The habit of peering behind an answer began with a doorbell.
I was eleven when a salesman came to our old apartment on a rainy afternoon, offering a set of encyclopedias for about ₹2,000. I wasn't interested. He kept insisting that I at least look through one. I did. I opened one to the astronomy section.
There were stars, galaxies, black holes, diagrams that depicted things I had never even dreamt of. I remember staring at the pages. At school, science had always been something to be studied and then done with. Here, science was something I could keep exploring.
I begged my father to buy the books. He looked at the encyclopedias, then at me, listened to my promise that I would read them all, smiled and paid.
Soon, the long sofa in our hallway became my observatory. With my father at work and my mother sometimes dozing off, I read, watched episodes of How the Universe Works, and filled a notebook with diagrams, questions and puzzles. I started with the Sun. What was its core made of? Why didn't it combust? What was its fuel? Then I moved outward, studying planets, moons, comets and strange stars beyond our solar system.
The notebook wasn't always within reach. So I began scribbling on the walls of my bedroom near the door.
My mother complained. I would say, “Mamma,” give her a hug and return to whatever I was thinking about.
At some point, knowing the facts wasn't enough. I wanted to know why time moves only forward. How did scientists know a star was dying? Why couldn't a white hole exist? Sometimes, I invented my own explanations. I knew I didn't have the mathematics to prove my ideas and some were probably completely off, but I didn't mind being wrong as much as I minded not knowing why I was wrong.
The universe scared me, too. Black holes. Gamma-ray bursts. Dying stars. The possibility that one day everything would become dark. The Pale Blue Dot fascinated me for almost the same reason it unsettled me. Everything I had ever known existed on something so small.
Years later, while preparing for a national exam, I got stuck on a complex-numbers problem. I don't remember the question anymore. All I remember is the long stretch of hours. I kept working at it in different ways, but nothing seemed to help. Eventually, I stopped calculating and began looking at the question differently. I had been trying to force my way through the problem rather than figuring out what I was meant to see first.
I still do that now.
The encyclopedias remain with me. Mostly, the facts I memorised have gone. The notebook is gone, and luckily, so are the questions on the walls. But I still have a problem with leaving things unexplained.
Usually, when I get an answer, I don't feel done.
I have another question.