by Anmol Batra
The SUV stops near a two-storey building with a slanting roof covered with straw-shaped tiles. The wind blows heavily. Maya tightens her long overcoat and slides her hands into her pockets while she walks inside the building. The three walk to the restaurant in the building.
A window next to the table provides a view of the snow-covered mountains. Beside the table sits a strongly-built lady in her mid 30s, with an Asian face.
“A very good afternoon, Mrs Bisht! And my apologies for being late,” Tejas humbly says to the lady sitting beside the table.
“Even I was a bit late; I just arrived a minute back,” admits Mrs Bisht with a smile on her face.
The three take a seat alongside Laxmi.
“Laxmi, I am extremely glad that you managed to spare some time, especially on holiday, to discuss this project,” thanks Maya in a humble tone.
“If it is for the greater good of the people I am always ready. Tell me what I can do for you?” Replies Laxmi.
“Our research points to something valuable hidden fifty meters below the Tungnath Temple in Chopta,” explains Maya.
“Have you surveyed the area for oil, radioactivity or any precious metals?” Asks Laxmi.
“No we haven’t,” replies Maya.
“Maya, have you brought any archaeological reports that point to that valuable resource?” Asks Laxmi.
“No, we don’t have any as of now,” replies Maya shaking her head.
“You are saying that there is something valuable deep beneath the temple but you don’t have any proof. And I should let you damage the sacred temple anyway?” Asks Laxmi, sarcastically.
“We are ready to pay for it,” replies Maya.
“Maya, I am not sure what you have in mind, but I can’t let you drill on a sacred land. The temple is believed to hold Ravan’s wisdom; we have people from as far as Sri Lanka coming to see it,” explains Laxmi.
“One of your researchers highlighted the probability of highly-compressed coal deep within the mountain of Chopta. Isn’t that right?” Asks Maya.
“How do you know about that?” Replies Laxmi.
“Or rather, let’s discuss how we all can mutually benefit from it,” replies Maya.
Laxmi sips tea from her cup. And Maya continues, “Instead of digging a well in the floor of the temple, we can dig a tunnel in the mountain which can take us right beneath the temple. This way, your temple remains preserved and we get a chance to discover what we are looking for. We can build a mine with a government stake in it if we do find coal or if we are lucky enough to find diamonds in there.”
Laxmi takes a moment to think and then responds, “Alright Maya, I can grant you six months’ permission to dig a tunnel. Guarding the temple will be your responsibility. I will add a security deposit clause for the temple in the agreement. I believe that’s all you want?”
“Yes, that will be enough,” replies Maya, beaming back at Laxmi. “Tejas will be there at your office to finalise the agreement whenever you want.”
Laxmi stands up and leaves the restaurant with a warm goodbye. Tejas and Rahul wait with Maya at the restaurant.
“Your Highness, how come you know about that compressed coal block in that particular hill?” Asks Tejas.
“Will let you know someday,” answers Maya.
◆◆◆
Chapter 29
Training the Ordinary
1st January 2013 11:00 AM Mehrauli Archaeological Park
On a bright sunny morning, a tall white man with a tripod stand mounted with a camera asks Arjun to step aside as he is blocking his view of Qutab Minar. Arjun gets out of the way and walks along the hedge under the tall pine trees.
It’s been a long time since Arjun last travelled as a physical being, and after days of travelling as a soul he felt blissful walking as a physical being in public. He had a feeling of the mild chill in the air and a mild cramp in his leg. The warmth of the sunshine felt healing. He could now understand what Howrang had been missing all these years.
After walking in the park for fifteen minutes looking for a hideout, he reaches one corner of the park, where he finds an enclosed space reasonable enough to camp in. Arjun sneaks into the gated, unlit chamber. The old chamber has a dusty cement floor and ancient walls which are losing their grip on the rubble attached to them. He uses his handkerchief like a duster and wipes off a little area along the wall. He then sits down cross-legged, leaning against the wall and closes his eyes. A fraction of a second later, he steps out of his body, only to find Howrang standing right in front of him.
