Vigyani- serial story

Dear Kamala,

Thanks again for your kind and encouraging words. What I am trying to bring in the story is the plight of sincere and real scientists. Unfortunately, in India we have one scientist too many and if one has to succeed he has to be sagacious, scheming and cunning. But, if you are a dedicated scientist you can't be like that and you fall a victim to those who do not have any consciousness or honesty. But, nothing is lost yet as there are good bosses and good colleagues and one should be lucky to work with them.

Regards,

TDU

 

Episode 8:

The accusation of Mr. Krishnan, who is a close friend of Raman shocks Raman and he feels as if Mr. Krishnan has stabbed him in the back. He recollects how in his naivity he had described his discovery in detail to Mr. Krishnan. What Mr. Raman does not know is that Mr. Krishnan and some of the seniors who support him have been bought by a private firm. The firm's director realised the commercial value of the discovery when during a party one of the seniors had confided in him about the developments in the laboratory. Recovering from the shock, Mr. Raman shouts,' no, it is lie. Mr. Krishnan has not worked on it. It is me who has shed my blood and sweat, taxed my brains, spent sleepless nights over the project'. The chief of the laboratory who knows about Mr. Raman, realises the truth in his words. But, at the same time he feels helpless as Mr. Krishnan is supported by some of the senior members present there. He says, ' It is O.K, Mr. Raman, what you do is you still write the reaserch paper and put Mr.Krishnan's name also as one of the authors and send it for publication to an International journal'. Mr. Raman is dumbfounded and he has no words to speak. Mr. Krishnan, although not really happy satisfies himself that atleast he is one of the persons credited for the discovery.

Coming out of the meeting, Mr. Raman starts walking towards his house. Although his house is very close to the laboratory and although Mr. Krishnan offers lift in his car ( presented by the director of the private firm to him), he continues to walk as if in sleep. He is heart-broken and his senses have numbed. Without his knowledge he walks in the middle of the road and all the drivers of cars abuse him, 'hey, paagal hogaya kya?' ('hey, have you gone mad?'). Somehow, Mr. Raman reaches his house and mechanically presses the calling bell. Normally, immediately after hearing the calling bell either Mrs. Raman or his young daughter will open the door for him. But, today there is no answer to the bell and after some wait Mr. Raman lets himself in with the key in his possession. The house is in dark which further surprises Mr. Raman. As he switches on the lights, his attention is drawn to a piece of paper kept on the center table. He takes it and opens it. Mrs. Raman has written, ' My dear, I am compelled to take this drastic action. For the last few months you are not yourself. You have totally ignored not only me, but also our daugther. She was telling me that she is scared to see that you were talking to yourself in the middle of night and you were scribbling equations and drawings all over the place, including her school note book for which she got scoldings from her teacher. So, I have decided to leave you in your own world of scientific fantasies and I am taking our daughter and going to my parents' place. When you feel alright and you can be like in old days, please call us and we will be back'. Reading the letter, Mr. Raman felt the whole world collapsing around him. Not able to steady himself, he swoons and falls down.

Waking up much later, Mr. Raman leaves the house and walks back to the laboratory. It is mid-night and the security watchman is half asleep at the gate. Mr. Raman slips himself silently without waking up the watchman through the gate and reaches his laboratory. As he has a key to the laboratory being a senior scientist, he opens the lab. and switches on the light. Seated in the middle of the lab. on a table is the machine which is his dream, life line and everything. He goes near it, touches it passionately and cries.

The half-asleep watchman is shaken out of his sleep by the loud noise coming from one of the labs. He runs and reaches the lab. where Mr. Raman had gone. What he saw made him shiver with fear.


To be continued.....

 

Episode 9:

The watchman catches hold of the window rods with trembling hands and watches Mr. Raman with his unkept hair and bulging out eyes breaking down the machine on the table with an iron rod in a frenzy. All the frustrations that he had during that fateful day has welled up into an anger. Mr. Raman is breaking not only his machine but also the other equipments in the room. Splinters of glass and metal parts falling down make loud noise and some of them must have pierced Mr. Raman as he is bleeding from several parts of his body. Watchman runs back to the office to call the chief by phone.

On hearing the bizzare happenings in the laboratory, the chief and some senior members including Mr. Krishnan reach the place.When they arrive at the laboratory, they were taken aback at what they see. In the lab. Mr. Raman is lying in the middle amidst splinters of glass, metal, wood and papers. He is bleeding from several parts from the body and is unconcious. The chief says 'we will call the doctor and the ambulance'. But, Mr.Krishnan says ,' I think we should ring up the mental hospital. It looks like Mr. Raman has gone mad. No sane person will do such savage things'. He is supported by some of the senior
scientists also. What Mr. Krishnan and these people calculate is that Mr. Raman removed to mental hospital, Mr. Krishnan can take over the project and hand over the know-how to the private firm which has bought them. Although the chief is not happy and feels that it is not necessary to remove Mr. Raman to mental hospital, Mr. Krishnan and the others insist that it is good for Mr. Raman only and arrange to get him admitted to a mental hospital.

