Maya

MAYA

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Published and distributed in India by HUMMING WORDS PUBLISHERS Faridabad, INDIA www.hummingwords.in Email: hwpublishers@gmail.com

All rights reserved with the author. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form and by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.

First Edition: 2011 Rs 96/- (E-book) ISBN 978-81-920135-0-3

Cover design by Humming Words Publishers

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Acknowledgements I thank Rupa for making this dream come true and Anupama for making it right. I also thank Adi, Kal, Archu and Smita for being a part of my dream. Special Thanks are also due to Ankita, without whose patience and help, this book would never have got printed!!

Sarita Lakshmi January 2011

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Preface The biggest irony according to me in this world is “What we do not see we do not believe, but the way our body is built, what we do not believe, we do not see�. The world is full of people and things which we in our bounded rationality refuse to perceive. I have, through this book, attempted to present the magic that I perceived when I watched such persons, trod such grounds and observed such things and events as are normally ignored, deserted or left desolate and unobserved by the majority of normal people.

This book talks about the journey and transformation of a normal rational person from a skeptic to willing and respected member of the magical world.

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Chapter – 1 I was walking back from work, tired but satisfied from the day’s work and had almost reached the gate when I saw him; he was probably the oldest specimen of a ‘being’; his back was so exceedingly hunched that his face was parallel to the ground; he was dressed in an expensive suit, but was all alone and was stumbling at every step. It was a dark evening; I assumed that he probably was waiting for someone to pick him up, and certainly would be betteroff waiting at my house for the pick-up to arrive.

Thus assuming I approached him and asked him - “sir, are you waiting for someone or looking for someone”? He turned his face towards me, I was mesmerized – his face was probably the calmest and the handsomest that I had seen in my entire life. His eyes clearly indicated that he was an enlightened being. He took a note from his pocket and handed it over to me.

I opened the note; it said – “reach the sign-post that says maneating-tiger-sanctuary tomorrow at noon”. He obviously handed over a wrong note I thought; another thought (someone told me one can think seven thoughts simultaneously!) – “the signpost that says ‘The man-eating-tiger-sanctuary’ is more famous than I thought” occurred upon me. (Thoughts they say are photons of energy flowing freely in ether and creating recognition in the patterns of the brain!!).

I placed the note in front of his face and told him “sir, I think this is not the note you wanted to give me”. He replied to my dismay – “This is the note I was supposed to pass on to you Adi. Read it carefully”.

I read the text again as if reading it again would change the words, I turned the paper around and checked the cover to see if there was some secret message hidden somewhere, as if someone in this world wanted to send a special message to me!! Suddenly I realized that the old withered gentleman was no longer there with 5

me. I looked around; I could not see him anywhere!! There was no way he could have walked the entire length of the road, either way.

I shook my head; I was seeing things!! I threw the sheet down on the road and started walking towards the gate when suddenly someone called me from behind. Turning around I saw a school boy from one of the nearby schools; he had the note in his hand – he said “Ma’am, I think this was passed on to you and has been dropped by you inadvertently, I mean intentionally”!

Grimacing, I went and took the note from the child’s hands, turned and went back to the gate thinking to myself – “The local school attended by this child seems to be a real good one, look at the choice of words – “’Passed on to you!’ and ‘inadvertently’ and ‘Intentionally?’” I shrugged put the note inside my messy bag alongside many of the office papers, bills, chits etc., and went home.

I forgot all about the note by the next morning. I had a conference call with Singapore between 6:30 AM and 10:30 AM and hence managed to leave for office only at 11:00 AM. Coincidentally, a bad traffic condition, a broken down truck, a vegetable cart that got upset by a cow resulting in a strewing of vegetables all over the road and because of a strange coincidental coincidence of a strange set of tiny coincidences, I reached the signboard that said – “Man Eating Tiger Sanctuary” at 11: 58 AM. Coincidentally the front-right tire of my car also got punctured right below the signpost!! I got down from the car remembering the note and grimacing at the eerie coincidences of the coincidences.

The place seemed to be empty except for two men who sat atop their rundown and rickety old scooters that were creaking under the load of large bags full of packets of candy; they had a unique way of wearing their helmets, one had the whole helmet perched on top of his head – he was using his chin guard to guard his forehead, the other one wore his small bicycle helmet backwards. They certainly did not seem to be part of this coincidence.

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I stood at a respectable distance, tried my best to ignore them and started watching my driver change the tire. When I looked back at them ten to fifteen seconds later, I realized that those two had company, more than fifty gentlemen, all on overloaded derelict scooters, wearing strange helmets in their own unique style had reached the place, without me noticing their arrival. They seemed to be waiting for someone to come and inaugurate their strange helmet and overloaded scooter fashion pageant. I averted my eyes, trying to shut my mind off the entire shebang and turned my attention to the driver and the road.

After watching my driver expertly working on my car for a few seconds, I walked up to him and asked him if he needed any help.

My old emancipated driver was addicted to cocaine; he probably had had a snort in the morning and hence was behaving like a sumo wrestler at that moment.

He turned down all my offers to help and was all but lifting my car. I threw my hands up and walked back to the spot where I was standing before. After reaching there, I cast a furtive glance at the ‘strange helmet fashion corner’ and realized that the strange helmet fashion certainly seemed to be in vogue. There were more than a couple of hundred gentlemen standing out there in their crowned glory.

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Chapter 2 I walked up to them and asked – “Sir, is everything fine? Can I help you in any way”? Looking back, I cannot think of any reason why I imagined that I, a lone human being who could not even drive a car, could help a couple of hundreds of gentlemen with plenty of sweet sustenance at their disposal, standing next to a busy road straddled atop their respective if not fully, at-least partially functional vehicles. I heard the answer from somewhere in the middle of the crowd – “It is noon and yes, you are welcome”. This was not the answer that I expected from such a group or an individual who fitted perfectly into such a group as the one I was standing amidst! I looked for the source of the voice; a man was walking towards me, he was removing his dark brown’ kurta’ (the long Indian style shirt). I took a couple of steps backwards, ready to bolt from there - screaming if needed, glancing at the road to see if the path was clear and I could hail some help down if needed.

When I turned my attention back to the person, the metamorphosis was already complete, the person who stood in front of me certainly did not resemble his old self; he was dressed in a pinstripe suit, cufflinks and all the works, he was slim, tall, looked like a successful executive at a multinational firm; the only aspect that probably did not fit the ‘executive in an MNC’ image was the Rudraksha rosary entwined around his right wrist and fingers. He repeated his welcome, making it more personal this time; “You are welcome Adi; welcome to the Sanskritam”!! I suppressed an overwhelming urge to giggle – If the name of the funny helmet fashion pageant was Sanskritam, Mr. Pinstripe suit certainly fit the bill of the event manager. I swept my right arm, pointed to those strangely clad men and asked – “This is Sanskritam?” His answer to my question was – “This is the charade”. I thought I heard him incorrectly, he probably meant ‘parade’, I asked him if the parade is done and if there was any other event left and had to endure a smile similar to that of an indulgent parent would, at a three year old 8

child’s innocent and ignorant questions, in response. He answered – “Parades attract attention, this charade is meant to ward unwanted attention off. You heard me right; this is a charade and not a parade. ” I squirmed. I was not too comfortable with a total stranger treating me like a not very smart three year old; I was not too happy either, with the fact that I was in the midst of something which I, in my rationality, could not comprehend and hence did not want to be a part of. I started looking around for an escape without sounding too rude. “Nice charade” - I said; “I am sure no one can make out who you really are”. Not that I was aware who they were, but that seemed to be the most polite escape line that I could think of, at that moment. My statement was again rewarded with the same smile; “Yeah you are right. Even smart ones like you can’t; more so because they are too busy trying to find excuses to run away”. Now this was getting serious; this person seemed to be able to read my mind! I smiled politely again, as I did not want to offend the gentleman, who had really not done anything to offend me except calling me by my first name and reading my mind at every step. I gave my thoughts of a quick get-away up and decided to critically examine and ‘judge’ the charade or whatever it was!

My feelings changed from those bordering on total disinterest to amazement and wonder within (as far as I can recall) a fraction of a second. The helmets and funny attires were being removed to reveal immaculate, trendy suits. Mr. Pinstripe suit was right. The whole thing indeed was a charade; olive green denim and linen overalls and raincoats were actually carapaces for gray, navy, black and pinstripe suits!! Clean shaven, intelligent and wise faces started emerging from under the strangely worn helmets!

I turned in a state of complete incredulity towards Mr. Pinstripe and asked him – “Who are you? What is your name?” He said “I am Dishana” and stretched his hand. I shook his outstretched hand.

“Pleased to meet you”, I said, though in reality I was not sure whether I was pleased, puzzled or scared. In fact I was trying to place the odd name – ‘Dishana’, trying to rake my brains to work 9

out if it was Sinhalese, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Islamic or a Jewish. I normally am not prejudiced, but it always helps to understand the religious inclination of the person one is dealing with. My mind, thanks to the Rudraksha rosary, then came to the conclusion that Mr. Dishana was either an Indian or a Sinhalese.

In reply to my thoughts, the mind reader Mr. Dishana elaborated –“I am a Jaya Purush – A Vedic Personality. I span the universe and beyond and have existed since eternity and beyond. I exist as existence does.”

Out of all the various possible polite responses, the only one that came to my mind at that instant was the shortest – “Wow!” – I said, “That is… wow, amazing, and fantastic!! You must have had a nice long and eventful life then!! These people – are they Vedic personalities as well?” The situation was getting too weird for me to handle. Vedic personalities are those one reads about in comics.

They used to manifest themselves when a person was in real need, in a luminous form, clad in traditional Indian attire and finery; they always were adorned by heavy gold and diamond jewellery and almost always wore crowns, unless they were banished from their respective positions or were in exile. Such a stylish pinstripe suit as the one this Mr. Dishana the mind reader wore certainly did not seem to be a part of such a personality’s wardrobe. Either they were all playing a prank, or were escapees from a lunatic asylum. Their faces seemed too worldly wise to belong to ‘loony runaways’, but one cannot be too sure of such things now-a-days.

Mr. Dishana the mind reader answered my unasked question – “The secret is to blend-in. It is easy to wear such a form and attire as needed for the occasion in this space time continuum, especially when one is an eddy”. “Eddy?” I asked “eddy as in ‘eddies in a flow’ or Eddy as in ‘Edward’?” Mr. Dishana’s reply was a simple rhetoric, “you do not expect me to answer that!” He went on, “We and everything are a part or whole of (as you would like to perceive) one big flow, a continuum, without a beginning or end.

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Eddies that move along the flow, help create the required variety or change. The level of perception and awareness determines how the whole is perceived; the perception in turn depends upon the intensity of the energy at that point and instance, and at that colossal scale, points and instances merge, so there is a free transfer and growth.” “In essence you say that you are one of those who control the lives of humans.” I interjected before he could continue further.

“At a level yes”, He replied. In that plane, we are known to have power over the actions and blessings of the inhabitants of the world.

I have held many positions and have been addressed to with names like ‘Brihaspati’, ‘Jupiter’, ’Zeus’, ‘Thor’ or ‘Marduk’ as people pleased.”

“All these people – who are they?” I asked. “They are the Adityas, Dityas, Marutas, Ashwins, Mitra & Varuna, Bhaga & Saraswati, Ahilya, and Ganga amongst thousands of others whom you possibly have never heard about”.

I was quite surprised; I had till then, not noticed any lady amongst the crowd; there indeed were ladies, genteel, smart, suave, gorgeous ladies, clad in impeccable business suits. They certainly did not look like Saraswatis and Bhaghas.

I suppressed an almost in-suppressible urge to giggle. Nice parade, charade or whatever it was. “Nice code names.” I said aloud. “Yes.” He replied “They are nice code names, but not the way you think. They are the names these genteel, smart, suave and gorgeous ladies have been addressed and revered by many, for centuries. They have other names as well, but you are not aware of them.”

That was it for me. I decided to take a walk at that point. I said, “nice meeting all of you. I think I am quite fortunate to have met such wonderful people like you. I hope our paths cross again. Take care”, shook hands with Mr. Dishana, who pressed another note into my palm, turned my face away from the crowd, walked back to my 11

car, whose punctured tyre had just got replaced, sank back into the seat and told my high strung driver to rush.

When we had reached a ‘safe’ distance from the spot where I had the strange encounter, I glanced at my watch, worried that I must have lost plenty of time, and realized that it was only 12:01 PM; “Strange!” I thought. The time I spent with the strange gang of Vedic people seemed much longer than three minutes!

I then opened the note trust into my palm by Mr. Dishana. It said – “Saturday afternoon, 3:00 PM at ‘Ghanta Ghar’.” I did not know where this strange ‘Ghanta Ghar’ was, nor was I in a mood to ask someone about it. I decided to forget the whole incident, threw the note out of the window and rode off to office.

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Chapter – 3 A week later I got a call from a ‘Human Resources Consultant’.

He spoke to me about an organization that operates out of an old bus terminus. He asked me if I would be interested in working for them.

I did not see too much of harm in checking the organization out and agreed to attend the interview.

On the way to my interview my driver kept trying to point out various landmarks, I was too lost in my thoughts about work and possible plans to pay any attention to his words.

The interview went off very well. The organization proved to have all the characters of an ‘Ideal organization’. I had always dreamed of working for such an organization as that one, in such a role as I had just been interviewed for. I however was not too sure if I would be hired, nor was I in such a big hurry to leave my job.

On the way back from the interview, my driver resumed his ‘guide act’. As I had nothing better to do, I decided to relax, sit back and let my driver double up as a driver cum tourist guide. He was describing the places – “This is a two hundred year old park, this is a Tibetan shopping complex, this is ‘Ghanta Ghar’…” “Ghanta Ghar? Where is Ghantaghar, what is it?” I asked - my interest aroused. “The place that we just went past” he replied, it contains a clock tower and is known to be more than a couple of hundred years old.”

If there was any such feeling such as a feeling of extreme consternation, then that was the feeling I experienced at that moment. This Mr. Dishana and his gang of loonies surely seemed to know where I was headed to! Was the HR consultant in cahoots with them? “No he cannot be. The place and job are genuine!” I replied to myself. “Any way I am not sure if they can pay me the salary I had asked; so there is no point thinking about the whole 13

thing. Today probably is the first and last time I went past that alleged place.”

Thus consoling myself, I headed home. Troubles at home regarding whether to follow a certain god-man or seek one’s own path to salvation, kept me busy during the weekend. To take my mind off the arguments and the outcomes thereof, I decided to walk to the nearest library to read a book.

Too lost in my own thoughts, I skimmed absently through the shelves and picked a book about experiences of Norse gods in the modern world. Thor the Norse god was described in that book, as a zealous but muddleheaded god. I smiled at the description and decided firmly to forget about the whole episode and continue with my life as usual.

Life sometimes can be real strange. You might be doing the same thing for years, with a dumb thought that the thing that you had been doing was the best thing in the world; one fine day, you might suddenly realize that you actually had been fooling yourself and were too egoistic to admit that you had been a fool. That fine day becomes the day of awakening, when you suddenly realize that actually there is nothing wrong with you except that you had been living with a whole set of wrong people.

I had the same realization, a couple of months after I went for this interview and decided to move out of the family home and live all alone, all by myself. The major decision brought-forth many other minor, but equally important ones, such as – “where should I live and what should I buy to ensure that my life at the new place is comfortable”.

It was a good couple of months before I found a decent place that did not dent my pocket too much; it took a good part of a month to sort things out with my family, whilst arranging for the other minor essentials in parallel. So finally nearly three months after the 14

day of realization, I finally stood at the doorstep of my tiny little flat, ready to begin my new life as myself.

A couple of days after I moved to the new place, I got a call from the elusive HR consultant. He apologized to me for not staying in touch and asked me if I was free to go over to the bus terminus again for another round of interview. I reluctantly agreed; the new job seemed to be a dream job, but too much of upheaval certainly did not seem too welcoming in one go.

A couple of weeks and a couple of rounds of interviews later, I got an offer letter for the new dream job. The salary offered was certainly above and beyond my expectations; the salary coupled with the prospect of working on something that was really worthwhile, made me say “Yes� to the offer.

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Chapter – 4 A couple of weeks and some negotiations later, I joined the new office, not too far away from the now dreaded ‘Ghanta Ghar’. Every time I passed by the place on my way back from work, I would avert my eyes from the building.

However one day my curiosity got better of me, and I glanced at the building – There was a board that said ‘Sanskrit University’ on it. “An educational institute”, I thought, “That does not sound too scary!” The three long months when I was negotiating my freedom with my erstwhile family somehow made me analyze the Mr. Dishana incident in a more logical fashion. I had mentally managed to reclassify Mr. Dishana and his band of merry men and woman as a group of wise-guys out to play a fast one on hapless people.

I managed to continue my job and hold on to this opinion for nearly six months. As I used to work from home during the weekends and tried my best to avoid a trip to office, the possibility of being near ‘Ghanta Ghar’ on a Saturday at 3:00 PM, seemed to be a remote one.

A couple of days after my confirmation, I was called to the office on a Saturday to attend a meeting. The meeting lasted till 1:00 PM. Just when I was about to leave the office, my boss called me into the cabin for a small group discussion. By the time the discussion got over, it was nearly 3:00 PM. I got into the car and started driving back home.

A couple of weeks before the weekend trip I had finally mustered up enough courage to put my driver through a deaddiction program, which necessitated him to be closeted indoors for a year or longer. With no driver to drive me around, I painfully, after a couple of near death experiences involving narrowly missed trucks and three wheelers, had become self reliant.

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To my dismay, when I reached the point right in front of the Ghanta Ghar’s gate, my car just died. I got down from the car, opened the hood, checked and found that the car’s fuse had blown.

If my brain had a fuse that could get blown, it would have done so too.

I tried to relax, my office was just a stone throw away, I could call for help and the manager of the taxi services provider at the office would surely have come down with one of the mechanics and helped me out. I dialled the office number; the guard picked it up and assured me that help would be on its way. As I stood there waiting, I heard a familiar voice. It said – “Adi, welcome back!” I turned around. Mr. Dishana was standing at the gate of the Sanskrit University or whatever it was. He had donned nice traditional Indian attire, this time.

He smiled and beckoned me to come over to where he was standing. Since that was the best thing to do, considering that the other option was to stay rooted in the middle of the road, where any crazy driver could have easily mowed me down, I complied with his request.

When I reached him, he said – “Hope things are fine with you.

You did the right thing by moving on in life. The worst mistake one can commit is to stay committed to unhappiness, doggedly assuming that you are doing the right thing.” This man seemed to know everything!

My feelings changed from irritation and dismay to ones that can only be described as crippling and paralyzing fear. The only thought that kept ricocheting in my mind was that the man most probably was stalking me and monitoring my every step. I felt totally exposed, vulnerable, small, weak and lonely.

Sensing my fear, he said – “Adi, if I had any intentions of harming you, I could have easily done so, any day, any time; I in fact do have the power to harm anyone, as I pleased. So relax”.

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Logic kicked in and I saw sense in what Mr. Dishana said. I started feeling less scared. The feeling of vulnerability however did not go away. It was not easy for me to accept that a stranger standing in front of me knew all about me. Since there was nothing I could do about it, I let the feeling pass.

After a couple of awkward minutes of watching the traffic and ignoring the person next to me, I Mustered up enough courage and asked him – “What did you call me here for?” “I called you here to show you something” he responded and pointed his finger at the clock atop the tower aptly named ‘Ghanta Ghar’.

At the first glance I noticed nothing unusual, but closer inspection revealed strange patterns on the dial of the clock – almost imperceptible concentric circles encircling almost illegible and nearly microscopic writings.

He then moved his finger to point at one of the windows of the small two story building next to the tower. There was nothing extra ordinary about the window, so it was fairly obvious that he expected me to look into the room within, through the window. I complied with his gestural instructions and tried to peer into the room beyond, through the window.

For a few moments I could see nothing; the room whose lights were off, or non-functional or non-existent, was darker than the spot where my body and hence my eyes were located. Moreover, my eyes were not trained to peer through windows located nearly twenty meters away, into dimly lit rooms.

I shaded my eyes with my hand and blinked a couple of times.

My third blink was followed by an involuntary dropping of my jaw, at the sight. There was a sea with roaring waves behind the window, the massive waves were lapping against the window, but were held behind them, by an unseen force. There was a strange looking ship that looked more like a floating spaceship, struggling to stay afloat, amidst the waves.

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The individuals, both men and women aboard the ship looked harassed, space lagged and yet magnificent. They were clad in a wide variety of attires of myriad colours. No two attires were alike, but the colours blended to produce an effect of perfect harmony.

I continued to observe the scene, spellbound, when one of those splendid women waved at me. She was clad in a long but nicely fitted sky blue cloak. “She is Soma” Mr. Dishana’s voice whispered in my ears. I turned around, startled, to see Mr. Dishana standing nearly three feet away. Either Mr. Dishana was a very good ventriloquist or I was hearing things.

I turned my attention back to the room, only to realize to my dismay that the entire sea and ship had disappeared. The room that lay beyond the window was a regular slightly dilapidated room with mattresses and bed clothes strewn around.

I blinked again and again, with a desperate hope that my blinks possibly would bring the view back. After ten or more such blinks, I turned towards Mr. Dishana, who to my chagrin had mutated himself into a sloppy candy seller atop a rickety scooter, seemingly busy trying to start it off. His face was mostly covered up by a badly discoloured helmet and a threadbare scarf.

I was about to ask him the reason behind the sudden change, but a shouted salutation from another direction stopped me from doing so. The manager of the taxi services provider had reached the scene along with a couple of drivers. They saluted me, walked towards the car, opened the hood and started checking it.

I walked to the car without turning around or calling attention to Mr. Dishana, who I judged by the sudden change in appearance did not want to be noticed by anyone but me. When I reached my car, I turned inconspicuously and cast a glance at the spot which Mr. Dishana had occupied a few moments ago. As I expected, he was not there.

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I turned my attention back to the car and the threesome who were working on it, to see them closing the hood shut. “There you go madam. There was no problem with the car”, one of them said.

“It probably just needed to cool down a bit”, he added. I thanked them for their help and offered them some money, which they gladly accepted.

Thanking them again for coming to my aid when needed, I was just about to get into my car, when Mr. Dishana’s voice whispered ominously in my ear – “The coming Saturday at midnight, your journey shall begin”.

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Chapter – 5 I tried not to think of the ominous words regarding the impending dreaded ‘journey’ on the way back home; In an attempt to discourage any thoughts on the subject, I set out instead to complete the mundane jobs such as washing, cleaning, ironing etc that normally are left waiting for the weekend, almost immediately after reaching home.

I worked through Saturday night and through a good part of Sunday morning. By noon on Sunday, my house, clothes, kitchen utensils, silverware etc. looked more than perfect, if something like that was possible.

I however was a complete mess, both mentally and physically.

The thoughts about the trip tried their best to come to the forefront from the back of my brain, where I deliberately had locked them up.

The tussle between these thoughts and my mind had become so painful that at 1:00 PM on Sunday, I found myself sprawled on the couch with a cup of coffee in one hand and an aspirin in the other.

I finally decided to stop trying to relegate the thoughts on the trip to the back of my mind and instead started trying to look at the whole thing from a logical view point. I tried to mentally fill out the standard checklist that one fills out when one embarks on a journey – Destination – Unknown, Mode of Transport – Unknown, Fellow Travellers – Godly beings? (Unknown), Duration of the journey – Unknown.

I gave up at that point and decided that being practical was far better than being logical. If nothing is known, it is better to be prepared for everything. I made a list of things I needed to carry for the ‘journey’. It went as follows 1. A couple of pairs of formal clothes – In case I would be needed to take part in a parade or charade or what-ever 21

2. Four pairs of casual travel clothes – For travelling alone and not having to wash clothes – I hated that chore.

3. Ten pairs of under-garments 4. Two beach towels and three hand-towels 5. Two packs of tissues 6. Two packs of wet wipes (To keep ones hands and face clean) 7. A bottle of hand sanitizer 8. A bottle of aspirins, a bottle of antacids, a can of painkiller spray and a can of spray bandage 9. A pair of formal shoes, a pair of sandals and a pair of bathroom slippers (I would wear a pair of joggers for the journey) 10. My PAN card, Driving License, Credit and Debit Cards, Spare pair of glasses, mouth-spray, deodorant, soap, shampoo, some cash, tooth-brush, tooth-paste and some assorted items.

I then realized that the only way I could carry such items as listed by me without having my arms engaged and at the same time not hurting my back, was to pack them all up in a bag that could double-up as a backpack and a trolley-bag.

A crazy urge took me on my foot to the nearest shopping complex in search of such a bag. I was just about to enter the massive edifice that housed the shopping complex when my attention got caught by a scene on the roadside.

A really old and ancient lady was sitting on the curb trying desperately to sell baskets to the passers-by. The lady seemed old, neglected, haggard, lonely, hungry and sad. An overwhelming urge took control of me; I walked up to the lady, took a couple of hundreds out of my wallet, sat down next to her and told her – “Mother – please take this money and go get something to eat and 22

drink for yourself. I shall take care of your wares while you are gone.”

I was so immersed in my feelings of empathy that I did not think that her immediate acceptance of my money or her leaving me behind to go buy something to eat, was unusual if not totally strange.

A few minutes, during which, I sincerely tried to take her role and not cause any negative impact to her business, passed by. I started feeling a little uncomfortable; it was a little hot, and I needed to go back home, pack, eat and sleep.

Before my feeling of discomfort could intensify, the elderly lady returned. She carried a package in her hands. She handed the package over to me and in answer to my quizzical look, said, “Someone was selling this. I thought you would be looking for this.” She urged me to open the package; as I did not want to hurt her feelings, I complied with her request.

To my utter surprise, It contained a bag similar to what I was looking for. The colour, shape and size were perfect. It was as light as a feather. Too thrilled to ask her any questions, I thanked her profusely. She turned my offers of money down and laughed at my effusive gratitude.

She then said something that astonished me. She said, “It is not the beginning, duration or the end that matters; enjoy your journey for the sake of it. After-all, space, time and everything are just incidental.” She then picked up the large basket, which contained all the smaller ones that she was trying to sell, set it atop her head and started walking off.

I ran to her, to ask her if she knew anything. When I reached her and looked into her eyes, I understood; she knew. She then said something that made me lose my fear and start anticipating the 23

impending journey with enthusiasm. She said – “A journey is one that makes you lose nothing, but gain yourself.”

I thanked her and walked back to my apartment. It was only when I finished packing that I realized that I had forgotten to ask her how and when my journey would begin. I was just about to walk out in search of the lady when I understood that if it had to happen, it would, without me having to think or plan about it. I relaxed, had my dinner and went off to bed early.

The entirety of the week following that Sunday went past like whirlwind. I was kept so busy at work that all I could manage was to drive home, drag myself to bed and sleep. On Friday there was an office party where I was expected to sing and organize the program.

The program got over at 8:00 PM, the organizers including myself went to have dinner; by the time I reached my apartment, it was close to midnight.

Saturday was less than a few minutes away; strange feelings of anticipation, excitement and a small niggling fear started taking their place in my mind. I decided that fear was not one of the feelings I wanted at that point. Caution yes, not fear! I sat down and said a sincere prayer to God for the first time in many days.

I said – “God, I really do not know what is going to happen, where I would be going or what I would be doing. I however know that you will be there, for me, with me and will act through me as you will.” Having said those prayers, I went off to bed. I was just drifting off to sleep, when I woke up to a feeling of being shaken awake by someone; I sat up with a start only to realize that ‘this someone’ was actually a minor earthquake or one of the tremors that was common in the part of the world I resided in.

24

Chapter – 6 I got off the bed and walked over to the window and looked outside. There, under a streetlight stood a rickety old bus; it looked like one of those private buses that the government was desperately trying to get rid of. There were a few people standing next to the bus. One of them, a lady called out to me. This was my ride! I quickly changed into my most comfortable travel gear, took my bag, locked my apartment and headed out.

The road was empty except for the bus and those people standing next to it. I walked up to them. They all looked fresh and full of anticipation. They looked like nice, smart and well educated people who had signed up to go on an adventure weekend trip. They carried handbags, laptop bags, cameras and backpacks like mine.

Before I could strike a conversation with them, the lady told me to go, find my seat and settle down. She then told the rest of them that they also better got in and tried to catch a few winks while they could. The others seemed to be too willing to obey those instructions; I felt I also was to do the same; so I got into the bus.

