I rubbed my eyes. It had been a tiresome day full of panel discussions and interviews. Tomorrow would be similar. Through the window I could see the ever present haze of Hyderabad – the haze illuminated by the city lights was claustrophobic to put it mildly.
“Vinay?”
I looked up to see a smart young lady in front of me. “Yes?” I said stretching my hand for the pen. If it was another Autograph request, I wanted to get it done with as soon as I could.
“I am Nitya. I am a writer. No work has been published yet though.” She smiled.
I leaned back and relaxed. Truth be told, it was good to meet a good looking writer. “What do you write?” I asked her.
“Mostly science-fiction.” She responded, “In fact I participated in the science fiction story contest last month which you judged. Did not get through.”
I shifted uneasily in my chair. This was potentially troublesome.
Nitya asked me. “Do you remember my story? It was shortlisted and so you must have read it. The Scientist’s Day Out?”
I remembered. It was a poignant tale of a scientist who would visit a village; be fascinated by the rituals there and try to make scientific parallels. In the end, he would realize that he had learnt nothing till then and would head back to the university to enroll as a student.
I loved it but there was a fundamental flaw – It was not science fiction.
“Excellent story. I remember it.” I said.
“Thank you” Her face lit up. Then she hesitatingly asked the question I was praying she wouldn’t. “Do you mind telling me why it didn’t go through? What was the reason? It lacked something?”
I sighed. In a normal setup, I would have excused myself and stormed out of the conference room. However this was a very pretty young lady who wrote science fiction stories. A discussion over a cup of black coffee was not such a bad idea.
“Can we discuss it over a cup of coffee? I am on my way out to my hotel.”
“Sure” she said.
Fifteen minutes later, we were comfortably seated in a Barista.
“So, I was wondering what I could have done better” Nitya resumed the discussion.
I sipped my black coffee. “For one, it was in the wrong category.”
She stared at me. “You mean Science Fiction?”
“Yes” I said.
“But it was science fiction.” She pressed.
“Well, science finds a mention the story alright. But Science Fiction should have something out of ordinary – inexplicable to real science…” I abruptly stopped. I was not making any sense even to myself.
“You mean, there was nothing in that story that doesn’t happen in real life?” Nitya asked innocently.
I nodded my head and concentrated on the coffee. What the heck! What was the accepted definition of science fiction?
“But it is fiction and there’s loads of science in it. So why can’t it be called Science Fiction? Who says Science Fiction should have supernatural elements?” Nitya demanded.
I sipped my black coffee and stared at the fake Mona Lisa smiling on the wall.
“If my character, the scientist I mean – encountered an Alien in that village along with the regular human beings, would it have made the cut?” she directly asked me.
I took my cellphone out and started typing a message in a language that I did not understand using the English alphabet.
“Vinay, I am waiting for your expert opinion” Nitya was ruthless.
I cleared my throat. “Science Fiction deals with speculative futuristic paradigms. That is how it is defined usually. Where is the speculation in your story? It was all black and white.”
Nitya shook her head. “I don’t know how you can call it science if you are speculating!”
I smiled, “That’s where the word ‘Fiction’ comes into picture.”
“Fiction is the root word. Science is the adjective.” She responded calmly, “It is not the other way round. Fiction is not qualifying Science.”
“You lost me after the first two words” I told her.
“Even if I buy your explanation for a moment, I still have speculation and grey areas in the story. Only, they don’t correspond to the science elements there but are philosophical.”
“Like?” I asked a probing question not because I wanted to probe but I just wanted her to keep talking. Otherwise I would have to talk.
“Like for instance, the clash of Garuda Purana and the Buddhist philosophy. That is a grey area. And the relationship with quantum physics – that’s science. What if I had written about rebirth being the result of a single definitive DNA strand physically making its way into the sperm of a guy and ending up forming an embryo? That would have qualified as science-fiction?” Nitya forgot about her coffee.
“That’s a great idea” I said, “Cellular memory and DNA conduit. Fascinating subject for a science fiction.”
She stood up. “Thanks for granting me the audience.”
“You can’t question the age old wisdom that defines science fiction in a certain way.” I said, “Science and Fiction are two distinct words but the phrase ‘Science Fiction’ is not just the sum of those two words. It is more than that. Your question is on the validity of the true meaning of the phrase. That is debatable and there is no definitive answer to that.”
She nodded. “So I can write about aliens visiting Earth or humans visiting Europa. Or I can talk about Mac book Pros injecting virus into spaceships. But if I talk about plausible stuff and try to relate it to a creative twist of tale, it is not qualified to be called Science Fiction.”
“Looks like you got it.” I said, “Better luck next time.”
“Wait a second” a new voice greeted them both. They turned their head to see a complete rip in the space-time continuum. A six feet tall and terribly lean gentleman stepped out of the rip.
“What the … Who… What” I could not understand what was going on. Nitya was speechless. She was just staring at the rip and the man.
“Will explain. First let me get a picture of you two.” The man clicked his Canon twice. “Thank you very much. I think this makes the story a Science Fiction story. I can submit it to the contest.”
“Who are you?” Nitya blurted out.
“Oh well, my name is Venu Vedam” he said, “I am just writing this story for a short story contest – science fiction genre. Don’t want it to be disqualified based on the superficial technicality you guys have been discussing eloquently till now.”
“Either we are nuts or there was Ecstasy in the coffee that we’ve just had.” Nitya said.
“Good point. Good to see my characters in flesh and blood and thinking too. So much better than the cardboard stuff that I’ve been churning out of late.” Venu said and turned to me. “Thanks for the tip Vinay. In fact when I started writing this, I had absolutely no clue how to make it a science fiction story. You gave me the idea.”
With that, he shook hands with me; saluted Nitya and jumped back into the rip. We were staring disbelievingly at the rapidly closing space time rip when two words sneaked out from the rip and knocked us out cold – “The End”.
). The package was delivered promptly on Tuesday morning at 10am. (Flipkart is amazing. Just amazing.)