The principal motivation for writing 'The Tale of the Existential Relativist' came to me after seeing an experimental Hindi movie (the kind of rarity that is quite sensible, and therefore condemned to be commercially unsuccessful), in the early 1990s. It was dedicated to the memory of a brilliant Calcutta-based medical scientist, who was probably the first person in the world to make test-tube babies. He had successfully developed ingenious cryogenic techniques to create new life! He had overcome daunting obstacles ... power cuts used to last for several hours at a stretch, and the medical infrastructure for research was (and still is) absolutely pathetic. And yet ... instead of carrying him on their shoulders in celebration, the local gynaecologists and local ‘experts’ ridiculed the pioneer … out of sheer jealousy and self-interest, as it turns out. They literally drove the genius to commit suicide, out of sheer desperation for being rejected by his own people. I had first read about this incident in the mid-1980s, when I was a doctoral student in America. My sense of outrage at the cussedness of our bureaucratic elders in India, who merrily continue to drive our best brains away from Indian soil to greener pastures in America and Europe, had mellowed over the years. But the movie rekindled the old flames. This short story is the result.

Keywords:

brain drain    existential relativity    cosmology    short story    rural India    primary education    metamathematics    sociocultural    east and west    missionaries    cussedness