The interior of the bus was certainly not what I expected; it looked like a luxury liner more than a bus. The door to the driver’s cabin was closed. The lights of the passenger cabin were off, but the floor lighting revealed aisles of enclosures covered with colourful curtains; these enclosures were numbered using tiny LEDs. I was curious to know what was behind those curtains and was just about to take a small peek, when I heard an announcement in Mr. Dishana’s voice – “Welcome aboard Adi; your seat number is 24.” I jumped like a guilty little kid caught in a naughty act, and looked at the driver’s cabin trying to see him or someone who most probably was watching me. The driver’s cabin however was dark; they probably used cameras to keep an eye on the passengers, I thought when another thought, which said that this Mr. Dishana the mind 25

reader surely would not need a camera to judge what I was planning to do, stuck me!

I thanked him vaguely in my mind and started looking for seat number 24, which by the looks of it seemed to be six enclosures down; I walked down the carpeted hallway, reached seat number 24 and opened the flap of the curtain that enclosed it and peered in; the enclosure looked way too familiar! It in fact was a near exact replica of my bedroom, except that it had a few additional frills which I had always wanted to add, but could not, due to space and budget constraints.

Curiosity got better of me; I opened the enclosure opposite mine and saw that it looked like one of the deluxe rooms in one of those exorbitantly expensive luxury hotels. Its sole occupant, a young man who seemed either in his late teens or early twenties, was asleep; I wanted to wake him up and ask him something, I was not too sure what.

So after considering the consideration that I had gone to bed after a hectic week less than four hours earlier, and could easily do with some refreshing sleep, I decided that retiring to bed, was the best available option at that point of time! I quietly went into my enclosure, drew the curtains, and jumped into the soft bed.

I was not sure if I could sleep in such strange surroundings, which eerily were designed to resemble my most familiar ones; however to my surprise, the moment my head touched the pillow, I drifted off into a dreamless slumber.

When I woke up, early morning light was streaming through my window. I opened the curtains and saw that the young man on the seat opposite mine was awake, was couched on a comfortable recliner (into which his nice cosy hotel room seemed to have metamorphosed) and was sipping a cup of coffee.

26

He smiled at me cockily and said – “I am Kal. I am to be one of your partners for this journey; I assume this is your first.” He seemed to be either too oblivious of the change in his dwellings or was too used to such changes; he even ignored my confusion and extended his hand for a shake saying “just relax. It is all normal”.

The urge to shake him hard and inform him that there was nothing normal about getting into a seemingly derelict bus and finding complete five-star dwellings in it just arose in me. I decided to ignore both the urge and the extended hand and instead uttered a tentative “Hi”; I felt that pleading ignorance was the best way to suppress both urges and unwanted advances of tall and good looking young smart-alecks who seemed too sure of themselves.

“It is your first time is it not?” A lady’s voice from the seat across the aisle inquired. “Kal has been travelling ever since his tenth birthday; so he has more or less got used to the whole wonderfulness of it. More over this is his first solo journey and he is excited; he had to finish his schooling before he could do this!” I turned around and saw the owner of the voice; she was a gorgeous woman in her late thirties, dressed in travel attire similar to mine.

She introduced herself as Archu. “I am an architect by profession”, she informed; adding that in real life, she however was just one of the many journeyers, who was trying to learn and grow.

She had once gone on a mountaineering trip to the Alps where her team got caught in a snow drift.

She and a fellow mountaineer took shelter in what looked like a cave when a group of people who looked like a rescue team came and took them aboard what looked like a rescue helicopter, but was actually the journey vehicle. She had met Kal’s mother in that journey, which she said was the most eventful one she had so far.

After the journey which lasted a few hours in actuality, they were transferred back to the spot where the fellow mountaineers had camped themselves.

27

I was curious to know more about the concept of journey; I also wanted to know where we were and what the plan was; before I could ask her, Archu suggested that I should freshen up and have a cup of coffee or something.

Freshening up was something I was looking forward to, however I was not sure how I could do so, in a moving bus. She pointed to a door at the rear of the vehicle that had the word – “Ladies” written on it, underneath a shiny picture of a queen of diamonds.

I walked over, opened the door and let out a hoot of delight. It looked like a changing room of a seven star hotel; there were some doors within, which I assumed led to the actual washrooms. When I opened one of those doors, my delight turned into wonder.

It was the most luxurious bathroom I had seen in my entire life; it even had a Jacuzzi!! In fifteen minutes I was all fresh and changed; when I came back to my seat, it had miraculously got converted into a nice small couch; there was a nice cup of coffee nestled in a coffee holder next to it.

As Kal and Archu were both looking out of their respective windows and seemed too busy taking the view in to speak to me, I sank into my comfortable seat, picked up the cup of coffee, opened the window blinds and looked out.

28

Chapter – 7 I had expected the journey to be magical, but the view outside went beyond magic; it was heavenly. We were surrounded by clouds, mist, lush colourful vegetation and birds and insects of the most beautiful variety. I did not know that such a place existed on earth! Before my excitement could get better of me and I disturbed either Kal or Archu, I heard Dishana’s voice in the intercom nearest to me. He said – “We are on earth but at a space and time equilibrium. Relax and take the scene in. This is just the beginning!” The announcement seemed to be for my ears only; no one else seemed to have heard it. So I leaned back against my seat and stared enjoying the scene.

“Wake up sleepy head, we have reached our destination” the voice of Archu spoke in my ears. I had not realized that I had dozed off. I opened my eyes; the window blinds next to me were closed.

Someone had closed them while I was asleep. I promptly got up, and walked over to the front of the bus and froze in more than one sense. We were parked on ice and snow at the very edge of a seemingly deep precipice. The cold wind hit me right away. I glanced at the others; they did not seem to be feeling cold at all!!

“Do they have heaters inside their clothes”, I wondered while gingerly stepping down from the bus, lest I slipped and fell into the ravine.

It was then that I saw Mr. Dishana and a couple of others from the other day’s charade. One of them was a very smart looking lady, who looked really elegant, dressed in a pair of tight Capri’s and Tees; “Capri’s and Tees in snow,? Don’t the Vedic beings feel cold?” I mused. Mr. Dishana and the other person from the charade wore shorts that made them look extremely athletic, smart but oddly under-dressed for the weather. The lady walked up to me and handed a glass of some pleasant smelling liquid to me. I took the glass from her, and swallowed its contents in one gulp; I had not 29

realized that I was thirsty. The liquid that I drank tasted better than any drink that I had ever had in my entire life. It had a magical effect; I stopped shivering; the liquid warmed my insides and made resistant to the chilly weather around me. “This was diluted soma” the lady informed me. She then introduced herself as ‘Sachi’ – the force or energy. I thanked her in sheer relief. She then said – “This should help you prepare yourself for the first step”.

I asked her what the first step was; she pointed to the group – its members were rapidly moving towards the edge of the precipice! I looked back at her, with an expression of horror and pleading.

“Have they gone mad? What are they trying to do? They will fall and kill themselves” I shouted in sheer desperation. “They will not fall, nor will you. Adi”, said Mr. Dishana softly. He then called out to Kal, who ran towards us from the group. He then told me to hold Kal’s left hand with my right one and his right hand with my left.

My hands followed his bidding, almost against my own bidding. He then told me to close my eyes and follow his instructions; I realized that it was beyond my power to do anything else; my legs were taking the steps at his behest.

After taking a few steps, I Suddenly realized that there was nothing solid under my feet, panicked, screamed and yanked at Mr. Dishana’s and Kal’s hands; Mr. Dishana said – “relax, open your eyes and enjoy the beauty”.

I opened my eyes and beheld the most fantastic scene of my life – it was nature at its very best!! I watched mesmerised for a few seconds and during those few seconds forgot that I was standing on nothing at all. That was when I realized that I was not falling either.

I turned towards Mr. Dishana and Kal; they smiled broadly and pointed to the others; they were flying!

Kal said – “I have done this many times before, but the experience every time, is the same. For the first couple of seconds I still have to keep telling myself continuously that it is possible. The first time I almost pulled my mother down with me; Mr. Dishana 30

had to disengage me from her and carry me for a good few minutes.

It was Mr. Dishana who taught me to gain control over myself. He told me that it was like swimming, all you need to know is that the fluid air can support you equally well as solid ground can.”

“Was it as simple as that?” I wondered, in such a case was it possible to do the same every where? Mr. Dishana answered my question – “You can do so, if the power of your positive thought is stronger than that of the negative thought around. At regular places, you would find so many people who would think that it is not possible, that unless you are absolutely sure that you can, the pessimistic thoughts might overtake your constructive ones. Hence this place, untouched by any kind of thought, a place where your mind shall stay as pure and pristine as you want it to be!” I understood, relaxed and started enjoying myself.

I slowly let go of Kal’s hand and allowed him to have some fun.

He did some hoops, went and smelt some flowers from the mountain wall where they, to my sheer wonder managed to grow; in his youthful enthusiasm he even flew into a waterfall and got a water lily from behind it. He gave the flower to me and said – “a gift to my first partner.” Mr. Dishana smiled indulgently at both of us. He then said – “You can hold my hand as long as you want to, but if you want to try leaving it, I suggest you start smelling this lotus before you leave my hand.” I followed his instructions and put the flower to my nose, the fragrance was beyond my imagination; it was almost as if the best perfumes and fragrances of the entire world were blended and put into this flower, it was so delicate, white, soft, pure and pristine; I brought my hands together to clasp the flower softly using both my palms; while doing so, I unconsciously released Mr. Dishana’s hand. A few seconds later I lifted my head, turned and looked at him in sheer wonder. He smiled and said – “Welcome to Sanskritam” I enjoyed my newfound power for a little while longer; I interacted with my fellow voyagers. Archu had found some of her 31

powers, but not all of them. Kal’s mother did not come this time as she wanted Kal to do his first solo journey all by himself. A gentleman called Mr. Nandan had begun his voyage a couple of years ago, and this was his fourth journey. He had retired from the civil services and his children had gone abroad. Mr. Dishana had met him at his wife’s funeral and invited him to the journey; he had agreed almost immediately, just to relieve himself from ennui.

Was Mr. Dishana really Brihaspati, I wondered aloud; “All of us are Dishanas in our own way” Mr. Nandan answered cryptically, “But Mr. Dishana is well aware and is enlightened.” I let the answer be thus.

Kal then told me that he was quite lucky; for him it was a way of life; he takes the whole thing for granted and has been able to lead a life of a happy teenager without getting affected. “One of my classmates, ‘Dev’ over there started this at the age of nineteen, during our last semester break”, he added. “He still has not been able to adjust completely, draw a line and enjoy life.” I looked at Dev; he looked like a mostly normal, if slightly dazed young man, same age as Kal.

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Chapter – 8 A voice behind me called out for attention. It was the man who was standing next to Mr. Dishana when I got down from the bus.

“That is Pusan he will now give us a task” Kal informed me with a grimace. “With you for company I think it should be fun,” he added.

I smiled and thanked him for the flower. “My mother gave a flower to me the first time I was to do it by myself; I thought it would help you too!” He answered nonchalantly. “Let us see what the task is.”

“Does everyone get a task every time” I asked; “Not every time” He answered. “I am not very sure, but the tasks are of different levels of difficulty. According to Dishana, there are forces of love and forces of hatred. Dishana, Yama, Pusan, Tara, Saraswati, Ganga and all those working with us in our journey, are the forces of love.

Once we master the powers required for the task, we are assigned the task. As far as I know, the tasks involve danger and struggle against hatred to fill love into hearts and long term happiness to all.

Actually for me, the previous trips were filled with fun and frolic; I used to play and have fun while my mother went off to accomplish her tasks.” He added.

“How can Yama, the god of death represent the forces of love?”

I wondered. I opened my mouth to ask him that question, when he gestured me to be quiet and listen to Mr. Pusan’s instructions.

He was describing an island somewhere in the Indian Ocean to Archu and Mr. Nandan. “You fly all the way down South till Singapore is right below you; then you turn left and keep going till you cross the tenth island, then you turn towards your right, fly to the second island, land at a place where you would not be noticed, walk to the point where a long ugly metallic pole is planted, remove it, plant this sapling and get the pole you removed, back here. The catch is, you must not defy rule # 1”.

33

He handed a sapling over to them. It looked like that of a banyan tree. Mr. Pusan confirmed my observation – “This sapling will grow into a banyan tree, which shall become the centre of a large rainforest developed though its cascading effect.”

“What is rule # 1” I asked – “the primary rule” replied Pusan cryptically. I was not sure what the primary rule was; I assumed that I would receive the list of rules before I set off for my task, and hence would get ample opportunity to ask questions and seek responses then.

The second task was to a couple who were married to one another. Lucky beings I thought when their task, which was to pick three infants and bring them back to the bus was announced. My feelings about their luck diminished when the details of the task got elaborated. “The first one shall be from the diamond mines of Africa” Mr. Pusan said. “When you reach there, the mother would be in the process of getting killed. She will be beyond your help, you need to save the child and bring him back with you” The second child shall be from central India, born to a man and woman who had killed a child in cold blood. Pusan’s words - “The villagers are waiting for them to beget their child. Once the child is born, they want to kill that new-born in the presence of the parents, before burning them alive” described the danger the couple had to face to get the child. The third child – “daughter of a prostitute in Vietnam, whom the mother would be in the process of handing over to a rich customer, in exchange of medicines for her survival”, looked like an ‘easy pick-up’ in terms of danger. But the task surely would involve painful decisions, I thought.

“They will not be there for the next few trips, till these three reach an age where they can either be left with someone or taken along for a journey” explained Kal. He really seemed to know a lot for someone who had never been assigned a task. The next task was for an old woman and her great grandson who had come together 34

for the journey, the great-grandson ‘Var’ was of the same age as Kal and Dev. His parents were drug peddlers, I was informed. They used to sell their ‘wares’ to tourists who were in for a quick high. Var had learnt how to consume and sell dope before he even learnt to speak coherently. His parents and grand-parents got killed in a ‘cleansing operation’ in the hills; he moved to his great grand-parents village, where under the loving care of his great grand-mother, he managed to kick the horrible habit and regain normalcy. He had a look that boasted of having been to the darkest part of hell in his eyes. “How did his parents become drug peddlers”? I asked Kal. “That was their family profession” he responded. “His grand-parents taught his parents; they in turn were guided by their great grand-parents. This lady realized the folly in her ways when she saw the dead bodies of her children and grandchildren strewn around her eyes.

Their task was to go on foot to a monastery in the Great Himalayas, deliver a note to the elderly Lama out there and bring a small prayer wheel back with them. “That is an easy one”, I mused aloud. “Physically yes”, replied Mr. Nandan; “I think this will be the task of completion for that lady and of emotional discovery for the young lad.”

The rest of us were asked to get back into the bus for the next leg of our collective journey. I felt a little disappointed for not having been assigned a task; Kal’s words of consolation – “The fact that they feel you need more training probably means that your task is going to be tougher and more dangerous” sure helped me replace my feelings of disappointment with a sense of dread.

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Chapter – 9 The conversation after we got back into the bus veered to the next leg of the journey. We were told that we should be reaching the next destination shortly and should try to take some rest while we could. As our seats had transformed themselves again into dreamy enclosures; I got into my bed, lay down and started thinking about the events of the past; my childhood, adolescence, the wrong and the right decisions that I had taken; I still was not able to decipher the category into which the strange decision of embarking on this bizarre journey fell. All I could think was – “such a exquisite bus, you can hardly make out any movement, in fact I think we are not moving!”

Thus thinking, I opened the blinds and tried to see where we were, but could not, as it was way too dark for me to see anything.

“Strange!” I thought “I cannot see the sky or the stars!” I decided to try and find out more about the journey from my fellow passengers.

However, everyone around me was sleeping; either they were too oblivious or well-informed. In fact I seemed to be the only one awake and in doubt. I walked up to the driver’s cabin and knocked softly at the door. Mr. Dishana answered my knock with a “please come in Adi”. I opened the door gingerly and peered in.

My jaw dropped; the cabin I walked in seemed like a cockpit of a super hi-tech space shuttle. There was a large screen in the place of a regular windscreen, the screen doubled up as a navigation panel. Mr. Dishana introduced me to the gentlemen and ladies sitting out there – “Adi meet Indra, Tara, Vak and Ushas. Sachi and Pusan you already have met. All these are our first names, so please do not add any prefixes, salutations or suffixes to them”. I shook hands with them; they all welcomed me to Sanskritam and were happy that I decided to join.

Mr. Dishana then removed a gilded knife from the seat next to him, I assumed that he wanted me to sit there and did so. Mr. 36

Dishana laughed and said – “A few weeks ago, such gesture of mine as this one, would have made you bolt from that place!” “Stop giving her a hard time Dishana” said Tara. “Spoken like a true guardian angel Tara”, Pusan responded to Tara’s admonishment.

“Are you really guardian angels?” I asked them. “Well Adi, you are one too, or will become one when you complete three of your tasks and realize five of your powers. In order to truly become a god, you will have to traverse one hundred and eight levels and finish as many tasks. Twelve tasks take you to a level of a super being. In this journey you will surely finish three tasks; we will also give a fourth task a try,” replied Dishana.

“Has anyone here completed all the tasks”? I asked intrigued.

“One person completed eighteen tasks. But to go beyond that, she needs someone’s heartfelt free willed permission; that someone is still not ready to give it to her as yet,” Pusan replied. I decided not to probe further on this. I instead asked him where we were. “We are on our way to our next destination Adi. You guessed it right; this is not an ordinary bus. It is a craft that exists and still does not.

It is made to look like a bus for the sake of appearances.” Indra responded.

“Will we get our next set of tasks when we reach there?” I asked.

“You will have to learn something before you embark on your next task”, Tara replied. “We are reaching our next stop; so please go freshen up”.

I walked out of the driver’s cabin and found that the door of the bus was open; eight strange looking creatures were streaming into the bus. Those creatures had eight hands and four feet each; their faces were almost human except for the ears that were too large to be human. Four of them carried an assortment of linen, cloth and lace, the other two carried cups of steaming hot liquid that looked like coffee. Sachi walked into the bus behind them. “They are Ganas, the forces or the helpers, they have come to help us out” she said. Helpers or not, I was not too keen to mix around with those 37

eight armed beings; however one of them came and enveloped my cringing body into a bear hug (to be more precise a soft octopus hug). The hug was warm; the eyes on the face looked kind; they relaxed me. I stopped cringing and responded to the hug warmly.

“God’s creation is strange but beautiful” I mused aloud. “Yeah imagine managing with two slow hands!” one of the Ganas responded. “You humans are always short of hands” another said.

They then proceeded to do their work. They worked at lightning speed; my eyes could not follow their actions, but within seconds the luxurious roomy enclosures were converted into recliners and seats. I watched them awe-stuck; they seemed to be performing millions of tasks in a single second. When they were done remodelling the place, they placed cups of hot steaming drink at their designated places. “It always helps to have extra helping hands, the more the merrier”, I mused. The helpers laughed at my pun. Each one of them proceeded to hug me – ‘their newest friend’; soon I was enveloped in arms! The eight helpers then made an exit which was as quick and hasty as their entry. My fellow travellers started coming back from their ablutions to their seats; the mood was jolly and anticipative; I decided not to waste my time, and went over to get myself ready for the next leg of the journey.

When I got back to the seat, I opened the window blinds and looked out. The scene outside was as fiery as it was green during the previous leg of the journey. We seemed to be surrounded by fire! I shut the blinds in dismay. When Kal walked back to the seat, I showed him the view. “We are next to a volcano”, he said nonchalantly. “That is our next destination. We will now jump into this blazing volcano!”

I looked at him to see if he was kidding, before he could respond, my attention got distracted by a huge piece of rock that came hurling towards the bus. I instinctively ran towards the front of the bus and bumped into Dishana, who was coming over to my 38

seat. He saw the panic and fear in my eyes and said – “relax. This is just the second task which some of those in the bus have already completed; plus I shall be there with you. Try not looking out of the window”. I went back to my seat reluctantly. When I reached there, I found that Kal had climbed up to his seat and was sitting there with a smug expression on his face, humming the tune of ‘the dance of death’, softly. I sat down, decided to ignore him, and looked around; Archu was writing something in her diary.

“I should probably be writing something too.” I told myself, “something in the lines of my last will and testament.” I also tried to think of a tune to hum; try as I might, the only tune that would come into my mind was that of the ‘Swan Song’ When one is waiting for the worst, one wants it to be over and done with as soon as possible. So I closed my eyes, folded my arms across my chest, curled into a foetal position and got myself ready for the impending doom.

39

Chapter – 10 A few long and punishing minutes later, the bus stopped.

Everyone got down, everyone but me, that is. I stayed glued to my seat, paralyzed in fear. This could not be happening to me! Our bus was next to a raging volcano. My fellow travellers were eagerly walking towards it. Mr. Dishana came to my seat and held my hand.

He asked me to trust him as he led me towards door of the bus. He told me that if I felt I was not ready to do it, I really need not; I got down from the bus. He asked me to look into his eyes and trust him.

I did so and got lost in them; I remembered that Thor was known as a seducer; his eyes were mesmerizing; I could see all the beauty of the universe in them, lost as I was in them, I still was not ready to follow my fellow travellers in their walkathon to doom; but when he started walking away, in the opposite direction, I relaxed, allowed myself to get enamoured by those eyes and started walking as he bid me to. He spoke beautiful words to me, words about the beauty of the universe, when it was still young, about God, faith, goodness; he spoke about me, understood the pain that I had gone through, empathised with me and made me feel that my life was really worth living; how long we walked I did not know. I seemed to be walking on clouds, it felt wonderful. He picked something from the ground that smelt heavenly, placed it in my palms and told me to look at it only when he told me to. A little later, he stopped and so did I; he then told me to look around; I realized that we had walked right next the mouth of the volcano to the other side of it. I looked at the object in my palms it was a hot smouldering stone; Dishana then said softly – “our mind rules the body; our soul rules our mind. Pain and pleasure are all in our souls. Congratulations, you have walked through fire and have come through unscathed.” I smiled sheepishly; He asked me if I wanted to do it again, I agreed, and walked with him through fire two more times; The third time he told me to close my eyes and try to visualize the beautiful things he spoke about; with those thoughts in my mind, I easily negotiated the fiery path; he then took me back to the group, told me to walk with 40

them, with similar thoughts as those in my previous trek. It worked!

The fire did not burn me; I had conquered fire and was beyond pain!

Lava streams seemed like lush green pastures; molten rocks felt like cool grass.

The walk was so pleasant; I was one of the last ones to reach the bus. When I reached the seat, Kal was already sitting there with a real “I told you so expression on his face”; I smiled sheepishly and held my hand up for a handshake of truce; he smiled, shook my hand solemnly and burst out laughing. I joined him in his laughter.

Before the journey resumed a few more tasks were assigned. A group of people headed by an American named Stacy, was sent to help in saving people in a war torn country. “Since God is powerful why can’t he or she use his or her own powers to save those people?” I asked and got the answer – “We are God’s powers. We all are”. I decided not to ask too many questions lest I got too confused and sat back on my seat waiting for the next step, dreading the unknown.

We reached our next destination a little too soon for me to gather my thoughts; the announcement informed us to change into our swimming dresses. I assumed that we would be near water; however the view through the window revealed nothing. It was very dark; there was water all around. “Are we underwater or what?” I asked jokingly; “Yes!” came a gleeful answer from Kal. “We in fact are parked right on the floor of marina trench.” I shuddered in real horror. I was a poor swimmer, who rarely ventured into deep water; diving was not something which I even vaguely imagined doing in my life! “Would we get our diving gear?” I asked and got an “Are you kidding” kind of a look in return. “Yeah, right, we are super beings; I am whale girl, you are shark boy, and this is our home” I said sarcastically and got a loud “she is funny” kind of a guffaw in return from Kal and others who heard my words. Archu was more kind. “This is my second time Adi. I felt the same way as you did the first time relax”, She said. “Yes, relax Adi”, said Dishana who 41

suddenly materialized behind me. “Just relax and enjoy. You will have to learn to believe and gather yourself. You will need the whole of yourself for your task, as it might not be possible for me to stay by your side.” I looked at him quizzically; his face was kind when he handed a heavenly fragrant flower to me and asked me to smell it. While I was lost in the flower’s heavenly and intoxicating fragrance, he held me around my waist, gently walked me to the door which had got morphed into a sliding one, slid it open and dragged me into the wall of dark, heavy water. I stood rooted to the spot, too shocked to move. The water pressure prevented me from fulfilling the urge to expel the air I had taken in, while trying to take in the fragrance of that intoxicating flower. It was too dark for me to see anything. We were in the inky blackness of the seabed.

Suddenly my attention got diverted by a song that was so enthralling that I forgot about everything else and started listening to it. The words spoke about those days when the world was still young and the life was in water; about harmony, love, understanding and growth. Enchanted, I started moving involuntarily towards the source of the music. Slowly the song started getting softer. The pace of volume reduction was so gradual that my senses came back to me with a sense of calmness. I was not scared of darkness; I could stand the pressure of millions of tons of water and could stay underwater without panicking. Slowly I started trying to adjust my eyes to the darkness and saw millions of tiny lights all around me. They were amazing sea creatures, so tiny and yet so powerful. They were dancing under water. It was a different world - a world of harmony, detachment, power and wonder.

The song began again and its source seemed to be in the opposite direction. I started moving towards the source - this time a little faster and more consciously. Suddenly I moved out of the wall of water into the arms of Tara waiting at the entrance of the bus. The music was coming from inside the driver’s enclosure! Tara hugged me, gave me a glass of warm Soma to drink and instructed me to go get a warm shower and change back to normal clothes.

42

When I got back from my shower, the bus was moving, our seats were converted into our luxury enclosures. Quietly with the melodious song in my heart, I got into my bed and fell asleep.

Chapter – 11 I woke up to Kal shaking me awake. It was mid morning and we were in the same place where we first learnt to fly.

Mr. Dishana called us over and directed us to the spot behind the waterfall. There was a narrow opening in the mountain wall. A nonclaustrophobic person could squeeze oneself through it to God knows where it ended. He asked Kal to enter it. Kal did so without flinching. When his feet had completely disappeared from our view, Dishana asked me to follow him and told me that he was supposed to be my partner for the task that we were about to embark on. I was too scared to do so and stood rooted to the spot (or to be more precise to the thin air around me). I wanted to learn more about the task and see if there was a way for us to reach the place where we 43

could accomplish the task, without having to crawl through a hole in the mountain wall.

Suddenly I heard Kal screaming out for help from inside that narrow crevice. Concern made me forget my fear and rush into the hole. The hole was wide enough to allow me to move through, but no wider. It was dark as well; I however kept crawling, following Kal’s frantic screams, hoping to reach in time to help Kal out.

The path was long and thin, Kal’s voice seemed to be just a couple of meters away and strangely, the voice did seem two meters away, even after I crawled for more than fifteen minutes. Suddenly I saw some light and something blocking it. I started crawling faster towards the source of light – It was then that I noticed the object that was blocking the light was actually Kal who in turn seemed to be in a massive hurry to reach the other end of the tunnel and hence was crawling quite fast. I doubled my crawling speed and crawled with all my might. In the next few seconds I reached the end of the tunnel, and emerged out of the vertical wall of a sheer cliff. After a couple of fractions of seconds of struggling to gain a foot hold or something to hold on to, I remembered that I could fly, and relaxed.

I looked around and saw Kal a couple of meters away, surveying the area for something. I went to him to ask him what he was looking for, when he pointed to what looked like a wooden armoire fallen on one of the overhangs and went flying towards it. I followed him to the overhang and peered into the large armoire. It had an assortment of things in it - a few old clothes, some old news papers, books and a dairy.

He went and sat in it and beckoned me to follow suit; I dutifully went and sat amongst the assortment of old rags and raggedy books.

The “journey sure is interesting. What are we supposed to do now?

Use this as a boat and cross Atlantic or play rag-a-tag with these clothes and news papers?” I asked Kal sarcastically. “Hold the dairy with your right hand and hold one door with the left. On the count of three from me, pull it shut hard” he responded, seemingly 44

oblivious to the sarcasm in my voice. He was pretending not to have heard my question! So I carried on – “Great, once we are in there, what are we supposed to do? Navigate across the world using the dairy as the navigation device? This is crazy” I said; getting no response, I took a deep breath, resigned to the whole craziness of the situation, got into the armoire, clutched the book and the door jamb with my right and left hand respectively. Kal did the same after me; on the count of three, we dutifully shut ourselves in the smelly, damp, dark, dirty and decrepit armoire.

Nothing happened for a few minutes. It felt ridiculous sitting there. So I very mildly asked Kal what we were supposed to do.

Kal’s response was a simple “Wait”. I decided to wait a little longer before venting out my anger. When the little longer became a few minutes, I could not take it any longer; I asked him sharply to tell me exactly what we were expected to do; his response which was the same as the previous one doubled my irritation.

“Wait for what?” I asked “Wait for me to start choking on the smell of mothballs? No wait... I know... we wait till we automatically get teleported to a remote location in the middle of Sahara on this one!” I said, laughing hysterically at my own statement. “Not exactly teleported; that would be too simple” replied Kal. “We will travel forwards in time a couple of thousand years and ...” I interrupted his statement with an abrupt expletive. I did not want to travel anywhere in time; certainly not in a dingy and rickety old armoire! I tried to push the door open; it would not budge.

