by Anmol Batra
From a distance he can see the immigration counters, a row of chambers with narrow pathways in between. He tries to look at the person sitting at the counter where he needs to report, but his view is eclipsed by more people standing in between.
A huge wall forms a grand archway above the counters, giving the entire place a gate-like look. The grand archway is decorated with round metal sheets. The ornamented wall also hosts different sculptures of hands protruding out of the decorations. Each hand sculpture is slightly bigger than that of a fully-grown man and all the hands are crafted in different poses.
Zaffar curiously looks in every direction, trying to look at everything at once when suddenly he is struck by a bag belonging to the passenger standing behind him. Though Zaffar feels like punching him in his face, he decides to ignore it considering the contents of his own luggage. As he looks at the young fellow standing behind him, his attention is drawn towards the man behind him, and the ones standing further behind.
“How come all those people are wearing sunglasses?” He wonders.
As he steps forward, his attention turns towards the hand sculptures hanging on the wall. Though not sure, doubt strikes him as he looks at one of the sculptures, which seems to have changed its pose. The index finger now points towards him and rest of the fingers are curled into a tight fist.
A few minutes pass by and more people join the line. Zaffar continues to move ahead. A moment comes when anxiety grabs him again. The same air hostess with a red hat and mushroom-brown blouse stands in a line parallel to Zaffar, but with a slight change this time. She is also wearing black sunglasses.
Zaffar decides to keep his back turned to the air hostess and starts looking at the hand sculptures again. This time he finds another hand sculpture pointing a finger right towards his face.
A few minutes later, he finally manages to see the immigration officer’s face. He is shocked to find Mr Amitabh Banerjee sitting at the counter, wearing black sunglasses.
Zaffar finds himself fourth in line. His pulse starts to race as he avoids looking at him. He turns away his eyes and looks at the sculptures hanging on the grand arc above the counter. Another shock; all the hand sculptures had now become fists, each one pointing a finger towards him.
Zaffar observes the crowd around him. Every individual now seems to be wearing sunglasses. A moment of realisation strikes him; he hasn’t seen a single pair of eyes ever since he woke up in the airport.
Zaffar vaguely realises it’s another dream but is not sure what to do.
Finally, his turn comes. He tries to look for his passport in his pocket but can’t find it.
“Good Morning Mr Zaffar! How was your journey?” asks Mr Banerjee looking at a green-coloured passport with the golden engraving: ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan.’
Anxiety burns in his mind but, confused by what is happening, Zaffar decides to stay calm but vigilant.
“Enjoy your stay in India,” says Mr Banerjee.
Zaffar tries to walk down the corridor between the immigration cabins but in a moment he finds Mr Banerjee holding his bag by the string despite looking forwards. Zaffar tries to pull the bag but Mr Banerjee doesn’t let his grip loosen. He continues to look forward and proceeds with immigration checks without any issues for other arriving passengers.
“Excuse me, Mr Zaffar!” Kaustav’s voice echoes in the airport.
Zaffar leaves the bag and rushes forward. The next moment, the floor cracks and a hand sculpture like the one on the grand arc emerges from the ground. The sculpture holds all its fingers straight up, with its open palm facing Zaffar.
Zaffar looks around but finds no one else to be concerned about the hand. Kaustav is nowhere to be seen and Mr Banerjee is holding his bag in one hand while interviewing the arriving passengers.
Zaffar turns to the left and another hand emerges from the ground. A second later, Zaffar is caged between four hand sculptures, all facing their open palms towards Zaffar, slightly higher up than his face. Zaffar tries to push them away but can’t move them. The sound of Kaustav echoes again, making Zaffar restless. He tries to push away the hands with his full force but fails to alter their positions.
After struggling for a while, the hand sculptures start to move. All four of them slowly retreat inside the ground again. Zaffar opens his eyes. His view has changed. The entire airport is now empty. The immigration counter, the velvet-stripped queue manager, even the papers on Mr Banerjee’s desk remain motionless but the entire crowd has disappeared.