Arjun twitches upon seeing Diachi and smiling back at him.
“Good Morning Arjun. Glad to finally see you,” greets Howrang.
“Same here,” Arjun replies.
Howrang instructs Arjun; “Follow me!” And swiftly turns around and glides outside.
Arjun follows him, and both step out on to the lush green lawn in the sunshine. Howrang glides over the cemented path among the crowd, randomly taking left and right turns without uttering a word. After walking for fifteen minutes, he reaches the other end of the park.
“Why can’t he glide across the shortest distance instead of so many turns?” Wonders Arjun
Howrang glides closer to a tree and stops. Curious, Arjun immediately questions him. “I am not sure if I should be that far from my body left in public,” explains Arjun, concerned.
“Yes, you shouldn’t be,” says Howrang in a calm voice.
“What?!” Exclaims Arjun in an annoyed tone.
“Your body is highly vulnerable like this. If you don’t act in the next fifty seconds, you will probably end up like me,” warns Howrang with an expressionless face.
Uncomfortable and tense, Arjun is now filled with fear. “Wait Wait Wait... I don’t get it!” He stammers.
“There is a robber armed with a knife near your body. He thinks you are drunk. He will rob you and may stab you for your valuables. And now you are left with thirty-five seconds,” cautions Howrang, gazing back at Arjun.
Arjun turns around to rush back, but Howrang continues, “Do you remember where your body is?”
Vexed, Arjun replies in a worried tone without turning back, “I’ll find it.”
“Did you practise slowing down time?” Asks Diachi
With eyes wide open, Arjun looks around and soon realises he doesn’t know which way to look for his body. “I should have tried time control rather than playing with knives,” Arjun thinks to himself.
“No. I…I… was…” Arjun turns around to look at Diachi.
“You are left with twenty seconds,” Howrang interrupts again.
Worried, Arjun bends forward, clasps his hands together and pleads to Howrang, “Can you slow down time for me?”
Howrang glares at him and replies, “Look deep into my eyes and try it yourself.”
“You have ten seconds left.” Howrang continues, “9… 8... 7... 6…”
Arjun deeply gazes into his eyes, trying to hold back time. He gasps and closes his fists tightly.
“ 5… 4... 3…” Howrang roars.
Arjun screams pleadingly, while closing his eyes tightly, “I can’t!”
“Two…” says Howrang, but his voice hangs in time.
Arjun opens his eyes and looks around in the empty park. At a distance he can see a small boy waiting for his ball to fall into his hand.
Arjun feels relieved, looking at the coloured ball stuck in the sky. To ratify his beliefs, he looks around for further signs. On the grass near the trunk of the tree, a black striped squirrel holding a half-eaten ground nut sits inertly like a soft toy. Arjun looks back at Howrang with a curious face. “Did I?”
“No, you didn’t,” replies Howrang, glaring back at him.
“Let’s save you from that robber,” instructs Howrang, and starts gliding towards Arjun’s body.
Howrang glides straight to the enclosed area where Arjun had left his body.
“No wonder he was taking so many turns earlier,” Arjun conclude
s without saying anything.
On the cement floor, Arjun finds his body lying on its chest facing the ground. His shaved cheeks are coated with a thin layer of mud and his hands are behind his back, tightly-gripped by a teen boy with a dusky face. He also holds a knife in the same hand with which he grips Arjun’s hands behind his back.
Furious, Arjun steps over to get inside, when he is stopped by Howrang. “Just to remind you, you may be a second away from getting stabbed. You are bigger than this teenage boy. Your movement will threaten him, and he will stab you in the back,” cautions Howrang
Arjun looks back at Howrang.
“Take your time to think what you can do,” Howrang continues
Arjun could now sense what Howrang was trying to do but wasn’t sure how to get out of this position. Arjun carefully looks at his lifeless body and then at the motionless robber, who is a fraction of a second away from pulling his wallet out of his back pocket.
After looking around for a few minutes, he looks back at Howrang, hoping for a clue, but Howrang maintains a poker face.