I finally lost my temper; I told Kal in no uncertain terms that it was his completely fault that I had to crawl through that dingy tunnel only to get locked up in a dingier armoire. I told him that I wanted to be normal, go to my office every day, come back to my apartment, watch a movie, have my dinner and sleep. I did not want to get caught in such nightmarish situations as this one and slowly die. He responded with an ominous – “you do not have a choice!

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We cannot open this thing from inside. Someone has to open it from outside!” His response threw me into hysterics. I started screaming, pushing and calling for help. Kal sat there humming a tune. He apparently seemed oblivious to my histrionics. I tried letting go of the book; it seemed stuck-fast to my hand. I jerked my hand and got a yelp to stop acting crazy as a response from Kal. I gave up and decided to sit and weep at my pitiable state. I was stuck in a hopeless situation and the irony was my attempts to get out of it were termed as ‘crazy acts’ by the only person who shared my bleak state. After nearly a couple of hours of weeping, I lost consciousness.

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Chapter – 12

I woke up to a sound of repeated strokes above my head, to find that the book that we held was emitting a bright light. I saw that Kal seemed as amazed as I did, and even he had just woken up. The only difference was that he looked as calm and relaxed as I felt stressed and irate. “We are being excavated I assume” he said.

“Excavated? When did we get buried under? Oh, let me explain – we travelled in time and the time who did not like us travelling buried us deep inside the earth to prevent us from travelling any further!” I said sarcastically finally having reached a point where I hated every bit about this crazy journey. “You are partially right” he said. “We did travel in time; or rather we stayed in a state of temporary time suspension while time travelled around us. As time travelled, mountains grew; land eroded and the spot we occupied got buried under the earth.” “Do the people performing the excavation know that we are here, or are they just doing it as a part of some engineering activity”? I asked, fearing that if they were just incidentally excavating, they might accidentally hurt or kill us.

“They are digging for us” he responded - “They are going to take us to the site our first task”. “Would Mr. Dishana also be present out there?” I asked. “It is not Mr. D and no, Dishana would not be present. We will be working with a team of people on our first task.

We will meet them when we emerge from here”, he responded.

He seemed to know what was going on. He probably was informed of the plan while I was kept in dark, I realized to my 47

anger. Why did he look so amazed then, I wondered; “I was apprised of the events that would take place; it nevertheless is still wonderful when they actually do! This is my first task as well!” he said as if in reply to my silent question. “So what is supposed to happen now”? I asked. “We shall be excavated, armed and taken to the battle. What would happen in the battle – I am not too sure; but we shall be the heroes!” was his evasive reply. I was in half a mind to smack the smile off his face, but I decided to ignore the whole situation instead. I certainly did not like the word excavate. It made me seem like a fossil. I just wanted to go back to my air-conditioned room, sip a glass of chilled drink and sleep the whole nightmare off.

The digging noises were getting stronger; the sounds from shovels or spades got replaced by those from stronger drilling equipment that seemed to be drilling through stone. The sounds did very little to improve my mood, which had already sunk to its lowest possible level. Soon it seemed that the shovels, spades and other equipment were getting closer to our dingy little abode. I panicked again; what if they hurt us by mistake; if I got hurt or killed during the course of this nightmarish journey, how would it affect my real life? Will I ever be able to go back to my real, calm and sane life? Each noisy blow and each scrape brought new thought of the above kind into my head. Thankfully the drilling stopped; its sound replaced by the noises of shovelling and heavy duty banging on something solid. A few blows later, to my relief, the noise stopped. A couple of minutes later, I heard some voices overhead. The door or the creepy armoire opened. A pair of hands with long thin fingers extended themselves inside. I held one of them and stood up; so did Kal. Our rescuer was a tall handsome man who seemed to be in his late thirties. His arms were muscular and long. His fingers were thin and artistic. He was dressed in dark green overalls similar to the ones surgeons wore before performing surgeries.

Kal and I stepped out of the armoire and found ourselves standing on what looked like a hill. I stared awkwardly about. The 48

rest of his team seemed similarly dressed. They looked like a group of scientists who had just finished excavating a rare artefact and were all but set to perform some sort of a scientific procedure on it.

I hope they do not end up making us specimens for their scientific procedure, I mused. I was not sure of the language they spoke, I was not sure of the language I was to use, to explain our situation to them. Ideally as we were supposed to perform the same task, they should have been made aware of our identities. But considering the fact that amongst Kal and me, he was the only one with the advantage of information, I was not sure if these people were apprised; and if they were not, I surely would love to work out a mode of communication to apprise them of the intended activity.

Before I could muster enough courage to begin communicating verbally, our rescuer diverted our attention to a field flanked by the hill we were standing on. The sight that awaited us there flabbergasted even Kal. The field seemed to be occupied by a mixed population of all kinds of creatures; majority looked like starved, famished and tortured human beings; but there were a few that looked like genetically engineered beings whose body parts seemed to be the strangest combination of those belonging to different animals of the 20th century.

There was another set of seemingly rich and well fed humans, who looked like live versions of Kingpin from well read ‘Spiderman’ comics. They were flying around in specially designed flying cars. The rich humans and these genetically engineered super beings seemed to be collectively torturing the others.

This could not be real, I thought; this had to be virtual reality. I looked quizzically at our rescuer and his team of smart, suave, well educated humans. They motioned us to follow them to a corner of the field where most of the action seemed to be taking place.

As our excavators, Kal and I flew across, the scene below made me feel amazingly like an actress in a horrible virtual reality movie.

The seemingly genetically engineered creatures who seemed to be 49

working in packs, had surrounded a group of the beings, whom one could refer to as poor peasants for a want of any better description, isolating them; the kingpin clones selectively hunted, maimed and killed them, one at a time, while the others watched, too scared to move.

As we were hurried along, we saw one of those flying rascals come stooping down and fire at a group of three hapless beings on the ground with what looked like a flare emitting gun; those poor peasants instantly burst out into flames and died a horrible death right in front of my eyes. As I watched, another rascal whose intentions looked more sinister, lit a huge circle of fire around the group of people, using the flare from his gun. The fire started closing in on the panic stricken and defenceless weaklings, the air seemed fraught with their desperate screams. The flying rascals not content with entrapping the poor peasants in a ring of fire were firing at anyone who managed to escape the ring.

I realized that amongst the trapped peasants, there were woman and children; this realization pumped adrenaline into my system.

Enraged as I was at being dragged to a world of what looked like virtual reality, the scene of torture was more than enough to make me forget the fact that I was just a civilized professional who had never handled a dagger in her entire life, let alone a gun.

I went flying over to the group and flew over to the rascal who had created the ring of fire; he seemed too intent with the fun he was having, did not expect an aerial attack from a flying human and hence did not notice me till I in one snatch of my arm, plucked the gun from his flabby hands and switched off the engine of the car.

By the time he and for that matter I realized what was going on, the car he was flying in went crashing down and burst into flames.

I flew down to the fuselage to see if I could rescue him, but found upon landing down there, that I was too late to begin any rescue operations. The crash and my flight caught the attention of the other ruffian who had partnered with the one who was dead. He 50

started firing at me. I instinctively ran to the car that was burning and hid behind its smouldering body.

The sinister being landed his car at a safe distance from the blazing vestiges of his fellow rascal’s flying car and started advancing on foot towards the spot where I was crouched; He was too scared to use his car, lest it caught fire; Fear adding to the disproportionate bulk of his body, he was finding it difficult to place a step ahead of the other. He waddled forward like an oversized duck; it would have been comical and probably would have invoked my mirth and compassion, had he continued to fire at me with an intention to set me alight; Though I knew that I had the capability to withstand heat and hence was not susceptible to his shots, protective instinct made me duck behind the smouldering ruin, trying to avoid getting shot at. I kept jeering and laughing at him, luring him closer. He wobbled till a certain distance and stood still. He seemed to be torn between a feeling of lust to hurt me and an instinct of self preservation. He started chucking grenades that missed the car and me by miles before falling on the ground and bursting. This awkward chucking of his gave me an idea; I picked up a piece of smouldering junk from the car and hurled it at him. It hit him square on the face; he dropped the gun and covered his face. I ran to him, picked the gun up, caught him by his shoulder and pushed him hard. He toppled to the ground.

I dragged him by his shoulder to the middle of the now overawed group of unfortunate human beings. By then Kal had reached the spot along with our rescue team. They splashed water from a jug that he was carrying, on the ground, dousing out the flames; Kal splashed some of the water on the face of kingpin lookalike # 2, who, minus his gun and flying appliance, looked like a well fed and overgrown dimwit. He started whimpering and wailing like a child. His face was scarred; I hoped that his scars were 51

permanent enough to wipe the cruel gleam that he had while performing his diabolic tasks, off his face for good.

We left him to his devices and concentrated instead on those killed or maimed by him and his partner. Some were beyond our help. Their bodies were charred beyond recognition; some of them had deep and dangerous looking burns on various parts of their body; some seemed more fortunate. The person whose hands Kal and I respectively held while climbing out of the armoire that doubled up as a time machine, seemed to be the leader of the rescue team.

He started checking on the poor peasants, and declared in a language that sounded thankfully like English with plenty of words which in turn sounded like technical jargon thrown in, that we should try to quickly take them to some place he referred to as the abode. Kal and I understood those instructions in spite of all those funny words. I felt happy about the fact that I would be able to communicate verbally with these people, unlike in the strange ‘time-travel-tales’ that I had read when I was bored enough not to notice that they all had similar stories about strange and primitive people who spoke strange tongues.

One of his teammates brought forth a block of metal, which on the click of a button expanded and formed a van.

We carried and herded the group of victims quickly on to the van. After loading ‘the attacked’ I got down from the van and started moving towards the former and now disarmed attacker. I felt that I was not the one to decide his punishment, and if left behind, he might not survive. Sure enough, ere I took three steps away from my van, another villain flew down in a similar flying car and started firing at me and the now disarmed former attacker. I ran back in the van in time, and was pulled in bodily by one of my companions. I then saw to my horror, the disarmed former attacker falling prey to the new attacker’s bullets.

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Our rescuer quickly started the engine and we took off from there with the new attacker in his flying car, hot in our pursuit. We kept dodging him till he spotted another group of peasants on the ground and turned his attention towards them. When I realized his intentions, I became all set to take a gun and ask our rescuer to pursue the new attacker. My rescuer tried to dissuade me, indicating that we already had many wounded blokes, who needed immediate attention and we could not afford to stay back and fight. I opened the door of the vehicle, all ready to fly out; the new marauder to my utter surprise instead of going on a firing spree flew down, picked up a young girl from the group of peasants and flew off from there.

Before I could fly out our rescued held, who seemed to have put the vehicle on auto pilot, quickly grabbed my hand, preventing me from moving out. I felt furious; they seemed insensitive to the plight of the girl; I started yelling at him, asking him to let me go. He told me that it was not worth trying to save the girl. It would not be possible for me to fly, dodge the villain while I carried the girl, “moreover judging by her looks, I think we should be able to save the girl before she becomes usable� he added. I could really not make complete sense of what he said, but agreed to stay back, realizing that if the girl was safe at that juncture, my rescue attempt if not successful would have placed her at a greater danger.

With those thoughts, I sat down on the soft cushioned floor of the van which was flying away from the field towards a deep forest on top of a steep mountain and tried to join Kal and my other companions who were tending to the wounded. They used some serums and medicines that seemed to have miraculous curing effects. The managed to seal some gaping wounds using just sprays and creams. Kal seemed to be a natural in healing. He seemed to know all about these medicines. I was not too comfortable looking at badly wounded bodies, let alone handle them. So I moved to the front of the now newly formed van where our rescuer was standing; there were various buttons and controls on its panel; with expert 53

advice from our rescuer, I managed to figure out how to operate it before we reached our destination.

We landed on top of the mountain; our van started moving on the ground into the forest. Our destination was an old and dilapidated fort that stood hidden by the tall trees. We went through its tall gate and came into a large covered courtyard that looked more like a parking lot for hi-fi vehicles. Our arrival seemed to have been expected, for as soon as we landed, a group of smart people in hospital over-alls surrounded our vehicle. They were well equipped with read advanced medical equipment. The gravely wounded were quickly loaded on to stretchers and beds which were quickly wheeled off towards one of the entrances on the side. I told my rescuer that now flippantly that thanks to his coaching I now was so adept at handling the vehicle that the next time we went for a rescue operation, he could tend to the sick and wounded while I handled the vehicle. I added that under normal circumstances, I was more comfortable with digital equipment than with blood, gore and mutilated bodies, trying to be friendly.

When my rescuer nodded and said that he would make a note of it, I balked. I thought that we were done with our job and could go back home. I was more flabbergasted when just as Kal and I started following the rescuers who led the wounded into the abode our rescuer stopped me and told me that he needed me to come with him for rescuing another lot of people. Feeling trapped, I called Kal when our rescuer said “Kal is very young. It would not be right for us to take him for rescue activities; more over his role is that of a protector, healer and one who trains and teaches people to take care of themselves. So please let him go in and come with me.� I was not too comfortable with the idea. Kal seemed to be the only link to our journey vehicle and hence the only link back to my real life. My rescuer smiled as if he read my thoughts. He told me that we would be able to finish our rescue in the next couple of hours and come back here. The other companions were also insistent. They praised my calibre and told me that a person like me was needed to fight the 54

attackers. I felt like a sacrificial lamb which was being decked up and worshipped before being dragged to the altar. I wanted to protest loudly and tell them that flattery would get them nowhere, but refrained from doing so when I saw the expressions on their faces. They seemed to be in earnest. I was unable to comprehend the reason why a group of seemingly highly sophisticated scientists had to depend on me to get rid of a group of stupid fat dimwits. Shaking my head in sheer exasperation, I got into another vehicle which looked like a flying battle tank and flew off with them towards the field.

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Chapter – 13 When we reached the field, we found that some forty odd attackers had decided to join hands and collectively torture the blokes on the ground. Beings of mixed species had encircled the blokes. They were butting them with their horns, tearing their bodies to bits with long nails, trampling them under their heavy hooves, ripping their limbs apart with their long canines, preventing their escape; the people in the flying cars were raining acids, boiling hot liquids and other toxic material on them. The sight enraged me enough to forget my indignation about being dragged into a fight which I did not want to be a part of; I flew straight to those people in their flying cars, and attacked them.

Our rescuer joined me in my attack in the sky, whilst his teammates started fighting with the mutated creatures on the ground. We soon realized that there was a problem which was threatening to jeopardize our rescue. The people in the sky had specialized combat equipment. Our rescuer seemed to be impervious to those strange bullets. The bullets seemed strangely to have little effect on me as well, but the people on the ground were too susceptible to them. Our fear was that by the time we finished off with the villains in the sky, we might not have more than 10% of those people alive.

I looked at our rescuer, a silent question in my eyes; he seemed resigned to doing his best and trying to save as many as we could. I nodded my head and went straight for one on the fanciest of those vehicles. It was driven by a grossly oversized member of human species. Seeing me flying towards him he started jumping up and down on his seat, making lewd gestures with his bloated arms and grotesquely swollen lips. He even started jeering and hooting at me.

Had the situation been different, I would have dismissed such a lewd proposition as I would ignore a hog’s grunt, but under the state of affairs, the remarks just made me explode in anger. I went 56

straight at him. The rogue was huge and strong, but lacked agility and could not leave his car and fly on his own. Using his bulk and lack of manoeuvrability thereof to my advantage, I distracted him by holding the gun with one hand, while with the other, I switched off his ignition. His vehicle went plummeting down; I used his panic to wrench his gun out of his hand. I tried to use the gun thus appropriated on the others, and realized that gun usage was not one of my natural skills. I threw the gun with full force at another vehicle that was being driven straight at me with full brute force.

My throw certainly was better than my shot, as the gun went and hit the hulky driver of the flying vehicle straight on the face. He looked disoriented for a couple of seconds, taking the opportunity of which, I flew to his vehicle, plucked his gun off his hand, and flew off.

Deprived of his gun, the driver, shot after me in his car, I dodged quickly, reached behind the car and jammed the gun into what looked like the exhaust of the car. I seemed to have guessed right, as a couple of seconds and a couple of dodges later, to the shock of the driver, the car stalled, sputtered, came to a sputtering halt right in the sky and started falling down to the ground; ere he could fall with the car, our rescuer plucked him off the car and gently put him on the ground, where he stood trembling in the midst of the peasants.

Another driver took advantage of my distraction to swoop down on me and hit me so hard with his flying vehicle that I was thrown off balance. I flew nearly ten feet before regaining my balance.

Realizing my vulnerability, ten to fifteen drivers flew towards me.

Their plan it seemed for to surround me and crush me in the centre of their vehicles. The rest of the drivers in their flying vehicles surrounded our rescuer, when he came back to the sky after saving one of their own fellow killers. When the vehicles reached me, I flew up, dodging them; couple of vehicles crashed into each other, while the rest flew up, forming a circle around me again. Gazing at my rescuer, I saw that he was not dodging, the stood there, pinned between two vehicles, which were in the process of crushing him; I flew over to them, assuming that he needed my help to pull himself out, when he asked me to not bother about him and keep working on 57

my attackers; I could see the reason behind his request; he had managed to successfully distract half of the attackers from hurting the people on the ground; this gave the forces on the ground the necessary additional time to continue their fight and rescue operation. I felt torn between a tendency to save him and the reasoning that said that I should leave him alone; his body seemed to be able to withstand the force of the vehicles, but for how long, I was not sure; I kept flying and dodging my attackers keeping them distracted; how long I could persist I was not sure either, nor was I sure how long our rescuer who seemed to be running out of strength could sustain the brutal crushing force of the flying cars.

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Chapter – 14 Suddenly I saw a vehicle flying down. It landed right in the middle of the circle; out of the vehicle, good old Kal emerged. He held a discus in his hand, which he held high above his head and started twirling. This discuss seemed to emit strange radiations, which formed a protective canopy over the people on the ground.

The bullets from the flying cars were helpless against the rays of the discus; some of them were rebounding and hitting the cars themselves. Our rescuer took advantage of the additional protection provided by the discus to wriggle out of the constraint and resume his attack on the marauders.

With renewed rigour and vigour, our rescuer and I swooped down on them, like hawks. The immunity to bullets and the ability to fly and withstand heat provided the necessary advantage that we needed. I worked out an unspoken strategy, I would swoop down and sit on what looked like the bonnet of the vehicle, distracting the driver, our rescuer would meddle with the control buttons of the vehicle, disorienting it and confusing the driver; I would take advantage of the driver’s confusion to pluck the weapons off his hand and stock. Once the driver was disarmed, our rescuer would pluck him off the vehicle, carry him down and deposit him not too unkindly on the ground.

Some of the kingpin clones proved to be fitter and hence tougher to fight; some of them even scoffed at our rescue attempts. They seemed to be totally unaware of any emotion other than those of pleasure and self defence. Once we were done disarming them, they would try an escape attempt on their malfunctioning vehicles, fall on to the canopy, rebound from there, go flying off and crash. My conscience hurt; I felt the load of the death of those seemingly ignorant imbecile humans on my conscience and tried to ease it by telling myself that this was a war for rescuing some hapless beings, 59

and one could not help save people who were bent upon killing others and themselves.

We kept fighting with those poor little rich and fat beings, trying all along to save as many as we could, from their own selves. Every time I went towards a new guy, I kept hoping and wishing that he would be more sensible and not dump the responsibility of his untimely death on my unwilling shoulders. I also kept hoping that once they see the end of some of their friends, the nitwits would see some sense and escape before it is too late. I hoped well, as twenty or so deaths later, the dim-witted fat villains got the hang of what I was trying to get them to do. They took off on their vehicles, leaving our rescuer and me, in their wake.

I shook my head in sheer frustration, and landed next to Kal. He was twirling his discus protectively. He seemed to be enjoying the whole act. “It is fun”, he said when he saw me, “want to try”? I agreed with him, this certainly was more enjoyable than what I was working on, up there in the sky. I looked around and found the team on the ground engaged in a fierce battle with the strange beings; I started urging the helpless looking peasants to fight back and join the team of rescuers in their battle against the strange beings. Kal seconded me in my appeal. Initially there was no reaction, but slowly the peasants gathered their wits and confidence and joined the battle. In a couple of hours, we managed to de-horn, declaw, mutilate or kill most of the strange beings. The rest fled. The slobs whom we rescued from their respective killer cars, just sat there, seemingly too shocked to move. There were a few causalities in our group as well. We however did not have time to mourn or mope as we had to quickly load the peasants and the wounded on to the vehicles. Having witnessed the plight of a disarmed attacker during our previous fight, I did not feel that it was right on our part to leave the unarmed marauding slobs out there in open. Our rescuer did not seem to agree, but I stayed adamant. I refused the leave the place unless we took the oversized humans with us. Kal told them that they better agreed with me, lest I carried out my threat. That seemed 60

to seal the argument as our rescuers quickly bound the kingpin clones and drag-dropped those slobs into one of the two vehicles; I could not differentiate between them as they looked alike. Once they were all loaded into the vehicle, we realized that there was no room in it for Kal and me; so we got into the other one, into which most of the unhurt peasants and some of those with minor injuries were loaded; it was driven by another person, who looked almost as learned as our rescuer. Once we were in, he started the vehicle and took off from that ghastly site.

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Chapter – 15 During our return journey, the peasants kept praising Kal and me; I noticed that their language was a mixture of many languages.

Thanks to the unconventional life I led as a child, I learnt how to converse in twelve languages and hence could make out half of what they were trying to say. I also noticed that they kept trying to touch our hands and faces; I assumed that they were trying to ascertain that we were real and not figments of their imagination, till one of the members of the rescue team who was there in the vehicle with us, informed that a touch of reverence was the peasants’ way of showing their respect. Kal and I looked at each other, embarrassed.

Kal said that this was one thing he felt he should tell his mother about. “She should see the way I am being respected here. She keeps insisting that I stay respectable to be respected, whenever I get into any kind of trouble” he chuckled.

We were just about getting tired of being revered when the vehicle landed. We came out and found ourselves on the top of a hill, which looked like the one where the abode of our rescuers was located, but was different. Our driver told me that Kal and I were to board the other vehicle, where our rescuer wanted to have some words with us. “From reverence to hatred” I mumbled, but switched vehicles quite willingly.

Once we reached the other vehicle, the members of the rescue team started praising Kal and me; they seemed impressed by Kal’s presence of mind. Our rescuer hugged Kal and commented that he surely had managed to prove that he was now a grown-up. When we told them about the behaviour of the peasants in the other vehicle, they all had a good laugh. “Just watch out”, someone in our rescuer’s team told us. “The peasants would now deify you and Kal. They would refer to Kal as the protector with the magic disc you as “Adi the powerful and Adi the terrible”! I laughed at the statements, embarrassed.

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I asked our rescuer the reason why the bullets were useless against us, he smiled and advised me to use the power for a good use and not question it. I asked him instead about the strange beings; his answer shocked me; he said – “Living beings naturally have the right blend of all powers based upon the need. This blend was created through many eons of natural process; when any new life form or forms are created either through nature or by beings of nature, it takes some time before the balance strikes again. Since the beginning of human civilization, humans have tried to prove their superiority in nature by creating new things; some of us tried to act as creators and created new forms of life assuming our knowledge was adequate to do so; In an endeavour to create new life forms, we went about clipping genes which we with our limited knowledge assumed were redundant and pasted those that we thought would add some desired features. In some of the genes which we indiscriminately chopped off, lay the secrets of emotions and feelings that really give every living being its real identity. The final products of our creation are beings such as these, which were full of features, but completely lacked intellectual emotions; the beings we created turned out to be incapable of thinking of anything beyond basic needs of pleasure, hunger, fear and procreation. In essence, we created brainless brawny creatures whose powers were completely misbalanced. By the time we realized the mistake, these beings were already created. They procreated, grew and as you saw, started attacking poor humans.”

He shook his head sadly, grimaced and added – “The one I created is the most dangerous one of them all. He has powers to mesmerise as well to strike terror. He looks almost human, yet he certainly is not. He is majorly responsible for this whole mess. That makes me indirectly responsible as well.”

“So these are your creations”! I burst out. “All this while I was under the impression that the kingpin type slobs are the main villains who hand-crafted the mutants to help them terrorise the world; these poor scallywags are not as bad as I thought they were; 63

in fact I do not see any difference between you and them now”. He winced at my stark accusation and responded - “The crazy goons and the poor beings are not our creation, in case you think they are.

They are the result of the supposed inclusive growth. The smarter people learnt to make money, kept acquiring more money, building structures on fertile land; the produce fell, money increased; electronic items became cheaper than food. Lethal toys and powerful engines got created for the entertainment of the uneducated neo rich; chaos was looming large. Then the being that I created took over. Being the most powerful he automatically was elected king. He convinced the beings that the disparity was a good thing. You would not see a single woman amongst the marauders.

This was because, convinced by my creation, the woman got reduced baby making machines. The peasants and the woman amongst them are producers. The men in fancy vehicles would come, pick young girls from the peasants, use them to get male babies and send them back if they survive child birth. The peasants have been methodically brain-washed into believing that they are dysfunctional. They produce all the grain needed for feeding the rich. The rich take the grain, and give some food to these peasants as ration. Since the mothers are sent back to their previous life once they are done reproducing, the kids of the rich grow up in luxury minus love. All the conditionings they receive are through sleep sessions provided by my creation and his conditioned team.”

I looked at him – my expression a mixture of shock and disgust, and asked “why don’t you attack and annihilate your creation? Are you too fond of it to do so?” My rescuer cringed at my question. His response however came as a shock to me. “He is so unique that only you can kill him. No man has the power to even go near him. I know you are shocked”, he said, “Please do not judge us so Harshly Adi. We created with the best interests of mankind in our mind. We wanted to create a force of super beings, which can be used to protect, guide and instil order in the world; unfortunately we were too ignorant to be aware of the fact that any power that does not come from within is not natural and hence is unhealthy”.

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“So you just decided to let them go ahead, take control and kill?”

I asked, a bit repulsed by the whole thing; “Not exactly, but almost” Our rescuer responded.

“I was the first one to realize my mistake. I then had to first convince my fellow scientists of the damage. That was a real uphill task, considering that being a dogmatic halfwit even I was not completely convinced that I had made a mistake. I could not completely convince them that we had made a mistake, but I did manage to make them pause their activities, and take a stock of the actions and their outcome. The first activity we tried was to try putting some sense into the heads of the dimwits; they did not want to see sense because they were the ones who benefitted the most from the lack of it. We then tried our luck with the peasants. They however were too busy producing for their tormentors or running and hiding from them, to listen to what we were trying to tell them.

We tried a desperate clean-up activity, which finally made us realize the depth of damage we had caused. We found that our own creation had become too powerful for us to control. We decided to then forget our egocentricities and try collectively to find a way to end this madness. One of us suggested that somewhere in time, if the world had to survive, an antidote to this horrible poison that we had spread would be created. We decided to use our time searching methods to find the right antidote. Needless to say, we did not find any suitable antidote in the future; we then started to look into the past through annals of time to find the suitable add-ons to our team to make it complete and help us vanquish the beings. Once we found the two of you, we did not waste much time working with nature to get you folks here. I am Shoolin by the way”, he said, extending his hand for a shake. Seeing that I was too angry to shake hands, he said – “Adi, we are just a group of scientists who are working overtime to atone for the mistakes we committed. Please do not judge us so harshly.” His words of self-defence worsened my temper. Too angry to respond, I went instead to sit with Kal, who seemed busy sharing a joke with the other mad scientists.

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One of the scientists was describing his creation with a mixture of pride and regret. He had crossed animal and plant genome to produce a strange being that ate like an animal but reproduced like a plant. Its reproduction process which doubled up as a self defence mechanism was the most unique one; when triggered, it would let loose a shower of seeds, which would quickly sprout to form miniature tree beings of its kind. Thankfully he was stopped by Shoolin from continuing the research before he found a way to make the trees that sprouted out from those seeds reproductive.

Once formed the miniature tree beings along with the roots of the parent tree, would quickly bind any female victim in near vicinity, pierce through the body and slowly suck the sap out of its system.

The only way to kill it, he said, was to reach the tree without setting foot on the ground near it, eat all its seed laden fruits, before cutting it down. “Adi can do it” Kal responded, before I could stop him. I was furious. Who was he to volunteer my services to a group of half-crazed scientists! Before I could respond, however our rescuer Shoolin who was standing nearby said – “Yes. Only Adi can do it. She is the only one who can protect us. We will drop everyone at the base; then Adi and I will fly down to the location where this ghastly tree being lives and spreads.”

