W ith a dejected sway of the hand Byomkesh deposited the newspaper on my lap and said, ‘Nothing anywhere, absolutely nothing. The press people could try bringing out blank sheets instead. At least it would save them the printing costs.’

I couldn’t resist a dig, ‘Isn’t there anything in the advertisements? Don’t you always say that all the news in the world is crammed into the classified columns?’

With a downcast expression Byomkesh lit a cheroot and said, ‘No, there isn’t much even in the personal notices. Someone has placed an advertisement seeking to marry a widow. Why the insistence on a widow when there is no dearth of unmarried females? I am sure he is up to no good.’

‘Oh, of course. Anything else?’

‘An insurance company has placed a huge notice saying that they will jointly insure the husband and the wife and if, for some reason, one of the pair were to die, the other would get all the money. These insurance companies can make life so difficult—they won’t even let people die in peace.’

‘Why is that so? Do you see an ulterior motive here as well?’

‘The insurance company may not stand to gain anything, but it isn’t good to breed criminal intentions in people’s minds either.’

‘Sorry? What was that again?’

Byomkesh did not reply. He released a deep, mournful sigh, put his feet up on the table, raised complaining eyes to the beams overhead and continued to smoke in silence.

It was winter. The Christmas vacations were under way. Calcuttans were celebrating by going on excursions away from the city, while those who lived elsewhere were celebrating by visiting Calcutta. This was a few years ago, when Byomkesh was still unmarried.

As was our daily practice, the two of us were having our morning tea together and dissecting the newspaper. After three long months of sitting idle, even Byomkesh’s iron-strong patience had begun to wear thin. Time seemed to hang loosely on our hands. Each day passed in looking the newspapers up for possible leads; but the humdrum and colourless information that filled the dailies had proved entirely useless thus far. Boredom sat heavy on my heart. I could only guess what Byomkesh’s state of mind was like, deprived of all food for thought. I had not helped his misery much by chaffing continuously at him, as if to imply that it was he who was responsible for our dreary state of inaction.

This morning, the resigned look on his face made me feel sorry. It was bad enough for him to have to deal with the cul de sac that his mind was caught in; he could do without my pushing and prodding which only made matters worse. I decided not to plague him with any more questions and quietly withdrew to the pages of my newspaper.

At this time of the year there was always a surfeit of conferences and conventions. This year was no exception. The newsmongers made up for the lack of juicier news by filling the pages with tedious descriptions of these events. I noticed that in Calcutta itself some five conventions were currently under way. In addition, the All India Science Congress was going on in Delhi. Many stalwart scientists had come together from diverse corners of the country and were presumably engaged in contributing to Delhi’s pollution with the fumes of their noxious rhetoric. Even the second-hand smoke that I had to ingest courtesy the newspaper report was enough to line my cranium with soot.

I often wondered why our scientists talked more than they worked. The greater the scientist, the bigger was his prattle. Even if they were to discover something like the steam engine or the aeroplane, I would be willing to listen to their drivel patiently. But far from that, they could not even invent an insect repellent that worked! Nonsense of the first order!

During my disinterested scrutiny of the description of the science congress, one name suddenly caught my attention. It was of a renowned professor and researcher from Calcutta, Debkumar Sarkar. He had delivered a long speech at the convention. It wasn’t as if other Bengali scientists had been particularly reticent; many had regaled the audience at length with their learned opinions. But the reason why Debkumarbabu’s name interested me was that he was our neighbour; he lived two houses down from ours, at the end of the row. Although we had never been introduced, we knew of Professor Sarkar through our connection with Habul, his son.

Habul was a great admirer of Byomkesh’s. The youngster was about eighteen or nineteen years of age, studying in college. A simple young soul, he wouldn’t talk much before us, but just gape at Byomkesh, quite overcome with awe. With a mild smile Byomkesh would accept his homage. Sometimes we invited Habul to tea, thrilling him to bits.

Naturally, I was a trifle curious to know what our young friend’s father had to say. Glancing through the report, I felt what he had said about the difficulties and deprivations of Indian scientists wasn’t entirely untrue. I thought that if I read it out loud it might serve to distract Byomkesh and perhaps cheer him up somewhat. So I said, ‘Hey, listen to what our Habul’s father has had to say in Delhi.’

Byomkesh didn’t lower his eyes from the ceiling, nor did he express much enthusiasm. Undeterred, I began to read:

‘There is no denying the fact that without the aid of scientific knowledge no nation can achieve greatness. There is a prevalent belief that Indian scientists lack the powers of invention and are incapable of productive research—this is often cited as the reason why India is still not self-sufficient. But this belief is completely baseless, and our glorious past is proof of that. It is needless to mention in such erudite company that it was in India that the first seeds of modern science had germinated and then gradually spread, like pollen