Bhabha Atomic Research Centre

Bhabha Atomic Research Centre is the workplace named for physicist Wolfgang Persis, whose connection to Abdel Khader Khan becomes part of Khader’s account of how he pursued knowledge beyond philosophy and religion. The centre itself is not described in institutional detail; its significance in the narrative is that it anchors Persis’s scientific identity and the relationship through which he teaches Khader.

Identity and Mention

The centre is introduced as the Bombay workplace of a physicist whom Khader had met while the man was in serious trouble. The account identifies no department, research project, or institutional role beyond Persis’s work there, so the centre remains a precise point of professional context rather than a developed setting.

Persis and Khader

Persis had lost money through gambling at a club owned by one of Khader’s associates, and he was also involved in a love affair that had led him into further difficulties. Khader says he resolved these problems and kept their details private. In return, Persis began teaching him science, a subject Khader felt he needed alongside his studies of philosophy and religion.

Role in Khader’s Education

Khader describes his lessons with Persis as a sustained arrangement: they had studied together once a week for seven years. The centre’s narrative importance follows from this long-running exchange. It identifies the scientific world from which Khader’s teacher comes, while the private bond between the two men—not any account of the centre’s operations—explains how scientific study entered Khader’s intellectual life.