by Sudipta Das
Back To
Planet Hoola
Sudipta Das
Notion Press
5 Muthu Kalathy Street, Triplicane,
Chennai - 600 005
First Published by Notion Press 2013
Copyright © Sudipta Das 2013
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN: 978-93-83416-17-2
This book has been published in good faith that the work of the author is original. All efforts have been taken to make the material error-free. However, the author and the publisher disclaim the responsibility.
No part of this book may be used, reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents used in the book are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental. It is made clear that the views expressed by the author are his own and not that of government or organisation or body.
Contents
Title
Copyright
1. Recap
2. The Accident
3. Back to Hoola
4. Resurrection
5. Love Divine
6. The Twins
7. The Work
8. The Ancient Stone-tablets
9. Going to Nik, the wise, in Isthad
10. The Sword of Istha
11. Venture to Inthad
12. Iben
13. The New Nation
14. The Abduction
15. The Hunthadians
16. Hunet
17. Thought Transference
18. War
19. Sobret
20. The Tunnel
21. In The Yellow Palace
22. Towards Peace
23. The Return
24. After Words
1
Recap
Hello, this is Dr. Adam Smith, psychiatrist and psychologist. Most of my career, I have been engaged as head of one of the world’s leading mental health research centres and asylums. Perhaps, you have heard about my friend, Kit, the asylum dweller. I am talking about the one, who appeared virtually out of nowhere and, after spending two long decades in our asylum, disappeared mysteriously. He claimed to be an alien from another planet called Hoola, which is millions of light years away from the Earth. He left his diary to me. In the diary he gave vivid details and descriptions of his past life on that planet. Perhaps, you have read that diary too.
In case you have not read The Asylum Dweller’s Diary, here is a quick recap. As written in the diary, this planet Hoola, along with eleven other planets, revolves around the nearest star called Let. Hoola has two natural satellites, named Tin and Tar. All the night skies of Hoola are lit up by either Tin or Tar. Everything about this planet, its calendar, landscape and innumerable diversity of flora and fauna, is quite strange and unlike those we find on Earth.
One of the unique and striking features of Hoola is this. Due to several physical reasons, including its planetary constellation, the egg-shaped atmosphere of the round shaped Hoola splits up the white light from Let into different colour rays. As a result, a given place on Hoola receives predominantly a particular colour of light during day time. The effect is somewhat like wearing coloured glasses. These strange colours change as one moves from one place on Hoola to another; like the red colour country Isthad, the blue colour country Inthad, the yellow colour country Hunthad and so on.
In his diary, Kit claims that he belongs to a mighty race, the Hoos, who inhabit Hoola. Strangely enough, the Hoos develop tails. However, their tails are quite unlike the tails that we see on Earth. A Hoo tail is much more evolved, superior, agile, sophisticated, sacred and coloured according to the ethnicity of the individual Hoo. The average height of the Hoos is about six feet but their tails grow up to eight feet long. So, for the convenience of their movement, the Hoos usually coil their tails around their bodies. In that position, their tails become indistinguishable with their bodies. Kit had purportedly lost his red colour tail in an incident before he had come to Earth.
Now, ten months have passed since Kit mysteriously disappeared from our asylum. The experiences, which I went through during the last seven months, are as fantastic, as mind-boggling and as fascinating as his diary. Also, there were interesting facts and events that took place meanwhile, in my absence, and I came to know about those subsequently. I have arranged all these chronologically to give you the continuous and complete story. It all started with an accident.
2
The Accident
In all those twenty years while Kit was in our asylum I had employed all my professional knowledge and expertise and tried my best to cure his apparent psychological ailments. But, despite being an accomplished specialised doctor of international renown, I had failed to do so. I had been engrossed in trying to figure out the physiological and psychological causes of his bizarre behaviours and had found none. I realised later that the root of his eccentricity laid in an acute infection. It seemed that along with his diary, he had also passed on that infection to me. His infection was pure and unselfish affection.
I did not realise when I had become so fond of his friendship. In spite of my long experiences as a psychologist, I remained unaware of the delightful effects of his delightful personality on my own psyche. Is it because he is such a talented person? Or is it because that, he could easily and spontaneously connect to me at the higher planes of my psychic space where no one else could accompany my innermost loneliness?
After his disappearance, whenever I was not at work, I tended to miss his presence in our asylum and his memories occupied my consciousness. Days, weeks and months passed like this. Then, one day it all changed suddenly.
That day, I decided to give myself a break. I stacked my car with some sandwiches, canned food and drinks. Then I drove off to the north-eastern mountains, which are about twenty five kilometres away from our asylum. Soon, I was beyond the city limits and steered through the open countryside. I took the road that leads straight to the mountains. It was an early autumn morning. The sky was clear and at its most blue. On both sides of the road, there were paddy fields that stretched up to the green contours at the horizon. Farmers were busy at the fields, tending to their plants. Some of them knew me. They merrily waved at me and called out, “Hey Doc.”
