1.

Professor Gaitonde or Gangadharpant was travelling by the Jijamata Express from

Pune to Mumbai.
2. He emerged from Victoria Terminus station. He found himself facing an imposing building East
India House, Headquarters of The East India Company.
3. He was shocked and surprised. The East India Company had been wound up after the uprising of
1857.
4. On reaching Bombay, he entered Forbes building to meet his son but couldn't find him there.
5. He entered the reading room of the library in the Town Hall. He asked for a list of history books.
6. Out of five books, four described history as we know it. Only in the fifth volume history had
taken a different turn.
7. It was written that the Marathas won the Battle of Panipat quite handsomely. Abdali was defeated
and chased back to Kabul.
8. Professor Gangadharpant was surprised at this distortion of history. The book was his own but the
changed version of the battle he was reading for the first time.
9. The victory of Marathas established their supremacy in northern India.
10. The Peshwa was the real ruler and the Mughal Emperor was just a puppet.
11. The East India Company gave up its expansionist programme. It offered aid and help to the
Marathas.
12.Gangadharpant read that India was never subjected to slavery.
13Gangadharpant went through Bhausahebanchi Bakhar to look for the description of the battle.
14. God was merciful. A shot brushed past his ear. Professor Gaitonde shoved the Bakhar into his
left pocket and came out.
15. In the Azad Maidan a lecture was in progress. There was a table and a chair at the platform. The
chair was unoccupied.
16. Gangadharpant protested it. He moved on to the stage and spoke against keeping the
presidential chair unoccupied.
17. He faced the anger of the crowd. The people threw tomatoes, eggs and other articles on him and
ejected him bodily.
18. He had a collision with a truck and remained unconscious for two days.
19. Professor Gaitonde's friend Rajendra Deshpande tried to rationalise his experience on the basis
of the Catastrophe theory. He applied the theory to the Battle of Panipat.
20. The killing of their leader was crucial. They lost their morale and were routed.
21. On the torn page that Gangadharpant showed to Rajendra, the crucial event had gone the other
way. The bullet missed Vishwasrao and the troops won the battle.
22. Reality is never one-sided. An electron fired from a source may be here, there, and anywhere.
There is lack of determination in quantum theory.
23. Alternative worlds can exist at the same time. But the observer can see only one of them at a
time.
24. Some interaction is needed to cause a transition. Perhaps, at the time of the collision
Gangadharpant was thinking about the catastrophe theory. He was also thinking of its role in the
Battle of Panipat.
25. Hence, two versions of the same battle.
26. Gangadharpant made another decision. He would never be seen presiding at another meeting.
He became wiser after the Maidan's experience.