douche bag who was pointing his gun directly at me? Was he real or a creation of my imagination? He pressed the button by his bed to call the nurse.
Dr. Buzinsky answered from the nursing station. “Ma’am, I had a very rough day, and I cannot keep things straight. I need to see a psychotherapist or a psychiatrist to make sure I’m not losing my mind,” Krish said plainly.
“I will arrange for that, sir,” she assured.
It had started to rain. Krish had dozed off. When he opened his eyes, he could see that it was getting dark outside. He talked to the resident psychiatrist. She gave him a standard questionnaire.
“Krish, you’re not schizophrenic based on your answers to the questionnaire. You have been through a lot of stress, and there are aggravating factors such as your doctoral research, loneliness, and homesickness. You should see a therapist until things settle down completely, but I wouldn’t worry yourself too much.” Krish nodded in agreement.
Krish couldn’t help thinking how rudimentary it was to make such an important diagnosis based on a questionnaire. For any physical ailment, there were endless tests, but not for mental illness. I hope Kathy’s brain project makes some progress. I could use some help understanding the human mind, he thought.
Krish was released from the hospital the next day. By the time he got off the bus, the rain had stopped. It seemed that springtime might come earlier than usual this year. Krish noticed that the evergreen pear trees had shed their tiny white petals all over the black pavement; they looked like snowflakes. All the tress looked clean and freshly washed from the rain. There were snails crawling all over the pavement. One bird’s nest hadn’t survived the rain and was lying in a helpless pile. The eggs couldn’t be seen anywhere nearby, and Krish hoped they were safe somewhere. He was trying to enjoy the walk back to his house. There was a slight breeze, a wet leaf landed on his hair, and the water drops rolled over his face, startling him. He was obviously still a little edgy after having so many guns pointed at his face recently.
Krish noticed posters for the presidential primaries on the trees. Usually, California primaries didn’t matter as the decisions were made well before it was time for the public to vote. But, this time, it appeared California’s rich delegate count could make a difference. Plus, everybody always wanted money from Hollywood and the Silicon Valley. A poster advertised that one of the leading presidential candidates was making a stop in town that day and there was a debate being held. I wonder what they’ll fight about tonight, he thought and kept walking.
Krish pressed the pedestrian crossing button at one of the intersections. The white walking man and audio signal came on. As he was passing the row of cars that had stopped for pedestrians, he noticed one car revving its engine and slightly crossing the stop line. He noticed a south Asian and an Arab man staring blankly at him.
He quickly crossed the street and turned right to be out of their sight. One of them got out of the car and started following him. Trying to avoid the man chasing him, Krish walked away from his house. He looked up and noticed a crowd nearby. He thought he might be safe there and made his way toward the gathering. The group turned out to be for the presidential debate. It had been a rough couple of days and he wanted to rest. But, given his situation, being surrounded by people seemed like a better choice.
The theater of democracy was on full display inside and outside the hall. ‘Monkey,’ ‘liar,’ ‘Satan,’ ‘dumb,’ ‘stupid,’ ‘death to the president,’ ‘hang him,’ references to men’s and women’s body parts, and various racial slurs were thrown around by both the supporters and the opponents outside the hall. The two sides were staring at each other angrily and throwing four letter words like flaming daggers.
Krish wondered if these people were truly this passionate about international politics, taxes, climate change, and education OR if they were just reacting to the words of their leaders. Maybe they were venting out their frustration over other parts of their personal lives via this public event. Some were clearly being paid to be there. Some were simply present to pick a fight for no reason in particular.
Inside the town hall, it was no different. “Go get them! Beat the daylights out of them. Who will hit the target?” said one candidate pointing to the crowd. “You, you, or you? Use your weapon, use it to fight back.” Crosshairs painted on the pictures of opponents, chest thumping, subtle changes in tone, and language were all being employed to press the right buttons. There was a lot of anger in the people gathered.
Oh leaders, you’re doing all this theater to get votes. After the election, you will move on, but this bad blood will persist inside these peoples’ weak minds, and it will come out in the form of some mass shooting, child abuse, bullying, police brutality, or some other twisted way somewhere down the line, Krish thought.
On the other hand, the other candidate was advertising, ‘free education, free health care, free retirement, free housing, free jobs, and the government
will take care of everything, just give us your money.’
