Bheem

by Jyotin Goel

  The Indian Ocean

  The helicopter pilot, Flight Lieutenant Manpreet Kohli, had received his orders only after picking up the two civilians from Kumily:

  ‘Control for the mission is INS Dweeprakshak, Lakshadweep,’ was the cryptic command from the base. ‘Specifics from your passengers.’

  Passengers . . . Kohli was still trying to get his head around that. The man who had introduced himself as Talwar (just the name, nothing else) had the look of an upper-echelon government official. But it was the other man, for whom no introduction was proffered, who filled the young lieutenant’s mind. He was huge! The chopper’s seats were comically inadequate—the brute had wedged himself against the aft wall. And was that fabric wrapped around him sailcloth? He was a freak! But Kohli wasn’t laughing. He stole a glance at the savage, tattooed face and realized that he had never been so frightened in his life.

  And then there was the mission. Once they were airborne, Talwar nodded in the general direction of Lakshadweep. ‘Hope you’ve loaded up on fuel, lieutenant,’ he said dryly.

  ‘Sir,’ Kohli suggested, ‘it would be advisable to switch to a Sea King chopper. This is a Kamov 31. Range just 592 kilometres, too short to get to the islands and return.’

  ‘Returning is unimportant.’

  Kohli’s head jerked around.

  ‘What is needed now is speed,’ Bheem said, fierce eyes gazing steadily at the astonished lieutenant. ‘The Kamov 31 flies at 350 kilometres per hour,’ the giant continued, ‘the Sea King only at 207.’

  It was fortunate that a controller at the Indian Navy base on Kavaratti Island chose to cut in right then, the stunned flyer having momentarily forgotten to make the constant minor adjustments required to keep a helicopter airborne.

  ‘INS Dweeprakshak to Flight 63, come in Flight 63.’

  The chopper wobbled as Kohli abruptly regained control.

  ‘Flight 63,’ he responded. ‘Come in, Dweeprakshak.’

  ‘Wind picking up. Approaching 100 knots. Easterly.’

  ‘Easterly wind?’ Kohli was confused. ‘Say again. Towards the sea?’

  The pilot didn’t hear what the base conveyed next, his concentration completely disrupted by the monstrous man’s sudden move to the door. The chopper lurched wildly as his massive weight shifted but the giant barely noticed, retaining his balance with no apparent effort. For a moment, he gazed at the cloudless sky and the gently rolling sea. When he turned, his face was calm, but there was something in his eyes . . . Kohli was terrified.

  Fear.

  Bheem wasn’t used to it. It was said he was incapable of it. But he could not deceive himself. This was fear.

  The wind was alive, it was lethal, it was the enemy himself. Visions tumbled through Bheem’s mind: the flaming wind that was Ashvatthama roaring through the Lakshagraha, gorging on the doomed colleagues of the healer. And now it was seeking the last saviour. Aviva-Fein. His descendant. His daughter.

  Fear and knowledge had come to Bheem hand in hand.

  Grandsire of their grandsire . . .

  It was all blindingly clear. Ved Vyas was his grandsire, as he himself had been to the four infants. Their mother, Yajika, was Hidimbi’s daughter . . . and his. He knew now why, against all reason, he had forsaken his revenge, why he had instinctively sought to save the maanavs. They were his people. His line had not been extinguished, drowned in Kurukshetra’s blood. He had a stake here. He remained alive in this time and this world through the last of his line—Aviva-Fein.

  Bheem looked at the wide ocean and the unending sky. It seemed he was a speck on a vast, blue canvas, glued on to it, unable to move.

  Too slow, he thought. He will be there before me.

  A warrior must accept what he cannot change. Bheem drew a long breath, closed his eyes and let his blood turn to ice.

  The Hermitage

  Lakshadweep Islands

  So here it was, finally, the last battle of Jaya, the chronicle of war that he had begun aeons ago. Perhaps this was the reason he had been left alive, to complete the record. Shafts of sunlight pierced the hut, criss-crossing the air, illuminating the blank parchment that lay before Ved Vyas. Enclosed within the walls, the sage saw everything, the islands and the sea, the sky and the fast-riding wind, the prey, the hunter and the approaching warrior. And he felt the presence of a great power that stood aside, undecided. Ved Vyas gazed upon the gathering forces, took the stylus in his hand and began to write.

