Chapter 5 — The Adventure

It is a science-fiction story by Jayant Narlikar about Professor Gangadharpant Gaitonde, a historian who transitions into an alternate India where the Marathas won the Third Battle of Panipat. He explores this different world — where the East India Company still operates and British rule persists in parts — before returning and discussing the experience with physicist Rajendra Deshpande, who explains it using catastrophe theory and the quantum many-worlds concept.

Professor Gangadharpant Gaitonde is a historian who has written a five-volume history of India. In the story he finds himself transported to an alternate world and uses his skills as a historian — going straight to the Asiatic Society library — to piece together how that world's history diverged from his own. He is also known for presiding over meetings: the alternate-world episode becomes what he describes as his 'thousandth presidential address'.

In the alternate world, Vishwasrao — son and heir to the Peshwa — was not killed in battle. A bullet grazed his ear but missed him. This was taken as a divine omen by the Maratha troops, boosting their morale. They went on to rout Abdali and chase him back to Kabul under the leadership of Sadashivrao Bhau and Vishwasrao, firmly establishing Maratha supremacy in northern India.

In the alternate India, the East India Company was never wound up — its headquarters still stands prominently in Bombay. The Marathas dominate India, having confined the British to small pockets near Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. Bombay has British department stores (Boots, Woolworth), British banks (Lloyds, Barclays), and train carriages marked 'GBMR' with tiny Union Jacks. A puppet Mughal Sultanate continues in Delhi as a mere figurehead, while the de facto rulers from Pune guide India toward democracy by the twentieth century.

The Bakhar is the key piece of material evidence. In the alternate world's library, Gaitonde finds a three-line account describing how Vishwasrao narrowly escaped death — the bullet missed him. Gaitonde inadvertently slips the Bakhar into his pocket when leaving the library. After returning to his own world, he presents a torn page from this alternate Bakhar to Rajendra Deshpande. His own copy of the Bakhar, by contrast, records that Vishwasrao was hit by the bullet — confirming that the two histories diverged at exactly that moment.

Rajendra Deshpande is Gaitonde's physicist friend. After Gaitonde recounts his two days in the alternate world, Rajendra listens, examines the torn page from the alternate Bakhar, and then explains the experience scientifically using catastrophe theory and the quantum concept of many worlds. He suggests that the collision Gaitonde experienced, combined with his thoughts about catastrophe theory and the Battle of Panipat at that very moment, may have triggered the transition between worlds.

In the story, Rajendra explains that catastrophe theory deals with how small changes at critical moments can cause radically different outcomes. Applied to Panipat: both armies were comparable in strength, so the turning point was a single event — whether Vishwasrao lived or died. In the history Gaitonde knows, Vishwasrao was killed, Bhausaheb rushed into the melee and disappeared, the troops lost morale, and the Marathas were routed. In the alternate world, the bullet missed Vishwasrao, morale soared, and the Marathas won decisively.

Rajendra uses the quantum concept of many worlds to explain the transition. At the atomic level, the behaviour of particles cannot be predicted with certainty — an electron may end up in different locations, giving rise to different 'worlds'. All such alternative worlds can exist simultaneously, though an observer normally experiences only one. Rajendra proposes that catastrophic historical junctures create similar bifurcations at a macroscopic level, and that Gaitonde, through some interaction triggered by his collision and his thoughts about Panipat, made a transition from his world to an alternate one and then back.

Rajendra uses the word 'catastrophic' deliberately as a scientific pun. It refers both to the extraordinary, overwhelming nature of the experience and to 'catastrophe theory' — the scientific framework he uses to explain it. The Battle of Panipat was itself a catastrophic juncture where a small change (the bullet missing Vishwasrao) caused a radically different historical outcome, and Gaitonde's transition was triggered by his thinking about exactly that kind of catastrophic bifurcation.

In the alternate world, Gaitonde wanders into a public lecture at Azad Maidan and, unable to bear the sight of a vacant presidential chair, seats himself on it and tries to address the audience. The crowd — which has abolished the custom of having a chairperson at lectures — shouts him down, pelts him with tomatoes and eggs, and eventually swarms the stage to eject him. He considers this chaotic episode his 'thousandth presidential address', and upon returning to his own world resolves to never preside at another meeting.

Gaitonde brings back a torn page from the alternate world's Bhausahebanchi Bakhar. The page describes how Vishwasrao's horse was guided into the melee, a shot brushed past his ear, and he survived. This contrasts directly with Gaitonde's own copy of the Bakhar, which records that Vishwasrao was hit by the bullet. Rajendra's expression changes from sceptical to grave when he reads and compares the two accounts.

Yes. The NCERT PDF of Hornbill Chapter 5, 'The Adventure', is available free to read and download on CBSE PrepMaster. No sign-up or payment is required.