Quantum Of Resistance

To Look, Don't Look!

The thunder continued to rumble outside, as prof. Agnivesh and Avni sat wordlessly in the car. 

"You should have called me," he seemed to say to her, after what seemed like an epoch of quiet.

"What!" startled Avni at his words, looking at him with a bizarre look on her face. It began to dawn on her as she continued to observe him.

Prof Agnivesh turned to look at Avni, who seemed to have a million questions she needed to ask.

"Ask me," he commanded, simply looking over at her.

"How did you do this?" she asked almost immediately, unable to flex her gaze away.

"What, exactly do you mean?" he asked, probing to see what she suspected.

"This," she pointed to the car, "me, here... with you, now?" She just blurted out the words, still reeling from what had just happened.

"You do realize you're not making any sense?" replied the professor, glancing at her again.

Avni drew in a deep breath and looked outside, the showers were slowing down, but the thunder and lightning continued. "You could not have known I was coming to you, just not possible. You could not have seen what those men were about to do, yet the things you said and the things you did... it just doesn't make any sense, does it? How did you do it? How did you know? Is this even possible?" What was she even implying?  What was she trying to make this series of events out into?

"I think I am going crazy, I am not even sure what I am saying anymore?" said Avni, burying her head, into her upraised knees.

"Why do you think it's not possible?" asked Agnivesh, throwing another glance towards Avni. "Do you want to believe this was all some kind of coincidence? Are you so afraid of the truth that you rather take refuse in fallacy?" he challenged.

"Stop this dance or I am gonna lose it," she screamed. "I don't want to know whatever it is you want me to know, I am not ready, it scares me to think what you might say next. I am just not ready..." 

"You will never be ready, it's built into you, the resistance, the resistance to the truth. Every minute you spent training yourself in the so-called modern way, you moved away from that innate curiosity that's built into you. Conformity, that's all you do. This is not the way to understand sciences! Absolutely not. To understand science, you must be defiant, you must question every known logical conclusion, question every blind belief and then, that's when science is born. Science is all about reinventing the wheel, making the wheel better and better and even better than the previous version. And so what you are doing, is simply crap!" he ended his monologue.

"Then show me how you do it?" she asked, looking at him with a challenge in her eyes.

"No, because you will resist me, he stated flatly.

"I will not," she replied, the next second. There was no emotion in her voice. 

Agnivesh took a pitiful look at her. Avni's eyes went up in fire. "Why do you look at me like that?" she demanded.

"This is not going to be easy, and you will not agree and like what I tell you," he stated, a smile curving his lips.

"Or you dare not show me, because I will call out your pulp fiction," she replied, in a bitter tone.

"Ohhh angry are we? Good, but your anger, is only going to take away from your resolve. To be able to achieve what I see you are capable of achieving, you will need every ounce of your resolve f, you will need perseverance and you will need to trust me 100 percent. you will need to trust that I have nothing but your best interest in mind, can you do that?" he asked, smiling at her.

Avni scoffed at the professor's words, "you mock me, belittle me, make me feel like a child from kindergarten inside my own lab and you have the gall to say you have my best interest in mind... yeah right," she retorted, spitting the words out in fury.

"I am not your enemy, I am the one who will take you face to face with your worst enemy," said the professor, watching her closely, with that unreadable look on his face, which she had come to expect.

She had not noticed that the car had halted to a stop. Professor Agnivesh quickly got out of the car and ran over to her side to hold the door open for her. Even if for a moment, she assumed that he was being nice to her because she was a lady, it was unheard of that a sitting director extends any kind of nicety to a junior, irrespective of gender. 

"Come out," he said softly, prompting Avni to descend in a state of utter disbelief. He held her by her forearm lightly and walked her into the corridors. 

Just as they were coming to the lift lobby, he pointed towards the restrooms. "Go," he nudged her. "Take a look at your worst enemy while you are at it," and he disappeared behind the door leading to the stairway.

Avni walked into the restroom marked "Ladies" with a dismissive look and then she stood in front of a huge mirror, that reflected her own image all the way until her knees. Avni stared back at herself and heard the words of the professor repeat in her mind. "Take a look at your worst enemy". 

In that moment, all Avni could feel, as she looked at her reflection, was the sheer weight of her ego, pressing down on her, as if she was under the weight of tons of bricks. At that moment, as she stared at herself, Avni began to sweat ... profusely. And she could see, every time, she had made overarching comments and statements about her achievements, how it had inflated her own self-worth. Until all that mattered was to feed that ego she had been accumulating. The work, the research, the science, had taken a back seat. What had taken precedence was to keep the image of her unfailability intact...