Well, it’s just not going to work in the real world, sir. Plus, I have first-hand experience. I’ve lived in India during the socialist era, before the economy was opened. It was not good! Krish wanted to point out. Same thing happens everywhere in the world, back home too. Leaders do the same thing at every level—from prime ministers, presidents, and dictators to executive managers, supervisors, down to foremen. People spread wrong, misleading information, create divisions, threats, anything really to maintain power.
Krish leaned by a wall in the corner, thinking that it would give him a good vantage point for anyone coming toward him. He took position at the back of the hall, at a higher elevation. He had a wall behind him so he only needed to keep an eye out in front. Surprisingly, his lab mate Kathy was standing in the row next to him.
“The shooter at the restaurant was a bullied kid taking out his issues,” Kathy said as she moved closer to Krish.
“I’m not a social scientist. I’m a physicist, but I thought…” Krish hadn’t completed his sentence. Suddenly, his pupils dilated, his breathing became rapid, and his body felt warm all over. His ear lobes became red with excess blood circulation, and his sense of smell became more acute as his nostrils flared.
An invisible energy wave crashed into the crowd. Kathy broke apart into tiny particles. Slowly it spread to the rest of the crowd. The hall disappeared. Krish was standing there and around him the whole sky was full of tiny particles buzzing passed one another—moving randomly in all possible directions. Everything was swirling in an elliptical shape. There were trillions of super tiny particles, but most of the space was still empty, filled with dark matter. The dark matter was influencing the particles, but it could not be seen or touched!
The particles were moving through the Higgs field, interacting with the Higgs-Boson and acquiring mass. The forces of nature started acting upon them. The strong nuclear force formed protons and neutrons from quarks and held subatomic particles inside the atom. The electromagnetic force acted on charged particles, and they started interacting with each other and forming various molecules and complex biology. Some of the particles assembled to form Kathy and other humans, and some particles were still moving around randomly.
Out of all the probabilities of where the individual particles could end up, they were driven toward the formation of Kathy—because Kathy existed! This was the same anthropic principle that scientists used to explain the formation of this universe—out of the several universes that are mathematically possible, only the conditions favoring this universe dominate because this is the only universe we experience, and that’s how this universe was created.
So, Kathy was converting randomness into herself. The probability amplitude distribution functions of the particles mathematically started looking like an arrow. They were converging toward something rather than nothing. Kathy was controlling the particles by her ‘force’. However, she herself was still bouncing around randomly like the individual particles she was made of! The presidential candidates were now exerting their force on these randomly moving humans, including Kathy, and driving them toward a dark disk.
Krish thought, humans are being driven toward a dark, bottomless pit, not a bright and enlightening goal, by corrupt and inept leadership.
“All right, there you go… the debate is starting,” Kathy’s words abruptly brought Krish back from his hallucination to the hall where the normal back and forth political drama was currently going on. Krish’s breathing returned to normal. He thought he had stepped on something. He noticed an arrow lying at his feet. It looked just like the mathematical functions he had been thinking about. Where did it come from? he wondered.
He then heard the words, “This arrow is powerful, like a thunderbolt. It is decorated with gold. Its wood is from the reed forest of Kartikeya. It has eagle feathers for fins toward the end, nodes that are very smooth, a tip that is extremely sharp, and its egress is perfectly straight.”
Krish picked up the extraordinary looking arrow. He didn’t know what to make of it or if anyone else had heard the mysterious voice.
“This is messed up,” Krish said out of frustration. “I don’t know what’s real or what’s a hallucination.”
After thinking about everything he had witnessed and felt over the last few days, and processing it through his scientific mind, Krish came up with some conclusions. He grabbed Kathy and walked toward a quiet corner.
“All the time that there is—past, present, future—is already here. We just interpret it linearly for our survival. There are multiple possible universes, and we create the universe we live in. Humans determine the outcome of Feynman’s probabilities and probability amplitude, and the force that we exert determines the outcome of events from the subatomic level up.
“Just like humans’ influence matter, when it comes to individual humans, the folks who apply ‘the force’ are the rich and the powerful. Leaders have power over populations, and they shape the population the same way that humans shape inanimate matter. People who have forgotten about their true power are easily misled. Additionally, if the leaders get degenerated and corrupted, the population degenerates and suffers as well.”