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Chapter – 16 I responded quite vociferously to Shoolin’s words. I certainly did not want to go fighting strange trees. In them in no uncertain terms they were a group of mad scientists and whatever had happened was entirely due to their fault and hence was their problem. I was not going to get involved in their madness. I was an unwilling entree in the entire shebang of journey and no way was going to be a part of the scary science fiction!

Shoolin’s response shocked me into silence. He told me that I did not have a choice but to go with him to the tree being. He told me that the only way Kal and I could go back was with the help of some special equipment that he and his colleagues controlled and he would not allow us to use the equipment till I helped him in cleaning up his dirty mess. Moreover he categorically stated that now that I had managed to enrage the strange beings, it would only be a matter of time before they launched a major attack. Once such a thing happened, he warned, none of us would survive long enough to go anywhere.

I reluctantly stayed back in the vehicle when we reached the top of the hill, too shocked, enraged and scared to move, while Kal and the scientists de-boarded and went inside taking peasant folk they had rescued and dragging the bulky villains they had captured. Kal’s eyes were full of concern when he walked out of the bus. He clearly did not want to leave me alone; I got a feeling that he did not bargain for this situation when he agreed to this task. He even cast a couple of angry glares at Shoolin before disappearing with the others into the abode.

When we were the only ones left, Shoolin came, sat down beside me, held my hands gently and said in a pleading voice – “I am sorry for the whole affair. I know I was responsible. You are the only one who can help the world. Please do it. Once the job is done, you are free to judge us the way you want. But till then, please help.” I set 67

my face into a thin line and went and sat next to him, while he converted our vehicle into a tiny craft using some strange controls which he referred to as folding controls, and took off towards the dreaded spot. The flight was quite smooth; the view around our vehicle was breath-taking. I however was too tense, angry and slightly scared of what awaited me when we reached the destination to even remotely consider the possibility of enjoying the ride or the view. Shoolin tried to strike a conversation, however looking at the expression on my face he shut up, quietly wrote a note on a piece of paper and kept it inside his pocket.

We landed at a secluded spot; I got down from the vehicle and looked around; I could not see anything that resembled a tree being, anywhere. Before I could ask him, Shoolin motioned me to be quiet and took a note out of his pocket and handed the same over me. The note contained the details of the tree’s origin and the way it functioned. The scientist who had created the tree essentially wanted to work out a way where animals could reproduce in a vegetative manner, thus eliminating the need to have a ‘mother’. As the scientist had already described, the tree would sense the presence of a prey by its footsteps; the roots would immediately spring out, immobilizing the prey. Depending upon the size of the prey (which it assessed by the weight), the tree being would drop the appropriate amount of seeds on the ground; miniature tree beings would sprout almost instantaneously from them, piercing the prey, entering the preys body. The prey thus immobilized would die a painful death due to combined forces of starvation and slow imbibing of body fluids by the tree. Considering the destructive nature of the males, a male being would probably be regarded as an intruder; but if the tree sensed a female, it would just wait for the female to land its foot near at the right spot. I had strict instructions to stay in air while performing my operation and make sure that I did not drop even a single seed on the ground.

Once I had read and understood the instructions, I sighed deeply and motioned to Shoolin to lead the way. Shoolin led me to a spot 68

beyond which the tree he felt might sense his presence. I tried not to imagine the gory process and instead tried to concentrate on my task. “Where will I find its seeds?” I wrote on the note. “In many sacs, spread all over the trunk, its trunk structure is similar to that of animals, and not plants!” He answered. “Once you go near, the being will detect your scent; his seed pouches would come out of their hiding. All you need to do is to go straight for them, and swallow them one after the other.” I looked at him disgusted and asked him if there was some other way to it! “If there were,” he replied “I would not be putting you through this, Adi”. Too scared now to even take a breath, I flew straight ahead in the direction Shoolin asked me to take and in a couple of minutes reached the place, which to all purposes appeared to be a killer tree being’s abode.

The stench was unbearable. There were bones everywhere. As I went closer, the tree being seemed to respond to my pheromones as slowly, fruit like structures appeared at certain parts of its trunk; it started moving towards me, enveloping me with huge trunk like arms. The tree seemed to be totally besotted by me, as it did not even flinch when I flew down to one of its fruits, took it into my mouth, chewed it up and swallowed it. The fruit tasted very much like an overripe strawberry, with multiple seeds embedded in it. It made me a little sick, but trapped as I was, I did not have any choice; one after the other, as the fruits appeared, I ate them off.

How many I ate, I do not remember, but a couple of agonizing hours later, I was too sick to eat any more. That was when I realized that there were only two more fruits left. One was a few inches above the point where the trunk entered the ground, the other one was at the point where the trunk ended and the arm like branches grew out.

I flew up to the point near the ground; the roots sensed my position and started growing out; I plucked the fruit out with my hands and flew up towards the other one, just as the roots burst out of the ground, seeking the prey; I reached the other fruit in time to take it into my mouth just before it burst, spilling its contents into my mouth. Ere I swallowed that one quickly along with its mellifluous 69

liquids and nasty seeds, the other one burst; I cupped both my palms, preventing the juices and seeds from flowing down, quickly gobbled the fruit and licked my palms clean in three quick steps.

Shoolin, who was watching my act, quickly flew towards the tree with cutting gear. Together, we began chopping the tree; it trashed about wildly, hitting us multiple times with its branches. Realizing that it was alone and could not create progenies, it started trying to escape, its piercing roots shot out. They first tried to pierce our bodies, but realizing that they could not, they enveloped the tree in a protective shield, preventing us from going anywhere near it to cut it.; The gnarled dry roots helped me hit upon an idea; I asked Shoolin to get a flare; he looked at me if I had gone crazy before realization dawned; he flew off to the vehicle and picked a flare gun and flew back at near lightning speed. I pointed the flare towards the roots and trunk; they burst into flames, emitting a horrible smell that made me feel dizzy. In a desperate self preservation attempt, it flayed its branches, pushing Shoolin and me away; we flew off and fell on the hard ground. I hit myself on my head and fainted.

When I came to, Shoolin was bathing my forehead with some perfumed liquid. I looked at the place where the tree was and found that it was nearly gutted. Some of Shoolin’s fellow scientists including the tree’s creator, who had arrived in the meanwhile, were taking care of the remaining jobs. As I watched, they even dug up the roots and started burning them. “That should take care of this one”, the killer tree’s creator said sadly, “I never thought that I would ever have to go through the pain of burn the remnants of my own creation”. I looked at him strangely; I could not believe that a person could think of his pain in the presence of the bones of those who had died such painful deaths, thanks to his creation. Shoolin voiced my thoughts; the scientist smiled wryly in response and told Shoolin to tie up his hands the next time he tried to create something bad.

I was too hurt, exhausted, sick and bruised to move or respond.

Shoolin and a couple of others quickly helped me back to the 70

vehicle. The pleasant smell inside the vehicle made me feel marginally better. Shoolin gave me something to drink. The liquid did wonders to my health, but made me extremely sleepy. While watching scientists bury the bones of the victims of the tree, I dozed off.

I woke up briefly to find that we had reached the centre and someone was carrying me to a room. I was too tired to open my eyes as that someone helped me on to a luxurious bed; I fell into a deep slumber, the moment my head touched the pillow.

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Chapter – 17 When I woke up, I felt a slightly sick, but otherwise quite refreshed. I remembered where I was and looked around in alarm and found myself in a beautiful room that had the most modern amenities. I quickly refreshed myself and went looking for Kal. I saw him in a clearing along with some scientists; he was teaching the art of self reliance to the large group of peasants gathered out there. He was explaining how they themselves could make fire and cook their produce (I did not realize till then that these poor beings did not even know how to strike a match). He was teaching them the rules of exchange or barter system. He was explaining the importance of self worth. The folks seemed to understand; some of them were even responding to some of the questions with intelligent answers or queries. “There is hope for them yet” I thought as I walked up to Kal. There was loud clapping and cheering when I reached there. They were cheering me! “Hail Adi the Powerful” they all shouted and bowed low as if I was some kind of a queen or goddess. I blushed, totally embarrassed with the situation.

Kal asked me to join him in teaching the people to be self reliant and independent. I was not sure if I could do a good job, but I felt that I should give it a shot. I explained how one could increase the produce by mixing various grains, and how by mixing the kinds of food that they ate they could easily become strong and live healthily. The people listened in rapt attention; either they really were learning all that I was teaching them, or revered me too much to turn their eyes away.

Shoolin then came and took me to the area where the rich marauders were imprisoned; they looked pitiable, like lost children.

Shoolin thanked me for asking him to get them here; he told me that considering that their behaviour was predominantly due to their loveless upbringing, where riches and gadgets substituted for love and care, if guided properly and given the right doses of tender 72

loving care, they could be trained to become good humans.

“Brainwashed to become normal humans would be more apt”! I mused aloud; Shoolin smiled and replied that the process would involve multiple brainwashing sessions followed by social therapy; for some whose minds are not badly corrupted, the process might be an easy one; those that respond well quickly, can be sent into the society to work and live with the peasant folk, who now were being educated to become more self reliant and confident. Those whose brains are too badly corrupted to respond might end up spending a long time in prison; the worst ones might have to even be bestowed an euthanasia. “Someone should have euthanized you and your lot before you set out to perform your madness”, I muttered aloud making Shoolin cringe badly.

He then took me to a large room that looked like a control centre at a space station. It had large monitors all around; the monitors seemed to be connected to hi-tech spy-cams concealed in different parts of the place as I could see what was going on there. Some of the cameras seemed to have been installed in and around the open field where we fought the rich slobs and rescued the peasants.

A new group of marauders had gathered there. They seemed to be led by extremely good looking identical twins. They seemed to be in their early twenties, full of life and seemed to be looking for something. “They are looking for you!” Shoolin responded to my unspoken question. “They want to make you theirs, so that they become more powerful. They want to convince you that they are better masters to serve than all of us, and you as a woman should become their concubine and have progeny with your powers for them”.

The words enraged the hidden feminist in me. “They will have to fight me and kill me before they can lay their filthy eyes, let alone their hands on my body!” I said. Shoolin who seemed to be waiting for this response said – “Let us go fight them then”. I looked at him to see if he was kidding; he seemed in earnest. I realized to my 73

discomfort that I managed to place myself in a corner; cursing myself and my big mouth under my breath, I boarded the vehicle again.

On the way to the war zone, Shoolin gave me a gilded knife that strangely looked a lot like the one I had seen in Dishana’s hand inside the driver’s cabin of our journey vehicle. I longed to go back to the safety of the van; “better still” I thought, “I wish I were back at home, sipping a cup of hot coffee”. Shoolin saw the dreamy expression on my face, smiled patronizingly and warned me that I should keep my head cool and not get carried away by my anger. I made a face and looked away Once we reached the war zone, I got down from the vehicle and turned around, expecting Shoolin to follow suit; to my shock, instead of getting down, he started the vehicle and took off. Before I could recover from my shock, I heard a catcall. It was one of the handsome young twins who clearly seemed to be leading the group.

He had noticed me standing all alone in the middle of the field. He pointed me out to his friends and made a dirty remark about me.

Enraged, I flew towards the group. The handsome young twins saw me coming and started showing their bodies and technical gadgets off to me, making lewd remarks and gestures. I responded that if they wanted me, they would have to fight me and take me a prisoner. They laughed and told me that they would love to fight me, but I would be useless for them once they finished with me! I proceeded to inform them that there was no way I was going to them unless they defeated me first.

They all attacked me in unison from their flying cars, showering their volley of bullets on me; these bullets seemed to be stronger than the ones that the previous group had; though they could not really cause much damage, they did cause bruises on the points of contact. I flew faster, avoiding those bullets, and fought harder. I manage to rout most of the crew, a few escaped. Only a handful remained; suddenly they did something unexpected, they flew off 74

their vehicles, to my dismay! “They can fly!” I thought for a second; then I realized that they were using jet powered belts to fly. They probably thought that they would use these as a last resort. They started chasing me in the air, firing at me; As the only way to disable them was to remove their belts, I braved the bullets, flew to them, pulling and cutting their belts. In a few minutes I was bruised and bleeding, but had managed to send all but the handsome duo down to their crash-landings. The duo, that seemed to be reluctant to fight me, till that point, came towards me. They started firing at me with guns which were strong enough to cut my skin and get embedded in my flesh. I was in the verge of giving up, when the words from one of them asking me to just come into his embrace and avoid getting roasted alive, gave the required adrenaline jolt that made me decide to kill or die. I lunged at him, dodging a bullet that came straight at me. Ignoring the bullet that got embedded in my shoulder, I held his belt and cut it off with a swift motion of my knife. As he went hurtling down, his twin seemed to be torn between a brotherly impulse to go save his twin and an urge to defeat me. I took advantage of his confusion and disarmed him in a surprise attack. He lunged at me, with his bare hands. My knife fell off. He was a strong man, and I was badly bruised and wounded. I wrestled him hard, holding on to the belt and pulling at it with all my might. I realized that it would not be possible for me to yank the belt off; there possibly had to be a way to ‘de-belt’ him. I started feeling around the belt, with one hand, while trying to ward off his punches with the other. He held me by my injured shoulder, the pain was making me dizzy; suddenly my fingers touched a tiny button and the belt opened up. I quickly yanked at it with all my might, pulling it off him and sending him down to join his twin.

My body was riddled with bullets, I was wounded and bleeding, I slowly flew down to the ground, saw the blood, gore and the bodies strewn on the ground and fainted.

When I came to, Shoolin was dressing my wounds and bathing my face with some perfumed liquid. A group of peasants who 75

seemed to have come there with him were wrapping the dead in black linen and putting them into individual coffins. One of them, a lady, was weeping. “The twins were her kids” Shoolin explained. I felt disgusted with myself. I went over to the lady and hugged her while she wept. I wanted to know if she was sure that they were her kids. “They were mine. They were the only babies I gave birth to. I was taken to their father’s house when I was twelve and imprisoned till I was fifteen; I sent back to the fields a couple of days after they were born. I went back many times to see how they were doing; the last time I saw them alive was seven years ago” she said before breaking down again.

I felt worse; my conscience hurt terribly; when Shoolin told me not to be angry with myself as I actually killed in self defence, I looked disbelievingly at him, loathing him for the first time; “you could have told me earlier about they being the kids of this lady”, I yelled. “Would it have made any difference, he asked, “These lunatics were beyond help”, “But I was the one who went to them!”

I replied. “They would have come looking for you, if you did not; that would have been worse!” he replied in response.

The response made me feel better, but only marginally. When we reached the centre I was too numb to react when they took the bullets off my body, dressed me and left me alone in my room, as I desired. I tried to sleep but could not. After a couple of hours, I got out of the bed and started walking towards what looked like a lush, but secluded wood. Once I reached there, I sat down, closed my eyes and started meditating on the events that occurred over the last many hours. I wept for those poor ill-advised people, who died fighting me. I wept for the world, and hoped that if my actions somehow could make it a better place, it would be worth the pain; I was not sure if the ends or the reasons justified the means. “There had to be a better way!” I thought. “If there was one, Shoolin would be aware of it”, I felt, and decided that I should confront him and work out the fastest and least gory solution to the root of the problem.

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Chapter – 18 I found Shoolin in a small room. He was sitting with his head in his hands. He looked pensive and sad. Seeing me, he sat up and smiled sadly. “Is there a better way to end this?” I asked him.

“There is!” He said; “you and I will have to go the centre of the city where these people dwell. We have to disable the machine that is used to brain-wash and indoctrinate these beings into becoming fiends”. He added. “We should have gone and done that, as soon as I landed; instead you made me a gory murderer”! I shouted angrily.

Shoolin smiled at me sadly again. His smile seemed similar to the one Dishana had when he was explaining about the powers to me.

He explained to me that the city was fully monitored through hi-tech machines and was heavily guarded. The twins were the chiefs of the city guards. Killing them was imperative for confounding the guards and gaining entry into the city. The indoctrinator had a higher level of security. It was owned, operated by the being created by Shoolin.

This being had the cunning of human, horns of a buffalo, claws, teeth and strength of a lion and thick skin like an elephant.

The only way we could reach his the area where the indoctrinator was kept was for me to go offer myself as a slave to the being. I had to offer myself first, describing my powers and posing a condition that I could only be the slave of one who defeated me. While he was busy fighting me, Shoolin would go and destroy the machine. The idea did not appeal to me much, but Shoolin’s statement that I could go back once this job was done, made me agree.

I however posed a condition. Kal should be sent back before we embarked on our journey; I did not want him to end up for good in this insane nightmarish world of what looked like a virtual reality game gone berserk, if we failed in our mission. Shoolin seemed to be expecting my condition; he even seemed to be in agreement. He told me that he had the same plans. He then took me to a large hall 78

where many scientists were gathered. Kal was standing there with them. He came and gave me a warm hug. When we explained the plan, Kal was indignant. He did not want to merrily walk away and desert us in such a dangerous situation. Shoolin took him to a corner and convinced him, while the others proceeded to equip me with ornaments fitted with deadly weapons. They gave me a translucent body suit and told me that I should wear it, cover myself with the ornaments before proceeding for my mission. At my stare of dismay Shoolin told me that this body suit was fire proof and was impregnable by even the strongest of the bullets. The ornaments had explosives and sharp edges; with a bit of folding here and there, they could be converted into swords, spears, knives. He then gave me a skin coloured body suit armour which was to be worn under the translucent one and long shiny red cloth which I could wrap around, sarong style. After I changed into my “battle gear” as instructed, Kal said his goodbyes and went off with someone, who was to go back with him. After Kal left, Shoolin and I started off for the city.

We flew towards the destination and landed in the outskirts of the city. Shoolin took me to a narrow entrance of what looked like a long dark narrow tunnel. He told me that he would be going in first, and I should follow him by holding on to his foot. He went in; after a couple of tens of seconds of hesitation I followed suit. It was so dark that I could see nothing. I felt around, looking for Shoolin’s foot, but could find nothing. I panicked for a couple of seconds and was almost ready to turn back, when I heard Shoolin’s voice on my right. He told me to extend my right hand all the way, place my head along it, and start crawling in that direction for a couple of minutes and I would find him, I followed the instructions, reached him and held on to his foot for my life. We then started crawling on with him leading the way. Strangely, the air was not stale; there seemed to be thin openings at multiple points, providing supply of fresh air; however these openings did not provide any lighting; I mused aloud about it; Shoolin told me that the lack of light provided 79

the necessary security. This was the escape route built by him from the room where the indoctrination machine lay to the free world.

“You built the indoctrination room?” I asked perplexed. “Yes, I did. It was then used to condition people to accept what was given to them and behave in a rational way in the society. When we created the strange creatures that you saw down there, we realized that unless the minds are conditioned, those creatures would not know the rights and the wrongs. These creatures used to obey the rules and behave. Everything was fine till I created the most powerful one of them all. Since the being had human intelligence, I started using him as my assistant, little realizing that he was using the machine to turn the creatures into his slaves and people into slaves and fiends. One day, I happened to come across one of his recordings purely by chance. So I built this escape tunnel unknown to anyone but a couple of scientists who had realized their folly like me. My plan was to shift the indoctrination machine out from here, and use the same to bring order back in the world. Unfortunately, before I could succeed in my attempt, the creature that I created took over control; he and a team of 50 brainwashed humans moved into the indoctrination area. They guard the machine fiercely. They only have one weakness – woman. The women of this time are reduced to objects of lust and baby producers. We hence needed a strong woman for this.” “Why me”? I asked, incredulously; because the creature was built using a mix of your genes and mine” replied Shoolin to my utter shock. “Only you and I can assess his actions.

Even when we reach the place, we will have to continue crawling, as that is the only way we can escape detection. Once we are there, you will have to crawl over to the ‘female offering area’ where normally the females selected for procreation and recreation are brought and made to stand. Don’t worry, you would not be discovered till you stand there. ” Before I could respond, he told me that we were entering an area where we could be heard, and advised me to stay as quiet as I could. We crawled on, in silence; my mind bursting with questions, which I could not ask at that point. After what seemed a couple of hours of crawling, the tunnel ended 80

abruptly into a cupboard, filled with dirty papers and books. Shoolin examined the place thoroughly and let out a nearly inaudible sigh of relief. The place seemed untouched indicating that our secret route was undiscovered. Shoolin quietly peered through a tiny keyhole, after a few minutes, he quietly inserted a key into the keyhole, turned it, opened the door an inch and peered out, I could see that the door faced a wall, the distance between the wall and the cupboard was enough for a slim person to squeeze out. Shoolin quietly slid out from there, I followed him. Once we were out, Shoolin quickly pushed the door shut. He then crouched down, and started crawling like a snake. I followed in the same way. Once we reached a point, he stopped and gestured me to keep crawling. I crawled all the way to a spot which seemed totally illuminated. He instructed me through his gestures to stand up. Before I was fully up, he crawled off into the shadows. As soon as I stood up, many things happened; bells rang; many strange looking people and came running to the area. They were followed by a large strange creature, which could only be the one created by Shoolin. He was magnificent to look at. They all stood for a few seconds staring at me; some of them started smelling the air, seemingly trying to assess my smell. Suddenly as Shoolin guessed correctly, the creature of Shoolin’s creation raised his arms, spreading them out.

That seemed to be an indication that I belonged to him, as the rest of the creatures dispersed quickly, leaving me and this creature alone.

He came to me, seemingly filled with lust; when he reached near I deftly flew and landed a few feet away from him, much to his shock. I then told him that if we wanted me, the most powerful person he could have ever met as his valuable swain and slave, he had to fight me and defeat me. He looked shocked, but agreed to do so. He came lunging at me again; I flew up, and aimed a kick on his forehead, between his eyes; before the kick could land, he jumped up; my kick landed on his chest; he seemed unfazed but a little cross. He stuck out at me with his mighty claws; thanks to my special suit, I escaped. He then picked up a gun and starting firing at me; my suit protected me. When he ran out of bullets, he started 81

chasing me; I kept running and flying, dodging him, and kicking him whenever chance allowed me; I kept removing my ornaments, removing their covers to expose the sharp edges and throwing them at him; soon most of my ornaments except the one around my waist were used up. I was exhausted; so was this strange being.

With a last ditch attempt, he chased me to a corner from where flying off was not possible, let out a mighty bellow and came for me; I took off the ornament around my waist and removed the coverings. Minus the coverings, it took the shape of a short sickle cum sword with sharp ends. When creature was close enough, I plunged it between the eyes. Before the being could recover, I pulled it off and plunged it again into his neck; he hollered and fell back, giving me the opportunity to run towards the area where the indoctrinator was being dismantled by Shoolin.

Seeing him, the creature realized what was going on; with a roar of dismay lunged at us; we dodged him while I looked desperately for a weapon. I could not find any sharp object which could be used as a weapon. Suddenly my mind hit upon an idea. Before dismantling the indoctrinator, Shoolin plucked off the electrical wire that connected the indoctrinator to the power supply. The other end of that wire was still connected to the mains. I picked it up carefully and waited for the creature to attack me again; when he was near enough, I plunged the sharp wires into his chest, electrocuting him.

As the electricity flowed through him, his flesh started burning; his eyes and tongue popped out and he fell on his back, dead, with the wire still attached to him. Unable to release the wire lest it fell and electrocuted all of us, I kept holding on to the wire for a good few minutes after the fall and death of the monster.

Sensing my Dilemma, Shoolin went quickly, switched off the mains, and came crawling towards me. In my confusion, I stepped on him, realized my mistake and stepped back, releasing the wire.

Shoolin dragged me quickly back into the cupboard, from where we 82

quickly crawled back to the other side of the tunnel, lest the others got alerted and came attacking us.

When we emerged from the tunnel, I saw that the building that housed the indoctrinator was up in flames, along with many parts of the city. “While we were busy inside, my partners planted bombs all over the place. I planted one inside the one that housed the indoctrinator. They all went off when we were in our tunnel. It is all over now. Without continuous brainwashing, the strange creatures are now harmless; many will die in the flames. We will capture the rest and euthanize them” he said to my utter shock.

I was worried about the fat foolish inhabitants; I did not want them to die for just being mean and stupid. “We rescued many humans from the city by drugging them and carrying them off while they were drugged. We shall try to bring normalcy back in their hearts”, he answered, as if reading my thoughts. “Thanks for all your help Adi the powerful; sorry for the trouble we put you through. I hope you shall find it in your heart to forgive us” He held out his hand for a handshake. I wanted to leave this place as quickly as I could without any ado, so I shook his hands weakly; he seemed satisfied with it and started flying.

I flew after him; after a few minutes, I realized that he was getting hazy; in fact the entire scenery seemed to be melting. I rubbed my eyes and looked again and found that I was magically transported back to the place next to the waterfall; the bus was there, waiting for me. I flew down to it. Kal and Dishana were standing outside waiting for me. As soon as I landed, they enveloped me in a warm hug.

When I got into the bus, a loud cheer erupted. They were cheering Adi the powerful, Adi the wise. I felt dazed and confused; instead of walking straight to my enclosure, I walked instead into the driver’s cabin. There an entire set of people; they all stood and bowed low as I entered. “Behold Adi the powerful” they also shouted. My confusion mounted. I gave an “I want to know what 83

happened” look to Dishana. He smiled and said – “Everything that happens is Maya, a mystification, in the space time continuum.

Realizing the Maya, staying calm and yet acting as per the rules, makes you a Jaya person. This is Sanskritam. You have achieved it Adi.” You now deserve your much needed rest. Please go back to your seat. I agreed with him and walked out of the cabin.

When I walked out, I saw Shoolin standing out there. I panicked again. Did the strange beings come back into existence? Was I to go back again into a nightmarish Maya? Sensing my panic Shoolin told me to relax and informed me that he had come tell me that they managed to save the sons of the two handsome villains I had killed before the city got destroyed. “given a chance to grow under the loving care of their grandmother, the boys I am sure will end up being better humans than their fathers or grand fathers” he said before walking off to one of the enclosures. I quietly walked over to mine. When I reached there, there was a glass of warm liquid that smelt heavenly. I consumed it without thinking twice and promptly fell asleep.

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Chapter – 19 I woke up to the sound of a door-bell, mechanically tottered to the door, opened it, let the maid in, went back to the bed, lay down, and immediately sat up with a start. I was in my house! I felt like screaming. Was that all a dream? Did I get on the journey? Were all those people I met in my journey real? I checked the date and time on my mobile; it was the day after the long weekend; I either had slept through the weekend, or had really gone for the journey. I realized that it did not matter either ways; I was at home, where I belonged and had to get ready to go face another gruelling week at work.

Checking the calendar, I remembered that I was to go and attend a symposium on “Making the city a better place to live in�. I had to present a paper in the post lunch session; I smiled and wondered if anyone would notice that I had changed it a little after the last review and sign-off from my boss. With the smile still in its place, I got dressed quickly and drove over to the place where the symposium was held.

Once I reached the symposium, I was so busy running the presentation over in my mind that I did not even bother to look at or thank the person handing the pamphlet over to me. In a similar absent minded state, I collected a mug of coffee from the coffee counter, entered the lecture theatre and sank into the heavily cushioned luxurious chair and tried to concentrate on the pamphlet and the stage; the coffee, I found was too weak to awaken me completely and let me concentrate; considering that my mind insisted on wandering at that point, I let it wander the way it wanted to; I was sure that if left alone, it would eventually tell me what it wanted. After a few minutes of confused wandering and wondering, my mind gave up on its ramblings, came back and asked for an additional caffeine shot. I agreed with it, walked out of the lecture theatre, wandered around in the wide lawn that surrounded it for 85

half an hour or so, walked back to the coffee area, picked up a cup of coffee and walked back to the lecture theatre.

As soon as I re-entered, the scene on stage almost made me spill the contents of my coffee cup on myself. Shoolin was one of the panellists. He was elucidating the importance of controlled, inclusive development. His slides contained some of the pictures of the creatures, places and humans that I had seen. I walked in a state of daze towards my seat, sank into it and started watching the presentation, spellbound.

Suddenly I was distracted from my state of trance by a voice that sounded eerily similar to that of ex-journey partner – Kal; the voice was instructing me quite rudely to remove my bag from the seat next to the one I was sitting, so as to enable a human being to occupy it. “I am sure the living creatures inside the bag would not mind not having such a lofty seat”, the voice said. Turning around, I saw to my delight that the voice did belong to good old Kal. I smiled broadly at him. He grinned back. His attire seemed the exact opposite of the clothes he wore while on the journey with me; he was dressed in a gray suit, complete with cufflinks and other works. He stood there with Dev and couple of other youngsters – a real pretty young lady, who seemed to have tried real hard to make herself up to look more professional and nerdy and a young man who seemed to have used a mixture of all kinds of creams on his face in a vain attempt to get rid of his acne. Dressed professionally in a formal shirt and trouser, Dev looked quite handsome Kal was his usual casual self. He politely exchanged pleasantries with me, introduced his other friends, and asked me how I was and how I was enjoying the event. . I complimented them on their looks, earning an awkward grin from all of them and asked them if they also were presenting something at the symposium. They replied that they would be presenting a paper on sustainable technologies.

