by Vadhan
‘Get in, we can’t lose time.’
‘What is this? What’s happening?’ Sheila blurted out.
‘We’re going to be introduced to Kiran Kiromal as Sadhu Lambhodarnathji and his assistant, Sadhvi Kushlamba.’
‘Who?’
‘I’ll explain on the way.’ Ten minutes later they were outside the City Museum. They changed vehicles from the autorickshaw to a maroon Mercedes.
‘Nice car, whose is it?’
Raghu grinned, ‘Mine, I had it driven here from Gurgaon.’
‘I could get used to this,’ Sheila said with a wily smile.
‘Yeah, I am already used to you.’
‘Yeah, better get used to being used to me, I am gonna be around for a while,’ she said severely.
‘At last, faint traces of a sense of humour.’
‘Shut up, you can’t have the last word every time.’
‘Read this sheet of paper carefully, these are your duties for the next hour and a half or so,’ Raghu handed her over a plastic packet. She opened it to find a saffron saree, blouse and wooden sandals and a single sheet of paper.
Sheila looked through the list which included her duties as Sadhvi Kushlamba and her duties to her guru, Lambodharnathji.
‘Where did you get your names from? Why can’t you find a name I can pronounce?’ she barked.
‘What’s the fun? We’ll be just another saint and his assistant.’
‘Oh no, I am a Sadhvi, I am a saint myself. Why can’t I be the guru and you be the assistant?’ She asked.
‘What, and have all the people think that’s one lucky Sadhvi with a hunk of an assistant. They’d look at you with a jaundiced eye,’ Raghu explained.
‘Which means that you don’t think your assistant is a babe?’
‘I am a Sadhu now, I don’t think on those lines,’ Raghu explained in a reasonable tone.
‘It’s a man’s world,’ Sheila said pensively, changing into her attire.
‘Ain’t it a bitch,’ Raghuram agreed, admiring the view.
‘Turn around, stop gawking at me or I’ll reveal your nefarious designs, Sadhu,’ Sheila threatened him sulkily.
‘That I am having sex with my assistant?’
‘What’s nefarious about that nowadays, haven’t you heard about the baba they arrested for sexual offences?’ she asked. In a few minutes she was ready and Raghu had to admit, she made a stunningly beautiful Sadhvi.
‘Do you think we could wiji, wiji, woo, woo for a while?’ he asked lustily.
‘The only wijing and wooing you’re gonna do is to Karan Kiromal, pal. Get used to the idea,’ Sheila warned with an edge of finality.
Raghu made a face and settled down for the ride. The driver got into the car and the Mercedes drove away.
‘Where are we going?’ Sheila asked.
‘To Kiromal Haveli. Apparently, Karan Kiromal is not too well. He likes to meet up with sadhus whenever possible to smoothen his passage to Paradise. We have been introduced by a rather influential client of mine in Jaipur, who owes me a favour, as a powerful Sadhu and Sadhvi from the Himalayas. Kiromal couldn’t resist the bait.’
She grinned. ‘Wait till he finds out that it’s atoms all the way,’ she said.
Raghu laughed aloud. ‘A fast developing sense of humour, what a stroke of good luck!’
He got a punch on his arm.
The car turned into a narrow gravel street. They brought down the darkened windows. The street led straight to a set of open gates and into a well-maintained front yard with a fountain right in the middle. A Haveli loomed behind the fountain. It was much smaller than Raghu’s castle though of the same era. The driver drove around the fountain before bringing the car to a gravelly halt.
The couple alighted benevolently and walked gently up a cemented path. A man of average build, dressed in traditional Rajasthani attire, wished them with folded hands and escorted the couple to the main audience hall of the Haveli. The hall was large and airy. It was brightly painted. A line of load bearing pillars along each wall were painted in traditional style with intricate drawings of elephants carrying people and colourfully dressed girls dancing.
A few other sadhus were seated in the hall on either sides, smoking hookahs. They gawked at the tall sadhu and his beautiful companion as they walked into the hall. An old man with a sour face sat at the other end of the hall on a divan. He was completely white haired and had a flowing white moustache. He bowed to Sadhu Lambodharnathji Maharaj from his seat.
‘My son...my disciples usually rise to greet me...’ said Raghu authoritatively. Kiromal senior made to rise.
‘...But I shall let that pass for I know that three moons ago, Shani was not favourable to you and neither were Rahu and Ketu. Your astrological charts show a bleak time ahead. A time of trials by fire. Your house for good health is weak, so your limbs have given way to weakness and tire. Though you wear the gomeydak bound in silver on your little finger on the left hand, the ring of Rahu should actually be worn on the third finger of your right hand, even then, that is hardly enough to sustain you through this hour of crisis.’
Kiromal was taken aback by the prediction. He rose nevertheless, unsteady and weak. He bade the sadhu and his assistant welcome and led them towards a mattress of soft cotton close to his divan.
Sheila stepped forward authoritatively.
