The chapter describes Professor Gaitonde's strange experience of finding himself in an alternate reality where history had occurred differently. On a train to Bombay, he notices inconsistencies and decides to research at the library, finding accounts that the Marathas won the Battle of Panipat rather than the Mughals. He experiences an even stranger situation of interacting with a public lecture before waking in the hospital, where Rajendra explains his experience was likely due to theories of catastrophe and quantum physics allowing shifts to alternate realities.

1. SAINIK SCHOOL REWARI
CLASS:XI
SUBJECT:ENGLISH
CHAPTER 7 (HORNBILL) : THE ADVENTURE
(JAYANT NARLIKAR)
PRESENTED BY:
ANUPRIYA PRIYADARSHI
PGT ENGLISH

2. About the author:
 Jayant Vishnu Narlikar (born 19 July 1938) is an
Indian astrophysicist and emeritus professor at the
Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and
Astrophysics.
 He developed with Sir Fred Hoyle the conformal
gravity theory, known as Hoyle–Narlikar theory. It
synthesises Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and
Mach's principle. It proposes that the inertial mass of
a particle is a function of the masses of all other
particles, multiplied by a coupling constant, which is
a function of cosmic epoch.

3. INTRODUCTION
• The chapter ‘The Adventure’ is a story about Professor
Gangadharpant Gaitonde who is strangely in a different
world. He knows it is Pune but the facts are different
from what he believes. He decided to go to Bombay via
train ‘Jijamata Express’. When he reached Bombay, things
were different. When he decides to investigate the
history, he finds some surprising facts. The East India
Company was still ruling and the Battle of Panipat had
been won by Marathas. It was different from what he
knew and had studied. The East India Company was
taken aback after events of 1857 and the Battle of
Panipat had been won by Mughals.

4. Summary:
• Professor Gaitonde was travelling from Pune to
Bombay via the Jijamata Express, a train which was
faster than the Deccan Queen. As he was crossing
towns and villages, he met a man named ‘Khan
Sahib’ who talked about his business and chatted
about several things. They got off at Victoria
Terminus station which was neat and clean. It had
British officers, Parsees and Anglo-Indian staff all
around. He was confused as to how the East India
Company was ruling the country as according to his
facts, they had fled away after the events of 1857.

5. • He went to the Hornby road and noticed that the
shops were different. He entered the Forbes
building and inquired about Mr. Vinay Gaitonde
but as checked by the receptionist, no such man
had ever worked there. He went to the Town Hall
and sat in the reading room. He took five books
related to the history and decided to go through
them one by one and check how the facts had
changed. He started investigating from the period
of Asoka to the third battle of Panipat.

6. • According to the fifth volume ‘Bhausahebanchi
Bakhar’, he found out that Marathas had won the
Battle of Panipat and spread their influence all over
India after that. He was confused as it was different
from what he knew so far. After the victory, India
was moved to the path of democracy. There were
no longer any kings ruling and democratic parties
had been set up. The professor started liking India
as he kept reading further about it. It was different
from the one he believed he saw. This country
knew how to stand on its feet and it was no longer
slave under the white man.

7. • As he was going through the book, the librarian
told him to finish since they were closing the
library. It was eight o clock. He asked about
carrying the books with him as he would return the
next morning and slipped the Bakhar book into his
left pocket. He checked into a guest house and had
his dinner. He decided to walk towards Azad
Maidan. He noticed a large crowd of people going
towards a pandal. A lecture was going on but he
noticed something unusual. The presidential chair
was empty. The speaker was talking and the crowd
was continuously moving inside and outside.

8. • He could not control himself and moved towards
the stage and sat on the chair. The crowd was
taken aback and started asking him to get up and
move away. He tried to talk to them but they
started throwing several objects at him such as
tomatoes, eggs, etc. Soon the crowd moved
towards him to push him away and he was
nowhere to be seen.
• Next, he woke up in a hospital bed and saw
Rajendra in front of him. He narrated the whole
sequence of events that took place and Rajendra
listened to him amazed. The professor was
confused as to where he was and if he had been
in a coma for the past two days. What was the
experience he just had, was it real or not.

9. • Rajendra explained to him that it happened
because of two theories – Catastrophe theory
and lack of determinism in Quantum theory.
Catastrophe theory states that a small change in
any situation can result in a shift in behaviour. In
reality, the Marathas lost their leader –
Bhausaheb and Vishwarao and hence they lost
the battle. But Professor saw that the bullet
missed and Vishwarao was not dead.
• Professor then showed him the torn page of the
Bakhar book that he had in his pocket. Rajendra
read it carefully and told him that realities can be
different for different people. What he thought
had happened is a catastrophic experience.

10. • Rajendra told him that in the case of electrons,
one cannot predict which path the electron takes
at a point of time. He told him that it is the lack of
determinism in Quantum theory and explained to
him what it meant. In one world, the electron
may be found here and in another, it may be
found in another place but in the third world. It
may be at different locations. Once the observer
knows about the correct placing of the electrons
in every world, it might happen that an
alternative world exists at the same time.

11. • Hence, the professor was in two different worlds
at the present time. He had real-life experience in
an alternative reality and he came back from
another world. Both the worlds had different
histories and different sets of events. The
professor wanted to know why he was the one to
make the transition. Rajendra told him that at the
time of the collision with the truck, the professor
was thinking about the catastrophe theory and its
role in the war. He was also thinking about the
Battle of Panipat at that moment, so the neurons
in his brain acted as a trigger and made the
transition.
• The professor was in that alternative world for
the last two days.

12. Difficult Words:
• Townships – Towns or villages
• Roared – to move at a high speed while making a
loud noise
• Permits – authorize to do something
• Ventured – to say something that might be
considered as an apology
• Suburban – residential area
• Emerged – developed; begin
• Imposing – Impressive
• Proclaimed – to announce something officially
• Flourishing – to grow successfully

13. • Converged – met
• Precise – exact; accurate
• Triumphant – Successful
• Blow – by – blow account – a detailed account
• Avidly – with great interest
• Morale booster – anything which boosts self-
confidence
• Supremacy – the condition of being superior to
others
• Expansionist – a follower of the policy of territorial
or economic expansion