  The trees were shaking again, their swaying accompanied by the vaanar’s wavering ululation. They were on the other side of the island, though, so the threat from the creature was minimal. In any event, Aviva knew she was not in danger.

  ‘Saragha dislikes the sea,’ the maharishi had said. ‘Keep to the waterline and he will not harm you.’

  Aviva stood on the beach’s edge, gentle wavelets lapping at her feet, mellow, morning sunshine on her face. How peaceful it was. The terror, the desperation that had shredded her life had dissolved. She felt the utter relief as a physical thing, a warm, scented pool in which she could immerse herself, let herself drift. It was over. She was sure of it. She had unshakeable faith in Bheem. He would find the last saviour, now that he knew the name; Nishi would develop an antidote to the disease; the human race was saved. Her child would grow and live in a world that was far greater than this pitiful little plane of here and now, in a universe that stretched beyond time and space, that dazzled.

  The vaanar’s keening rent the air again. Aviva turned away from the sea and looked landward, her eyes warm with compassion. And what about that unfortunate creature? Would there be a place for him in the perfect world to come?

  He’s stopped shaking the trees.

  They were still swaying, though, but on the east island on the far side of the lagoon.

  Wind’s rising, thought Aviva. Strange. Not a cloud in the sky.

  There was no doubt about it, however. The blue mirror surface of the lagoon suddenly ran with ripples. The wind raced to the beach, turning over sheets of sand, swirling around Aviva, whipping her wiry, black hair against her face. She raised protective hands to her eyes, and scanned the sky. No clouds at all, but the wind could be the forerunner of a sudden squall.

  I’d better get back to the hut.

  Aviva turned and made her way along the little mud path that led to the hermitage. The squall ratcheted up, hissing through the bushes, trees twisting and dancing like clashing swords. Branches broke free, crashed to the ground, and chips of flying coral stung Aviva like angry wasps. She had to get out of this but her healing leg prevented her from quickening her pace. As the fierce wind blew her forward, she stumbled, desperately trying to keep from falling. Her breath came in gasps that were drowned out by the gusting, whistling wind and she suddenly realized that the vaanar had fallen silent too. The mud track curved and the huts of the hermitage came into view, doors closed, windows shuttered, stolidly defying the surrounding frenzy.

  A few more steps, Aviva thought. I’m almost there.

  The wind died. As abruptly as it had begun, the squall was over. Aviva stopped, and looked around in astonishment. A blinding flash out of nowhere—Aviva’s eyes slammed shut.

  Lightning, she thought. But . . . no clouds . . . thunder?

  The dancing lights behind her eyelids faded. She opened her eyes, and smiled. Bheem. As sudden as ever. His massive frame taking shape as the dust swirling from the lightning bolt cleared. Just an arm’s length away. Naked skin adorned with tattoos. A pattern that was burnt into Aviva’s infallible memory—but . . . distinctly different from Bheem’s? Unbidden, her eyes followed the pattern up to the head that towered over hers. The face . . . Images crashed into Aviva’s mind like gunshots: the face, blurred, coated with lime, frozen on the blood-smeared screen of Arun’s phone . . . the face, alive with feeding insects, mocking Bheem on the monitor screens of Nishi’s research centre. . . that face! But this was no screen. This was Ashvatthama, flesh, bone and shadow, his ferocious face breaking into a
n unexpected smile. And then the stench hit her. Putrefying, like the reek of a rotted carcass crawling with maggots. Aviva gagged and reeled back, her mind shutting down, fear clawing at her throat.

  Run, she told herself. Run!

  She stumbled off the path, heading for the trees, her leg in agony. She had almost reached the trees when something whistled through the air and struck Aviva’s back, a hard, husky object, and she pitched forward, crashing into the bushes. The shrubs broke her fall; she flailed against their leafy grip, struggled to rise—and then stopped. Ashvatthama stood less than six feet away, his speed making a mockery of her attempted flight. But he wasn’t looking at her; his chin was tilted upwards, eyes on the treetops, a bemused expression on his brutal face.