“I don’t know,” declares Arjun while looking down, as he shakes his head with the grief of failure.
Howrang looks back at him coldly and hints, “Do you think this robber needs to stab a drunk man if he is not fighting back?”
“Ohh…” the penny drops for Arjun.
Moments later, he asks Diachi again, “If he runs away with my wallet and causes no harm, why should I fight him?”
“Will that be justice?” Asks Howrang.
Without uttering another word, Arjun steps inside his body. Time regains its pace. The teenage robber gently pulls out the purse as Arjun remains calm and lifeless. Then he releases Arjuns’ hands and gets off his back. He looks into the open which is in the same direction as Arjun’s left hand and steps over it.
He has stepped a few feet away when a hand grips his jeans from the waist. He is surprised, but before he can react, Arjun pulls him on to the ground with his full force.
Frightened teen stands up facing Arjun while holding the wallet in one hand and the knife in another.
He swiftly slides the wallet in his jeans and grips the knife tightly. Arjun looks ferociously at him without blinking.
“Give back my wallet!” Arjun shouts, gesturing to the boy with his right hand.
Threatened, the boy swiftly swings the knife towards Arjun’s hand, cutting his finger.
“Ahh!” Arjun howls in pain and shuffles back. He then pulls out his dusty white handkerchief from his pocket and grips it tightly in his hand.
Both stare ferociously in to each other’s eyes. Arjun calmly waits for the teenager to lose focus. The boy blinks and Arjun swiftly pulls out a rusty hook from the wall with the same bleeding hand that is still holding the handkerchief, and throws it, and the handkerchief, at the boy.
The boy swings his knife against the white handkerchief but doesn’t see the black metal hook raging towards his face in the low light. His knife tears apart the handkerchief in mid-air and the raging hook strikes him on his nose.
Blood starts gushing out of his nose. He throws the knife at Arjun hastily but completely misses him. Chill runs down his spine and he tries to run towards the exit. Arjun grabs him by the collar of his jacket. The boy starts crying, buckles to the ground and covers his head.
Arjun first pulls out his purse from the boy’s rear pocket and then tells the sobbing boy in a calm voice, “I am not going to hurt you anymore.”
“I am sorry. Please let me go,” cries the boy while still covering his head with his hands.
“I will,” reassures Arjun, “If you do as I say. Now put your hands down.”
Though Arjun realises that Howrang is waiting for him, deep inside he sympathises with the boy. “He first needs medical assistance. I’ll be back for my lessons, but in a while,” says Arjun, staring at a wall.
The boy puts his hands down and looks around, wondering who the big guy is talking too. Scared and surprised, he avoids questioning Arjun.
Arjun gestures to him to walk forward and then escorts him out of the park.
1st January 2013 1:00 PM | Mehrauli Archaeological Park, Delhi
Two hours pass by. Arjun returns to the same place but this time he also brings a piece of cardboard mounted on a wooden stand. He pulls out a black marker from his pocket and writes,
“NO ENTRY”
Arjun pitches the board just outside the enclosed hideout. He sits on the ground and steps out as a soul.
“I hope he is not disappointed with me,” Arjun thinks, as he realises that he can’t see Diachi where he had left him.
After looking around the park for five minutes, he finds Diachi standing on the grass near Alladin’s tomb. He moves closer to him. Diachi looks at him without any expression.
“Sorry! I shouldn’t have left like that,” apologises Arjun.
“How is the boy?” Mutters Diachi.
“He is better now, but sadly I fractured his nose,” replies Arjun
Howrang starts walking across the grass and Arjun walks besides him.
“Arjun, you need practice. I was hoping you would be at least able to overclock you subjective experience but you didn’t practise,” says Diachi in a calm voice.
“However, I must congratulate you, for what you did was ethically right. You kept sight of justice over revenge. But you still have a long way to go before you can shoulder the responsibility of a Time Guard. As of now though, you are on the right track,” Diachi continues
“I won’t disappoint you,” replies Arjun in a reassuring tone.