I waved back with a smile. The dispersed trees had just started to shed a few leaves. The fallen leaves were flown into the air as I sped past one of those trees. After a few kilometres more, the terrain became undulated and the road became wavy. Then, I reached the foot of the mountains. From there the serpentine road before me was narrower and uphill. As I drove higher through the lonely mountains, the air became chilly and a bit foggy. To my left the mountain slope rose up to the peaks and to my right was the sharp deep ravine. Gradually, the weather worsened further and visibility became low. I had visited the mountains several times before that day. I knew that in these mountains sometimes the weather changes quickly. So, with the hope that the weather would improve, I confidently negotiated the rather awkward road conditions. Ahead of me was a tricky U-turn. There was a wide trunked ancient oak at the rim of the turn. As I approached the turn, suddenly through the mist, appeared two human figures, a man and a lady.
They were few yards in front of my car, walking hand in hand and straight towards me. I reflexively pressed the car horn. But they were so engrossed with each other that they hardly seemed to notice my approaching car. Now, they were dangerously close. I kept pressing the horn and abruptly pulled the break. The mist had made the road slippery. My car skidded fo
rward anyway.
At the last split second, the pedestrians moved aside, out of the way of my skidding car. As my car went past them, I could clearly see their fair and oval faces looking at me. I saw this exquisitely beautiful, bright blue-eyed, slim lipped stranger lady apparently in her mid-thirties. Her cheekbones were shapely rounded. Her hair was pony-tailed at the back of her head. Overall, she looked out of this world. The other face bore a sharp nose and these unmistakable calm brown eyes, serenely staring straight at my eyes, and wore a trademark childlike infectious smile at the corners of his pink lips. His long brownish hair cascaded from his crown down to his broad shoulders. Amazingly, he looked rejuvenated and as youthful as when I had met him for the first time at our asylum, twenty years earlier. He was about thirty-six then. Involuntarily, my gaze was fixed on his face. Looking backwards, I called out, “Ki … t”.
Then I turned around and looked forward and saw that my car was still skidding ahead. It was perilously close to falling into the deep ravine beyond the outer edge of the sharp U-turn of the road. There was no time for me to open the car door and jump off the car. I grappled with my steering-wheel and barely managed to direct the car towards the old oak. My slipping car hit the oaken trunk at an angle, the front windshield shattered and my forehead hit hard on the steering wheel. Then the rear of the car turned half a circle and the car came to a halt with the rear wheels hanging in the air over the deep ravine. I was dizzy. Everything around me appeared misty and hazy.
I hopelessly tried to figure out how to get out of the tottering car. Just then, a stretched masculine right hand appeared before me. Behind the hand were the two faces that I had seen a few seconds earlier. They were still pleasantly looking at me, apparently oblivious of my dire situation. Kit calmly said, “Here Doctor, hold my hand.”
I stretched out my right hand and clasped his palm and he clasped mine. Then he pulled me up through the broken front windshield of the dangling car. Kit kept pulling me up as the car finally plunged into the ravine and disappeared in the mist below me. After several seconds, I heard the splashing sound of the car falling in the river below. In the meantime, all three of us, me, Kit and the blue eyed lady, kept moving through the mist. In that mist, I could not see anything other than my companions. I experienced enhanced G-force. Then, to my utter astonishment, I realised that we were moving but not walking on the road. We were moving in a direction, which, I felt, was upwards!
We turned, coasted, rolled and revolved through the seemingly endless mist. Kit held on to my clasp and, with all my strength, I held on to his palm. After several minutes, everything became dark. Now, I could not see anything. I only felt the warmth of Kit’s palm in my grip. A strange stupefying feeling gripped me. I cannot exactly recall how long I was in that state. Probably, after a long while, a glimmer of light and the mist reappeared. However, this time, I felt like falling weightlessly through the mist. I glimpsed the burst of a strange joy on the faces of my companions. The air increasingly smelt unfamiliar. I wanted to ask Kit about what had been happening since he had rescued me from my dangling car. Before I could utter a word, I heard Kit calling out, “Hold on to me, Doctor. Take a deep breath. Hold your breath.”
Within seconds, we were off the misty clouds. Still falling freely through the air, all I could see below us was endless tranquil blue waters. Then we awkwardly plunged into that water. The water felt cool, though not chilly, and sweet. So I presumed that we had fallen in some huge lake. As I struggled to reach the surface of the suffocating waters, Kit continued to extend his helping hand and pull me upwards. Just when the breathlessness had become too much to bear, I popped my head out of the surface of the waters. Instinctively, I puked a little of the water that I had swallowed and sucked up a breast full of air through my mouth.
Looking around, I saw water all around me, though I could not see very far as the sky was overcast with the clouds through which we had dropped. The only other objects that I saw were the heads of my two companions sticking out of the water. We constantly swam to keep ourselves afloat. Now, I said to Kit, “I did not know that this huge lake exists on the other side of the mountains. I have been to these mountains many times before. This place is only twenty five kilometres away from our asylum. Amazing, no one ever told me about it.”