Next day, when Mr. Raman comes to conciousness in the mental hospital, he is shocked to find himself tied to the bed and asks the nurse, 'sister, why I am tied to the bed like this and what is this place?'. The sister says,' Sir, this is a mental hospital. Yesterday when you were brought here you were unconcious and the people who brought you here told that you have a violent temperement and that is why the doctor asked us to tie you with the bed. Once the doctor examines and finds that you are normal we will remove the ties'. Mr. Raman on hearing this shouts,' No. I am not a mad man. It is all the evil design of that Krishnan. Hey, Krishna I won't leave you. I will come and beat you to death'. He tries to get out of the the chains that has tied him to the bed and the sister runs out in fear to bring the doctor and security people. Doctor on seeing Mr. Raman's violent behaviour asks the nurse to give him an injection of sedation.

There in the lab. Mr. Krishnan and his co-plotters are celebrating their victory and Mr. Krishnan is asked to build the new machine.

To be continued....

 

Episode 10:

A few days later, Dr. Raman was feeling better as he was slowly trying to get over the frustrations. He was no longer tied to the bed as he did not show any further violent temperement. Dr. Raman's wife and daughter came and saw him. Mrs. Raman started crying. She attributed everything to the machine and told Raman that he did a good thing of breaking it.

There in the lab. Mr. Krishnan started assembling the machine. But, after some stage, he got stuck up as he was not knowing some of the intricacies of the machine. He told his partners that as Dr. Raman is getting better, he will get him discharged and take him back to his home. At home, he would ask Dr. Raman to tell the finer details and in case Dr. Raman does not cooperate he will apply pressure and try to get the details. He also mentioned that he would take Mrs. Raman and Raman's daughter as captives and coerce Raman to spill the beans.

Shankar was the young gradute who worked with Dr. Raman as his assistant and he had a high regard for Dr. Raman's dedication and devotion. Dr. Raman in his turn treated Shankar very friendly and used to take him into confidence in the work. As Mr. Krishnan also took Shankar as his assistant, Shankar came to know of Krishnan's plots. Shankar went to the mental hospital where Dr. Raman was admitted and told Dr. Raman the details of Mr. Krishnan's plots.

Dr. Raman felt sad to hear the developments and after some thoughts said , 'I have to go urgently to my native village and construct the machine there and make the village as porsperous as before. Mrs. Raman insisted that she also would accompany. But, Dr. Raman refused saying she would be safer in her parents' place and also the education of their daughter would be disrupted. he requested Shankar to arrange for a ticket by train to his village and decided to leave the hospital surrupticiously.

Mr. Krishnan and his partners were shocked to hear that Dr. Raman
has escaped from the mental hospital and they put an ad. in the newspapers mentioning that Dr. Raman is a lunatic who has escaped from the mental hospital and those who come across him should be careful as he has violent temperement. Mr. Krishnan also guessed that Dr. raman would have proceeded to his native village. So, he sent one Tamil person to the village with an instruction to keep track of Dr. Raman and report to him.


To be continued.......

 

Dear Kamala,

Thanks for your appreciation of the story. As I have mentioned earlier, I am an ameture writer and I know I may be making several mistakes such as not keeping the same style throughout the story. I called Shankar as Shankar only because he is an young boy whereas krishnan being elder I have to address him as Mr. It may be my misconception. I will try to correct it in the reminder of the story.

Regards,

TDU

 

Episode 11:

Dr. Raman woke up with a start hearing the knocks on the door of the house in which he was staying in the village.

Opening the door, he found the village chief standing with folded hands.

The chief said, 'Please excuse me for troubling you. I want to know if you need anything to start your work on the machine'.

Raman said, 'Yes. First we have to select a place near the river with access to electricity. A place like a pumping station will be ideal. Secondly, we need to erect a shed with a door that can be locked. I also need to go nearby town to draw money from my bank account for the purchase of equipments such as motors, made to order glass vessels, tubes etc. Probably, I may have to go to some big town for the purchase of the pumps. There is no problem about money as I have enough savings in my bank account. One other thing. After the purchase of all the needed items I would like to do a pooja in the Amman temple in the village offering Pongal to the deity and feed the entire village before starting my work'.

The village chief was moved on hearing Raman offering feast to the entire village.

He caught hold of Raman's hands and said, 'You are just like your grandfather. You have a great heart thinking about the poor people of this village'.

He further said, "as the chief of the village I assure you of our full support. We can certainly give all manual assistance to you and if you need money we can arrange that also. All I am interested is that the machine should provide the much needed water. You are giving us not just water but you are pouring milk in all our stomachs'.

The village chief provided his car with driver to Raman to go to nearby big town where he could draw money and purchase all the needed items. On an auspicious day, a pooja was performed at the Amman temple with the women folk from the village cooking Pongal in mud pots. The pongal was offered to the deity and served to all the villagers. They celebrated with loud speakers blaring Tamil film songs and young people dancing to the music.

All people were enjoying except for one man who was engrossed in thoughts of how to sabotage the machine and if needed to eliminate Raman.

To be continued....

 

Dear kamala,

Thanks a lot for your constant support to my story witting. I am sorry that I am giving the episodes in small doses. The reason being that I am writing another serial story (Nature's fury) which is taking most of my time. It may get over in few more episodes and then I will have to take this story to its climax. I went to Phoenix last week where my daughter is there and so could not concentrate on the stories also.

Regards,

TDU