“First, try holding back time. Look around you for moving objects or living creatures; try holding their movement. Then try stepping out of your body while you are still standing,” explains Diachi.
“Combine these two and you will be like the undefeatable warrior, Arjun, known to the Hindus,” continues Diachi.
“Was Arjun also capable of doing similar things as us?” Asks Arjun
“I don’t know. Even if he was a prodigy and decided not to tell anyone, the world would never have known about it,” replies Diachi.
“I agree. So what else do I need to learn?” Asks Arjun.
“Don’t rush Arjun! Yes, I certainly have more things for you but will teach you as and when the time is right.”
The sun forgets to cast shadows of Arjun and Diachi as both walk towards Alladin’s tomb.
“I am leaving now. I’ll see you tomorrow again at 10. Until then, keep practising,” instructs Diachi and disappears in to thin air.
Arjun continues to practise near the tomb, keeping a close eye on his body. On the open grass space, Arjun looks for flying birds and tries to hold back time. After two hours of effort, Arjun can observe birds flying in slow motion.
“This seems like fifty seconds for one human second. How come Diachi manages to do it so much more quickly?” Arjun wonders, gazing at the birds in the open air.
Foreseeing time constraints, Arjun decides to practise the other tactic. He quickly steps into his body as a soul and walks over the grass in the park. On the lush green lawn, he stands straight, closing his eyes. He gasps deeply, pulls his shoulders back and a moment later steps just an inch outside of his body, losing the sense of sunshine and the chill in the air.
“That was easy,” Arjun thinks as he looks around the open park. The grass looks the same as usual and the birds on the tree behave no differently.
“Hey look,” a man in his 40s shouts in surprise, pointing a finger at Arjun.
“Did he just see me?” Arjun wonders.
The same middle-aged man starts running towards him. Arjun looks the other way and finds more men running towards him. He looks down, only to find his physical self lying on the ground like a drunkard.
“Oh. Shit!” Arjun thinks.
A few men gather around him and pull him up by his arms. Arjun quickly enters his body and acts half-unconscious.
“Are you drunk?” An onlooker asks him while t
rying to smell his breath.
“No no no...” replies Arjun while acting exhausted. “Just a little tired.”
A scratch on his finger which is now filled with wet mud and a few bruises on the elbows aside, Arjun was not particularly worried about the pain. He couldn’t afford another public embarrassment trying to balance his body without a soul though.
Recalling the past few hours, Arjun feels motivated and worried at the same time. His knife-throwing practice had come in handy today but he was still not comfortable disclosing things to Swati.
After sitting on a bench for a while, he decides to go back to Swati’s residence, practice for a while and take a trip to Kasur.
Arjun tries to balance his body but ends up falling on the bed every time. The cushioned bed doesn’t cause any physical bruises but leaves him in mental anguish with every failure.
After Swati’s arrival, Arjun runs upstairs to practise, returning only when Swati has fallen asleep.
2nd January 2013 10:00 AM | Mehrauli Archaeological Park
Arjun is back in the park. He was reminded of the feeling he used to get when he couldn’t do his Maths homework and had to face Mrs Khera’s wooden stick. This time it was his inability to balance his body without a soul.
Vexed and demotivated, Arjun goes to the same hideout, puts up the no entry sign outside the enclosure and extracts himself as a soul once more. Not to his surprise, he finds Diachi standing alongside the wall in the same place as yesterday.
“Hello Arjun!” Greets Diachi, with a smile on his face.
“Hi Howrang.” Replies Arjun in a low voice.
“You seem a little upset,” consoles Diachi.
“I’ll be honest, I was able to over-clock my subjective experience but I couldn’t balance my body without a soul,” laments Arjun.
“Well you didn’t get what I asked for,” comments Diachi
“As in?” murmurs Arjun.
“You need to over-clock your subjective experience right from the moment you step out as a soul. And you should be back in your body before it collapses to the ground,” explains Diachi.
“Arjun, I was taught the same technique when my mentor was alive. Sadly, I can’t demonstrate you the same. You have to discover it on your own before it is too late,” Daichi continues.