By Rimli Bhattacharya
Oppenheimer, rings a bell? I am not going to write about the movie or say some good words about Christopher Nolan. We can go and watch the movie any time and write our reviews on it. The esteemed media outlets have already taken care of it.
On July 22, 2023, Mumbai was flooded. Torrential rains lashed the city, as if a thousand dragons were spewing fire from the bottom of their belly. My teenage daughter demanded we watch Oppenheimer in the night show as she had her classes. She is in the tenth and least bothered about her upcoming board exams in February.
“Do you know Niels Bohr?” I asked.
“Uhu but I know Albert Einstein and the letter which he wrote to Roosevelt,” she countered.
I booked the tickets.
The show was to start at 7.15pm. But we were stuck in the water. Our auto couldn’t move an inch.
“Oye madam, dusra theatre mili nehin kya, mujhe leke aaye marne ke liye?” (Madam, didn’t you get another theatre which was close by, instead of me dying along with you?) Ajit Mangal, the captain (that’s what they are addressed as when they are hired through Rapido) of the ship, said this to me.
I evoked the Bhagavad Gita. I silently uttered the Maha Mantra:“Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare. Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare.” I asked Riya to do the same. It worked as we reached the theatre fifteen minutes late. Oppie (as I would like to address Dr. Oppenheimer) was discussing something about soviet communism which I royally ignored. What I could make out was that he was generating a whole troop of enemies by his experiments with Einstein’s theory of Nuclear Fusion and Fission. He spoke of Hitler and he spoke of ending the World War II which he eventually did – I mean ending the World War II for which he had to pay a huge price.
Oppie was opposed by all, but he stood with conviction. He knew he loved his country. Well, we all do, isn’t it? But as fate would have it, he could manage to convince the then famous physicists and scientists to build a secret location at Los Alamos where he could conduct the experiments. General Leslie Groves and Oppie were the two who went undeterred with their mission to save the United Nations and end the war. However, they wanted to finish Hitler.
Hitler died and it was decided that they would use their model of A Bomb to finish the Japanese. The model was built, and repeated trials were conducted. There were uncountable meetings with agreements and disagreements. Ultimately, other scientists joined hands and the first trial was conducted in the desert. It was a success.
The next couple of months went in building the two Bombs and sending them to Washington. But something was wrong with Oppie. He did not look happy as he knew he had made weapons of mass destruction. He also understood the devastating effect it would have for centuries to come. The bombs were eventually dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and history is witness to what followed later.
Dr. J Robert Oppenheimer, father of the Nuclear Bomb, made headlines. But instead of being elated, Oppie was shaken with overwhelming grief. His ears ringed; his eyes would flare up. He was no longer in peace, no longer that Oppie who was once accused of being an eccentric womanizer. He would have dreams of skin peeling off the faces of unknown people and that’s when he said to Mr. President: “I see blood in my hands.” In return, the President handed him over his handkerchief and asked to keep out the cry baby in him out of his chamber.
There were a lot of hullaballoos, but it was short lived. Someone else wanted that fame and made Oppie’s life miserable. Oppie’s security was revoked, and his wife Kitty warned him that people would not spare him for what he has done.
What followed next was his way or the highway. Oppie sat in one corner while all his colleagues and fellow scientists spoke against him one after the other. The same ones whom Oppie had loved and cared for went against him. He was shaken to the core but the gentleman he was he did not forget to shake his hands with those comrades who backstabbed him.
I had said that I am not here to speak of the movie. I just wrote what I read, what I watched and what I felt. Success comes at a price. Oppie suffered and I witnessed it through the lens of Nolan. His former girlfriend committed suicide when he said he won’t be seeing her anymore (caution, caution: Oppie was married and had a kid when he met her for the last time – infidelity. How dare he?). She wanted him to say at least something about the mission. “Not a word” was his answer.
Parking the negativities off the bay, someone ultimately stood for Oppie and he got his lost reputation back. There were flashbacks of him speaking with Albert Einstein who had predicted that Oppie would get a medal and he did.
Ah! That traitor. You really want to know him? Then please watch the movie. A word of caution: do not make fun of anyone, they may not take your jokes kindly. That’s exactly what happened with Oppie. Success comes with a price and Dr Oppenheimer is a testimony to this.
I end my essay with an open question to Nolan: was it necessary to speak of Bhagavad Gita when Oppie was having sex with his girlfriend? Did you witness it, Mr. Nolan?
Bio:
Rimli Bhattacharya is a first class gold medalist in Mechanical Engineering with a MBA in supply chain management. She has contributed to two anthologies, A Book of light and Muffled Moans and has written two solo books, The crosshairs of life and That day it rained and other stories. Her other works have appeared in twenty-nine literary magazines & E-Zines. She is also an Indian Classical dancer.
***
Like Cafe Dissensus on Facebook. Follow Cafe Dissensus on Twitter.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday is the blog of Cafe Dissensus magazine, born in New York City and currently based in India. All materials on the site are protected under Creative Commons License.
***
Read the latest issue of Cafe Dissensus Magazine, “(Re)storying Indian Handloom Saree Culture”, edited by Anindita Chatterjee, Durgapur Govt. College, West Bengal, India.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 