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They all sank back comfortably in their respective seats. Kal sat in the one next to mine after unceremoniously dumping my bag on the ground. He then leaned over and told me – “relax. It did happen.

I felt the same, the first time it took place. Thankfully for me, my mother was there. Dev here was so shocked after his first, he did not want to leave the second time; they actually had to sleep transport him.” I asked him if the other two had also been on the journey and got an “are you kidding me” kind of a look in response from him.

While we were chatting I saw the pretty girl who had come with Kal throw jealous glances at us. I asked Kal if she knew about the journeys, he replied that she probably guessed that he was up to something, but she still was not aware. “She probably thinks that my mother and I go for weekend fun trips and you probably are one of my fellow travellers”.

He then told me to concentrate on the events of the symposium and try not to think of the journey. I turned and looked at the stage, just in time to see Shoolin getting felicitated by some politician and smiled. The journey did happen; Sanskritam was not just a figment of my imagination. I was not sure why, but I felt better and more refreshed after realizing that I did take part in those gory battles and not just imagined it. Thus feeling relieved and enlightened, I sat back, and let the events take over.

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Chapter – 20 The session was quite an informative one. After the session people broke for lunch. I went looking for Shoolin in the lunch area to congratulate him on his presentation and apologize to him for the harsh words that I doled out. I unfortunately could not find him; I however found Kal and his friends stacking their plates with food.

“This stuff is ambrosia compared to our hostel food” – they commented. I nodded my head in mock understanding and went off to join a couple of my colleagues who seemed to be looking for me.

When I joined them, they seemed to be discussing about what they had done over the weekend. A couple of them had gone for white water rafting and were describing it, enthusiastically. “Our boat almost got stuck in an eddy” one of the rafters said; “I thought we were all goners”. They then asked me what I did over the weekend. I was almost tempted to tell them the truth, that I had spoken to and had become an eddy, but held my tongue as I did not want them to look at me if I had lost my marbles; so I told them that I took it easy, slept a lot, did some shopping and performed some tasks around the house. “What did you shop for” another colleague asked; my response that I bought a bag earned me a sympathetic look from the group. “Next time you should join us on our adventure trips” – the white water rafters said; “alternatively you could join me in mine” – I thought. Outwardly I acted polite and told them to take me along the next time they went.

The post lunch session went off well; so did my presentation. I however could not spot Shoolin anywhere during the entire session.

After the session, we broke up for tea; Kal and his friends met me there and warmly congratulated me on my presentation. They asked me to stay back for their ‘Post-tea’ presentation. As my organization was one of the organisers of the symposium, I had little choice but to stay back, either ways; plus as I was looking forward for the presentation from Kal and his gang and did not want to lose the 88

opportunity to look for Shoolin and apologise to him, I agreed willingly.

After the symposium Kal asked me if I could drop him and his friends back at their institute as they were too tired to use the public transport. I complied gladly. The way back was quite pleasant; Kal and Dev kept discussing about the journey. I was quite surprised that they could do so, in front of the other two. At my questioning glance, Kal winked at me and told me dead-pan that they were discussing their weekend at the new virtual reality centre, the membership for which unfortunately was through invitation only.

I dropped them off at their respective hostels; the boys grinned, shook hands and exchanged phone numbers with me. The girl was the last one to be dropped; on the way to her hostel, she asked me shyly if I also had met Kal at the virtual reality centre; I hesitated for a couple of minutes before saying –“It felt real; I am sure Kal would have loved to have you around out there and is trying to work out ways to take you over there as well”. I could see that the answer made her feel better as she smiled broadly, blushing a little and said her goodbyes quite heartily.

After dropping her off at her hostel, I started driving back home.

It was dark, and I had to go through a desolate area to reach home.

Prior to having taken part in the journey, I would have not been comfortable taking that route after dark, but the experiences of Sanskritam did help make me bolder. So I decided to take that route, which though desolate, was the shortest and quickest.

As I was going past the area, I heard screams; I turned towards my left and saw to my chagrin a young girl come running towards my car, her eyes wide with fear. Halfway to my car however, she suddenly jerked as if she was shot and fell forward on the ground.

I responded on a reflex, stopped the car, got down and ran over to her, without a second thought. When I reached her, I saw the bullet wound on her back. She seemed to be alive, but barely so.

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Without thinking twice, I took my mobile out of my pocket and started dialling the police helpline number, when my mobile was plucked rudely off my hand. I turned around and saw that four burly men had surrounded me.

Two of those men seemed to be in their late forties or early fifties; they looked like brothers; the third one who appeared to be the son of one of them, seemed to be in his thirties, whilst the fourth and the youngest looked barely out of his teens. He looked more like a hired servant as he looked impoverished and acted subservient in front of the other three. My suspicions about his age proved to be accurate when he spoke to me in a high pitched voice, asking me to leave the place and forget what I had seen, if I valued my life. I hesitated for a second, went calmly up to him and asked him to let me know which one of them shot at the girl. I further added that if he was not the one, he might as well leave, as I did not want him involved in a dirty scene as this.

The boy looked confused and almost scared at my question. He was about to open his mouth when the man in his thirties who pulled my mobile off my hand, held me by the scruff of my neck.

Before he could point his gun at me, I gave him a kick in his groin; he dropped the gun and doubled up. One of the two brothers, who could have been the father or uncle of the mobile snatcher, fired a shot at me. I ducked; the bullet whistled past my left ear. I bent low and banged him hard with my skull, before he could fire again. He fell down, yelping in pain. The gun flew off his hand and fell somewhere in the darkness.

By then the mobile snatcher who had managed to recover from my blow picked up his gun; he along with unhurt person amongst the senior duo pointed their guns at me. The senior said, his voice full of scorn – “The dead girl now is of no use to us; let us take madam instead and fill her place”. “That would be of no use; she is too strong and unless we keep her drugged, she will fight her way out”, the mobile-snatcher responded, “let us kill her right away”.

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I stood there, wondering if my body would be as impervious to these bullets as they were to the ones I faced during my journey.

The men had all but pressed the trigger, when a voice said – “I would not do that if I were you. I have got this whole thing recorded, and shall not hesitate to hand the stuff over to police and TV. I might even take some liberties and put this up on the net for you.� My attackers turned towards the origin of the voice. Shoolin and the other scientist, who had come back with Kal, came out of the shadows. This was probably what he meant by returning my favour, I realized.

The attackers panicked and started firing at Shoolin and his friend. I took advantage of the distraction, flew up and plucked the gun from the hands of my mobile snatcher. Shoolin flew over to the scene and joined me in the attack.

The four killers did not expect our aerial attack and started running; the senior member who still held his gun started firing at Shoolin and me. Shoolin knocked the gun off his hand, but caught a bullet in his foot, while doing so. Realizing that Shoolin was hurt, I quickly swooped down and picked the gun up from the ground. The now disarmed killers started shivering and whimpering. They had never seen anyone fly in their lives. The young hired hand fell on his knees and started praying aloud and blabbering incoherently to some invisible person about how he never heeded his or her instructions not to get involved in something sinful.

I flew overhead like a vulture, ensuring that they continued in their state of daze. Shoolin flew off to my car, and sat on its bonnet, holding his foot. The scientist who had come with him came over with a rope to tie the four killers up. I told him that he need not bother as the seemed too petrified to move.

I used my mobile to call the police. They arrived a few minutes later in a vehicle, horns blaring. Before they could reach us, Shoolin and his colleague quickly handed over the camera (that had the video clipping of the goons attacking the girl in the park next to the 91

road, her running towards the road and my mobile snatcher’s shooting at her from behind) and disappeared into the shadows, leaving me alone with the killers. I quickly landed and stood quietly on the ground, holding one of the shivering killers by the scruff of his neck.

When the police landed, the four seemed too eager to give themselves up. They started pointing at me wildly, muttering incoherently about flying witches. Unable to comprehend his words the police man came over to me and asked me to explain the situation. I demurely showed my identity card to the police and described the scene, consciously omitting the part where we were in the air. I also did not mention about Shoolin and his colleague’s involvement and took credit for their actions, as I felt that they did not want to be involved in activities of our time.

One of the policemen bent down to examine the girl. Thankfully she was still alive; I requested them to drop her off at the hospital before taking the goons and me to the police station. The police initially looked reluctant; they somehow seemed reluctant to believe my version of the story, till I showed them the video clipping.

The video show assuaged the policemen enough and made them agree to follow my instructions; they quickly picked the wounded girl and loaded her into my car. They then rounded the guys up onto their vehicle. Two policemen climbed into my car and directed me to the nearest government hospital, one of them got off with the wounded girl, whilst the other one helped me navigate to the police station At the police station we again checked the recording and found that it even contained lucid details of the exact nature of their racket.

They even had clippings of some high profile individuals, performing acts that would at best jeopardize their reputation and at the worst ruin their lives. This opened up a can of worms which I did not want to be near. I was just about to ask out when a call came from the hospital; the young girl I gallantly helped rescue had 92

gained consciousness and was singing out the details of the crimes of her four attackers.

This gave me an idea; I requested the cops to leave me and the video clipping out of this and take entire credit for the rescue operation themselves. I told them that they could use the girl as a witness; they could say that they heard gunshots while on their patrol, rushed to the spot and caught these people red handed while they were trying to run away from the place of crime. To my surprise, they complied with my requests. The senior police official gallantly escorted me to my car, and let me go.

I drove back to my house exhausted and climbed on to my bed.

Sleep however eluded me. I was worried for Shoolin. I was not sure how badly he was hurt; in fact I did not even know where he and his colleague were. I also was a little wired up with the entire set of events.

Around midnight I gave up on my attempt to catch a wink, switched on the TV and started surfing channels. The local midnight news bulleting flashed news on how the local police managed to bust a racket in the city. The news media was hounding the girl in the hospital for more information. I felt thankful that the poor girl did not get a chance to see me properly. I did not want a hoard of journalists disrupting my peaceful existence.

The news channel went on to described how the police using the lead from the rescued girl, rescued many minor girls who were victims to the racket. They flashed a clipping of the minor girls being escorted to a vehicle which they described as one owned by a social service agency. They went on to interview the spokesperson of that agency, who to my surprise turned out to be Shoolin’s colleague. He was telling them how these young ladies would not be accepted back by their families, and how unless given an opportunity to get accepted into the society as respectable individuals, they would end up becoming street walkers. I tried to spot Shoolin amongst the crowd on TV, in vain.

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My worry for his wellbeing intensified; I really felt remorseful about my harsh words and wanted to apologize. So I tried calling Kal on his mobile. He picked up the phone on my third attempt, groggily asking me why I was bent upon troubling him in the middle of the night. I quickly described the events of the evening to him and asked him if he knew where Shoolin was. He anxiously responded that he also did not know, and would let me know if he gets to. I kept the phone down, my anxiety mounting.

Suddenly my door bell rang. I peered out of my peer hole and saw Shoolin standing without. He looked exhausted and in pain, but was smiling. I quickly opened the door and let him in. He limped over to a couch and slouched on it. I held his hand and apologized profusely for the harsh words that I had directed on him. He waved my apologies aside and added that he deserved every one of those words.

I inquired after his foot; he responded that it was still in a bad shape and needed medicines from his abode to heal completely. I wanted to know how he managed to get an invitation to participate in the symposium; he smiled, but did not answer. I assumed that Kal or someone would have given it to him.

He got up, took out a tiny coin studded with diamonds from his pocket, handed it over to me, asked me to keep it safe till it was needed, added that he had to rush back immediately because he did not want to be stuck in this world with a wounded foot and limped off into darkness.

I kept staring out of the door for a good couple of minutes after he faded out, then, realizing that he was gone for good and now that I had joined this strange journey, I had to get used to people fading out on me all the time, I closed the door, walked over to my wardrobe, put the coin in my locker, slouched on the couch and started watching a late night movie on time travel.

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Chapter – 21 Next morning, I woke up groggily and realized that I had dozed off on the couch while watching the TV. My body felt sore; grimacing hard, I completed my morning routine and drove to office as I normally did.

I reached the office and walked past the guard’s post, absently wishing the guard a good day. He wished me back enthusiastically.

Something in his voice gave me the feeling that he was going to ask me for a loan, so I quickly glanced at my watch, gave a start and ran off into my office, before he could open his mouth. Being an early bird, I normally was the first one to walk in, but that day, I saw one female colleague sitting in front of her workstation, seemingly busy at work. Her stance suggested that she was in some kind of a problem and could gladly do with some help. I walked over to her and asked her if everything was OK. She smiled tightly and nodded her head. I did not want to press her any further; so I told her that in case she needed any help, I was there for her before walking off to my work-area.

The phone attached to my desk rang at 10:20; I looked at the calendar and remembered that it was a Tuesday and I probably was being given the last minute reminder to attend the team meeting. I looked at the number on the phone; it indeed was a call from the reminder’s desk. Grimacing, I ignored the call and started walking down to the meeting room. When I reached, I saw that only a couple of others were present. One of them opened his mouth to pass a sassy comment about me being late when I told him that the only reason he reached the meeting room ahead of me was that he did not have anything else to do, otherwise. “I did not ask you why you were late”, he said in a wounded voice. “But I am sure you were about to”, I responded before occupying a seat.

At 10: 30, my boss walked in, looking at his face, I sensed that he was about to ask me about the design document that I was about 96

to submit and pre-empted by answering that I had sent the design document that he wanted to him via email ten minutes earlier. He opened his mouth to respond and closed it, in surprise. “I thought you would want to know the status”, I said innocently as an answer to his unspoken question.

During the course of the meeting and the rest of the day, I noticed that I was able to read the other person’s unspoken words and anticipate their next action, quite precisely. Considering that both abilities were attributable to luck as well as my newfound power, I had a fairly normal albeit a lucky day.

The day, the days following the next day, and the week following the week of my return from my journey, stayed equally lucky. A couple of times, I even used my luck to my advantage, flummoxing some smart alecks at work by placing their ideas with a few medications, across the table, as mine.

Friday evening at 5:30 PM, I got into my car to drive back home, secretly congratulating myself on my luck and achievements. I was about to turn my ignition key, when my cell-phone rang. I picked it up with a grimace; I assumed that it was someone from office who wanted to take me to my boss for some discussion; I hence was pleasantly surprised to hear Kal’s voice on the other end. The number looked like one of my office numbers. He confirmed my observation and informed me that he had come over to pick up some books from a nearby bookstore and would appreciate a ride back to his hostel. I smiled and told him that I would wait for him at the car park. Five minutes passed, there was no sign of Kal; I started getting impatient. I tried calling him on his mobile, but it was switched off.

As minutes kept ticking, my impatience turned into irritation and then into forthright panic; where was Kal? Did he get into some kind of trouble? I got out of my car and started walking aimlessly; my office as I had mentioned earlier was located inside a massive bus terminus. It was quite easy for a person to get lost in it; moreover there were many strange looking vagabonds who seemed 97

to have made the terminus their home. I was quite sure that some of those vagabonds were dangerous.

I tried calling him again on his mobile. Thankfully, this time, it started ringing. Kal picked it up after it rang a good eight times, and told me to wait a little longer. I lost my temper and told him that I was looking for him and was in a good mood of leaving him and walking off. He then told me that he could see me and asked me to turn left. I turned and saw him standing by an enclosure next to a vagabond, deeply engrossed in a conversation.

I saw red; I walked up to him and gave him a hard angry stare.

Before I could open my mouth, he said – “Adi, meet Smita. She used to come with us on our journeys in the past.” The vagabond smiled and extended her hand.

I hesitated; I did not feel like shaking hands with a dirty vagabond. She smiled and said – “I would understand perfectly well if you did not feel like shaking hands with me”. She then took leave of Kal and me and walked off into the bus terminus.

I looked quizzically at Kal; forgetting my anger. “She is a qualified lawyer, who tried to use her acquired powers to take advantage of someone to get what she felt was rightfully hers. She forgot that when one uses the powers to gain earthy benefits, one joins the league of power-abusers; by the time she realized, she was deep in the clutches of those more powerful than her, and far more dangerous. She escaped from their clutches, but is now stuck here.

She is too scared to move out, lest one of them caught her”, He replied.

“Why here?” I asked. “This is where most of the journeys begin” he responded cryptically and added – “try not to take advantage of people with your powers, because you would never know who the person in front of you is; if he is stronger than you, and has worse intentions, you also could end up getting caught in a web of your 98

own making”. I was surprised; he could not have possibly known what I had been doing.

Before I could ask him, he said nonchalantly – “I did not know what you were doing, but a couple of weeks after my mother and I came back home from my first journey, she gave me a similar lecture. I thought you would need one too.”

I felt an overwhelming urge to change the topic and asked him instead if he wanted to have a quick snack before we left for home. I had had a couple of long meetings during the day, had missed my lunch and was feeling quite hungry. Kal seemed to have sensed my discomfort as he did not pursue the topic any longer but agreed that having a snack was a good idea provided I was willing to pick the tab up, as he was broke. I did not mind shelling out a few bucks in exchange for some light company; so I shrugged and walked with him to a nearby fast-food centre.

At the fast food joint, Kal explained to me that the ability to read someone’s mind or anticipate someone’s words was indeed a power.

I did not believe that I possessed such a power, but agreed to play a game that proved that I did, with him. We kept guessing what the people around us were about to say; I found that my accuracy was too close to 100% to be ignored as a simple streak of luck and that I indeed possessed the power to read thoughts and anticipate the words of most of the people around me. I however was not able to read Kal’s thoughts, though by the events did reveal that he could read mine. He smiled mysteriously when I asked him why.

Fifteen minutes and a sandwich later, we headed off towards our car; when we reached there, I saw the lady Kal introduced me to as Smita standing out there. She told Kal to take care and thank his mother for being there. She then turned to me and told me to be very careful while using my powers. “Use them only to save and not to take advantage of another person” she said. She then turned towards Kal and told him that she now felt free and was planning to go back to life. “Dishana met me a few minutes ago. He told me that the life 99

of pain is now over for me. I was to go to the house of this friend, who would help me get back to my life. He also advised me that I should stop thinking about the factory and start again, from scratch.�

Kal wished her good luck and got into the car. I thanked the lady and in an act of penitence, took her hand and shook it warmly. She smiled, turned and walked away towards the main-road. I got into the car and checked the time; it was twenty five minutes from the time Kal gave me a call. It was almost as if the day sidestepped the time I spent waiting for Kal or talking to Smita in its progress towards completion. I looked at Kal, confused. He smiled and advised me to just remember the message and not the messenger or the class. Compared to the level of strangeness I encountered during the journey, as this time skip was quite a mild event, I decided to ignore it. Firmly telling myself to get used to strangeness, I started driving.

Kal did not mention the journey during the entire ride back to his hostel; he discussed instead about nature, flowers, weather, seasons, studies and how what we are taught in school does help us albeit indirectly to perform better at work. I burst out laughing when he explained how standing in line while listening to the sermons of our teachers makes us more tolerant while listening to a manager’s sermon about why we should continue putting in 20 hours a day without any increment for the next fifteen years or till we drop dead right there! I almost fell out of the car when he described grade sheets as indications of how much our faces resembled those much disliked distant relatives of our professors.

Finally when we reached his hostel, he told to wait while he picked up his bag. I looked at him quizzically. He told me that he was going to go back with me to my house. He was going to spend the weekend with me. I very sweetly told him that normally one should wait for the host or hostess to invite before deciding to spend a weekend in his or her house. I said “the dialogue normally goes 100

this way – why don’t you come over and spend the weekend with me; I could use some pleasant company”; his response – “don’t worry; I shall make sure you never are starved for company during this weekend. Just wait while I go pick my overnight bag up” with an air of false formality, made me feel like throwing the steering wheel, if I could wrench it off, on his lopsided grin.

However, considering that I surely did not mind some harmless, pleasant company at my place and that if I wrenched the wheel off, my nice car would become quite a useless appendage, I shrugged, let him go and waited patiently, twiddling my thumbs till he came back; when he did, I stared at the dirty oversized rucksack bursting with what looked like a large collection of dirty clothes, hung over his shoulder and wondered how he got the heart to call it an overnight bag.

When we reached home, he took a grand tour of the house before declaring that he would make himself at home on my couch, and I need not worry about him much. He then proceeded to ask me if I had a washing machine; he then littered my living room with dirty clothes, which he took in lots to the washing machine. I bit my tongue to stop it from lashing out at him when he cast the last straw by asking me if the dinner was ready. Noticing my anger, he fished out a couple of bowls of instant noodles, walked over to the kitchen saying – “why don’t you go give yourself a nice hot water bath while I get the noodles ready for both of us”.

I followed his advice, which at that point seemed the most wonderful one I had heard in my entire life; when I returned after my ablutions twenty minutes later, I did not feel too irritated when found him happily at home on my couch, surfing channels on TV. I in fact felt really amicable towards him when I saw the steaming hot noodles which he had laid out in paper plates on top of the central table, next to a pair of Styrofoam cups that held something that smelt like hot instant soup. I smiled broadly when on seeing me he asked if I had managed to overcome the temptation to smother him, 101

now that he had even cleaned up the mess that he had created, went and slouched next to him on the couch, picked up the cup of soup and asked him what he was waiting for.

Couple of hours and a scary movie on TV later, I bid him good night and went into my room, while he made himself at home on my couch. I got into my bed, happy to have found a good although aggravating friend, and drifted off into a hearty slumber.

I woke up with a start to someone knocking at my bedroom door. I opened it to see Kal standing with a lady clad in a pair of jeans that looked stylish but a couple of sizes bigger and a black turtleneck top. He introduced her to me as his mother and apologized to me for not waiting for my permission to let her into my house, before I could open my mouth.

The lady apologized for pulling me out of my bed but she had to as the next leg of the journey was about to begin shortly. She informed me that she would be embarking, but would disembark along the way. She asked me if I was keen on joining and if I was, asked me to get my bags ready. I hesitated; I was reluctant to leave the normal world and told them to carry on with the journey as I wanted to take it easy this weekend. “I was counting on you being with me this time”, pleaded Kal, looking sad but calm; “You see”, he added, “I gave my mother my permission to reach the next level and would surely feel better if you are around”.

“I am sure there would be others, if you need them”, I said, feeling compelled to say something that would help take the sadness off his eyes without having to actually agree to go with them.

“Dishana I am sure can guide you to do the right thing at the right time”, I added. Kal’s mother told him firmly to stop troubling me; they quickly bid me good night, told me to lock the door and left.

I went back to bed, but sleep evaded me. I felt that the next level might involve some painful decisions on Kal’s part and he really might need my presence. I felt guilty of not being there for a friend.

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I kept tossing in my sheets till wee hours of the morning; finally at around 5:00 AM; I decided that I should pack my clothes, call Kal and tell him that I was ready to go with them.

After packing my clothes, I tried calling Kal and found that his phone was out of coverage area. After four futile attempts, I gave up and went back to bed.

This time, thankfully I finally managed to catch the elusive wink.

When I woke up, daylight was streaming in through the large window of the journey vehicle. “Journey vehicle”! I exclaimed to myself; I was supposed to be at home in my own bed. I threw my hands up in anger. I was looking forward to another happy restful weekend and certainly was not comfortable with the idea of getting sleep transported on to another crazy seemingly virtual roller coaster ride.

I got up and stomped up to the driver’s cabin; Dishana was standing out there, holding the door open for me. He smiled at me and bade me to come in and close the door behind me.

The cabin was crowded; an entire group of Vedic people, some of the scientists that I had met when Kal and I visited their time, Archu, Kal, Kal’s mother, Var, the young lad who had gone with his great grandmother for the trek to Greater Himalayas, Stacy, the lady who led the group sent to save people in one of the war torn countries and many others whom I could not recognize, sat there, their faces grim.

Before I could open my mouth to ask or say something, Dishana quickly suggested that I should go freshen up and come back, for we were going to discuss something really serious. Walking dutifully towards the washrooms, I realized that these Vedic people seemed to have the power to make people follow their suggestions and think that it was the best course of action. I then remembered the incident 103

at the police station where they almost immediately agreed to my suggestion of taking the credit for their actions and letting me go and realized that I possessed a similar power. The curiosity about what Dishana wanted to discuss made me freshen up quickly and hurry back to the driver’s cabin.

When I reached there, however, I found that I was all alone. The driver’s cabin had got transformed into an ordinary looking one.

Gone were the hi-fi fittings of a space vehicle; the cushioned seats had got converted into dirty driver’s chairs and side bunks. I panicked, and was just about to leave the cabin when someone else walked in. It was the lady Smita, whom I had met at the bus terminus.

She was better dressed this time and held a sheet of paper that looked like a map in her hand. As a response to my shocked looks, she told me that she would help me reach the place we were supposed to go to and asked me if I knew how to drive. “How to drive”! I sputtered; I could drive a car and I had a private license. I however had never driven a commercial vehicle, let alone a monstrous bus before. I wanted to know where the others were, and what she and I were doing in this rickety old bus. “We are not in a bus, we are in a van, she said in response to my statement. Sure enough, when I walked out of the driver’s cabin, I realized that the bus somehow had got compressed into a van; when I turned around, the driver’s cabin was no longer there, the entire cabin had got converted into the front seat of a large van.

I sat down on the driver’s seat and burst into tears. “I do not want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere in a shape shifting bus with a half crazed ex-vagabond” I sobbed, “I hate not knowing where I am and want to go home”. Smita sat quietly on the seat next while I went about with bout of self pity and wailed like a pampered teenager; once I looked a little more composed, she held the map open on her lap and said “This is where we are and this is where we need to be. We got left behind because, you got delayed when you 104

chose not to travel and I got detained when I went against the rules to check on the factory; thankfully I came back in time to get the map from Dishana as he was leaving. Now it is up to us to decide where we want to go. In case you want to go home, the directions are all there in the map. I waited for my ride for ten years in that dirty bus terminus; now that I have gotten into it, I will go all the way till the end.�

I started trying to work out the options in my mind. The easiest way was to call a taxi, give my office or home address and tell them to drop me out there; but then I felt guilty about not being there for Kal when he needed me.

I looked at her, trying to see if she held any answers for my dilemma; she smiled patronizingly and told me that she felt sorry for me, but could not help me, in taking my call. She gave an appearance of a person who had committed some mistakes in her life and genuinely wanted to make amends, and not go about judging or deciding for others. I asked her if she had her driving license; she replied that she had not sat in a car let alone driven one, during the past ten years, which she spent in the bus terminus; yet she seemed all but set to grab the wheel from me, in case I was not willing to carry on.

I was not sure whether I would classify her determination into craziness or wisdom; nor was I sure if going ahead with her would make me a masochist or a genuine person. I toyed with the idea of opting out, going back to ordinary world where ordinary people like me dwelled and ignored vagabonds like Smita. The more I toyed with that idea, the less confident I became of my ability to face the fear of being clobbered by a lunatic who spent ten years in a bus terminus; my mind did not feel that it was the right time to test my courage or its consequences; moreover somewhere at the bottom of my heart, I did feel insulted by the fact that I got left behind and did want to get back to wherever the others were and ‘be there’ for Kal 105

as he wanted me to. Muttering under my breath about the craziness of it all, I turned the key and asked her to go ahead and navigate.

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Chapter – 22 The drive probably was the strangest one I ever took part in.

Initially it seemed quite normal. I kept driving for a couple hours, following Smita’s directions. Slowly as we kept driving, the scenery changed from a concrete jungle to lush green hedge and tree laden highway. There she made me take a detour into one of the country roads. There were lush green fields adjoining the road; the scenery was so colourful and mesmerizing that I drove around, following Smita’s instructions for more than an hour before realizing that we were actually going around in circles.

When I mentioned it to Smita that there probably was something wrong with the way she was reading the map, she stared at me hard, before instructing me loudly to stop the vehicle. Really scared to do otherwise, I stopped. The moment I did, she got down from the van and before I could stop her, walked off without saying a word.

I kept waiting for her to come back; seconds stretched into minutes and my feelings changed from irritation to panic. I was just about to pick up the map and look for the way back home when she came back. She held a pair of what looked like coffee mugs. She handed one over to me.

The fact that she got coffee mugs meant that there was civilization nearby, most probably within walking distance, I mused; all I needed to do was to ask her to take me back to the place where she picked the coffee up from; going back home from there would be easy. Perceiving a need to keep her in good humour till she took me there, I accepted the cup from her and took a small sip of the liquid and looked up to her in amazement; the liquid in the cup was diluted Soma.

