Venus ,the Quake-master Planet?

 

happened around twenty years ago.

 I saw this old man in his sixties donating a book to our village library. If my memory serves me right, the title of the book which was written in Malayalam- was something like ‘In search of the truth behind Earthquakes.’

Now, if you doubt the authenticity of a book simply because it was written in a vernacular language, then it is time for you to do a rethink. Jyeshtadeva’s Yukthibhasha, the first treatise on Calculus (centuries before that fabulous apple fell bang on Newton’s head) was also written in Malayalam.

However the analogies end there since the man in question was neither an academic nor a formally qualified expert on the chosen subject which is seismology.

I cannot recall his name, but he can at best be called an Astro-Seismologist.

Surprised, eh? Wonder what astronomy has got to do with earthquakes?

Coming back to the story, the very title of the book piqued my curiosity, and to my surprise, I found that the old man was only selling this book. And that meant that he was not an ordinary book pedlar (though technically he was) I asked him if he was the writer of the book to which he, at first, replied in the negative. Upon repeated queries he admitted to the crime of authoring the book.

We sat chatting about him and about his book. Eventually, I purchased one copy of it paying Rupees 10(I left it in my ancestral home and have not been able to find it yet) Even with my maritime background, I found it difficult to understand the part where the author expatiated on geographical coordinates such as latitude and longitude. The book encompassed a detailed empirical analysis of celestial bodies, tidal wave formations and geography. It was an astounding feat for an uneducated man to have produced such an exhaustive work dedicated to the study of earthquakes.

When I probed further to learn about the circumstances that led him to focus on the quakes, he said it was by pure coincidence that he ventured into the uncharted territory of seismology. A water diviner by trade, his job involved locating the exact spot to dig water wells and ponds. In short, he was someone who could detect the course of groundwater channels, using some indigenous techniques. Once while on a visit to his sister’s house, he had a first-hand experience of a low intensity earthquake. The ground, household utensils and even people were shaking as if possessed for a few seconds. And that set him thinking about the strange phenomenon.

Later his job took him away from Kerala. In Karnataka, he was busy finding the locations for wells for irrigation purposes in the various agricultural fields across the state. At nights, after his work, he would lie on the hilly meadows looking at the star-studded sky and wonder about the infinite nature of the universe and its creator. He passionately watched myriad planetary movements and procession of stars and comets over the seasons. What began as a pastime soon became an obsession and before he knew he was closely monitoring every astronomical event that could be observed with naked eyes. With the intrigue triggered by his first encounter with a quake still fresh in his memory, the man was now searching for any possible link between the natural calamity and celestial bodies.

At long last, he zeroed in on the culprit- the planet responsible, or so he thought, for earthquakes-Venus. Although some of his postulates regarding there being no record of quakes outside a certain geographical zone (lying between Latitude 80° N and Longitude 80° S, I guess) seemed contestable, his meticulously recorded data of all major earthquakes and the corresponding planetary alignment at the time was remarkable for the due diligence he had accorded to his avocation, if not for its veracity. Likewise, his observations on tidal waves, which he personally conducted at different ports and harbours of Kerala, would seem puerile and rather amateurish to a trained man.

In the book he propounds the theory that earthquakes happen under the influence of Venus; just as lunar forces play a significant part in tidal patterns on earth’s seas. I remember reading news reports about the ‘Venus transit’ days before the Gujarat quakes occurred way back in 2001 which corroborates, to some extent, his findings on the planetary connection to the phenomenon. The man, married with grown up offspring, told me he had, indeed, approached the Centre for Earth Science in Thiruvananthapuram, with his observations, but was spurned by the scientist couple who headed the research institute at the time, perhaps on the grounds that he was not qualified enough to be taken seriously.

So that makes him another ‘Ramar Pillai’- the man who invented artificial bio-petrol. Neither the hapless man could prove his point satisfactorily nor the scientists were able to unravel the secret themselves. While not everybody would turn out to be a Srinivasa Ramanujan, ‘the man who knew infinity’, it is high time the people at the higher echelons of scientific bodies stopped ignoring the hard work and enthusiasm of amateur inventors and explorers.

Another case in point is that of a young maths teacher who earned a living by giving private tuitions in a village in Kerala, again, a couple of decades ago. He had arrived at an ingenious method to calculate the eccentricity of an oval. The findings were sent to Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam who, in turn, forwarded it to ISRO for further verification. The formula was, incidentally, found to be correct and useful in astronomical calculations involving the trajectory and orbital paths of heavenly bodies.

The book in question contained the results of years of painstaking research and thought-provoking conjectures peppered with quirky observations that often looked far-fetched. Nevertheless, it was a book which shed light on the mysterious events of the universe and one that emphasised the need to explore beyond the known horizons of knowledge.

I never saw the man again.

This is my homage to that old man who deserves to be called the ‘Earthquake Johnny’ of India, although he did not invent any seismograph or establish an institute like John Milne, the legendary scientist renowned for his extensive work in this field.

(I am still in search of his name and the rare paperback copy…and hope to find it someday.)