Test: The Adventure- 1 - Class 11 MCQ

The story 'The Adventure', by Jayant Narlikar, deals with the story of Professor Gangadharpant Gaitonde who is a historian and protagonist of the story. He time travels and imagines the fate of India if the Marathas had not allowed the concession to the East India Company to stay in Mumbai.

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.

Professor Gaitonde was shocked to see the East India Company flourishing, a different set of shops and office buildings at Hornby Road. But when he turned right along Home Street and entered Forbes building, a greater shock awaited him. He asked for his son Mr Vinay Gaitonde but the English receptionist, looked through the telephone list, the staff list and then through the directory of employees of all the branches of the firm but could not find anyone of that name.

In the Town Hall library, he asked for a list of history books including his own. When he got the five volumes, he started looking through them from the beginning. Volume one dealt with the history up to the period of Ashoka, volume two up to Samudragupta, volume three up to Mohammad Ghori, and volume four up to the death of Aurangzeb. This was history as he had known. However in the last (fifth) volume, history had taken a different turn during the Battle of Panipat. The book mentioned that the Marathas won it handsomely and Abdali was chased back to Kabul by the triumphant Maratha army led by Sadashivrao Bhau and his nephew, the young Vishwasrao.

After reading this new history, Gangadharpant was pleased at the India he had seen, it was a country that had not been subjected to slavery of the white man; it had leamt to stand on its feet and knew what self-respect was. From a position of strength and for purely commercial reasons, it had allowed the British to retain Bombay as the sole outpost on the subcontinent.

Professor Gaitonde, after a frugal meal, set out for a stroll towards the Azad Maidan. There he saw a pandal where a lecture was to take place. Professor Gaitonde walked towards the pandal and noticed that on the platform the presidential chair was unoccupied. Drawn to the stage like a magnet, he quickly moved towards the chair.

Professor Gaitonde, after the highway accident, was admitted at Vishwasrao Peshwa Hospital on Vishwasrao Peshwa Marg, Pune. The doctor informed him that he was found in the Ganeshkhind Forest and wished to know how he got into the forest.

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.

When an electron is fired from a source, it may be here, there or anywhere else, this is called lack of determinism in Quantum theory. This theory asserts that reality is never one-sided. Alternative worlds may exist at the same time.

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. 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.