  Helplessly, Aviva’s eyes followed his gaze—and her heart lurched. Like a giant bat, a figure perched in the swaying fronds sixty feet above: Saragha, savage, insane and, for once, welcome. Grinning maniacally, the vaanar tossed a coconut from paw to paw. His crazed brain did not play favourites; he had already knocked the woman over with his earlier throw, so this time when his arm flashed forward, the coconut flew directly at the human still on his feet. Ashvatthama tilted his head, allowing the missile to sail past harmlessly. A mistake. For a split second, Ashvatthama had taken his eye off the vaanar. Saragha swooped down and grabbed Aviva. Then howling madly like a hyena that has snaffled prey from the jaws of a predator, the vaanar soared into the trees with his prize, swinging along at astonishing speed with grasping paw and looping tail. Sharp frond edges snatched at Aviva; the ground rushed to meet her, then fell dizzyingly away. Brain-spinning, stomach-lurching speed, the nauseating stink of the screeching creature—Aviva gritted her teeth and forced her eyes open, scanning the forest below for the sage.

  He was her only hope, she knew.

  But now the wind was rising again, pursuing them. Aviva saw the earth below them corrugate and smoothen, stripped of its topsoil, which gathered into a seething mass, speeding ahead of them. It rose like a floating hillock, a giant fist that uncoiled and sprang at them, slamming into Saragha, stopping him instantly. He fell like a stone to the ground, his body partly cushioning Aviva’s fall. They lay stunned as the whirling earth around them settled; the soil fell away, bone and flesh emerged, and with them, the implacable face of Ashvatthama. Aviva shuddered, tried to recall her training, ways to strike back at an enemy from an apparently hopeless position. It was futile, she knew. There was no escape. This was the face of death, final, damning. It had already claimed the hitherto immortal vaanar—no trace of breath emerged from the broken, bleeding body that lay half under Aviva. And now death had come for her. And for her child. Aviva’s eyes went cold, lips thinning into a grim line.

  The nerve centre below his kneecap, she thought. Try and get a strike in . . . hobble him. Give me a chance to get to the hermitage, to Ved Vyas.

  But the fearsome being towering over her seemed to hesitate. The casual, cruel face hardened and a massive hand rose almost reflexively to dash away the slime that oozed from the forehead gash. The warrior straightened, head cocked, as if listening for a sound inaudible to human ears. Abruptly, he whirled around, gazing at the wide, empty sky.

  What is he staring at? There’s nothing there.

  Aviva heard it before she saw it: a faint, indeterminate sound that rapidly grew into the whip-whip-whip of rotor blades. And then it appeared, a black spot against the blinding white of the sky. Aviva’s eyes widened in disbelief—for a moment she questioned her sanity. But there it was, glinting in the sunlight, approaching rapidly, a helicopter with Indian Navy markings. And poised in its open doorway, the huge, unmistakable figure of Bheem!

  The copter was still three hundred metres away, a good hundred feet above the lagoon, when Bheem leapt. The velocity of the flying machine, the angle of descent, wind shear—Bheem’s warrior brain had calculated every factor unerringly. Before Ashvatthama could react, Bheem’s flying form crashed into him, the momentum hurling them sixty metres beyond the point of impact, shredding the spiny shrubbery, gouging a giant furrow in the ground.

  Aviva scrambled off the unmoving body of the vaanar, eyes hunting for the warrior before locking on the pit at the end of the furrow from which a cloud of dust rose lazily. There was no way that she could make sense of what happened next. A whirling blur exploded from the pit, moving too swiftly to discern shape or form. Aviva’s numbed mind registered its presence only because of the tangled bushes and deep-rooted trees that were blasted out of the earth in its wake. The tornado was too frenzied to last; it tore itself apart, splitting into two massive forms that spun away from each other and crashed, one into shallow water at the shore’s edge, the other into the sandy beach. There were up in an instant, drawing hard breaths. Two enormous warriors, cool, controlled, despite their mutual hatred. Professional fighters, assessing each other, gauging strengths and weaknesses gleaned from this initial engagement.

  ‘You fight a losing battle, son of Kunti,’ taunted Ashvatthama. ‘I control the elements. Nature itself fights for me! Give me the girl and I might let you live.’