She smiled at my obvious confusion and said – “Yes. We have reached our destination. All we need to do now is to wait”. “Wait for what?” I asked, irritation bringing courage to my voice, “Wait 107

for a truck to hit our van, wait for centuries to go past and we die here in the middle of nowhere?” Smita’s answer – “we can sit on the bench lying on the side of the road in case you are scared of getting run down by a passing truck” only managed to increase my irritation further. Muttering under my breath about strange people and meaningless journeys, I stomped out of the car, went and sat heavily on the bench that lay on the roadside.

I tried sulking for a little while and staying in a huff for a little more. The lady with me seemed completely at ease; she was humming some nursery rhymes and smiling to herself. Looking at her, I wondered if the entire journey was just a state of collective hysteria! I asked her if she could hand the map over to me; she smiled and complied with my request. I picked up the map, had a look at it and groaned in misery. There were no landmarks which I could use. The map was just a collection of roads, paths and some obscure landmarks.

Smita looked at my stricken face, pointed her finger on a green dot in one of the corners and said – “that is the clock tower near your office”. She then pointed to what looked like a representation of an intersection in the map and told me that that was where we were. She traced the route from the latter point to the former and said “In case you want to leave and go back, you just need to follow these roads, reach the clock tower, drop this vehicle off at the entrance of the park next to the tower and go where ever you feel like; In case you want to stay, I would like to tell you my story”.

I was not in a mood to listen to anything. She however started off; I sat there, half listening to her and toyed with the idea of going back. Now that I knew how, I felt less keen on turning back after having come this far. So with a little choice otherwise, I turned my attention to her story. It was a very sad one.

She was a law graduate from a reputed university; being one of the chosen ones, she went for one journey during graduation days where she found some of her powers; soon after her graduation, she 108

fought a case in court for her mother who wanted to stop someone from taking away what she felt was rightfully hers.

During the court proceedings, Smita tried to use her ‘influencing powers’ to get the judgement in her favour; things went on smoothly till the day of judgement; the judge in fact commended her in writing for her prowess and analytical abilities.

On the day of the judgement, unfortunately, there was someone with a higher level of power but negative intentions present in the court; this person through a strong negative influence ensured that the judgement went against Smita’s mother; he even made sure that the judge made a noting that would deter Smita’s mother from trying to fight the case again.

After losing the case, Smita tried helping her mother get her life back together; unfortunately, she continued using her powers for influencing people and winning favours. Things went on fine for a couple of years, till a couple of people with negative intentions entered her life and created a rift between her and her mother. She moved out and started living with one of them.

By the time she realized her mistake it was almost too late. She went to visit her mother one day and in her death bed; she had been starving for over two weeks as she was too ill to get up and there was no one to look after her. The mother died a couple of hours after Smita reached her side.

The death of her mother jolted Smita into action; but unfortunately, before she could take some drastic action, the negative people imprisoned her; they tortured her and tried to kill her. One day, she ran away from their clutches.

Unfortunately, though Smita managed to escape the physical manacles, she stayed mentally shackled by the negative forces; the only place where she could stay without a fear of death, she said was the bus terminus, where she waited for more than ten years for 109

someone to come and help her out. This was her last attempt to freedom. She was willing to go all the way for it.

Her story stirred my thoughts. I felt sad for her; I did not know that using ones powers was so bad and could result in such disastrous consequences. I then thought about the couple of times when I took advantage of the people at work with my newfound powers and decided that I would consciously try not to do something like that in future.

Immersed in my thoughts, I closed my eyes for a few minutes.

When I opened them, I saw Dishana, Tara and Kal walking towards me. I looked at the vehicle; it had shifted its shape and had turned into an armoured truck. When they reached me, Dishana held my hand and apologized for the inconvenience I had to go through and congratulated me on my decision to stay back, when given a choice.

He then instructed me to get back on the vehicle, for it was time to leave for the next leg of the journey.

I looked at the vehicle and wondered if we were going for a war; Dishana confirmed and said – “Yes, we are going to take part in a war between good and evil. You are needed there in the war, so please come”. Holding my hand, he guided me to the truck. As I walked along, I turned to Kal and apologized to him for not agreeing to go with him when he asked. He told me not to worry about it; but when he looked away, I saw that his eyes were tense with some strange worry and fear.

Once inside, I found that the interior had also changed; our enclosures were back in their place. Dishana took Kal and me into the driver’s cabin where he told me to get ready to take part in a really important activity. He then gave Kal and me a skin coloured body suit and a saffron coloured wrap each and told us to change into them. When Kal promptly proceeded to remove his clothes, he reminded him gently to go into the changing rooms and do so.

Shaking my head at Kal’s innocence, I quickly ran to the rear of the bus, changed in near lightning speed, sped back to the driver’s 110

cabin, and stood there panting. Dishana laughed, gave me the gilded knife that I had seen twice before during the previous legs of the journey, and bade me to sit. When Kal came back from where ever he was changing, Dishana gave him a bag. Kal sat down next to me, opened the bag with a smile and took out discus which looked like the one that he had made and used, during the previous leg of our journey.

After finished checking his discus, Dishana asked him and me individually if we were prepared for going ahead. Kal affirmed without any hesitation; though he strangely seemed a little sad. I hesitated, before confirming. Dishana then told us to go back to our enclosures and get some rest while we could.

Kal mechanically got up and walked back to his enclosure; I looked quizzically at Dishana. He told me to stick close to him as he would need me. He also advised that as soon as the bus stopped, I was to run out with Kal, where ever he went. I felt his request a little strange, but felt that I would not receive any further information even if I probed further and would only end up wasting my time. So I dutifully went back to my enclosure, eased myself into the recliner which stood within, closed my eyes and relaxed as instructed.

A little while later, Dishana’s voice spoke into my ears; he told me that we were about to reach the destination and Instructed me to stick as close as I could to Kal. I looked over and saw him standing next to the enclosure, distraught. I went and stood next to him. He was staring hard at the door oblivious to my presence next to him.

As soon as the vehicle stopped and the doors opened, Kal rushed out like a bullet from a gun. I followed him, wondering why he was in such a hurry.

Once I reached the door, however, I stalled. As compared to where we were, my wait with Smita on the bench was less of a nowhere (if one could compare one ‘nowhere’ with the other), because, now we were really in the middle of nowhere. Our spaceship was suspended somewhere in the space. It was dark and 111

bright at the same time. We were in the middle of a vortex of energy.

Remembering Dishana’s instructions, I flew and joined Kal who seemed to be desperately moving towards something that looked to my dismay like the dead body of his mother.

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Chapter – 23 As soon as we reached the spot, Kal fell down to his knees and started weeping profusely like a child. I looked around not knowing what to do and saw Dishana standing a little distance away. He beckoned me to hold Kal while he wept. Once Kal seemed to be done crying, Dishana came to us and told Kal to calm down, as his mother most probably would come back.

Kal however seemed too broken to heed those words; he kept repeating the sentences – “I should have been here a little sooner” and “I should have given a little more time to myself” over and over again. Dishana told me to take Kal back with me to the journey vehicle. I held Kal close and dragged him along, while Dishana went back to the place where Kal’s mother’s body lay. Once we reached the vehicle, Tara took Kal to his enclosure and she gave him something that looked like a leaf.

Kal looked at it and her quizzically. Tara said “yes, it is the same leaf you gave her. This is her blessing for you. Keep it with yourself till you meet her again. If she comes back in time, you can give it to her”. Kal burst into tears. Tara kept consoling him till finally he calmed down, took a string, tied the leaf with it and tied the string around his neck. Tara then gave him a glass of diluted Soma. Kal drank this and seemed stronger.

She then took me to the door of the vehicle and pointed to the scene outside told me to observe it carefully. I stared at the bright darkness. For a little while, I could not make anything out; a couple of seconds later, however, I could make out the pattern; the place was filled with seemingly formless forms; some of which were extremely bright and the others were really dark. As I watched intrigued, I could make out that these forms seemed to be clashing with one another. Sometimes one of the forms would collapse; if the collapsing form was brighter, the area where they clashed would get engulfed in darkness till another brighter form reached there.

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Tara told me that these forms were the forces or the energy that governed our lives. She told me not to judge them by their brightness but to watch them carefully and see if I could catch their vibes. On a closer observation, I began to gather their sensations.

Some seemed magnificent and yet malevolent. They seemed to crave for glory at others’ expense. Yet others seemed to be giving out light and life for others; they seemed to represent the energies of kindness and compassion. Some seemed to emit a sense of valour, whilst some seemed serene and invoked protective instincts in the hearts of the onlooker.

Tara told me that the forms that I was viewing were the ethereal energy beings that governed the everyday lives of every living and non-living entity of the world. Depending upon the feeling they govern, their ethereal forms would take a certain shape, colour and would emit the appropriate vibe. “They govern your thoughts, and your thoughts in turn govern them”, she added – “as you can see the ones with the malicious expressions as you perceive are the malicious forces and vice versa. The powers of good and evil exist as micro entities inside every one of us and the internal tussle between these powers in our being, collectively manifest in the ethereal plane, in the form as you now can witness. If you watch closely, you can see that the positive and benevolent energies are losing their battle against energies of malevolence and selfishness.

Many of us have through eternity have been helping the positive energy beings, at this plane in their battle with the malevolent forces; but the forces of good have become too powerless at this point and are losing out, in spite of help from many, including some people like Kal’s mother and Smita over there.

Sure enough, I saw Smita out there, engaged in a raging battle with a being, which looked wonderfully evil. She obviously was losing, but seemed ready to die fighting.

Without waiting for Tara’s instructions about me joining the battle, I started running towards Smita and found my path blocked 114

by a being, which looked small and weak. I looked towards Tara who explained that this being was the manifestation of the energy that made me try to misuse my powers. She added that the being was still weak, as I started fighting against the temptation before it became too strong, thanks to timely advice from Kal and Smita.

I started fighting the being and found myself complimented by a gorgeous feminine being. I assumed that the being represented some good energy in me and continued my fight, thus reinforced.

This fight was tough; these beings needed no weapons; the malevolent beings could inflict feelings of temptation, pain of losing something precious, physical pain, pain of failure, fear of being cheated and sometimes fear for life just by being there and emitting a vibe; these beings seemed to have the ability to make a person lose balance and fall off the plane.

The benevolent beings on the other hand, through a similar process inflict feelings like trust, sense of well being, happiness, compassion or hope; they also seemed to possess the ability to soothe, heal and help one regain ones balance and stand tall.

Caught between such strong opposing energies, I fought. My body got broken and healed multiple times. My head ached due to the repeated blows, I sensed myself being slowly strangled by the evil being whilst the feminine being was working with me, in trying to wrestle the person off; the feminine being sent messages to me to think with empathy about the poor woman who gave me the bag for my journey and Smita who spent many years of her youthful life in abject misery at the bus terminus. These thoughts seemed somehow the rejuvenate me; with enhanced vigour, I pushed hard at the evil being; the being staggered back a few steps; taking advantage of this, the feminine power caught hold of it and squashed it like a oversized gnat. The evil being got melted into a formless current of energy that whirled for a while and disappeared into nothingness.

The job done, this being, to my amazement expanded into a large 115

luminous immensity of energy that spread around the infinitum and blended with it.

I flew towards the place where Smita was battling with her energies and by the looks of it, seemed to be losing her fight; as I flew towards her, I saw to my amazement the magnificently evil being inducing her to strangle herself; the benevolent being in her was trying to make her resist the temptation to destroy herself.

Before I could reach to her aid, she managed to overcome the evil energy controlling her; and make it collapse into the positive energy that governed her. I was just about to rejoice when I noticed that her positive power had diminished to near nothingness and was fading fast. She also seemed to be damaged beyond help. When I finally reached her, I found her near the verge of collapse; she however had a satisfied smile on her lips.

“Thank you for coming to my aid”, she rasped “your willingness to come here helped me reach here in time to end my evil energy before it could harm others. Now that it managed to help you overcome your temptation, my pain has finally become worthwhile.

I now can move on with the knowledge that I have finally overcome...” She collapsed in my arms, dead with a satisfied smile on her lips halfway through her sentence.

I stood there for a while; tears came streaming down my eyes over the sad story and the painful ending of this poor lady. Tara came over and helped me to carry the body back to the vehicle. In the bus she told me that I could use my knife to slash out at the malevolent energy. “Think of a noble thought while doing so, she said the thought will propel your movements and cut the energy” I then flew back to the war zone and started fighting another handsome yet evil form alongside a kind but weak looking form.

The evil ones negative energy was too strong; it was trying to weaken my will to leave and my faith in my ability as a human; it was affecting me like one of the brainwashing sessions I was forced to attend in one of the villages where the speaker kept droning on 116

and on about how a woman’s primary role was to provides for man’s needs. After trying to use my strong will power in vain for some time, I finally decided to use the knife. I first pushed it hard into the area where if the form were human, its heart would lie. True to the statement that evil is heartless, the knife had no effect; I started striking the form randomly and accidently stuck it at what could be the loins. The being burst into millions of tiny dark spots; these spots spiralled for a while and got reduced to nothingness. In spite of the morbidity of the situation, I felt like laughing; I should have guessed sooner as to where the energy form that forces women to think of themselves as need satisfiers of men, would have been focussed.

I kept fighting, moving from one evil to the other. Some of the forms seemed more clearly human like and had hands that seemed to be heavily bejewelled. Those beings that held those forms looked like the bandits; in their presence I felt as if I was getting looted by a group of hoodlums. Guessing the focal points of those energy forms correctly, I directed my knife at those projections that resembled bejewelled hands, and was successful in flouting the energy forms into nothingness.

Gloating at my success, I moved on to another area where a group of real sinister looking forms flocked; this group seemed too tough to break. Their energies were so strong that they started making me feel like a useless creature, fit only for a painful death.

Repeated lashes with my knife had no effect on them. Some of the lashes harmed me badly on the rebound. After a few hours of fight my body and spirit was broken; the energy forms that were fighting against these forms seemed too weak to fight back let alone rejuvenate me. I was just about to swoon when I saw Kal and Shoolin come flying towards me. The carried me off from the scene of battle to a bright area.

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Chapter – 24 There in the midst of brightness which seemed like the light of millions of wonderful beings blended into one, stood Dishana, Yama, Pusan, Mitra, Varuna, Indra, Agni, Vayu, Jwala, Tara, Ratri, Archu, Stacy, Dev, Nandan, Var and many others; they seemed to be dancing to some inaudible music. When Kal and I reached there, they told us to join them in the cosmic dance. “I did not know how a dance would help restore the positive energy� I said and received a patronizing look from Dishana. He told us that the intention of the dance was to gather our collective energy and create a vortex where creation could take place.

I laughed at the idea, but Kal who seemed to have understood the intention came up with the idea that the effect would be stronger if we joined hands and danced as a single being.

We formed the circle, the bright forces came together to form a large pyramidal structure of light. The structure started moving as a single entity. Faster and faster we twirled. Soon our individual forms started blurring as we seemed to have joined together as a single large ring, in the middle of which, the pyramid structure formed by the positive energy swirled.

The twirling and swirling continued for some time, reminding me of a stirred tank reactor that I read about in my college. I was waiting for something amazing to take place, but nothing happened; the pyramid and the ring was getting weaker and were at the verge of collapse.

Kal again came up with the idea. He felt that in order to have a perfect blender, we need a mix of good and evil; to create great things one needs to have the desire to possess those great things. He said that the only way we could make the wish for things stronger, is to wish them for ourselves.

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He asked all of us to think of all great things we would do for ourselves if we became the most powerful beings in the world and twirl harder to get the thing that we needed to make us powerful.

Kal’s words reenergized the group; the element of selfishness seemed to have added the necessary fortifying hues to the pyramid as well. Thus fortified, pyramidal structure became stronger, with lighter and darker hues contrasting and complementing each other.

Kal then took-off the thread with the leaf tied to it from around his neck and placed it on the structure. As I watched, fascinated the thread slowly got entwined into the structure and strengthened it further.

As the twirling continued, the structure grew larger and heavier.

Suddenly to our shock, we realized that it started moving downwards, taking us down along with it.

We all went down at near lighting speed and touched down inside what looked like a large derelict nuclear centre and stood awkwardly, in a circle, holding each others’ hands around a cyclotron.

The cyclotron seemed to be emitting all kinds of strange radiations. The vortex and the pyramid swirled translucently around the cyclotron. I got a little scared. I did not want to be exposed to strange radiations and die of cancer; I was about to break the circle, when suddenly Shoolin said – “wait, don’t break the circle. Keep twirling. I know what the source of all this radiation is”.

Without breaking the circle, he placed the left hand of Archu who was standing on to his right on the right hand of Var, who was on his left and stepped into the circle. He then bade Kal and me to follow similar steps so that the circle stayed complete before stepping in.

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When all three of us were inside, he asked Dishana to shield the people while he did what he was to do. Dishana smiled and nodded his head, without breaking the step.

Shoolin then crossed over quickly to the cyclotron, opened the structure, took out a small metallic sphere from which the radiations seemed to be getting emanated and, before we could stop him, swallowed it up.

I screamed and held his throat tight, preventing the metallic sphere from entering his alimentary canal. Kal yelled at his folly and asked him to try spitting the awful sphere out. As we stood helpless, Shoolin’s neck started turning black; his throat was getting burnt by the radiations emitted by the sphere; He was also slowly getting chocked by the combined effect of the sphere and my hands.

It was only a matter of time it seemed before he let his last breath.

Dishana, who had also stepped into the circle, while we were busy trying to get Shoolin to spit the sphere out, took the gilded knife from my belt, made a small cut in Shoolin’s throat, put the fingers of his right hand in and pushed the sphere up; the sphere came out of Shoolin’s mouth, covered with his blood and fell into Dishana’s outstretched left hand. Acting on reflex, I quickly tore my saffron robe and tied it around his neck, stemming any blood flow.

Dishana examined the sphere; its radiations seemed to have stopped. “Thank god we came in time, only the surface had got activated” he said before throwing the sphere on the ground. He then turned towards Shoolin and asked him how he felt; Shoolin was unable to talk, but his eyes expressed pain, gratitude and guilt.

Dishana then told me that it was Shoolin who travelled in time and placed the sphere in the cyclotron. He wanted to create an object that could be used to create an energy centre. He did not realize that such a thing could have disastrous results unless closely controlled.

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When the Government that funded the Cyclotron project lost money and hence interest in the project and abandoned it, Shoolin gave up his idea of creating the power centre, but did not bother to remove the sphere as he did not realize that the sphere had by then, absorbed enough energy to enable prolonged operation of the Cyclotron, thus activating a vicious cycle that would have caused enormous destruction if not stopped.

I realized that Shoolin’s desire to undo the damage caused by his folly was genuine and he was willing to stake his life for the same.

I looked at his face; he looked ghastly - at the verge of collapse. At my worried expression, Dishana told me not to worry; Shoolin was tougher than what he seemed. Thanks to my prompt action, we managed to prevent the sphere from going past his heart.

I replied that I was more worried about the effects of the radiation which his throat seemed to have taken in from the object.

Dishana replied that if our cosmic dance produced the necessary outcome, we would be able to save Shoolin from the ill effects of those radiations. He added that the burns on Shoolin’s neck and throat however would never get completely cured. His voice would forever be muffled; speech would be extremely painful for him and his neck would forever be dark.

As Dishana was explaining, I turned around and realized that the formation had started moving up. Dishana told them to continue the cosmic twirling; they seemed too willing to comply with his orders to act otherwise.

As I watched a little perplexed, the huge circular formation with the pyramid of light and the four of us in centre, took off from that now dysfunctional nuclear centre.

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Chapter – 25 During our flight, which seemed endless, I wondered aloud about the way people were busy atoning for their sins to think of their lives. Shoolin willingly swallowed what seemed to be a sure shot pill to death; Smita fought with the forces to death till her very end. I looked at Dishana with a question if Kal’s mother died while atoning for her sins; Dishana replied that she died while trying to reach the next level, battling the negative energies. I cringed trying not to think of what my act of atonement would be.

When we finally reached hyperspace; the reactor resumed its original form and the stirring process continued almost as if it had never stopped.

The twirling and swirling continued for a few more hours; those in the circle seemed to be getting tired and started losing their rigour; some of them slowed down and started looking around wondering why they were wasting their time in the middle of nowhere.

I looked at Dishana quizzically, he told me that the energy was not getting concentrated enough to provide the expected output as there was an outlet at the bottom; I was not sure what the outcome was, but the only way to get the job over and done with, seemed to be to get the outlet sealed.

Kal again came to rescue with another one of what seemed to be his brilliant plans – he took his discus, flew down to the bottom of the high energy area, held it above his head and started whirling it.

The discus seemed to have done the trick by creating an obstruction that prevented the energy from escaping, as slowly we could see the energy vortex building up. The build-up added a fresh spurt of energy to the twirling beings who resumed the cosmic dance with a burst of vigour.

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After what seemed like a couple of hours of twirling, swirling and swelling, the vortex managed to metamorphose into a large maelstrom that threatened to suck everything around it into its core.

A great steam of positive energy started emerging from the centre of the maelstrom. This energy looked like an extra powerful beam of laser, which shot towards the edge of the very universe.

Dishana with a swift movement of the hand ordered that the circle be broken. Once the circle broke, the pyramid that kept churning the vortex disintegrated into individual forms. They all got ready to jump into the vortex when Dishana held them back. He told them that unless carefully worked out, the cosmic energy would disintegrate into nothingness; so we had to wait for the right moment to enter the maelstrom.

The energy forms moved away and started getting clustered into groups. From the vibes that the groups emanated, their intentions could be made out. Some of them coveted the power; the others wanted it for all.

While the energy forms were busy in their discussions, Dishana called me aside and whispered that he needed me to get into the vortex which now had enough super-energy to rejuvenate the positive powers of the world, get sucked into the maelstrom, take it along with me and disburse the energy evenly all over. I looked at him, scared and agreed to do the needful only after he assured me of my safety.

Before I could jump into the vortex however, the malevolent beings surrounded it, preventing me from going anywhere near it.

They were too scared to enter it, lest it harmed them; but they did not want to share it with anyone else either. I stood there wondering what to do next; Kal came up with yet another one of his brilliant acts; he started twirling his discus, creating another similar and probably brighter vortex. Almost as if on a cue, all of us – Dishana, Shoolin, all the other Vedic beings and I, rushed towards that false vortex.

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The malevolent energy forms saw us running towards the false vortex; they seemed confused – their inherent lack of trust in one another was making them wonder which one of the two vortices was the real one. Moreover, if there were two vertices, they wanted to be the ones who owned both.

Kal’s ruse was successful; the malevolent forces let their guard down and started clamouring after Kal, who flew around, leading them into a wild goose chase. Grabbing that opportunity, Shoolin led me over to the real super-energy vortex, and pushed me hard into its centre.

The impact was overwhelming. I felt my being broken into a countless number of micro-particles that joined the giant spiral of the vortex. There was energy everywhere - pure, potent, fertile, benevolent, selfless energy. As I flowed along the vortex, it spread, disbursing pure positive energy across the world.

As a constituent of the vortex, I watched wonderstruck as the energy flew through the past, healing the survivors from battles of the past and making them whole to live in peace in an ethereal world; I swirled around as it then flowed through the present – effecting people to believe in one another and work for each other; I continued to witness the wonder, as a key ingredient, when the positive energy flowed through the future; it even flowed into those who Shoolin, his team, Kal and I had rescued during my previous endeavour - instilling hope, self respect and self reliance in them.

The vortex finally came back to the ethereal plane, where it brought some of our team mates including Kal’s mother, who had fallen while fighting the malevolent forces, back to life, before it calmed down and disappeared into a beam of brightness. This beam circled all those beings standing there, disbursed its energy and dispersed into nothingness.

When the beam had finally got disbursed and dispersed completely, I looked at myself and discovered to my chagrin that 124

my body no longer existed. It had disintegrated the moment I entered the vortex. My form was reduced to a flaming flash of light.

I felt like screaming out. I was just a simple human, who wanted to live a happy life; I had never bargained for complete physical disintegration. I moved around towards Kal and Shoolin trying to complain about my state to them; they seemed too much in awe of me to bother about how I felt.

I was just about to move over to Dishana angrily, when a scream startled me to halt. Some of the malevolent beings who seemed to have realized that the true super-energy vortex was completely dispersed, ran towards us and in a fit of anger, took hold of Archu, Stacy and a couple of scientists from the team of scientists; the other evil beings joined the captors, surrounding them, forming a fort like structure imprisoning our team mates.

The positive energy forms started battling the negative ones. The fight was fiery and fantastic to say the least. There were no weapons; the energy fields clashed by ramming into each other till one of them disintegrated. Thanks to the positive super-energy imbibed, the positive energy forms were able to ram most of the negative energy forms into oblivion quite easily.

We could see the fortress weakening and were just about to relax when the screams of our teammates rose out; “the negative forces are torturing our friends� said Kal. The screams made the positive energy forms stop midway in their attack and move away from the fortress, too scared that if we continued to attack, the malevolent forces might take the ire out on our poor teammates.

We looked on helplessly, unable to think of the next step. Even Kal looked lost. I who had recently got morphed into a flaming brightness stood there, flummoxed, my being erupting into flames.

Suddenly Shoolin came towards me, held the flaming brightness I had turned into in his left hand and threw me on the malevolent 125

energy forms that had caught hold of our friends; this impact seemed too much for those energy forms, for they all disintegrated into nothingness, the moment I touched them.

I felt exhilarated to prove useful even in this form for rescuing friends. The exhilaration did not last long when I realized that I could only look at people who were hugging each other in happiness and was unable to take part in it. I stayed there, glowing a little sadly, when Dishana came over to me and touched my glow with reverence, before turning around and flying off towards the vehicle.

The others followed him at his wake; ignoring me completely. I did not know what to do; so I quietly followed them to the vehicle.

When I reached the vehicle, they all stood aside and allowed me to enter. They waited outside the bus as I moved towards my enclosure.

When I reached the enclosure, I found that it now was remodelled to look like a shrine. A large altar like structure stood in the place where the bed was located earlier. It made sense; “my bed would have burnt into cinders if I tried to lie upon it in my present form�, I thought before placing myself in the altar. The moment I occupied the altar, everything went dark.

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Chapter – 26 When the light returned, I found that I was happily lying down on the luxurious bed in my enclosure. I opened the blinds and saw Kal and Shoolin standing without; I joyfully walked with them towards and into the driver’s cabin and found that it was as crowded as it was when this leg of journey began.

Kal’s mother, who was sitting next to Dishana, got up and thanked me for bringing her back to life. Shoolin also thanked me in a slightly raspy but almost normal voice. He said that thanks to my efforts, he was completely free from any negative effects of the radiation. “My neck would stay in its darkened state, though”, he said smiling; “it would keep reminding me not to try becoming God” he added.

It felt great to be able to walk, hold hands and talk like a normal person and be a part of the fun. So I sat down happily and savoured the feeling of being complete for a few minutes. Once I got over my euphoria, I looked around and inquired about Smita whom I could not see anywhere; Tara replied that Smita had finally found peace and hence would never come back. I was not sure what they meant, but I did not probe further, as the entire gathering looked happy with the response.

After a round of happy discussions, most of us returned to our designated places and sat back on the seats that our enclosures had got modified into. The mood was jubilant. All of us felt elated and light hearted. Kal seemed to be enjoying himself the most. He seemed over-excited, having lost and gotten his mother back. He was singing aloud and dancing about merrily. Many joined him; when one of them started reciting silly rhymes in a sing-song voice, others joined her.

Kal’s mother suddenly called for attention and suggested a game where we all created code names for one another; Kal became Mr. 127

Discus, Shoolin became Mr. Black Neck; For my code name, three alternate suggestions came up - Ms. Fire, Ms. Bright Light and Ms. Energy; Kal suggested Ms. Difficult to get; I came up with a suggestion – Ms. Reluctant angel. Kal’s mother said – “we all are reluctant angels. Can you believe that during my second trip Tara had to tie me up to my bed to prevent me from running away”!

An announcement interrupted our laughter. Dishana informed us that due to some turbulence in the earth’s crust, caused by a meteor impact, volcanoes and infernos had erupted trapping many innocent people and animals. He needed some of us to go along with him and Yama to save as many as we could. He called out for volunteers.

I volunteered immediately without any hesitation earning a “so much for a reluctant angel” look from Kal, who also offered to come along. Shoolin, Archu, Dev, Var and Stacy volunteered as well; Dishana told Archu, Dev and Var that it would not be advisable for the three of them to go for this task as they still had not learnt to handle fire.

I was surprised that Kal’s mother did not volunteer, but when Dishana turned around towards her and started giving instructions on what was expected from her, I realized that her involvement was an unstated obvious. He told Stacy to stay close to Kal’s mother and follow her instructions verbatim.

A couple of hours later, we reached our destination, picked up digging equipment, fire extinguishers, bags of water and other essential commodities before alighting the vehicle.

