The crowd inside the seminar room gradually thinned. Students filed out with reverent silence, heads brimming with ideas, fingers already typing out reflections and questions. Professor Iyer unplugged the HDMI cable from his laptop and began rolling up the projector screen with the same care as a violinist placing their instrument back in its velvet-lined case.
From the back row, Agniveesh Raath remained seated for a moment longer, eyes fixed on the now-blank screen. He felt like someone who had just watched a film he couldn't explain, but knew was going to change him.
He rose, stuffed his notebook into his sling bag, and quietly slipped out of the side door. But just as he reached the bend of the corridor, he saw the unmistakable silhouette of Professor Rudranath Iyer turning into the stone-arched cloister that led toward the eastern side of the campus — an older part of PINE where banyan trees and silence ruled.
Agniveesh hesitated.
Then he moved.
The Encounter Begins
"Professor Iyer?" he called out gently.
The professor slowed, turned, and saw the young man — dark-haired, lean, sharp-featured — jogging slightly to catch up.
"Yes?"
"I… I'm not from the Department," Agniveesh admitted, slightly breathless. "I just—uh—I walked in by chance. I'm from the Systems Physics stream."
Professor Iyer raised an eyebrow but said nothing, just kept walking.
"I just wanted to say… that talk—it was…" Agniveesh paused, looking for the right word. "It was dangerous. And beautiful."
Now the professor smiled. Not the public smile of a lecturer. Something subtler, more private.
"You understand that?" he said, tone slightly testing.
"I don't understand everything you said. But I think I felt it."
The older man stopped walking. He glanced sideways at Agniveesh, the way a chess master sizes up a player not yet known.
"Good. Feeling is the beginning. But you must pursue what you feel. Otherwise, it fades."
They resumed walking — side by side now.
A Conversation Beneath Banyans
"You mentioned undiscovered uranium reserves," Agniveesh ventured. "In island shelves and ocean beds."
Professor Iyer nodded slowly.
"Yes."
"Do you mean theoretical reserves, or—"
"I mean what I said," the professor replied. "Not theoretical. Not fictional. Real. Abundant. And criminally ignored."
A flock of birds wheeled overhead. The sun dipped slightly, cutting shafts of gold between tree branches. Their path curved into a quieter lane behind the chemistry building, leading to a small garden with stone benches, mostly deserted at this hour.
"I've seen samples myself," Iyer continued, his voice lower now. "Collected from unmarked islands off the western coast and the southern arc of the Indian Ocean. Places never named on mainstream surveys. Tectonically unstable, remote, politically insignificant. But underground? They carry ores of high-grade pitchblende, almost untouched by thorium contamination."
Agniveesh blinked.
"That's possible?"
"Not only possible," the professor said. "It's ignored on purpose."
"The moment something valuable is found in a place the state cannot control, it becomes inconvenient. And governments don't like inconvenience."
The Dangerous Claim
"Why are you telling me this?" Agniveesh asked quietly.
Iyer looked at him.
"Because nobody else listens anymore. They think I've gone too far. That I've imagined what I want to see. That I've become obsessed."
"Have you?"
The question hung there for a second. Professor Iyer smiled again, but this time with something bittersweet in it.
"The line between obsession and vision, Mr…?"
"Raath. Agniveesh Raath."
"The line between obsession and vision, Mr. Raath, is usually drawn by those who arrive late to the truth."
They sat on a stone bench. The professor pulled a thermos from his coat and poured a bit of black coffee into the steel lid.
"I used to be part of a scientific advisory group for the government," Iyer said. "Back when I still believed systems worked. I submitted reports. Cited seismic data. Showed spectrograph analysis. Nobody moved. Because there are already supply chains. Political arrangements. International fuel deals. No one wants to disrupt them."
He sipped. His eyes stared at something far beyond the garden.
"Then someone else will," Agniveesh murmured.
Professor Iyer looked back at him.
"Yes. And they may not wear white coats."
Departure and Seeds
They walked back toward the main block in silence. But it wasn't awkward — it was dense with thought, the kind that churns silently before erupting.
As they reached the corridor of the science block, the professor turned.
"You're not a Nuclear Studies student. But you're welcome in my room, if you ever want to understand more."
He pointed to Room A-406 — barely a room, more a private lab with strange devices and walls covered in particle sketches and mineral maps.
"I think I do," Agniveesh said.
Iyer nodded.
"Then let your questions multiply. That's how revolutions begin."
And with that, he walked away, coat fluttering slightly, as if disturbed by an invisible wind.