by Vadhan
‘You were a young boy. Your grandmother may not have meant the stories to be clues. Maybe the stories were meant to create an impression on you of your father’s bravery or greatness. Maybe she was reliving her son’s last days. But at this moment, her stories turned out to be the first of the clues we are looking for.’
‘Where are the Archives?’ she asked presently.
‘Down under!’
‘In Australia? Wha...? Raghu! For the last time, be serious!’
The peals of laughter on the other end of the phone died eventually.
‘Try and focus. The Sutram is not a joke. Not anymore!’
‘And you don’t have a sense of humour you know of,’ Raghu said casually.
‘For the last time where are the Archives?’
He sighed, ‘They are in the basement Ms. Sci-fi; hopefully there aren’t demons and Parches lurking around there begging for an appetizer.’
‘I wish I was with you. I can’t trust you to do this on your own,’ Sheila complained.
‘Relax, I lived a life before you came into it, you know. Don’t be such a control freak. I can handle it.’
‘Ok, here’s a little something that might, and I use the word loosely, make you a little serious. Govind Kiromal knew about the thing, the creature in the hall. I suspect Eshwar may have told him.’
‘What does he know?’
‘He knew that there is something in the hall. He referred to it as ‘the entity’. He knew something happened inside, to tell you the truth, I suspect he knows much more about the hall than even I do, or you for that matter.’
‘Do you really think it was Eshwar who told Kiromal?’
‘I am not ruling out the possibility. Chew on it, if I get hold of anything else, I’ll get in touch. Raghu...’
‘What?’
Sheila cleared her throat, ‘Be careful... I saw two young people shredded right before my eyes by that thing. I don’t want anything to happen to you.’
‘Don’t worry Sci-fi, it’ll take more than pincers to stop me.’
CHAPTER 27
‘MY son,’ the letter, neatly written by Surya Prasad Surya said, ‘fathers usually leave behind inheritances, sometimes even legacies and more than a few times, debts to their sons. I leave you some of these but also something far worse. If you’re reading this letter, then I have failed.’
The letterhead bore the Surya clan insignia, a symbol of the sun with a loaded bow aimed at it, Surya Prasad’s name and the address of their Eluru house. Raghu brought the piece of paper to his nose, it smelled just like a piece of old paper. Whatever perfume or scent it had was long gone. His heart was as heavy as a block of cement. But he was also glad that his father had written to him; reached out to the son he had never spoken to.
‘This letter is the only communication you’ve ever had and will ever have from me. You don’t know me, my boy. Therefore, you might think, on reading this letter, that I don’t really care for you. Nothing could be farther away from the truth. I love you as much as any father would love his son, in fact more than any other father. You remind me of all that I had missed as a child. I would have said fate had something else in store for us had I not questioned the existence of fate and time itself.
There are a great many things that have happened in these past few months that I can’t really grasp. Maybe that’s why I have failed, that’s why you’re reading this letter. My son, what I am about to tell you is to do something that only you can, because I have passed it on to you. You are me and I am you, for I know that if you are reading this, though you cannot see me, I am right by your side.’
Raghu choked. He bit his trembling lips, blinked away the tears and placed the faded old letter carefully on the desk. He looked around the room, hoping against hope that his father was there, just so he could see him.
Just once.
Just a glimpse.
It wasn’t much to ask for.
‘Dad,’ he called. There was no answer.
Yet, if there was a demon with lightning jutting intermittently out of its head in his house and a dark creature that went about randomly killing people, why could not his father’s ghost be here now? Why was it that only the worst things seemed to happen? Why did nothing nice happen in the usual course of things? What sort of a demented God designed a system that always went wrong? It was like everything in the universe was cued to self-destruct.
Raghu picked up the letter again.
‘I hope you would be wishing to see me. How I wish I could see you, fully grown, handsome.
To business. I came to know of the Sutram first through a tantrik when I was seven years old. He was my father’s murderer. He confessed to creating the Sutram. We never knew if he was working alone or with someone though I always had a suspicion that there was someone else behind the whole thing. In any event, the terror started in Gudem on that fateful night after my father died. Something terrible was awake inside the memorial hall. It was killing our people. Others were driven mad. There was fear and suspicion. The worst of it was, I did not know what to do or whom to turn to. None of us did. I was too young at first. But things only got worse as years went by. Gudem became demonic. The evil of Gudem was growing powerful by the day. We became desperate.
To cut a long story short, I learned how to fight the Sutram from P. Eshwar. An enigmatic person he is, without the least bit of emotion and without the slightest fear. I wondered at first who Eshwar was. Now I know he means well. I should have taken his advice to start with. It was initially a challenge I could not let go of and then it became a matter of ego. Thinking about it now, it seems foolish to me. All of it. I am the biggest fool of them all!
I cannot explain everything in this letter, it will take too long and my hands are weak, they will tire soon. Moreover, we are going into the memorial hall to finish the Sutram once and for all in a short while. If we can do that, well and good! If I fail, you are our only hope. So, though I want to go on writing, to tell you all the things that I want to, I cannot. All I can say is that I am sorry and I must ask you to do exactly as I tell you.’
