Rajendra Deshpande

Rajendra Deshpande is Gaitonde's friend and the story's voice of science. He is a scientist with a rational, open mind: at first he dismisses the professor's tale as fantasy, but when shown the torn page from the Bakhar — real, material evidence — he is honest enough to change his view, admitting that "facts can be stranger than fantasies."

He is thoughtful and articulate, pacing the room under strain before carefully explaining the experience through the catastrophe theory and quantum indeterminacy / the many-worlds idea. He is also intellectually humble: he freely admits he cannot say why the transition happened, calling it one of science's many unsolved questions, and offers only a reasoned guess. Rajendra thus ba …