  There was something lupine in Bheem’s smile. ‘Making war on women and children; that seems to be your speciality, pus-head!’

  Ashvatthama laughed derisively. ‘I also kill pigs! And I will hear you squeal like your piglets did when I slaughtered them!’

  Bheem recalled Lord Krishna’s admonition, ignored Ashvatthama’s barb and wiped the blood trickling from his nose. Perhaps he was too preoccupied to notice that, for the first time since his journey through Samay, he was bleeding. Nor did he notice the curious red-black smear the blood left on the back of his hand.

  The murderous intent of the warriors from legend was plain, their acting upon it just a moment away, when, suddenly, the twenty-first century intruded. The Kamov 31 streaked in, angling out of the sun in a textbook manoeuvre, its four-barrel Gatling-type 7.62 mm machine gun hammering. Two hundred steel-jacketed projectiles slashed into the lagoon and into Ashvatthama, his body jerking like a marionette and spinning into the water.

  ‘Say “hello” to Yamraj, you asshole!’ Talwar shouted.

  Seconds earlier, the CIG man had watched in fascinated horror as the whirling warrior-typhoon had torn the landscape apart. Bheem had warned him not to intervene, but there were times when one just couldn’t be coldly professional. The agent knew what was at stake; he couldn’t just stand aside. He had spoken with the pilot, who agreed with him, and when the opportunity presented itself, they had taken it. And now they exulted in their victory; the thing below was dead, and they were heroes!

  Aviva rose shakily.

  It’s over, she thought, looking at the unmoving body of the enemy, the spreading bloody stain in the lagoon, the helicopter hovering overhead. But then she saw Bheem turn and in a heartbeat, he was by her side.

  ‘He—he’s dead?’ Aviva stammered.

  ‘No. The spy’s lunacy has given us but a moment’s respite. Ashvatthama will attack you again. I must find a way to protect you.’

  ‘W—why is he—?’ Aviva began but the warrior wasn’t listening. His eyes had turned to the immobile body of the vaanar.

  My mind is clear, thought Saragha.

  The thing he knew as himself—he, Saragha the vaanar—had returned. Which could mean one thing alone: he was wounded, bleeding. But he felt no pain, felt nothing at all. His muscles would not respond, he was unable to move. Obviously, his spinal cord was severed. The neural synapses that connected his body to his brain were cut off. He could still smell, though—the milky tang of sap from snapped leaf stems, the oily stench of the flying machine and the familiar, welcome stink of the warrior. Bheem’s face jerked into Saragha’s line of sight, ridden with anxiety, looking down at his prostrate friend.

  ‘Saragha!’ The warrior’s face wobbled, and Saragha realized that Bheem was shaking him. ‘Saragha, I cannot at once fight Ashvatthama and protect her!’ Bheem was gesturing at the girl who stood beside him. ‘I need you to keep her
safe!’

  Saragha lay still, unresponsive. Bheem’s eyes slid down and noticed the petrified stump on which the vaanar lay impaled, its jagged point protruding from his abdomen, camouflaged by mud and matted grey-brown fur. Deep pain creased Bheem’s face.

  So this is how it ends for him.

  He reached under the vaanar, gently lifted him free and laid him down. He looked at his fallen friend, and his jaw set grimly. The vaanar had been his last hope. But this was the hand he had been dealt and he must play it. Saragha saw a shutter descend on Bheem’s face, all emotion wiped clean as he focused on the coming battle. The warrior picked up the girl and, in a sudden blur, disappeared from the vaanar’s frozen field of view. Saragha gazed at the treetops in frustration. Had he begun to heal? Recovery now was uncertain. And even if he rallied, would he be able to help his friend? Or would the fetters of madness clamp down again? Saragha’s eyes grew wintry with despair.

  What is he—? Talwar squinted from the hovering helicopter, confused. He couldn’t have foreseen how Bheem would react to their intercession, but now that their assault was successful and the enemy dead, he had expected some acknowledgement from the warrior. The giant, though, had simply picked up the girl and disappeared into the trees. Well, at least the threat was over, the mission ended. They just had to clean up now.

  ‘Sir!’ The pilot was trying to get his attention, pointing at something below. ‘Look at that!’