Raghu stopped reading, he pretended for a moment that his father was there in the room. ‘You’re sorry? For what? Giving your lands away to others, saving peoples’ lives by giving up your own? No Dad, sorry is not the word you want.’
When he had first entered the library a few hours ago, just after his conversation on the telephone with Sheila, the place was pitch-black. His heart was ready to jump out of his chest cavity and sprint back to Gurgaon. Raghu turned on the light switches and found that, for some reason, there was no electricity supply in the basement.
He wondered why.
There were a number of lanterns on five-foot marble pillar like pedestals along the wall. They still had murky fuel, oil it was. He lit them up one by one. The archives came alive in all its burnished majesty.
The place was divided into three rooms one after the other, the third and the inner most was the Surya family lore room. This room had large volumes that dated back to five hundred years. All the volumes were covered in air tight plastic sacks, probably the handiwork of his father.
The second or the middle room had a number of documents, antique furniture, silver and gold things like candle stands and a few boxes, Raghu had no clue what was in them. The first room was the library.
This was the room through which one entered the Archives. The lanterns were lined against the wall in the library. The Surya library was beautiful. The walls were covered with mahogany bookshelves. All four walls were stacked with books. There were massive wooden shelves that divided the room into two. On each side were two round tables with green marble tops and cushioned chairs.
Accountancy, Astrology, Mathematics, Poetry—both Telugu and English, Science, Indian and western literature, there were many books, depending on the interests of the kings of old. In the golden light of the lanterns and the dust from the furniture and the books, the place looked ethereal, something out of a movi
e set.
Surya Prasad’s desk was in one corner of the room. The books strewn around the desk must have been there for the forty-three years it had taken for Raghu to enter the Archives. He dusted one of them, coughed as clouds of dust filled the air, and read the cover. It was a book on Einstein’s theory of relativity. Another was a book on Aristotle and yet another contained the works of Isaac Newton. There were no books on the desk itself, just an envelope.
Raghu had fairly jumped out of his skin when he saw who it was addressed to.
Rajah Raghuram Surya.
5th Oct’1971.
For a moment, Raghu did not know if his father had written the letter to his grandfather or to him because they shared the same name, until Raghu realised that it could never have been to his grandfather. His grandfather had died in the nineteen forties. It was then that he opened the only letter his father had ever written to him.
Raghu rubbed his swollen eyes and flipped the page.
‘Now, for the story; some three months before you were born, Eshwar approached me. It was a pleasant spring afternoon in Eluru; I was at the cricket field, watching from the car as the boys practiced. (By the way, I hope the cricket club I started is still around and they are still playing cricket in Eluru when you read this.)’
Raghu smirked. ‘No Dad,’ he said aloud, ‘One of your so-called friends stole your club and bequeathed it to his son like it was his own. They earn money each year, selling the vote the club has to the State Cricket Board. I didn’t even know of it until it was too late. I wanted to bump off the cunning bastard but he’s already dead, and no, to answer your question, the club doesn’t have a team, just a redeemable vote. Let the grovelling little shits thrive on the crumbs you threw them while they can. Personally though, I am not as forgiving as you are. I will still see them rot in Hell.’
The lamps reflected an animal fury in Raghuram Surya’s eyes, reserved for those who had backstabbed his family.
He read on.
‘I have muscular dystrophy. I can’t play the game. I love cricket so much that I started the club so I could encourage the boys to pursue their dreams and we could fund their growth. Anyway, Rathaya was usually with me in the car. He must have stepped out for tea. I was by myself, enjoying the game when suddenly I sensed someone was in the rear seat. People usually did not get into the car unless it is with my leave, so it startled me. I turned around as fast as I could to see who it was. Eshwar did not smile at me, nor did he greet me as is customary. He simply identified himself and told me what I had already heard from the lips of a dying man when I was a mere boy.
In the ensuing weeks, Eshwar showed me how to destroy the Sutram. At least, he led me down the right path. Simply put, I had to create my own anti-person and then become one with it. The resulting fusion would create an Agniputr, the only thing that could destroy the Sutram. It was easier said than done. I can understand your confusion; I was confused too at first, until I found out how to do it, simple but arduous.’
The page ended.
Raghu opened the envelope. A few more pages were neatly folded into it. He eased them out delicately. The moment his fingers touched the papers they crumbled in his hands. All, except one strip. Forty-two years of damp and abuse had taken their toll. With a cry of disgust Raghu rose from the chair, furious with himself. He strode back and forth, using his shirt sleeves to wipe the tears.
It was his father’s letter to him. The only one he had ever written. It was destroyed. Gone. Raghu lowered himself into the chair. He opened the one remaining strip, hoping against hope that there was something vital in it.
It said, ‘The syllable will fuse me with the anti-person. The quarks will take care of that. But if I am not able to acquire it...a fate worse than death awaits us all. I can only hope to succeed.
I consulted with the Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanam. Ramaya Shastri from Eluru is one of the librarians at their upcoming library. He is a learned man and a good friend. He was more than happy to oblige me. He told me the one...’