Kit smiled at me and said, “This is not on the other side of the mountains and this is not a lake. We are literally in the sea.”
“Hey Kit, this is not the time for a joke. I have been to each and every continent. To the best of my knowledge there is no sweet water sea in the world,” I said sternly.
“Maybe not in your world but here the seas naturally have sweet water. You are millions of light years away from your world. Welcome to my world, Doctor. Welcome to planet Hoola,” said Kit.
3
Back to Hoola
Astonished beyond my wits, I remained agape. Kit continued, “As soon as I breathed this air, the very breath of the air told me that I am back to Hoola. But I do not know in which sea and where on Hoola we are now.”
“This way, please come along gentlemen.” I heard the sweet voice of the beautiful lady for the first time. Kit nodded at me and I followed without asking a question. Kit put all his faith in the guidance of this stranger lady and I had no choice but to follow them. Our immediate necessity was to find dry land. She swam and Kit and I followed behind her. I had seen each and every style of swimming but I had never seen anyone swim the way she was swimming. As she moved at a steady pace, only her head was above the water but she left no ripples or waves behind her.
We did not talk much. The exhausting swim kept my mind occupied. After an hour or so, Kit excitedly said, “Doctor, look, dry land ahead.”
I raised my head a bit above the waters and saw this beautiful violet aura at the horizon before me. I had never seen such natural violet colouration before that point in time. Kit continued, “Now I can guess that we are in the sea to the north of the Violet Land. I have lived in some of the southern parts of this land for about seven years. I know that bewildering, deserted and mostly arid land very well. But, I have never been to these northern regions of the land. I do not know what is waiting for us there.”
Now the lady interrupted saying, “You will find out as you move on. Hurry up now. These waters are known to be the home of monstrous sea animals.”
“That’s true. Let’s reach the shore as quickly as we can,” said Kit.
The uneven sharp hilly features of the land became increasingly vivid as we approached nearer. After another half an hour or so, we reached near the shore. Here the tranquility of the sea was perturbed by the dangerous waves thrashing on the continental shelf. A huge wave washed all three of us ashore. Exhausted, I pulled myself up on a rock at the shore. My body felt much heavier than usual. Suddenly I recalled that Kit had written in his diary that Hoola is about four-thirds the size of Earth. Then I realised that the greater gravitational pull of Hoola made my body feel heavier than on Earth. Now, I was convinced that indeed I was on Hoola. I laid there with my back on the rock.
After catching some breath, I stood up and looked around. Behind me, I heard the rolling restless sea plunging its waves on the shore. Before me the rocky shoreline was embellished with sparse vegetation of strange exotic plants. The most striking of these were the palm like monocots vying for the sky, reaching up to fifty feet high. Beyond the trees, the landscape gradually rose with the peaks of the barren hilly terrain meeting the sky at the horizon. A few strange long beaked birds glided from one canopy to another. Their sharp shrill calls punctuated the roar of the sea. The scenario looked like an alien picture postcard dipped in violet colour. I remembered that I had read in Kit’s diary that the daylight is predominantly violet in this Violet Land.
Now, I noticed my companions standing face to face on a rock at a distance. They seemed to be having a serious discussion. While approaching them I heard Kit anxiously say, “My love, you cannot just leave me like that. I cannot move an inch without you
. Your affection is all the sustenance I need. What about the great deeds that we hope to accomplish together for the benefit of the race? ”
“O my dearest Kit, I would never leave you if I could. This is how it is and it is beyond my control. I shall wait for you on the other side. Either you come and meet me there or you will have to call me back to this life by the power of your love. Hurry, if you are too late and I have to take another body and move on to the next life, then it will take centuries before we meet again.” She paused briefly and continued, “You must find the hamlet at the green patch in the south of this Violet Land. We had desired to unite there before I was struck by my compatriot’s arrow and was compelled to leave my body. From there, you must start anew.” Then she softly said, “Don’t be sad, my dear. All the light is in your own heart. May Almighty Intha bless you to realise that light and unleash its powers. May you grow in and with His divine solace.”
I could not believe what I saw next. The blue eyed lady just faded away in the very air before Kit’s anxious and teary eyes. I remained perplexed for a few moments. Then I recalled. Kit had written to me in his parting letter, while he had mysteriously escaped from our asylum on Earth, that his beloved Ket’s spirit often visited him in his cell number 121. That she would free him from the asylum. He had also written in that letter that, he and his beloved would remain on Earth until the right time comes. At the right time they would go back together to their planet, Hoola. It occurred to me now that this must be the right time. I realised that there must be some greater hidden cause behind everything that was happening.
I collected my thoughts and focused on the present. I went to the rock on which Kit stood all alone, silently staring at the air before him. I gently put my right palm on his left shoulder. He quietly turned his anguished face towards me. “My friend, remember the words she has just said. We have a lot of works to do,” I said politely. Then, to pep up his mood, I animatedly added, “But first we must eat something. I feel very hungry, thirsty too. You must be hungry as well. I do not know this place. Can we find here something to eat?”