He Improvises and decides to walk towards the exit. In the complete silence of the airport, Zaffar can hear his own footsteps echoing. A few steps later, he can hear a rubbing noise inside the walls and ceiling. The noise sounds like rocks grinding against concrete floor.
Zaffar stops to listen to it carefully. The noise steadily increases with every second. Zaffar contemplates looking at his surroundings.
Suddenly, a loud bursting sound and a flat hand sculpture comes flying down, breaking through the ceiling. Zaffar jumps forward and rolls on the floor. A fraction of a second later, another hand sculpture bursts out of the roof in the shape of a fist, hammering against Zaffar as he lies on the floor. He avoids attempting to stand up and rolls away from the hammering fist.
Zaffar looks around and finds a door in one corner near the wall. He quickly runs towards it. Another open palm lands on the floor resting on the side of the pinky finger. It swiftly glides towards him. Zaffar wrestles with the doorknob but is unable to open it. The open palm hand increases its pace and the moment it is almost a foot away, he quickly picks up a dustbin and pushes it between the palm and the wall, securing it like a barrier
The shiny hand stops is stopped for a second by the dustbin and Zaffar uses the opportunity to slide out. The hand forces upon the bin and flattens it into the shape of disc and slams further in the wall.
Zaffar breathes heavily, and rubs his sweaty face while looking at the shiny sculpture on the wall.
Not sure of what to do, he runs in the opposite direction. To his shock, two more hand sculptures erupt out of the ceiling landing sideways, one in front of him and the other behind. Hands start dragging themselves towards Zaffar intending to crush him in the middle.
Stunned, Zaffar turns in all directions, the arms forming a narrow corridor which is steadily narrowing. Zaffar steps sideways, away from the closing hands, but he gets trapped between the arms.
The arms close over. With no hope of making it to an exit, Zaffar takes a deep breath, rests both his hands on the sculpture’s arms and closes his eyes.
The arms get closer and Zaffar can barely hold them with his full strength. A moment passes and the hands stop moving. Zaffar’s own arms recede into the sculpture’s which start to lose their structure. Another moment and the arms break, turning to rubble.
Zaffar opens his eyes, looks around and finds all the sculptures lying on the ground in pieces.
In front of him stands a bearded man with brown eyes, beaming at him.
“It’s you again,” blurts out Zaffar, surprised yet confused.
“Yes Zaffar, it’s me. Always there to protect you and always at your service,” says the bright-faced man, who looks again exactly like Zaffar himself.
Zaffar’s look-alike turns his back and takes a few steps away, but Zaffar stops him.
“Wait, I want to talk to you,” he says.
“It’s an honour that you do. I was losing hope,” replies Zaffar’s lookalike.
“Losing hope?”
“A warrior, born to be an Emperor… Ill-treated and disrespected by the world.”
Zaffar remains silent and curiously looks at him.
The look-alike continues, “It’s you, Zaffar, who discovered the gift of reincarnation. It was you who learned how to carry memories of one life into the next birth. You were born to lead others with your wisdom. You were born to rule the world. I am your memories locked within your soul.”
Zaffar felt at peace. His experience had kept
him vigilant over previous years, but for the first time he felt like trusting the unbelievable.
“What do you want from me?” He asks.
“It’s not about me asking you for something. It’s about you resuming what you started in your past lives. We have come too far to fail, Zaffar.”
“I don’t recall anything,” replies Zaffar.
“It’s because your memories are locked within you. It’s me, your memories, and you will have control over your entire knowledge sphere once you unlock the Hourglass Warren.”
“Hourglass Warren??” exclaims Zaffar, inquisitively.
“It took you over a century to discover the secret of the hourglass portal and another five decades to deploy it in Chile. The second one needs to be established exactly on the opposite side of the Earth.”
Where is it?” asks Zaffar.
“That place is in Uttarakhand, India,” replies the man.
“I don’t really get it. What will I gain from all this?”
