The Adventure

The story is about a history teacher named Prof. Gaitonde who always thinks about what would have happened if Marathas had won the Battle of Panipat. One day he has a car accident and when he opens his eyes he is in a different Pune. In this different world everything is changed because Marathas had won that battle, so British never ruled India and India had become a free, strong and modern country with its own trains and offices. He goes to the library and sees history books that say Marathas won, and when he tries to say the books are wrong people think he is mad. He tries to give a speech but people hit him and then suddenly he comes back to his real world. Then, he meets his scientist friend, Rajendra who explains what happened to him. The science is explained like this. Old science said everything has only one fixed future, like a train on one track. But new science called quantum physics says this is not true. At very small level, many futures are possible at same time, and the world is like a tree with many branches. When we look, we see only one branch, but other branches also exist. So there are many worlds. In one world Marathas lost and British came to India, which is our world. In another world Marathas won and British never came, and India became very strong. That second world also exists. 

Then there is another idea called catastrophe theory. It says sometimes a very small thing can change everything suddenly. Like if a river is about to split into two sides, even a small stone can send all the water to one side. The Battle of Panipat was that kind of point. A small win or loss there changed the whole history of India. For Prof. Gaitonde, his mind was also at such a point because he was thinking too much about that battle, and when his accident happened, that small shock pushed his mind from our world to the other world, so he could live and see that other history.