‘Should we go in now or later?’ Oja whispered to her husband.
‘Why are you whispering?’
‘I am not whispering,’ she whispered.
They were standing a few feet away from a group of parents, about a dozen of them, who were talking about the horse-riding classes in a new international board school that had sprung up in the suburbs. The mothers were in T-shirt and jeans, and trousers that reached just below their knees, and long skirts. Some were in salwars. All of them — they looked so expensive. Oja inched closer to her husband.
Ayyan studied the fathers. His own shirt, he knew, was good. It had cost him five hundred rupees, but there was something about the shirts of these men and their trousers and the way they stood, that made him feel that he looked like their driver. In the morning, when he had inspected himself in the mirror, he was certain that he measured up to them, but now, in their midst, he was somehow smaller. And Oja looked like their cook.
‘Let’s go and talk to them,’ Ayyan said.
‘No,’ Oja said, but he had already started walking towards them. She trailed behind him. They stood at the periphery of the group. Ayyan maintained a smile of being involved in their conversation and tried to make eye-contact with a man he remembered meeting earlier. The women surveyed Oja briefly. One of them looked at her feet, and Oja curled her toes.
When there was a brief pause in the conversation, Ayyan said to his acquaintance, in English, ‘We have met. I am Aditya Mani’s father.’
The acquaintance looked kindly at him and said, ‘Of course, I remember.’ He turned to the gathering and said, ‘Guys, this is the father of the genius.’ Oja did not realize it, but she was nodding like a spring-headed doll and smiling at the women.
‘Genius?’ a man asked in a whisper.
‘Yes. He is what, eleven or something. And he talks about relativity and all that.’
‘Really?’
‘Aditya, yes,’ a woman’s face lit up. ‘I have heard stories about him. So he really does exist.’ She told Oja in Hindi, ‘Your son is very special.’
Oja looked coyly at her husband and giggled. She whispered to her husband, but everybody could hear it, ‘Let’s go.’
Six tables were arranged in a semi-circle on the stage. On a blue background was a thermocol board that said, ‘St Andrew’s School. First Interschool Science Quiz’. The participants were yet to arrive but the hall was packed. On either side of a red-carpeted aisle, students sat on wooden benches. They filled most of the auditorium. Adi was somewhere in the sixth row. In the last rows, some boys had faint moustaches.
‘These boys are so big,’ Ayyan told his wife. ‘And these girls have breasts.’
They were towards the end of the hall, on cushioned chairs, with other parents and teachers. The little group of parents Ayyan had spoken to outside were in the row in front. Oja toyed with the pendant of her thin gold chain and studied the necks of the mothers.
The lights dimmed and the murmurs of the students grew louder. On the darkened stage, six pairs of students appeared. There were two beautiful adolescent girls in olive-green skirts and white shirts. Others were pubescent boys in various uniforms. They sat at the desks and waited. The stage lights came on and the audience clapped. There were a few whistles too. Sister Chastity appeared and she walked smartly to the middle of the stage holding a wireless mike.
‘Who was whistling?’ was the first thing she said. That brought about an absolute silence. ‘Students of St Andrew’s do not whistle.’ She then smiled at the gathering and said, ‘Good morning parents, teachers and students. Welcome to the first Interschool Science quiz of St Andrew’s.’
She spoke about the school, its recent achievements, its plans and then she introduced the quizmaster. He was the senior maths teacher of the school, one of the men Ayyan had seen in the Principal’s office the week before.
There was a loud applause when he walked on to the stage. He looked happier now and smarter in a black suit and blue tie. He too had a wireless mike in his hand. He had an amiable way of speaking, and he spoke very fast as if he were reading out the risk factors in a mutual fund commercial. He laid down the rules and asked the contestants to introduce themselves. Sister Chastity went down the aisle and sat among the parents and teachers. She was in the same row as Ayyan, but on the other side of the aisle.
‘Let’s begin the first round,’ the quizmaster said. ‘The first round is the physics round.’ He looked at Team A and said, ‘Are you ready for the very first question of the first Annual Interschool Science Quiz Contest of St Andrew’s English School?’
The grim boys of Team A did not nod.
‘All right. Here goes,’ the quizmaster said, looking at a card that he was holding. ‘These two gentlemen wanted to prove the existence of something called ether. Instead, they accidentally discovered that light travels at a constant speed irrespective of the speed of the observer. Who are these men?’
The boys looked perplexed and thoughtful. They passed. The next team too considered the question deeply, and also passed. The third team was the all-girls team. They passed immediately, without fuss. The question was passed by all the six teams.
‘Nobody?’ the quizmaster asked, with a touch of triumph. He looked at the audience. ‘The question passes to the audience.’
There was a silence that was heavy with embarrassment. Oja looked at her husband apologetically, as if she was ashamed she did not know the answer.
‘Albert Michelson and Edward Morley,’ the quizmaster said, and there were hisses of agony from the boys on the stage. One boy spread his hands in overt exasperation.
‘Michelson and Morley,’ the quizmaster said, ‘set out to prove an old theory that the universe was filled with an invisible thing called ether. As we now know the universe is not filled with ether. But they accidentally discovered through their experiments that light travels at the same speed irrespective of how fast or slow an observer is moving.’
The quizmaster looked at Team B.
‘Are you ready? All right. Here is the second question. What discovery is Sir James Chadwick known for?’ A small voice pierced the silence of the hall.
‘Neutron,’ it said.
There was a stunned silence and then murmuring. Everybody on the stage looked confused. Team B looked angry.
‘Who was it?’ the quizmaster asked, looking at the audience. The parents were looking at each other with soft chuckles.
Oja’s hands were trembling. She held the sleeve of her husband and asked in a frightened voice, ‘Wasn’t it Adi?’
Ayyan, breathing a bit hard, said, ‘Yes.’
A man in the row in front of them turned and looked impassively at Ayyan and Oja. Sister Chastity’s head peered from the row across the aisle and her eyes met Ayyan’s.
‘Who was that?’ the quizmaster asked.
Children in the front rows were pointing to the boy who was sitting in their midst.
‘You, Sir, was it you?’ the quizmaster asked, amused and disbelieving. ‘Aditya, will you please stand up.’ Adi stood up, his hands folded behind his back. There were murmurs among the parents. Several heads were turning and looking at Ayyan and Oja. ‘So it was you, Sir?’ the quizmaster asked.
‘Yes, Sir,’ Adi said smartly.
‘Well, I don’t know what to say,’ the quizmaster said, making a face of incredulity. ‘You are absolutely right. Now introduce yourself, Sir.’
‘Aditya Mani.’
‘And how old are you?’
‘Eleven. And eleven is a prime number.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the quizmaster said, pointing to Adi. And there was a round of loud applause. Parents stood, one by one in a standing ovation, and threw glances at the curious couple sitting in their midst. Oja had tears in her eyes as she stood with her husband and clapped.