“Zaffar, in your past life you discovered the technique to lock ones memories within non-living objects. It was you who discovered how one can communicate with each human being on this planet by mere telepathy. The Hourglass Warren will build an umbrella over the entire earth, helping you command each individual. You will be able to look into every individual’s memories, located in the furthest corners of the world. No one will be ever able to cheat or lie to you. You will be the immortal Emperor of the World, the strongest and wisest ever born,” the man says steadily.
The words were motivating enough for Zaffar to continue pursuing the man. With a twinkle in his eyes, he asks his lookalike,
“What do I need to do?”
The man smiles and says, “The Hourglass Warren has 2 pair of structures. Each comprising of an hourglass and sundial placed at the opposite directions of the earth. Each structure forms an umbrella covering the entire earth. An additional black morsel acts as a key to opening the portal across the Earth.The good news is that you have already deployed one pole.”
“I can understand what an hourglass and sundial look like but what’s a black morsel?” Asks Zaffar.
“Black Morsel is a black-coloured rice grain. It’s indestructible and it shines purple on a night with no moon,” says Zaffar’s lookalike. “But first we need to fetch the hourglass and the sundial.”
“And where are those things?” asks Zaffar
“The hourglass is with an art collector in India. The royal heir has been trying to extract the sand from the indestructible hourglass but has always failed to do so. Now he plans to auction it tomorrow in Hotel Theme, Jaipur,” explains the lookalike.
“What does this hourglass look like?” Asks Zaffar.
“It has wooden discs on both ends and holds purple sand in the glass. The sand won’t move until the sundial is mounted over the disk on the sand-holding side.” replies the man.
“The sundial is buried in the archaeological ruins at Bishop’s Gate, Central London.”
Zaffar carefully listens.
“I have something good for you that will help you in your journey.” The man continues. “The Jeweller who owns the Chaman dry fruit shop has been hiding a lot of black money in the rooftop storeroom. You will find over a million Pakistani Rupees hidden in the wall. So, it’s time for us to go back to India.”
“Wait!! When can I see you again? Or rather… How can I call you?” begs Zaffar.
“You don’t need to call me, Zaffar. I reside within you. And I’ll be there when you need me,” the man reassures him.
Zaffar could hear a window slamming against wall from a distance. He looks sideways towards the tall glass windows of the airport, which start to splinter glass inwards. Moments later he could feel strong freezing wind striking his arm. The airport begins to disassemble. Zaffar covers his face to protect himself from flying shards. A blink of an eye and he wakes up in his room again. It was a dream.
He quickly gets out of his bed and walks towards the filthy window, rattling in the fierce wind. The clouds are shouting out with thunder and the freezing wind smells of rain. Zaffar stands near the window and looks into the narrow lane. His view is partially eclipsed by a wire mesh running here and there without a pattern. From this wire grid, he can see the entrance of Chaman dry fruit shop in the opposite lane, with its untidy rooftop.
It was the second time Zaffar had clearly remembered a dream - and every detail of it. He continues to gaze through the window. He stays there, wondering if the dream is real.
“Is this just a dream?” He thinks. “I think I should verify it by going to the dry fruit shop.”
Thick drops of water bombard the metal covers mounted over the porches of the shops. Minutes later, it turns into heavy rain. Zaffar quietly sneaks downstairs. He can barely hear his own footsteps amongst the rolls of thunder. He walks to the entrance of the dry fruit shop and climbs a drain pipe running along the entrance shutter, to the roof top.
From the broken window he gently slides into the storeroom. The damp room smells of dry, rotten fruits and herbs. The roof is supported with thick wooden beams running parallel to the walls. Water drips from one of the beam’s edges over empty sacks which smell of dust and moths.
Zaffar curiously looks at each wall, which is covered with blue tiles a quarter of the way up the roof. He gently steps closer to the wall and knocks on each tile, one after the other.
Twenty minutes pass by. Zaffar is unable to find any tile which sounds different. He wipes his wet face with the back of his hand and sits on a stack of ground nuts. Tired and drenched, he flashes his torch around the room for the last time.