He had run out of page. Raghu growled like a caged animal. He flipped the page to see if his father had written anything. There was just a margin note on it. More scribbling than notations.
‘The Sutram’s universe is different from ours in a way. Time runs in reverse in that universe. It can see into the future, but not fully, just like we can recall sketchy accounts of our past. It has no recollection of its past and its origin. Is it an alien life form? I think not, it is just a possibility that had so much power of thought in it that it became part of the tantrik’s reality. He thought it was a God.’
Raghu did not understand much of what was written. It sounded to him like gibberish, the ranting of a fevered and tormented mind. Yet, the rest of the letter was lucid enough. Or was it all the hallucinations of a madman?
Different universes, realities, necromancy, it was a mix of superstition and science fiction. Yet, if someone had told him that there was a gigantic egg head in his house with lightning popping out of its hair a month ago, he would have done the poor bastard in with a golf club as an act of mercy.
Raghu mused that maybe Sheila could make sense of it; after all she was the scientist. Though it was late, Raghu dialled her number. She picked up the phone on the second ring.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked in a hushed tone, without preamble.
‘Sheila, I have a letter from my father. Its incomplete, part of the letter was...damaged beyond repair. He said some pretty weird stuff in it. I think you should see it.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes...yes, I am fine.’
‘What does the letter say?’
‘Something about a different universe, time running in the reverse, mirror images, I can’t make sense of it. It sounds like science fiction to me.’
Sheila did not say anything for a while though he could hear her steady breathing. ‘I better see it. The line between fact and fiction these days is pretty thin. Maybe you can bring me the letter.’
‘I don’t know if I can. Let me see if I can make a copy for you.’
‘Ok,’ she said.
‘Raghu, I meant to tell you...there’s someone else with Kiromal, a tonsured man with blackened teeth. I saw him at dinner. There’s something strange about him. He acts funny.’
‘With you?’
‘No silly, just funny...he keeps feeling his shaved head, he doesn’t know how to sit at a dining table, stuff like that. He has Kiromal’s ear, they whisper to each other like lovers. Once I caught them staring at me, I felt like the proverbial sacrificial lamb.’
‘Do you want to come live at the castle?’
‘Wouldn’t that be overt? We just put in an appearance of having fought each other, otherwise I might be behind bars for murder as well. I don’t think it’s wise.’
‘But you can ask for medical leave, right?’
‘Yeah, that I can do, in fact Kant wants me to take off for some time.’
‘So someone should certify that you should be on medical leave. I might know just the man for it. Let’s meet tomorrow. Note down the address of the hospital in Eluru I want you to come to.’
‘Shoot,’ she said. She noted down the address. Sheila realised that Raghu’s usual humour was absent, in its place she sensed something else.
Grief.
CHAPTER 28
MAJOR Kant was surprised when the Home Minister flung a folder across the table at him. The thin plastic implement struck him under his mouth and flipped open to allow reports to drift lazily to the floor. Major Kant threw the Minister a steely glare usually reserved for enemy soldiers just about to eat bullets.
‘Are you good for anything at all? I don’t see what use you are to me if you keep insisting on enhancing the quality and quantity of your goof ups. What are you trying to do, compete with your own stupidity?’
Major Kant stood ramrod straight and let his eyes scorch the wall above the Home Minister’s head.
‘Do you understand
spoken English?’
‘Yes Sir,’ Kant barked.
‘Then answer my question. How could you let Raghuram Surya out of prison?’
Kant took a deep breath, ‘There was nothing on him. In fact, the police I hear did not even file an FIR.’
‘Did you now? And why did you not ensure that they filed an FIR? The first information report is a record. Surya would have been branded as an accused in a criminal case, a murder case.’
‘But Sir, the man saved one of our scientists. It is a fact that our scientists approached him and he obliged them.’
‘That’s the other blunder. First, you allow that woman, Sheila, to run around like a loose cannon, talking to villagers and whoever. Then you sit tight like a hen laying eggs when Raghu had her picked up from right under your nose and taken to his castle. She stayed there overnight and you have no knowledge of this. Two other scientists just walked into that blighted castle and you were none the wiser because even they managed to hoodwink you. Finally, while we were at it tooth and nail in court to gain access to the memorial hall, they actually pay a visit to the hall itself without protection and worse still, without our knowledge. One of them is now dead and the other is in a coma. How do you answer for all this?’
‘I don’t know anything about what happened inside the hall,’ Kant observed.
‘What do you know? Pray enlighten me.’
Kant was silent.
‘Do you have temporary amnesia as well?’
‘T-they did not confide in me Sir, how was I to know that...’
‘Confide? How do you think I know whom Sheila met and when?’
‘They are ours, why would we tail...do you have someone tailing me as well?’
Govind bristled, ‘That’s beside the point.’
‘Oh, is it? Right sir, I trusted my team, apparently they did not ever consider me as part of the team. In the result, things went out of control. I know exactly how to control them now.’
Govind laughed. ‘Whom will you control? One is dead, the other is a vegetable and a third is recuperating from wounds. Kant, you are a liability to me, its best you leave here. I can take care of things.’