Krish thought for a while before he continued, “The solution is for each individual to realize the power they have at an early stage in their life, so that they cannot be misled by leaders—the realization of the power to influence the outcome of all events and the universe itself. And, once you have been touched with the awareness of this power, you cannot go back to being lazy, corrupt, or warlike. Darkness cannot exist once there is light. And then, nobody needs to be taught to do the right thing. It just happens because you have felt ‘the force’. You just need to realize your power! And I’ll mathematically prove that this extraordinary power exists in each individual. I’ll bring the force to everyone. That is my mission. This will be true democracy.”
Kathy didn’t know what to say. She processed what Krish was saying, staring at him blankly. This connection between science, mathematics, and societal function was unheard of. She finally looked at him with a twinkle and nodded gently. She was impressed. Kathy was a tough customer to win over. She lightly kissed his stubble-covered cheek with her tender lips.
“Good,” she said. That was the highest praise she could bestow upon another non-MIT human. “Well, all this is just empty words without the math. Show me the math first,” she insisted.
Krish knew she was right. He needed mathematical proof for what he had witnessed and conceived. For the moment, though, he was delighted. Krish defended his strange ideas, “A new idea is like a newborn baby—bloody, sticky, and helpless. Give it some time, and it will flourish.” Happy with himself, he pumped his fist in the air and got ready to leave the hall.
An old woman standing next to Krish, looked at him strangely. “Lots of nuts here,” she said matter-of-factly. Krish ignored her. As he walked toward the exit, he thought, we’re so preoccupied with the daily grind, that we don’t pay attention to the big picture. The intense experiences that I had today blocked everything out of my mind’s eye and drove me toward this insight. The revelation was totally worth everything he had been through.
Krish was happy, he felt very light. He knew this was the right thing. This is what he had been looking for all these years. All those equations, and page after page of math that appeared in his mind from seemingly nowhere, were driving him toward this. I wish Prisha were here, he thought as he wondered about the one person he would like to share this moment with. He had an intense desire to hold this woman. He wanted to touch her beautiful, long hair, marvel at her sparkling, young eyes that were so full of energy and latent desire, and bask in the radiance of her beauty. He wanted to lay with her and make love to her. Well, let us not get ahead of ourselves, he cautioned himself. I don’t even know if she’s interested.
While Krish was lost in his world, the debate between the candidates concluded. Krish ascertained
that he was not being followed any longer. He felt it safe to walk to home.
‘I hope everything is all right… worried :(’ flashed a message on his WhatsApp. It was Prisha. She must have heard about the shooting at the restaurant. That simple message brought a smile to Krish’s lips.
“Good way to end a long day,” he said as he continued his walk.
Back at the hall, the cleaning crew was busy at work after everyone had left. One gentleman was inquiring with them, “I lost an arrow for my crossbow. Have you seen it?” Kathy overheard their exchange.
She wondered, was that the arrow Krish found? Where did it come from? His thoughts are extraordinary, fresh, and brilliant, but is his thesis correct or a figment of his imagination? Let math and experimental validation triumph above everything else, she concluded.
Chapter 5
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
~~~~~~~
Ancient India
~~~~~~~
Heroes emerge from the society’s knowledge and expertise.
Oh! There you are, Hanuman,” his friends called as they finally found where he had disappeared to with Ashthvakra Muni. Prince Angad, Nal, Neel, and other young Vanara joined Hanuman near the hermitage.
“This gurukul’s residence is a center of learning and exploration of various aspects of wisdom, as well as science of the physical world,” said Ashthvakra. Hanuman looked intrigued and eager to learn more. On the other hand, Angad and some of the other Vanara were glancing at the young women helping to clean up after the evening prayer and lighting lamps at the gurukul, hermitage.
Angad was a handsome young prince. He wore a thick gold bracelet around the strong wrist that carried his mace. A gold necklace with a blue diamond pendant adored his chest. He had long hair held in place with a sizable gold chain tied around his forehead. He wore a short, deep-blue silk dhoti around his waist. His favorite blue color pigment for dyeing the dhoti was made from precious lapis stones. Angad took a sharp breath and walked toward the women with deliberate steps.
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