Along the edge of the room runs a green skirting made of a similar stone to the floor. The top edge of each skirting slab is cemented to the wall along the tiles, except for one slab which is simply sitting loose in the row along the wall, in line with the skirting slab pieces.
Zaffar steps closer to the edge of the room, contemplating the odd one out in the series. He knocks the back of torch on it and senses an empty pocket behind. Zaffar pulls the slab only to find a porthole behind it, a hole small enough for a mouse or a squirrel to go in. But it could also let through a hand.
Zaffar slides his hand into the porthole and finds a bundle of papers wrapped in a plastic sheet. One after the other, he pulls out 4 plastic bags wrapped over a bundle of papers.
After all the bundles are out he flashes his torch on one of the notes.
As he does so, the light catches the barely visible Faizal Mosque photo through the semi-transparent plastic bag – the mark of the 5000 Rupee notes inside.
◆◆◆
Chapter 13
The Missing Link
24th December 2012 1:30 AM |Swati’s Residence, New Delhi
Arjun is back in his body and Swati has returned to her place. Both of them are sitting on chairs at the dining table. With his heart sinking, Arjun stares at the table with an ashen face as scenes of Ankita’s kidnapping run through his head time and again. Swati silently gazes at him. She can feel Arjun’s grief. By now she has guessed that Ankita is not at the place where he found her before.
She keeps her hand on Arjun’s arm and consoles him in a low, reassuring voice. “Relax! You know she is going to be alright in near future, so why are you worried?”
“I hope she will be” replies Arjun as tears roll down his face. “I can now imagine how much pain she must be feeling. How much trauma is she going to face at the hands of those devils?”
Swati pulls Arjun by his arm and loudly exclaims, “Arjun stop worrying. Get up! We need to rescue Ankita from those devils.”
With mournful eyes Arjun nods glumly. “I don’t know what to do next.”
Swati steps back and takes a seat at the dining table again. In a calm, assuring voice she pleads. “We can plan further if you can explain everything you saw.”
“They drugged Ankita and took her to an abandoned dairy farm in Gurgaon that day,” replies Arjun.
“An
ything else you observed?” Asks Swati.
“At the kidnapping point in Yusuf Sarai Market, two of the kidnappers tried to chase Akif but came back without him,” replies Arjun.
“Seems like, we need to work in a different direction again. We still need to figure out two things. Who is Billal and where did he come from?” Concludes Swati.
“The Ambulance brought Billal to the hospital at around 12:30 PM. As per the report I got from your place, it reached Aurbindo Marg near the outer ring road flyover at 12:00 PM. It’s likely the accident happened 15-30 Minutes before that,” Swati speculates.
“You need to scout that destination and find out if it was actually an accident or not. Second, there should be someone else along with Billal, which is why they were able to trace him to Aditya Hospital without a cellphone.”
“Hmmm…” Arjun nods. He gets up from his chair and drags his feet to the bed.
“Wait!! It’s too late now Arjun. You need to sleep. We can do this first thing tomorrow morning,” Swati pleads with him.
“I won’t be able to sleep properly until I find out about Ankita’s well-being,” he says abruptly.
“Even if you do figure out where she is, we would still need our physical strength to rescue her. Your soul travelling is of no good use beyond that.” opines Swati.
“I’ll take cops along with me where ever she is.” blurts Arjun.
Swati stands up to try and pacify Arjun. “And how will you explain to the cops the source of the facts you have? What if the cops are involved in it? Billal was from Pakistan, what if they have taken Ankita to Pakistan? Any thoughts about any of that?”
Arjun remains quiet, his eyes turn red, and tears start rolling down his face. Swati hugs him and keeps her head on his shoulder. She consoles Arjun; “Stay calm!”
Arjun and Swati lie down to sleep in different rooms. Both of them find it hard to sleep. While Arjun continues to recall the horrors he witnessed during his time travel, Swati thinks about the time she has spent with Arjun so far. She had started developing a soft corner for Arjun but is still confused.