The sight that met us when we got off was dismal at its best and horrendous at its worst. Half burnt carcasses of animals of strange species were strewn all over the place. The air was putrid; breathing was getting more difficult with every passing second. It was scorching; the whole earth seemed to be on fire. The situation seemed dismal; living creatures of every kind were running helterskelter, their coats, hair and manes on fire; at the bed of a nearly 128

dried up lake; strange animals were rolling in the muddy waters, trying desperately to douse the fire that was threatening to burn them alive.

We were just wondering how and where we could find humans in such an inferno when suddenly we heard them screaming helplessly from beyond what looked like a whole forest on fire.

We flew in the direction from which the screams seemed to have emanated; half-way there, we all came to a halt. There was a huge wall of fire that blocked our way. Kal’s mother told Kal, Shoolin and me to go ahead into the fire. She told me that she and Stacy would stay there and get things ready to help those whom we would bring back with us from the fire.

I asked her where Dishana and Yama were; she told me that we would find them on the other side of the fire. Kal, Shoolin and I looked at each other, took a deep breath, closed our eyes, held each others’ hands and flew into the inferno.

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Chapter – 27 There was raging fire all around us; we kept our thoughts as happy as we could but, as we kept flying, the power of happy thoughts started diminishing. As the thoughts turned sad, the heat started building up, making us feel more miserable. We seemed to be getting into a vicious spiral that slowly moved us nearer to our end.

Shoolin started humming a tune; Kal joined him. I had never heard the tune before but it reminded me of a brook that came flowing down hills. My heart grew gladder; the effect of the fire started receding; soon I stopped feeling the heat all together. With renewed vigour, we kept flying and soon emerged from the wall of fire and found ourselves in a plain that seemed surrounded by fire on all four sides.

We looked for the trapped humans and found them huddled together in a dry river bed. Their eyes looked wild; some were screaming aloud begging for help, whilst the others simply were staring at the raging circle of fire as if they were waiting for the end to come. Shoolin went to them and asked them if there was a way to break the ring of fire. They looked strangely at us; one of them opened their mouth and replied in a voice that reflected his lack of hope pointing wildly in the direction opposite to the one we flew in from “yes, there is a way, but it is beyond us. Somewhere upriver, there is ample water that can save us; unfortunately to reach there, one has to go through the wall of fire”. “Even if you reach there, it is nearly impossible for one to break the barrier that is blocking the water; alas! There is no hope for us”, another from the group lamented.

The mission now seemed more concretely laid out. Kal told the trapped beings to hang on as long as they could and assured that that help was on its way; before they could respond, he held Shoolin’s 130

and my hands and soared off, taking us with them, while the trapped humans watched us, open mouthed.

This time, wall of fire was hotter and was spread over a larger distance; our flight seemed longer and riskier. Kal sang aloud in a melodious voice, all along the way - minimizing the impact; however, by the time we reached the other end, my skin felt scorched.

I told the two of them that we had to find water quickly and do the needful before it was too late; “There it is” said Kal, sounding really angry. I also saw it and what I saw turned me livid. A group of people had created a tall structure that resembled a crude dam.

This dam was blocking the flow of the river, preventing water from flowing downstream.

“Don’t be mad at them” said Shoolin. “They blocked the river as they needed water for their fields. – these people are fools; only they did not visualize all possible consequences of their actions”. “They probably have still not realized in their folly, that if the fire spreads, it would be on them so fast that they will not have time to use this water to douse it; more of over, if you notice, the river also is flooding so fast that sooner or later, it surely will burst this primitive dam, killing all of them”, said Kal. “Why don’t we leave it to nature”, he suggested. “I am sure by the looks of it that, the dam will burst any time now, taking the water downstream, dousing the fire”.

I felt otherwise; I told them that the fire was spreading so fast that if we left now, the people stuck in the fire would surely get charred to death; their deaths will be followed by those of these people, who most certainly would drown in the flood they themselves were responsible for. “These people would drown if we broke the dam now”, replied Shoolin to my suggestion; “Are we the right persons to decide the death of some over that of the others”?

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We were just mulling over the dilemma when Kal’s mother and Stacy reached us from the opposite direction. Kal’s mother told us that there was an elevated spot upstream, where these foolish people would be completely safe, while we broke the dam down. When Shoolin and Kal’s mother explained the situation and the plan to the water blockers, most of them looked scared and agreed to leave with Kal’s mother and Stacy and started following them, towards safety.

Some of them however stayed back; they were reluctant to leave their homes and move out. Some were willing but too old or too weak to move; they looked longingly towards their departing friends. Kal and Shoolin carried them, two at a time, to safety.

After the last of the willing ones moved off the dangerous area, we turned towards the rest and found that their madness was beyond help. They told us categorically that the only way we could break the dam down was over their dead bodies. We ignored them, flew to the top of the crude dam and started removing the boulders, from there.

The people, who valued their assets above their safety and the safety of their fellow beings, started throwing stones at us, hampering our progress. One of the stones hit me hard on my head; I lost my temper, and pushed hard at a large boulder right in the middle of the wall; the wall breached with a loud crash, the flood waters gushed out, drowning my attacker and a couple of his crazy partners. The others screamed out in fear and started running towards the fire; Kal, Shoolin and I flew down, and swooped a few off them off the ground, while the others got caught in the flood, that flowed downriver, dousing the fire as it went.

We flew down along the river, carrying our salvage and reached the first group of people who earlier were trapped by fire and now were in the danger of getting caught in a flood. We deposited our salvage at a spot where they were not in an immediate danger from fire or flood, before moving the trapped lot there.

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As we moved them, we realized that though they were safe at that moment, we had to find a way to move them away from there, quickly. Flying was not an option as the flood was rising fast, and the victims were many.

Just then Kal’s mother and Stacy flew in, carrying two large boats, complete with ropes and oars. “We found these boats upstream”, Stacy said. Kal’s instructed the people to get on those boats and row down the river to safety. After we helped majority of the people from the first group on to the boats, I cast a look at those we had rescued from upriver. These people had earlier flouted our efforts; now they looked scared for their lives, their eyes imploring us to save them as well. Thankfully the boats were large enough to take all of them; we told them to go ahead, hop on and row with all their might.

They followed our instructions and rowed off to safety. We watched them till they disappeared from our sight. “I hope they stay safe”, I said. “They should be fine; they and those we left upstream now have to work out the way to take their lives forward; we should let them be now. We have done what we were required to do”, Kal’s mother responded and started off towards the vehicle. We followed her, with a hope in our hearts about the future of the people we rescued.

Chapter – 28 After we all settled back in our respective seats, a hologram was flashed in front of us. This hologram showed some people worshipping large Statues of Kal’s mother, Stacy, Kal, Shoolin and me. Kal’s mother’s and Stacy’s statues seemed to be standing in water, pointing at something; whilst Kal, Shoolin and I were depicted holding each others’ hands, surrounded by fire; I felt embarrassed at becoming an object of deification; I felt that I was not worth the adoration doled out on me. I looked at Kal and Shoolin, the expressions on their faces told me that their thoughts 133

were similar to mine. Stacy burst into tears and thanked God for making her life worthwhile.

Dishana called for attention. He first thanked all of us for taking part in the journey and the various adventures that it entailed. He then went on to add that those of us, who sacrificed our beings for others, managed to transcend ourselves to stand par with lesser angels. There was loud clapping and cheering all around at his words. Once the cheering died down, he smiled and added that the journey and the powers we possessed and the revered status we enjoyed placed a few responsibilities on us.

He then went on to explain that, as we all could now see, we all were a part of a continuum, an eddy. Depending upon the plane of perception, it takes form or forms; a smooth flow is essential to ensure its continuation; disturbances and corrections do happen from time to time; when perceived in a form, the disturbances take form of those malevolent beings, the corrections take our forms, which in turn are aided by the energies of correct flow, which take forms of bright benevolent energy.

A true rectification occurs, only when the corrective or remedial force disappears along with the disturbance. He congratulated Kal’s mother and me on becoming perfect remedial forces.

He then went on to add that becoming what we are does not stop us from going back into the perception level that we call the real world. He advised that we can and must live in that world as normally as every other being does, knowing what we are, but not letting the knowledge come in the way of leading a normal life.

“Even God wept when he saw the ornaments and prayed for liberation, on the cross” he said “they knew, yet they lived. Follow the perfect example set by those perfect beings”.

He then asked us all to go back to bed and get on with our lives; we went back to our seats to find the Ganas busy remodelling them.

Just before they left, the Ganas hugged us and hoped that they 134

would see us all again. Dishana, who was standing at the door, told them and us that we would be embarking on the next leg of our journey soon; he would let us know when.

We all went back to our beds. This time, I was not surprised to wake up in my house and find that it was Monday morning. Nor was I surprised by the reactions of my colleagues on the brightness of or the glow on my face; I knew that I could understand what the others wanted to say and knew what they meant to do, but knew equally well that they did not have the power to know what I did, and one should live on an equality basis. So on Monday, the days and the next couple of weeks that followed, I followed Dishana’s instructions, behaving like a normal human being and tried to stay as benevolent as humanly possible.

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Chapter – 29 A couple of weeks later, on a late Friday evening, as I was passing by the clock tower, I got an overwhelming urge to walk into the building housing that tower and find out what exactly was there inside it. I parked my car on the roadside and was just about to enter the building when a boy stopped me and said – “you may not enter till you exit and you may not walk away either till you exit.” I stared at him unable to comprehend what he was trying to say. He repeated his previous statement and added – “you however may not exit, till you arrive!”

I stared at him, completely confused. “How can I exit the building without entering it? Why can I not walk away“, I wondered. The boy laughed aloud, said something about spacetime-continuum and ran off across the street.

I stood there - watching him as he jumped off the embankment on the road and ran off into what looked like an old hovel and trying to decipher the meaning behind his strange words. Unable to decrypt the cryptic message if any in them, I shrugged, turned around to walk back to the car and let out a yell of dismay.

There was no car; the road I had earlier parked it on did not exist either. I was standing in the middle of what looked like a foyer of a huge mansion. In the very spot where I had parked my car a few minutes ago, stood a tree.

The fact that the tree was the most amazing one I had seen in my entire life did very little to allay my panic. I turned around to see if by doing so, I could get back to the place I was before; when turning around did not help, I resigned myself to fate or Sanskritam or Maya or whatever was making cars and roads disappear and started examining the tree more critically.

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Its trunk and branches seemed hand crafted to perfection out of pure gold. The leaves seemed like masterpieces carved out of pure jades; the fragrance that emanated from the silvery white flowers was heavenly and mesmerizing, whilst the fruits seemed to be made of rubies.

I went near the tree, touched it and found that it was real. I plucked a fruit and gingerly bit into it. Its taste was beyond any earthy description. I stood there, savouring the fragrance and the taste, all but tempted to pluck all the fruits and gobble them up, when voice brought me back from my reverie.

It was the familiar voice of Dishana, wishing me a good day. He was dressed in a business suit and seemed to be on the way to some place. He walked over to me and thanked me for stopping by. I pointed to the tree and asked him if it was his. He laughed at my question and said – “No one owns this tree. It however was in my custody all this while. It now needs to be moved to a place where it can rest till it is ready to spring forth again”.

I looked at him quizzically; he informed me that the tree was the tree of eternal life and infinite power. “Each fruit contains enough power to make its consumer the most powerful being on earth for three days and prolongs the consumer’s life by a year. The owner or custodian of this tree stays alive for ever and attains infinite powers.

The powers and wealth bestowed by the tree are beyond anyone’s comprehension. The power if evenly distributed, can keep the world the most wonderful one, and make every person live a healthy complete life and die a happy peaceful death”.

I asked Dishana why he wanted the tree to be moved if it was so wonderful. He replied that the decision whether to distribute the power or not, and if yes, whom to distribute the power to, lay entirely with the custodian of the tree.

I still could not comprehend what the problem was; he looked at me patronizingly and said – “think Adi; if the owner distributed the 137

power evenly to all, each one would get enough power to lead a healthy happy life. If the owner instead distributed it amongst a select few, those select few would become potent super-beings; the temptation of the latter is too strong to be resisted”; I began to understand the point he was trying to convey and nodded my head confirming my understanding.

Dishana smiled and explained further – “This tree came into being when the world as you see it, was young; it became the portal through which the infinite energy of the universe flowed through to the dimension perceived as a world by you. The responsibility of ensuring unobstructed flow of this energy lay with the custodians; everything worked fine as long as the custodian stayed thus and performed the requisite function; the problem began when the most recent custodian stopped the free distribution of the power. This caused heavy concentration of the power, causing the tree to rot.

What you see in front of you, is but a shadow of what the tree would have looked like, during its heydays”.

I looked at the tree more closely. Sure enough, I noticed certain portions which looked more dazzling than the others; there was some unevenness in the brightness of the leaves as well. “Is there no way to restore the tree to its full glory”, I asked intrigued.

“Yes, there is a way. A willing person must take the tree to a destination where matter does not exist, place the tree at that spot and leave for good”, Dishana replied. “The tree would rest at that spot till it is ready to sprout back in its glory. Mind you, it is possible that the tree might even get destroyed to infinitely miniscule entities and it might be eons before it resurrected itself again in its majestic form”.

I felt sad; I did not want to see the end of such a beautiful creation, but could see from Dishana’s expression that there was no other way. I asked him when he was planning on moving the tree and wondered if he would take me with him.

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He smiled and responded that he certainly by no means would qualify as the right person for the job, for it was he who caused the rot in the first place. At my amazed expression, he added that he was the latest custodian of the tree; “the intoxication of the power is too strong Adi; it is so strong that it could tempt the likes of me and make the likes of me end up here, on this side of Maya trying to remedy the wrong doings. It took my entire will to get over the intoxication”, he said.

If not he, then who, I wondered; “it has to be you” Dishana replied in response to my thought. “This tree has such power as to tempt a being like me. You are the only one whom I could trust to take this tree to its destination. You will have to do this all by yourself. Neither I nor any one of the Vedic persons would be there with you this time, to guide or help you. In fact you might have to face situations where you might have to stand up against some of those at whose side you had felt safe during your previous journeys”, he added.

I could not imagine that someone from my team would covet the power for oneself. “Do not judge them harshly” said Dishana, “they actually want to become the custodians and distribute the power justly and give goodness back to the world through the tree; what they do not realize is that once they possess power, it is extremely difficult to share or part with it. There is one person who I think can act as your aid; I however am not sure if he would be allowed to do so at this juncture”.

I understood the mission, mused at the possible activities for a couple of seconds, mustered my courage up and said - “Dishana if you could give the power up for the betterment of the world; I will also do my bit. Tell me how to go about doing it”. Dishana smiled and told me to hold the trunk of the tree and pull it out with all my might.

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I looked at him to see if he was kidding, but saw that he was in earnest; so I walked up to the tree, wrapped my arms around it, and yanked hard at it.

To my utter shock and dismay, the tree flew out with an extremely force, taking me up with it, before flying at lightning speed and landing on what seemed like a small boat. I sat up and checked myself to see if there was any damage; my body seemed intact and unhurt. The only problem as I could see was that the boat I sat in was in the middle of a seemingly endless ocean.

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Chapter – 30 I quickly stood up and realized the second problem. My left arm was stuck fast to the tree. I could not move my body away from it. I sat down, dazed. “This is a bad nightmare” I kept repeating to myself. “All I need to do is wake up, and I would be back in front of my” I tried ignoring the incessant seemingly aimless drifting of the boat, which at times was moving northward, then, depending upon the motion of the sea, it changing course and drifting off in a Westerly or Easterly direction. I kept trying to ignore the fact that I also was drifting along with the boat; a sudden jerk indicating that the boat had drifted into a whirlpool made me relinquish the attempts to defy reality. To my panic, I realized that the boat was sinking fast, taking the tree and me, along with it.

I remembered a story that I had read when I was a child about a person whose boat got caught in a whirlpool and how he escaped death by clutching on to a barrel and sticking on to it till the tide turned. I wondered if I could use the tree for the same purpose, before remembering that I was supposed to be protecting the tree and not the other way around. Incidentally I also remembered that I could fly.

I held on tight to the tree and tried flying, but realized to my dismay that the tree refused to budge. I thought of other ways to save myself and the tree; I knew that I could survive under water; I however was not so well aware of the capabilities of trees of power to predict the extent of damage this tree I was stuck to would have to suffer when we went under water.

After a few seconds of pondering on all possible outcomes, I decided that when outcome was not in ones hands, the best action one could take was to sit back and let events unfold. This decision 141

made me hold the tree, sit down and close my eyes and try not to look at the water as the boat, tree and I went under.

When I opened my eyes, and got used to the nearly overwhelming darkness, I found that the boat had sunk all the way to the bed of the ocean. I got up and moved a little tentatively checking the heaviness of the tree. To my utter surprise, I found it as light as a feather. “This is Strange”, I mused aloud “Just a few minutes ago, it seemed too heavy to be moved! Talk about trees that change weight at will!”

Congratulating myself on regaining the power of locomotion, I stepped out of the boat and started examining my surroundings, wondering what I was to do next. The options seemed limited, considering that I had some tree planting to do and was stuck to the very tree that I had to plant. “The first step is to find the right place to plant this one”, I thought to myself, “I have a feeling the tree will surely let go of me when it touches the right spot” I started walking around stopping occasionally to see if the tree would come off. As I walked around a bend, I felt that I saw someone moving and froze. I hoped that I was just seeing things and there was no one there. I tried to hide behind the tree, with a silly hope that this someone or something even if present would not see me.

“I have seen you, so hiding is of no use” said the familiar voice of Kal. I stopped myself from rejoicing at the sound of his voice, as Dishana’s warning flashed in my head and asked him what he was doing out there. He replied that he was sent by Dishana to help me out in my errand. “Dishana told me that I could not join you unless I was allowed to do so by my mother. I decided that the best way was to leave without asking and assuming her consent”, he said casually before asking me what the errand was and why it was so different from the others that he needed his mother’s approval.

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I remembered Dishana telling me something about someone being allowed to come with me. I however was not sure if he was referring to Kal; I also was not sure if Kal would support me if I told him about the mission. My instinct kept insisting that he alone was my best bet; moreover as my instincts rightly pointed out, I had no choice but to trust him at that point.

I decided to agree with my instincts and started giving him an account of the funny sequence of events that led to my physical attachment to the tree. Half way through my narration, a nagging doubt assailed me, preventing me from proceeding any further. I stopped midsentence and asked him – “how did you know where to find me without knowing what the task was?”

“Dishana came to my mother and me and informed that you were stuck somewhere in some task and needed my help. He then took my mother aside and started explaining something to her.

While the two of them were engaged in their conversation, I took the opportunity to slip off, use the age old method of setting off in a random direction with a strong desire and reached here. I did not wait for them to finish to conversation; once I heard the word stuck, I somehow could not stay away after hearing Dishana’s words. I thought you were in trouble. I did not realize that Dishana used the word stuck literally”, he replied, “now that I know that you are OK, except for being stuck to a task and seem unwilling to let me work with you, I shall go back and have some fun with my friends”.

His explanation made my instincts scream out - “Trust him, he is saying the truth”. Just to shut my instincts off, I decided to continue my narration. I however omitted the part about unlimited power and told instead that this was the tree of goodness which had caught rot and hence had to be planted at some place away from the corrupting influence of the rest of the world and allowed to recuperate.

He responded with a – “Why so much of a fuss for a tree” before adding - “I actually do not care what the task is; Before you got on to the journey vehicle the first time, my mother and Dishana told me 143

that I was to stay by you and stick to you; considering that you have to stick to your task till the very end, we both seem badly stuck”.

His words rejuvenated my nearly dead humour; I burst out laughing.

Kal joined me in my mirth and asked me what the plan of action was, between his chuckles.

I told him that I frankly did not have any idea what I was supposed to do next, as I was too busy pulling, flying, drifting and sinking to work out the step by step procedure with Dishana and added that I hence was walking around to see if something materialized. He agreed with my idea of walking around and asked me if I needed my help in carrying the tree.

We were so busy laughing and discussing the options that we did not notice the large shadows till they were upon us. We lifted our heads in panic and saw two large sea creatures that looked like blue whales swimming ominously towards us. One of them opened its mouth wide swallowing Kal, the tree and me in. “Oh! No”, I screamed. The whale’s mouth was as large as a mountain; the water we were in was moving into it like a gigantic wave, taking us towards what we thought would be the whale’s stomach.

Kal swam towards me and held me tight. “Blue whales are supposed to be vegetarians; I certainly am not a vegetable”, he screamed loudly. “I do not think this is the time to teach the differences between plant and animal kingdom to the whale” I screamed back. “Either this is Maya or I am a goner” he whimpered before shouting - “Hey Mr. or Ms. Whale, we are humans and you are a vegetarian. I think you need to spit us back the same way you took us in, unless you are a part of the task that we need to perform”. I closed my eyes ignoring his silly yells and hoped that the whale was a part of the task or the tree was strong enough to protect the two of us.

Suddenly a strong pulling and squeezing sensation assailed me, and I lost consciousness.

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Chapter – 31 When I opened my eyes, I found myself sprawled on the ground with my arms around the tree; Kal was curled up next to me, with his arms around my neck. He seemed too scared to open his eyes. I turned my head and realized that we were lying next to the mouth of some extinct volcano.

I then turned towards Kal and told him that it was safe and he could let go of me. He slowly opened his eyes, looked around warily and let out a whoop of joy; “We are safe”, he shouted, glad to be alive.

I sat up, disengaged his arms from around my neck and said sarcastically - “I thought you were the one who was supposed to guarding me and not the other-way around”. He looked indignant and replied – “I was holding you protectively!” “Around my neck”, I asked “I would have got squeezed to death if you held any tighter”. He ignored my taunt and asked me if I knew where we were. I informed him that by the looks of it, we were standing next to an extinct volcano somewhere inside the body of the whale that a little while ago had unceremoniously swallowed us up.

He got up and looked around before helping me up, taking care not to touch the tree, lest as he said, he also got stuck to it. We were looking around trying to figure out what the next step in the process was, when a sudden gust of wind pushed the tree and me and Kal, who this time was holding my other hand, into the mouth of the extinct volcano. We kept falling for some time, screaming on top of our voices. Kal stopped in mid-scream and asked – “Why are we falling when we know how to fly?” “The tree wants to fall, and I am holding it; so by the looks of it, I do not seem to have much of a choice in this matter”. “But I do”, he said, but resumed his screaming and continued falling with me.

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A few seconds of loud screaming later, he again stopped, let go of my hand and asked me if I knew how long we were to fall. When I answered in negative, he suggested that I asked the tree. The idea sounded ridiculous, but compared to the madness we were experiencing, asking a tree seemed saner. So I asked the tree politely how long it intended to fall and take me and Kal with it screaming; almost as an answer to my question, the tree stopped in its fall, moved to the right and perched on top of what seemed like an alcove in the sheer wall of the hole we had fallen into. Kal kept falling for a couple of seconds more before he realized what was going on, flew up and landed next to me.

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Chapter – 32 We stood there on the perch and looked down; the pit seemed endless. I hoped that the tree was now tired of falling and was ready to move on, as the idea of reaching the bottom of the seemingly bottomless pit did not appeal to me. Kal replied that he agreed with me and added that he did not think that the tree was suicidal enough to go all the way down.

A voice that said “If you two are done with your discussion, please turn around”, made us turn around with a start. The voice belonged to Pusan, who emerged from behind a rock. Kal’s friend Dev, Mr. Nandan and a couple of scientists from Shoolin’s team followed him. He told me to hand the tree over to him. “It is not a gift for you and Kal alone. It belongs to the world. We as the learned ones need to nurture it and distribute its powers wisely and not try to steal it and gain all its power”, he said.

I replied that I was not stealing the tree, and instead was trying to go drop it off at a remote location as per Dishana’s instructions. He told me that he did not believe me. “No mere mortal can handle the power the tree bestows one with and not be tempted by it”, he said.

“By the looks of it, you seem too attached to the tree to let go of it”, he added adding insult to injury.

I responded angrily that I was quite happy leading a normal life and did not feel the need for powers; it was the tree that had decided to stay stuck to me. “Kal and I were just discussing about how we were to find the right place for this tree to rest, when you came” “If those are really your intentions”, Pusan responded “you are a fool”. He asked me think of all wonderful things that could be done if the power from the tree could be distributed as it ideally should be; “imagine the wonderful things we all can do, using the power.

We can go save people, get rid of unwanted beings and make the world a much better place” 147

I stood my guard; Power does corrupt, I realized and asked him if he was sure that we were the right ones to decide the fate of others. As if in response to my question, Pusan waved his hands in the air creating a ball of fire that came and hit me on my head, causing my hair to burst into flames. Kal quickly plucked a fruit from the tree and squeezed the juice on my head; dousing the fire.

Pusan laughed and waved his hand again, making Kal go flying off and get pinned as if by invisible hands to the wall of the precipice. The two scientists flew over to him and held him tight, blocking any movement.

As Kal struggled in vain to free himself, Pusan and Dev walked over to me, held me tight and tried plucking the tree off my arms.

Their actions made me realize that the tree that was extremely light to my arms was too heavy for them. They were unable to move it, let alone lift it, swim, walk or fly with it. This realization mobilized me into action; I quickly moved the tree around, pushing them away. They fell, as if they were hit by a lightning. I quickly flew over to Kal. The duo that held Kal pinned to the wall, left him and started flying towards me, their expressions menacing. I knocked them with a single swipe of the tree. They went flying and landed hard, next to Pusan and Dev. Kal flew over to me, apologizing loudly to Pusan and the others.

I held his hand and quickly flew off with him and the tree into what looked like a tunnel near where we were standing.

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Chapter – 33 After a couple of minutes for frantic flight, we realized that we were not being pursued; Kal said that the lack of pursuit was either because the folks out there had realized their mistake, or they had decided to change their strategy and wait for the right time before attacking us. “I think Pusan gave up because he realized that the tree was really stuck to me and I had no power over where it wanted to go”, I said. “I hope you are right”, replied Kal, “I am too tired fly anymore now and my chest hurts as if it had been punched by a ten ton fist”.

I looked at Kal and saw that he was clutching his chest in pain and realized that it would be unwise to force him to move any further; So I told him to wait right there while I looked around for a place where we could rest for a while, without being seen and went flying around the tunnel looking for one. As I flew, the branch of the tree got caught in a stone; I grimaced and swooped down to pluck the branch off. As I was trying to pull the branch, I noticed an alcove that was almost perfectly hidden from the eyes of any passers-by, even if they were flying close to the walls of the tunnel.

It was almost as if the tree helped me find the spot. “Smart tree”, I thought as I hurried back to fetch Kal. When I reached him, he looked pensive and thoughtful. I asked him what the problem was; he shrugged, shook his head and followed me to the alcove. Once we reached the alcove, he sat heavily on one of the stones, looked at me doubtfully and asked me if I was telling the truth about Dishana’s instructions. “If you are telling the truth” he added, “why were Dev, Pusan and other’s against you?”

I took a deep breath and completed the narration of my last meeting with Dishana, beginning exactly where I had left off. I repeated Dishana’s words and said – “I hope you now understand why I doubted your intentions when I first saw you”. Kal stared at 149

me for a long time, his expression a mixture of shock and disbelief.

Suddenly he smiled, waved his hand and said – “How could I be so thick! Dishana would not have asked me to guard you, if he had not given you the task in the first place”. He then asked me if I could forgive him for doubting me.

I looked at him gratefully and thanked him for believing me. “If I could doubt a person like you who at such a young age has got all his priorities right, you have done nothing wrong by doubting a person like me”, I added. He yawned in response to my statement and said that he was tired and needed some rest. When I responded that I could not agree with him better, he promptly sprawled on one of the stones, closed his eyes and to my surprise started snoring softly. Being stuck to a tree, I could not do anything besides sitting on another one of those stones, leaning against the nearest wall and trying to rest my aching body.

After a couple of miserable hours, I decided to wake Kal up; he woke up and asked me if I could get some coffee for him; I told him to shut up and start flying unless he wanted a wallop. He smiled lazily and asked me if he could sleep a couple of minutes longer. I replied that in case he wanted to continue sleeping, it was fine with me. “In any case, I feel you are too young to face situations like this.

Go home and get back into your bed”. The taunt served the purpose better than any yelling could; he got up immediately, said – “I am ready, what are you tarrying for” before soaring off towards what appeared, from the light that came in through it, to be the end of the tunnel.

I shook my head and followed him. We flew for a couple of hours, emerged out in open and looked about ourselves. The land was covered with snow. There was nothing but snow for miles in every direction. “Where do you think we are?” I asked Kal. “By the looks of it, seems we are standing on one of the geographic poles of the earth”, he replied peering off into distance trying to see if he can 150

spot anything. “I think the tree wants to go into cold storage� he added, his eyes twinkling.