‘Have the bed of nails removed. Anything that offers material comfort is hurtful to my Guruji. He would prefer to sit on the same deerskin he has used in the Himalayas for the last hundred years.’
The other sadhus exchanged glances. A hundred-year-old sadhu who looked like he wasn’t a year above forty was a rarity... or a fake.
‘A hundred years? How is it that none of us heard of you, Swamiji?’ one of the sadhus asked.
Raghu ignored the man. He addressed Kiromal, ‘An event of great import is to occur in a day or two. A God of Agony, will be awakened. I warn you! I warn you! It is a grave danger that I foresee for your kith and kin because of the Pathaal Kaala,’ he roared.
Sheila squeezed her hands and looked like she was about to cry. Kiromal gaped at the sadhu, stunned.
‘Maharaj,’ he lamented, he rose laboriously from his divan, ‘what can I do?’
Raghu roared with laughter.
‘You? You can do nothing, you are nothing. Who are you that you can stand against the will of God himself? Foolish child, no one can do anything. I shall not stay in this house of the damned for a moment longer than it takes for me to give you the warning I was meant to give you.’
Kiromal’s face twisted in fear. Raghuram rose like a colossus from his deerskin perch and made for the door.
‘Maharaj,’ screamed the wild eyed Kiromal, ‘Please, I beg of you, tell me what I can do. He is like my son, my only son, he is all that I have. It is I who put him on his path and it is I who must help him now.’
Raghu roared with laughter. ‘The almighty does not recognise your intentions foolish one, nor does he recognise you. He recognises the syllable. In your foolishness you have swallowed its true meaning.’
Karan Kiromal fell to the ground in consternation. He was bawling on the floor when his servants appeared out of nowhere to lift him up.
‘Leave me, get out you swine, I must speak to the seer,’ Karan hissed through clenched teeth. They hastily retreated.
‘Oh divine swamiji, it is my mistake, I fully agree. What can I do to rectify it?’
Raghu whirled around. His ash coloured face was terrible to look upon. His eyes were as red as burning coal. He stared at the hapless old man whimpering in the corner.
‘Let this hall of death be free of the shamsters who defile it,’ he bellowed.
A sadhu rose angrily, ‘Now look here...’
‘Shut up you lying bastards. You sit here and eat my food and smoke my hashish and yet you haven’t revealed what this great soul has. Away with you,’ Kiromal spat out.
The sadhu was unceremoniously ushered out of the hall along with the ot
her mendicants.
‘Let your servants leave you for you are under my blessings now, if you choose to place yourself in my power,’ said Raghu.
A look from the old man and the servants simply disappeared, though Raghu was sure they would be lurking behind the folds of the many tapestries in the hall.
He walked to the old man with long purposeful strides, lifted the elder Kiromal’s face gently and graced him with the most dreadful Draculan look he could muster. Kiromal squirmed in his grip.
‘The syllable my child, you must use it,’ he said quietly.
‘Use it swamiji, how?’
‘He dares to enter the cave of the most feared one. The God is Anusrusti, the insatiable one. There is nothing that can control him except...’
‘...the talisman that Dhigambar Maharaj had tied to Govind’s forearm,’ Kiromal finished.
Sheila almost giggled, Anusrusti indeed! ‘Anu’ was atom in Hindi and ‘Srusti’ was creation or the universe.
‘That is right...but even that powerful tool is not enough, for it is necessary that you must recite the syllable!’ Raghu proclaimed.
‘The priest of old has revealed the sacred syllable to you. I know. I see everything. He is dead now. Killed for treachery. He deserves his fate. Yet, he did you a good turn by revealing the sacred syllable to you.’
‘But Maharaj, the syllable will destroy the God of Agony!’
Raghu shook his head vehemently. ‘Only if used by a Surya. You are no Surya; you could never hope to be one. If you utter it, the syllable will have an inverse effect. It will strengthen the God of Agony.’
Kiromal was astounded. He was beside himself with joy.
‘Start chanting,’ Raghu commanded him, ‘A hundred times every sixty minutes. Start loud and by the hundredth chant, you will whisper, rest for a few moments, wet your dried throat with three drops of gangajal, and then start again. Continue this till such time that your blood is safely outside the hall of the Suryas.’
‘Maharaj, you should commence it for me,’ said Kiromal in a shaky fearful voice.
‘Apraadh! Ghor apraadh! You dare command the one that will obey only the commands of Sheila herself, goddess of science, seeker of universes, how dare you?’
Sheila was too shell-shocked to react. Her horrified expression only added to the effect of the outrage Raghu was displaying.
‘Kshamapan, Swamiji,’ Kiromal whimpered his apologies.
Raghu smiled benevolently, the large hearted mendicant ready to forgive the mistake of a naïve devotee. ‘Commence your tapasya if you please, to save your precious nephew whom you say you love as a son. I shall leave forthwith to the Himalayan peace so I can cleanse the sadness and misery of this place from my soul,’ Raghu thundered. ‘If I were to hear you utter the syllable once before I leave, I can carry its resonance back to the almighty.’
