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there was no such thing called truth. There was only the pursuit of truth and it was a pursuit that would always go on. It was a form of employment. ‘Everything that people do in this world is because they have nothing better to do,’ he told Oja Mani once. ‘Einstein had something called Relativity. You scrub the floor twice a day.’
    The Round Table had begun to discuss the fate of Pluto. Oparna Goshmaulik was following every word carefully. She did not understand many things that were being said, but the melancholy induced by her basement office was being lifted. She had always liked the company of men who knew a lot. She tried to understand why they were talking about Pluto with so much seriousness. She liked Pluto. From the arguments around her, she pieced together that the planet had been recently dropped from the model of the solar system at a science exhibition in America. And that had caused, not for the first time it seemed, a fierce debate over whether it should be considered a planet or a diminished member of the Kuiper Belt.
    ‘Pluto is too small, too small. It can fit into America. It’s so small,’ one man said vehemently.
    Even here, she told herself without malice, everything is a kind of penis.
    Nambodri, who was turning towards her and throwing the glances of an aspiring mentor, asked, ‘What do you think, Oparna?’
    She pretended to be coy because she wanted to convey that she believed she was not qualified to have an opinion. After all she was just an astrobiologist, not an astronomer. That meekness, she knew, the men would like.
    She said, ‘I’ll be quite sad if Pluto goes. I am Scorpio.’ Onceagain a silence fell because of her. Oparna awkwardly explained, ‘Scorpio is ruled by Mars and Pluto.’
    ‘So she is a Scorpio. Like me,’ a man said in a low tone, hoping to set off a round of laughter, but somehow this did not happen.
    ‘What are the Scorpio traits?’ a voice asked derisively and chuckled. It was first a robust chuckle, but it soon faded into a self-conscious giggle when the source realized he had no support.
    ‘Intense, strong, confident,’ Nambodri said, looking at Oparna, ‘and passionate.’ A faint laughter died quickly. Oparna managed to smile and mumble, ‘Astrology is not a science, you know.’
    ‘That’s why it’s not in dispute,’ Nambodri said.
    Matters slowly moved to another simmering issue: quotas for backward castes in colleges. There was a fear that the Institute of Theory and Research might be asked to allocate seats for the lower castes in the faculty and research positions. The general mood in the room turned sombre. Some men threw cautious glances at the secretaries and stray peons when there were comments on the political aggression of backward castes. Ayyan looked on impassively. He had heard all these arguments before and knew what their conclusion would be. The Brahmins would say graciously, ‘Past mistakes must be corrected; opportunities must be created,’ and then they would say, ‘But merit cannot be compromised.’ He imagined Nambodri cleaning a common toilet in the chawls and telling his son while he was at it, ‘Son, merit cannot be compromised.’ Brutal laughter echoed inside his head, showing in his face as nothing more than a faint twitch.
    ‘It’s foolish to think that we all come from a privileged background. I come from a humble family,’ Nambodri was saying, softly, with an air of mellow introspection. (Ayyan could mouth the words he was about to hear, and he would have got most of them right.) ‘I had to walk five miles to school. I remember one day, we went hungry because my father was caught in a storm and he could not come home for three days. I survived all thatand managed to reach the cream of Indian science, not because I was a Brahmin but because I worked very hard. And put my IQ of 140 to good use.’
    Unconsciously, he threw a look at Oparna to check if she was listening. ‘I think it is stupid of people to