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Chapter – 34 “You probably are right”, I said, looked around and added “there could be no better place than the poles to let the tree rest and cool its heels (or in this case roots). Now all that we need to do is to find the right place in this frozen area, which most probably unless we were spat out by the whale, is inside the whale”. “If we are inside the whale, it sure seems to have a lot of this world inside it”, said Kal, “considering what we have flown through so far, I would not be surprised if we ended up reaching home inside the whale, if we still are inside it”.

I sighed wistfully; home seemed far away; “I wish I were back at home, in bed, sleeping, and not standing here in this desolate area trying to find a resting place for this tree” I said, my tone pensive. “I never thought I would end up being stuck to a tree and forced to carry it around till God knows when, to God knows where”, I added, grimacing.

The look that Kal gave me when I voiced the thoughts aloud made me feel like jumping on him and beating the smirk out of him; Stuck to the tree as I was, all I could do was glare at him meaningfully and asked him if he had any clue where we were supposed to go.

Before he could answer, a massive snowstorm hit us; the drift of the storm started dragging the tree and me, towards what looked like a large cave; Kal came running and falling, after me. After pushing the tree and me to the mouth of a cave, as suddenly as it had started, the snow-storm abated. Kal came running, slipped and fell next to me and got up, brushing snow off his clothes and said –“wow! That was a crazy chase. I hope I do not have to do it again”. I looked at him and smiled gratefully. The burden was mine; he need not have bothered to take all the pains and be with me. He was there with me because he cared and not because as he said, he was instructed by Dishana to stick to me.

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He ignored my grateful look and peered into the cave and asked me if I also could see the shapes he saw. I peered into the cave. It was quite dark in there, but I also could make out shapes of some living beings moving inside. I was not sure what and whom to expect, but after my previous experience with Pusan and others, I did not want to take any chances, decided to bolt as quickly as I could from there, put my foot forward and realized that the tree which till then was moving around like a piece of feather, had again decided to put on colossal amount of weight and was steadfastly refusing to budge.

After a couple of attempts at escaping, the latter of which ended in my banging my nose against the tree, I realized that I had no option but to stand there and wait for whatever was moving inside to move out and attack me. So I stood there, muttering choicest invectives under my breath.

When the ‘something’ moved closer, I realized that the ‘something’ was actually a ‘someone’ and the someone was the scientist who had created the diabolical tree I had helped demolish; I smiled tentatively, not knowing what to expect; my smile disappeared when I saw a gun in his hand; With my locomotion suddenly restricted, thanks to the sudden endowment of the tree I was stuck to, all I could do was stare at him, my eyes reflecting the fear in my heart that had realized that the tree monster’s creator standing in front of me wanted the power, that the tree I was held by supposedly bestowed to those who owned it.

I stood there, rooted; urging the tree to stop being so stubborn and allow me to move to safety. It stood its ground and refused to budge. I felt an overwhelming urge to laugh at the whole situation.

A person who did not want or care for what the tree offered was stuck with it for what it seemed her life, whilst the rest of the world seemed intent upon taking it away from her. I felt like standing on top of the world shouting – “here is the tree that is known to give its 153

owner the ultimate power; take it if you can�, even if it meant ending up getting torn limb to limb by throes of crazed beings.

The scientist carefully walked over to me, his gun pointed towards my head. When he reached me, he put the gun against my temple and asked me politely to hand the tree over to him to move away quietly if I valued my life. The hysteria that I had successfully managed to suppress till that point burst forth in the form of a loud guffaw. The scientist, who clearly did not expect the reaction, took a step backwards, tripped, regained his balance and asked me what was so funny about being about to die.

I slowly gained control over my mirth, and told him as evenly as I could that it was not possible for me to move away and he could do whatever he wanted to. He responded by firing it my temple point-blank. Kal, who up till then stood there too shocked to move, came running towards me - bellowing at the madness of the scientist, bumped against the tree and fell back, on the ground, looking totally shocked.

I realized two things at that point, the first thing was that being stuck to a tree did have its advantages, one of them certainly included the reason why, in spite of getting shot right in my temple, nothing happened to me; the second thing I realized was that Kal had a lot of power in his lungs. I held the hand of the scientist and told him softly that the reason I could not let go of the tree was that I was stuck to it not by my own choice or doing. I tried my best to explain Dishana’s instructions about taking the tree to the place where it could recuperate till it was ready to blossom again and spread goodness to all. I also added that by the events that took place over the last couple few hours, it was the tree that did the taking and I was just following it.

As I was talking, Kal got up, brushed himself and looked at the scientist as if he was seeing him for the first time. He could not believe that a friend whom he had worked with could actually want to kill me for something as silly as a tree of power! His expression 154

made me realize that he actually was a young, innocent, noble and traumatized lad who was yet to be exposed to sin of any kind. I also realized another thing; thanks to the tree, I was safe from bullets; but he was not. This concern made scream out to Kal to run away – “go back home”, I said, “This task is mine. I am the one who is trapped; you are free to go. Please do so and save yourself from further physical or mental torture” Ignoring my pleas, he moved across to the scientist and implored him to let me go. Hearing him pleading my case with the scientist made me mad. I got angrier when Kal said – “you have to believe Adi. Do you think she is deliberately holding on the tree? I have been watching her for the last few hours; she actually is stuck to it and is trying to find the right spot where it will let go of her”.

Instead of responding to Kal, the scientist pointed the gun at him, and told him to shut up and tell me to hand the tree over. The gun against his temple made Kal realize that the scientist actually desired the power. He however continued to reason with the scientist that it was wrong to covet that kind of power, and we neither had the strength nor the will to overcome the spell cast by such massive amount of power.

I told Kal to stop trying to put reason into the head of a half crazed scientist who had once created a tree that could eat live beings; he cast a deaf-year to my words as he went on with his beseeching. “You will end up becoming a slave to it”, he said. “You will become so obsessed with keeping its power from going to any other being that you will end up desolate, jealously and fiercely guarding the tree from every living being. You will end up becoming a prisoner of your own obsession or worse end up killing the tree in our thirst for supremacy, he added, his voice desperate.

Desperate to save Kal, I decided to join in his appeal. I asked the scientist to think of his fellow scientists and what they and Shoolin would say if they found out what he was up to. The scientist’s response shocked me and Kal to silence. He said that it was Shoolin 155

who initiated this attack. “He was and he still is our leader, he wants the power for the betterment of mankind. So please stop being pigheaded and give the tree over to me”, he added pointing the gun menacingly against Kal’s head.

To prolong the conversation, I tentatively agreed to part with the tree. I told him that I did not know how. “Shoolin probably does; so why don’t we wait for him here and ask him if he can help separate the tree and me”, I added, while quietly tugging at the tree with my left hand, trying to make it move; suddenly, it moved and moved with such a force that I flew up, along with it. The scientist, who did not expect the sudden movement, shifted his gun a couple of inches away from Kal’s head.

Kal seized the chance, flew up and aimed a kick at the scientist’s head. The scientist dropped to his knees, clutching his head. Kal quickly swooped down and snatched the gun away from his hand.

Thanking the tree for seeing some sense in time, I tugged Kal along and started flying away from there. The group of scientists saw us flying away and ran towards the cave they had emerged from, a little while ago. “They probably have their flying cars parked in there”, said Kal, as we flew.

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Chapter – 35 Kal’s suspicions were confirmed a few minutes later, when turned around and saw the entire team of scientists in their flying vehicles, hot in our pursuit.

We kept flying for our lives over what looked like mounds and crevices in snow. As I flew, the tree started growing heavier, slowing me down; soon its heaviness grew to a level at which, I could not fly any longer; so land on the snow and started running, dragging the heavy tree with me. As I ran, I saw that atop a nearby mound on top stood our old pursuers, Pusan and his gang. I kept running along, urging the tree to allow me to fly again. To my surprise, the tree obeyed my request for the first time, and grew lighter. I quickly resumed my flight. As I flew, I saw Shoolin standing with another group of scientists, on a spot not far away from the mound occupied by Shoolin’s gang.

I kept flying, as I was too scared now to stop and check if the diabolic tree’s creator was telling the truth about Shoolin. Kal however seemed to think otherwise. He shouted gleefully out to Shoolin and went and landed next to him. I turned around to follow him, but realized that I could not - the tree was forcing me to fly away from all of them. “So, you were not honouring my request, when you grew lighter!” I said angrily to the tree, “you were merely doing what you felt like; if you are so sure where you want to go, why don’t you do the taking, I will just lean on you while you do it”.

Ere I finished uttering the angry words, the tree stopped mid flight and started falling; I desperately braced myself against its branches, trying to get them to cushion my fall. I collapsed on the ground totally unhurt and realized that I need not have worried about the fall. Either the snow was soft enough to save me, or I had become strong enough, thanks to the tree. I got up carefully, propped the mighty tree up, turned my eyes skywards and saw a 157

whole convoy of people come flying towards me. I looked out for Kal amongst the group and saw to my great horror that he was being held prisoner by Shoolin, who as the diabolic tree’s creator had indicated, seemed to be the leader of the group that was intent on seizing the tree from me.

As I stared on helplessly, the entire convoy of flying vehicles and beings, landed around me, forming a large circle, which prevented me from walking off. Some of the vehicles stayed in the sky, providing aerial protection. I realized that Kal and I were badly trapped unless something miraculous happened. I sadly looked at Kal. The shock and fear that was reflected in his eyes made me want to weep. I realized that Shoolin’s behaviour was not something he could imagine, even in his wildest dreams. Gathering my voice, I shouted out to Shoolin to let go of Kal. Shoolin angrily replied that if I wanted Kal’s safety, I should abandon the thoughts of moving the tree away. “Take the tree right back to where you picked it from Adi”, he said, “You will be causing a great harm to the world by isolating it”. “What do you plan to do”, he asked, “Hold on to the power and stand here, as a lonely lady, till eternity, or wait for some malevolent power to come lay a claim to it”?

I tried to make him believe that I somehow did not have any power over the tree’s movements. “It is a master of itself”, I said, “If it wants to go somewhere, it simply drags me along”! He laughed at my statement not believing a single word I said. “I have been watching you”, he said. “You certainly seemed to be flying at your own will. Listen, you are being completely foolish to take the tree away. I am sure that the tree will stay happy and recover faster from its rot if its power gets distributed properly”. “How can you be so sure”, he asked, “that Dishana who got tempted by the tree and caused its rot in the first place is the right judge to decide its fate!”

Perceiving my hesitation at his words he went on - “Just because Dishana got weakened does not mean we all would go down the same path!” he said. “We as responsible ones should take charge 158

and ensure the distribution of its power and help make the place a better place. I am sure that all of us using all our healing and scientific capabilities can work together and easily bring the tree back to its full bloom; did you know that the fruits of the tree had power to bring people back from dead? A fruit from the tree can keep 1000 people healthy, strong, active and powerful for a complete year. Depending upon when, where and how it is planted, a single seed of a tree can produce a massive crop of any desired kind. Did you know that if the flowers of this tree can turn straw into gold? Did you know that by consuming a fruit a day a person can become as powerful as earth? Did you know that the person who stands under the tree for an hour acquires such healing powers as can cure every kind of illness! By the powers bestowed by this tree, did you know that its custodian take any form at will, produce as much food as needed by planting any kind of seed anywhere and convert mud to gold with a single touch? You are a fool to think that it is good for the world if you took the tree away from it”.

I hesitated. His words were convincing; it indeed would be wonderful if the power could be distributed evenly. I was about to agree with him when Kal suddenly spoke up – “I partially agree with you Shoolin”, he said “it would be wonderful if the custodian stays uncorrupted and ensures that the power gets evenly distributed. The world would become a better place; every person born in it would live a complete, long healthy life to a ripe old age, before dying a contented peaceful death. You however seem to have forgotten something really important – even the custodian, which I think you plan to become, will have to die, probably many years later, after living a complete, benevolent life. What do you think will happen then, Shoolin? What do you think would happen when you die? Will you be able to trust anyone enough to become a custodian once you pass away? Do you think the person who gets a possession of the tree after you die would want to continue this even distribution process?”

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Shoolin seemed flummoxed by Kal’s question. I, who was just about to agree with Shoolin and ask him to work out a way to get the tree back, smiled at my folly. “How could I be so thick as to not see what Kal could”, I mused and looked up to Shoolin, seeking his response.

Shoolin hesitated for a couple of seconds, weighing out various options. Kal took the opportunity to fly away from him and stand at a safe distance from him. Shoolin strangely did not pursue Kal. He seemed to have realized that holding Kal a hostage was not of any use. “All of us together could try to use the power effectively to ensure that we stay around long enough to make the earth a better place for good” he replied.

Kal laughed at his response and asked – “Shoolin don’t you remember, “the one that eats, stays eternal, thousand that eat live a million, million that eat live a thousand, billion that eat stay two hundred! Unless you are the only one that eats the fruit, your life will eventually end; I do not think that any of us can be sure that the world would be so perfect as to not need our support in even distribution even after a million years” Shoolin closed his eyes, trying to think of an answer. Kal seized the opportunity and asked the general forum – “If one or a group of us took advantage of the power and lived long, would we not be depriving someone of the right to live as well as the rest?”

“We can save all those that are wise”, someone from the group of scientists, responded. “Exactly”, said Kal, “this was the response I expected. Do you think we are the ones who can decide who is wise and is worthy of living and who is not? Can we think of one test that can quantify the wisdom levels and deem a person wise enough to qualify for getting eternal life? If not, would you still call it equal distribution?”

The scientists seemed lost for words; before they could recover, Kal continued – “If starving poor people to death amounts for 160

murder, so does depriving them of fruits that would allow them to live a full healthy life. You might say that we are not taking something that they already have, away from them; they will continue to live, suffer and die, naturally. But is natural age of mortality not defined by the prevailing conditions, by making some live to an age of two hundred, are we not making the rest die an early death compared to them?”

The scientists started shuffling their feet. One of them said – “There is another way– one of us can own and consume the fruits and use the powers thus obtained for the betterment of the world.

Thus no one needs to die early or late, and there is no question of discrimination” “Fantastic”, replied Kal, “Who do you think this person should be? Who do you think is the most selfless amongst you? Who do you think should take the tree into his or her custody, consume its fruits and live forever while the others die?”

This question seemed to stir the thoughts of the group of scientists; slowly they started mumbling and shuffling in their feet and began to look at each other, trying to assess the selflessness of the others.

Shoolin cleared his throat and called for attention; before he could say something, the ground next to me opened up with a loud bang revealing a great chasm. A raging fire erupted from the newly formed fissure. The group of scientists screamed out in terror and started running for their lives.

I stood there rooted to the spot, unable to move; the tree had become a little too heavy for me to handle; Kal came flying towards me, but before he could reach out and help me, another explosion took place right under my feet. This explosion sent the tree and me soaring sky high. “There we go again”, I thought, as I took off at an enormous speed, my hands wrapped awkwardly to the tree. As I flew, I felt the wind tearing against my body, threatening to rip it 161

apart. So I closed my eyes and snuggled closer to the tree, thankful for the protection it offered.

A sudden reduction in speed made me realize that we were about to land; sure enough, when I opened my eyes, I realized the tree and I were flying at a height of ten meters from the ground. I held on to the tree, as it skimmed over mounds and crevices and finally landed at the edge of what looked like an opening in the snow. I peered into the opening and balked. It seemed to go all the way to the centre of the earth. A strange fear started lurking in the bottom of my heart; with the fear came a strange urge to jump in and see where the opening took me. I took a deep breath, and closed my eyes to shut out both the fear and the urge.

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Chapter – 36 When I opened my eyes, Dishana stood in front of me, dressed this time in bejewelled splendour. Pusan, Tara and Vak stood behind him. “You have done well Adi. You brought the tree to this spot in spite of obstacles and temptations”, said Pusan.

I looked at him confused; but before he could respond, Kal landed next to them, shouting – “Dishana, please tell Pusan to leave Adi alone. Tell him that she is acting upon your orders and does not have any ulterior motives”.

Before anyone could respond, the scientists’ vehicle landed. The entire team of scientists, streamed out of the vehicle. Shoolin was at the lead. He came to Dishana and apologized for getting tempted again.

Dishana waved his hand bidding him to relax. He then addressed me and said – “Adi, Congratulations. As Pusan aptly put it, you have successfully completed your task. You have brought the tree to the point of exchange. This is the spot the tree first came to being; the spot where, from time immemorial, each custodian handed its custody over to the next one. This was the place where some of the great custodians lay the tree to rest when they were unable to find the right successor or when the temptation in the world became too strong. You now are standing at the very spot where on detecting the footstep of the next custodian, the tree springs back to life, if laid to rest by the previous. We all applaud your efforts and the tenacity displayed by you. By resisting temptation, and bringing the tree to this spot, you have demonstrated yourself as the next custodian. I now hand the custody of the tree formally over to you.

The tree will now follow your bidding. You can take it home with you; it will stay with you till eternity, in any form you want it to assume; and will perform and function as needed and instructed by you”.

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Dishana’s words evoked a round of applause. There was loud clapping and cheering all around. It felt wonderful. I imagined myself using the power to help people live a complete, happy life. I saw myself being exalted by throngs of people. I visualized a scene where people were praying to me, asking for gifts, for life and help.

This scene somehow helped me see the greatest disadvantage in being the universal aide – I could not make people live forever, using the power uniformly. People who since time immemorial were known to never be satisfied with the length of their lives, would use methods of extortion to force me to bestow extra advantages to them; I saw myself getting tempted to use the power of the tree to bestow myself and a select few a long but lonely and meaningless existence, which would involve watching some near and dear ones die; having to choose who lives or dies; seeing ones progeny, kit and kin or their progeny die or suffer the death of their near and dear ones.

My heart warned me that the power over life meant a power over death, pain and loss as well. Death, pain and illness were such essential spokes in the wheel of life and nature, as were Birth, joy, life and love; the seven forces together were what made the world a worthwhile place to live in.

I certainly was not the right custodian for this tree. Dishana, who had once got tempted, would not be ready to shoulder the responsibility after having chosen his successor. I looked around to see if I could choose a successor and thus walk out free. The only person who seemed untouched by the whole temptation was Kal. But this burden would be a punishment, which he was too young and innocent to deserve.

I realized that the only option left was to put the tree to rest and allow it to spring forth after choosing the right custodian.

Taking a deep breath, I called for attention. “I do not think that any being, human, superhuman or Vedic should have sole rights 164

over the tree. None of us possesses the power to stay immune to the temptation arising out of the power. A custodian, however good he, she or it is, would still be a poor substitute for one who generates the power. The tree as a generator of power should be allowed to choose the process of distributing the same. I want to leave the tree here, to rest, recuperate and wait for the right time and the right custodian.”

The entire team of people standing out there, cheered loudly in assent. Dishana however raised his hands and spoke over the din.

He said – “A noble thought Adi – one I expected from you. I however need you to know that the process of laying the tree to rest involves a great sacrifice. The custodian has to jump with the tree into the cosmic inferno that blazes at the bottom of the crack next to you. Mind you, no power in the universe can avert the custodian’s instantaneous end after his or her body reaches the bottom. I tried doing just that, but changed my mind halfway through my fall and flew back to safety. I hence decided to look for the next custodian instead. The choices for you are the same as mine; take up the responsibility, pass it on or perish. You are free to choose.”

I stared at him, shocked. There had to be an easy way! He shook his head and said – “Oh yes, you as the present custodian can order one of the beings in front of you to jump to their end, in your place.

Once you do, the person receiving those orders would have no choice but to obey them”. Before I could respond to his words, he took off from there. Pusan, Tara and Vak also took off after him.

The moment they took off, the ground in front of me collapsed, separating the others from me.

When the dust from the collapse cleared, I looked at the faces of the people standing around me. They seemed frozen, unable to move. It was almost as if they were completely under my control.

Their faces expressed shock, fear and anticipation. They wanted to know what my decision was going to be; at the same time, they dreaded it.

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I looked at each one in turn and saw them imploring me not to mark them for death; the tree being’s creator, who, just a short while earlier had shot me square on my face, started trembling when I looked at him. “Please forgive me!” he screamed bursting into tears.

His screams prompted the others to join in. They started begging me to let them go. I felt like weeping aloud at being forced into such a painful situation. Struggling to gain control over myself, I looked at Kal and Shoolin seeking their opinion. The calm, distant and resigned expressions on their faces did what the screams of the others could not – it made me breakdown into sobs. “I do not want to be responsible for prying hope and light away from someone’s eyes”, I whispered through my tears.

As if in answer to my whispered message, Shoolin shouted over the din urging his team to calm down. “I have a solution that would help ensure that no one suffers”, he shouted. The others stopped wailing and listen to him. “I have a solution for this entire problem.

Adi – please order me to go down with the tree; by doing so, you would be saving the world from many troubles. The super being that tortured and killed many will never get created. The lab where the strange beings got created by my colleagues will never come into existence; the indoctrination machine might not ever get built and people might be saved from sufferings; the metallic sphere might never get placed inside the cyclotron. Plus, when I go, the temptation shall go with me and you will be saved from making painful choices.

I looked at him. He had tears in his eyes; His expression seemed a mixture of regret, remorse, concern and some strange set of feelings which I could not comprehend. The only thing that I could make out was that he meant every word that he said and was definitely regretful of his actions. The fact that he was willing to sacrifice his life for the betterment of the world, confirmed his intentions of using the tree for the same; this somehow made me less critical of all his previous acts and regret the anger that I still carried against him.

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His words and expressions made me consider the option of handing the custody of the tree over to him; but the awareness that such a decision would mean putting him through temptation again, dawned on me. So did the sense that handing the custody over would mean burdening him with a pain of watching everyone around him leave and stay stuck to the world performing a painful duty.

Before I could respond Kal shouted out – “Adi, wait. Please do not take any decision in haste. Please don’t give it all up after having come this far, braving the obstacles. I am sure there is some solution. Wait for some time. Something sure would happen. Who knows, Dishana might come back with some answer”.

He started running towards me, but fell back after a couple of steps as if pushed back by some invisible force. He got up looking shocked and started straining against the energy that seemed to be separating him from me. This force however seemed too strong as slowly Kal’s efforts grew feebler; he also grew dimmer before disappearing all together in front of my eyes.

Kal’s disappearance helped me appreciate the finality of it all. I realized that as the chosen one, I stood all alone and was condemned to take the decision and execute it all by myself. I closed my eyes, focussed my thoughts and weighed out the options.

I visualized the real world, where there was sheer madness and excessive ambition everywhere. Taking the tree out there could be disastrous. This was the time when the temptation in the world was at its all time high and the time when the tree really needed its rest. I thought of what some of the previous custodians would have done at times such as this. Those thoughts made the decision seem simple.

All I had to do was to cast myself into the dooming depths of the fiery core of the world.

I was chosen, trained and appointed for this purpose. By doing so, I would ensure that the tree became a part of the earth, spreading 167

its goodness evenly across to all, rested well and sprung back up when the world and its members were ready to take up the responsibility.

The decision brought a great sense of peace. I knew that my ending would probably be painful. I knew that once I go in, I would never be able to see the sky or hear the birds sing; but it was worth perishing for a cause as wonderful as this one. With a peaceful smile on my lips, I took a deep breath and jumped into the crack.

The people who till then stood like statues screamed out as if stuck by a lightning. As I fell I looked skywards and saw Shoolin peering down the edge of the crack, desperately looking for a way to save me. I waved to him and wished him well, before closing my eyes one last time.

The fall seemed endless; slowly the heat started building as I neared the doom. Soon it became unbearably hot. I could feel my skin blistering and cracking; inwardly however I was at a state of complete peace.

I had made the right choice; a choice that would enable the power of the tree to blend with the forces of life, enriching them further, thus making the world a more wonderful place to live in. I could not have planned a more glorious end for my existence.

Slowly and gradually, my being diminished into nothingness before flaring up into a large burst of light that spread across the entire universe, gathering awareness, learning its secrets and becoming one with it.

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Chapter – 37 I slowly opened my eyes to soft music that flowed around me and saw Shoolin and Kal sitting on the bed next to me and staring intently at my face; they seemed to be waiting for me to wake up.

I blinked in disbelief. I could not believe that I existed. It had to be a dream somewhere beyond the realms of existence. I smiled dreamily; Shoolin smiled back and helped me sit up.

I became aware as I sat up that I was in a bed in a room that looked heavenly and felt heavenly. I looked around and saw that my journey partners were standing around my bed. There expressions were a mixture of awe and reverence. Before I could say something, however, Kal lightened the mood up by saying – “Don’t worry; they all came in less than a minute ago. None of them heard you snoring”. When I looked at him, puzzled, he burst out into laughter, gave me a bear hug and said – “Welcome back Adi. I sure am glad I stuck to you” I got up and saw that behind those people crowded around me, stood the Vedic beings. All those I had seen under the signpost that read “Man Eating Tiger Sanctuary” were present; Kal’s mother to my amazement stood amongst them. As I moved towards them, the crowd parted in reverence and let me through.

I looked at myself and realized that I was dressed in most ancient finery; my dress seemed to be made of a mixture of rubies and diamonds; it was bright and shiny. When I reached the Vedic beings, they all bowed to me. I bowed back, fully aware now of the secrets of the universe. Dishana walked up to me, placed what looked like a tiara on my head before holding my left hand; Vak held my other hand. Tara hugged me tight before holding Vak’s hand. Shoolin held Tara’s hand; Kal held Dishana’s; Kal’s mother in turn held his. Together we walked out of the room; the others followed us.

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As we walked, I saw that we were in a massive ship, which seemed to have been anchored in the middle of a calm sea, in whose clear waters one could see the reflection of the bright moon and the twinkling stars.

We walked up to the right side of the upper deck and stood there.

As we waited, the sea turned rough. Our ship rose high in the waves, rode for sometime on them and reached a golden shore, where another set of waves that rose higher, set our ship firmly aground.

The gangway opened; holding hands, we all started walking down. Half way down, I realized that we were treading what looked eerily like the stairs that came down from the terrace of the building that housed my previous organization. I also realized that with each step, my attire and the attire of all those around me, was becoming more business-like; when we reached the last step, we all were dressed inconspicuously in business suits, complete with ties, carves, cravats and caps respectively.

I looked around and to my surprise found myself in a strange room, which reminded me of the one I looked into, when I peered through the window of the building that housed the clock tower.

I looked in turn at Dishana and Vak. They smiled and let go of my hands. I walked out, followed by Kal and his mother realizing that this probably was the end of the journey; at the door, I stood, allowed Kal and his mother to pass through, hesitated for a second and turned around. It was hard to leave, but life had to go on.

They raised their hands and waved a farewell. “Now that you have finally arrived, Dishana said, “You may exit, walk away and come back any time”. I knew what he meant, and smiled. Shoolin waved to me sadly and said – “I hope we meet again Adi; I hope this time, I get to be a better friend of yours” before disappearing.

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I took a deep breath turned and walked out of the door, climbed down the stairs walked out to the road where my car was parked.

Another car was parked next to it. Kal was seated on its driver seat; his mother sat next to him. I had many questions to ask and many things to share. I wanted to know how I managed to survive in spite of having willingly given myself up; I wanted to share insights I received from the universe with Kal and his mother. I was just about to walk over to them, but stopped myself, my newfound knowledge making me realize that time for questions and sharing had not come as yet. I got into my car, and waved out to them. They waved back.

“Stay in touch” shouted Kal cheerily. “Visit us sometime”, said his mother, warmly. Promising that I surely will, I put my car on ignition and zoomed off.

EPILOUGE Life returned to normalcy. Days of going to work knowing exactly what was going to happen, going through various activities, knowing the outcome and yet waiting for it to actually happen, continued.

I stayed in continuous touch with Kal and his mother. Kal told me that Shoolin had got me to that room, as a bag of ashes. “You emerged from those ashes, like a phoenix. Only when the ashes parted, you came back as your old boring self, snoring away to glory”, he joked and added, “we were worried. Dishana did not tell us what we were to expect. We thought you were gone and done for.

We felt you never would come back alive in the present form”, on a serious note.

One evening, after work, as I was driving back to my house, the feeling that it was time to start off on the next leg of my journey 171

came upon me. I showered, changed, packed my bags and walked out of the house and saw Dishana standing out there, smartly dressed in jeans and tee, next to a swanky motorbike. I nodded to him and sat behind him.

We rode to the nearest park-and-ride, where we saw our journey vehicle parked. Kal’s mother was standing next to it along with Archu. I asked them where Kal was. They told me that he had gone to fetch someone. A few minutes later, I saw him walking in with the pretty girl I met at the symposium in tow. The girl wished Kal’s mother and me politely and introduced herself to Stacy as Shree.

She then stood there awkwardly and looked a little dazed and unaware of what to do or expect. “I have not told her anything”, said Kal, as if in answer to a silent question from his mother. The girl looked more confused and probably a little scared at Kal’s words, but followed him wordlessly into the vehicle.

Thus began the next leg of the eternal journey

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