mobile number hadnât changed, we would catch up at leisure, et cetera.
At the math department, I found the staff room in a hubbub. Ramki-sir, our probability guru, had been asked to be an expert witness for the defense in the Zohrab rape case. The actor was accused of assaulting his motherâs nurse; the hospital had collected DNA evidence from the victim, but apparently hadnât handled it properly. Ramki-sirâs articles in the Indian Express on the contamination of DNA evidence and the misuse of DNA matching had led to the present honor. He would have to shave his beard; he always shaved before a court appearance.
âBut itâs an open-and-shut case,â said Mrs. Patwardhan, Statistics. âZohrab confessed. He was drunk he says, but he remembers raping the nurse. He confessed. The police released the tapes.â
âThe police!â snorted Ramki-sir. âYouâd trust
our
bloody police. Itâs a frame-up, Iâm telling you. What youâre seeing and hearing is all an illusion.â
âCome on, Ramki-sir, she has a point,â said Mrs. Balamurali, Linear Algebra. âThe man did confess. Donât you feel the least bit guilty? You have a daughter.â
That struck home. Ramki-sir slammed his hand on the table.
âIt is because I have a daughter,â he said dramatically. âI want the right man punished, not some poor idiot roped in by the police to satisfy the publicâs blood-lust. Rape and murder? No sir! Seduction and suicide. It doesnât matter Zohrab confessed. We can be made to remember anything.
âTake the case of Bradley Page, nineteen years old, accused of murdering his girlfriend. Not a shred of evidence, no motive. Nonetheless, the police lied to him, told him heâd been seen near the body, that heâd failed the lie-detector test, that his fingerprints had been found on the murder weapon. Sixteen hours of interrogation. Young Bradley begins to wonder if he could have killed his girlfriend and somehow âforgotten itâ. The detective interrogating him tells him âIt happens all the time,â and together they recover his lost memory. Imprisoned for nine years before the real murderer is caught. The bloody policeââ
âBut he confessed!â insisted Mrs. Patwardhan, looking around piteously for support.
âYes!â echoed Mrs. Balamurali.
âI rest my case,â said Ramki-sir. âYou have just confessed to being idiots. Are you?â
Hubbub and
halla
.
âConfession or not, he will go scot-free,â said Rajan-sir, Discrete Maths. âThe entire system is rigged. Ramki-sir will do his
chamatkar
, the slut nurse will withdraw her complaint, the hospital will admit it mishandled the evidence, and we middle-class fools will continue to believe there is law and order in the universe. Why should we fight over what has already been settled?â
âItâs all an illusion,â repeated Ramki-sir, finger-combing his beard.
Noticing my silence, one of the teachers tried to draw me in.
âWhat do you think? Is Zohrab guilty or not? Or is it just an illusion, as Ramki-sir says?â
âEverything canât be an illusion if some things are to be an illusion. Even in a story, at least some things have to be facts. The Fixed-Point theorem saysââ
â
Please
do not teach me the Fixed-Point theorem, sir!â begged Ramki-sir.
âThe Fixed-Point theorem saysââ
âSir Isaac Newton to the rescue,â crowed Mrs. Patwardhan.
âActually, itâs Jan Brouwer,â I corrected her, âThe Fixed-Point theorem saysââ
âPlease do
not
teach me the Fixed-Point theorem. I can prove youâre biased, Iâm warning you; I have a Brahmaastra and am prepared to unleash it.â
âRamki-sir, I wasnât aware we were locked in combat. All Iâm trying to clarifyââ
âHereâs my