Question

what does jayant narlikar want to prove that in "the adventure?

Answer 1

The adventure by Jayant Narlikar is a very interesting story. The main theme taken is catastrophe theory.
Professor Gangadharpant Gaitonde was a famous public speaker and had presided over 999 public functions. He had decided to speak on history for his 1000th function. The battle of Panipat was the topic. The 999th appearance was a seminar on catastrophe theory. He had discussions on the topic with Rajendra Deshpande, an expert on the topic. Prof. Gaitonde had doubt about the subject matter and practicality of the theory which was clarified by Rajendra. That day professor had an accident and a truck had collided with his car. He found himself waking up in a hospital but the extremely different environment. The date was same but everything was different. While a doctor offered to drop him to his home, the professor found out different Poona, different roads. He found out that he was officially dead on that day. He decided to go to his son in Bombay. The doctor dropped him at the railway station. The buses were private, fast ticketing, different currency notes were surprising him. He had to take permit to take a train for Bombay. His co-passenger Khan Sahib informed he can take a train to Peshawar and he did not need a passport to travel in his own country. Upon reaching Bombay, he had no son there and then he decided to go to a library to find out himself. he read the history books written by himself and Bahusahebanchi Bakhar. The battle was won by the Marathas. He found a seminar there in Azad Maidan and remembered he had to speak in it. But he was rudely removed by the people from the stage. He woke up in torn clothes in the park next day, somehow reached Rajendra and narrated the whole thing. Rajendra informed him that he had felt the catastrophe theory himself!
Now, Jayant Narlikar wants to prove that the theory is possible to work. There can be a possibility of an existence of a parallel universe, a different world in which something happened the different way and how is the situation there. If we are too involved in "what ifs" we can practically experience catastrophe theory and see the parallel world or the consequences ourselves.

Answer 2

The Adventure by Jayant Narlikar narrates the experience of Professor Gaitonde who is a historian. While going to give a lecture on the Implications of Catastrophe Theory in the Third Battle of Panipat, his car meets with an accident and he goes into coma. But he experiences another world where the third battle of Panipat was won by Marathas. Unlike the real world, in this parallel word Viswas Rao had a narrow escape from the bullet and the victory of Marathas brought about diverse changes and reforms in the country. He goes to Bombay in the parallel world which is different from the real world Bombay and he goes to check on the incident and reaches a library where he tries to find if the fact was true. Out of the five books on history he surfed one book had the similar story i.e. victory of Marathas, and he keeps the pages of that book in his pocket. He goes to Azad Maidan where a lecture is going on and he occupies the chair of the President. That is the time when people had been fed up of lecture and that was the reason when he went onto the stage people started throwing eggs and tomatoes at him. He regains normalcy and finds himself in the same place i.e. Azad Maidan. In his conversation with Rajendra Deshpande, professor gets to learn that his strange experience was on the basis of two scientific theories, viz, Catastrophe Theory and the lack of determinism in Quantum Theory. Catastrophe theory states that a small change in circumstance can bring sudden shift in behavior. If we apply this theory to the battle of Panipat, we can find that there was a crucial moment when the Marathas lost both their leaders Vishwas Rao and Bhausabheb. So, the Marathas lost their morale and lost the battle, but in the parallel world Prof. Gaitonde saw the bullet missing Viswas Rao and Marathas winning the battle. A crucial even gone other way can change the course of history.The professor produced a torn page of Bhausahebanchi bakhar from his pocket. This is nothing but notes he had prepared for his lecture where he imagined the fate of the battle to be otherwise. The bullet hitting Viswas Rao was the catastrophic incident in the battle. The present state of affair has been reached because of such catastrophic incidents in history. We can apply the theory to any other battle or historical incident and see how history takes a different course. Lack of determinism in Quantum Theory states the electrons orbiting the nucleus in an atom can't be predicted. There are different states of energy, higher and lower. It can make a jump from high to low energy level and send out a pulse of radiation or a pulse of radiation can knock it out of state number two to state number one. These states can apply to the world too. The transitions are common in microscopic systems. If it happened to a macroscopic lever, it could be an interesting food for thought. Professor Gaitonde made a transition from the world we live in to a parallel world. One world has the history we know, the other a different history. He neither traveled to the past nor to the future. He was in the present but experiencing a different world. At the time of the collision with the truck he was thinking about the catastrophe theory and its implications in war. He was probably wondering about the battle of Panipat. Perhaps the neurons in his brain acted as a trigger. Like the electron jumping from one state to another, he made a jump from this world to the parallel world. Any catastrophic situation will provide various alternatives for us to proceed, but only one can be accepted by us at one time as we live in a unique world with a unique history. But why did he make such a transition? An interaction is must for any such transition. The collision and the thoughts at that moment brought it about. The incident at Azad Maidan is just to show how meetings can be arranged without chairman unlike in the real world.