Kiromal did not waste any more time. In the loudest voice he could muster, he uttered the one syllable that won speech. Raghu had what he wanted. It shocked him, the word. Now he understood what Ramaya Shastri had blurted out with his dying breath. He practically ran out of the place with Sheila in tow.
As he was edging out of the hall, the shrill ring of a phone echoed from somewhere within its confines. Raghu and Sheila were inside the Mercedes by the time servants started running towards the building. His car was outside the compound by the time a bell started to toll. Raghuram did not know that it was the bell of mourning or that it rang in the Kiromal household for many generations only when the head of its family was dead. He did not know that Karan Kiromal had just died.
Karan had just spoken to Govind and his nephew had told him that a human wall was not permitting him entry into the Hall and it was the doing of Raghuram Surya. Karan Kiromal was an astute man if not a remarkably intelligent one. He realised how the sadhu knew so much about their pet project and who the sadhu’s beautiful assistant was. He realised that he had unwittingly given away the secret he had kept for years.
He choked on his own foolishness. In his frail condition, it was too much for Karan to bear. He fell to the ground, dead.
Thankfully for Raghu, Karan had no time say any of the things that had transpired to his nephew before he died. A servant picked up the phone and informed Govind that his uncle had breathed his last. Govind reeled in Gudem. He loved his uncle more than anything else in the world. Even more than his own son. He had to return to Jaipur. Gudem had to wait until after he had completed the last rites of Karan Kiromal.
FRAGMENT-D
AGNIPUTR
CHAPTER 39
THE flight from Jaipur to Hyderabad was delayed. Poor weather conditions were cited as the cause. It took off three hours later than scheduled. The wizened old waiter in the airport’s VIP lounge noticed that the couple sat close to each other. They did not speak at all. Instead, the woman was huddled up against the man. He had his arm around her. They were in a dark corner of the first floor restaurant of the airport. The man had ordered a Scotch whisky and soda and the woman, a pint of beer. They sipped their drinks occasionally and nibbled on the potato wafers served as a complimentary snack. They were almost invisible in the dark corner.
After a three-hour delay, the flight to Hyderabad was announced. The man and woman rose from their seat, dropped money on the table, and left. They did not carry baggage, which the waiter also found to be strange. Usually, a couple did not travel without baggage. He shrugged to himself. All sorts of weirdos happened to pass through the airport.
On the way to Hyderabad, the plane was pretty much empty except for a sprinkling of passengers who had not cancelled their flight.
‘Raghu, we need to talk about the syllable,’ Sheila said.
‘What’s there to talk about Sci-fi? It’s the syllable, we need to figure out a way to use it now.’
‘On what are you going to use it, for god’s sake? Aren’t we rushing into something without fully understanding its implications? What if it’s worse than the Sutram?’
‘Well, I did want to talk about it in Hyderabad.’ Raghu sighed, ‘God knows on what we have to use it. We’ve got it and now we need to figure out what to do next, so basically you and I are on the same page.’
‘God only knows!’ Sheila exclaimed.
Raghu chuckled quietly, ‘This from the person who said God had no role to play in creation.’
‘Yeah well, this is not creation, this is something else altogether,’ she argued.
‘That it is.’
The seat belt sign turned off and the cabin crew announced that dinner would be served shortly.
‘Need to use the toilet,’ Sheila said.
A few minutes later when she returned to her seat, she found Raghu deep in conversation with a long haired man in a dark overcoat. He seemed familiar. The man was sitting in her seat. Raghu rose again and so did the other man. He moved to the empty window seat and Sheila settled herself in the seat between the men.
‘Sheila, I don’t think the both of you have been formally introduced. I want you to meet Mr. P. Eshwar.’
Sheila turned around in surprise. ‘Mr. Eshwar! It’s a pleasure meeting you again. I guess I only got a glimpse of you the last time and it really was not possible to get formally introduced in those circumstances.’
Eshwar took her proffered hand, neither did he smile nor was he in any way hostile. Sheila felt a tingle when she held his hand. Like holding a live wire.
‘It’s a pleasure,’ he said, in a silken voice.
‘It’s a surprise you are on the same plane as us,’ she said.
Eshwar shrugged, ‘I’ve always been two steps behind you Sheila. I thought that it was time I involved myself a little more directly.’
‘And what exactly is your interest in this affair, who are you?’
Eshwar said, ‘As of now, my interests coincide with yours, to destroy the Sutram. So think of me as an ally. My team and I have a different view point from Kiromal on the Sutram; we believe it must be destroyed.’
�
�Your team?’
‘You’ll know about them soon enough, don’t worry.’
Raghu butted in with his question. ‘The first time we met, you saved me from the Sable Parch. You said it was too early for me to confront it. What did you mean by that?’
Eshwar remained silent for a long moment, as though he was gathering his thoughts. Sheila and Raghu exchanged furtive glances.
‘That night, the Parch could have killed you anytime it wanted to Surya, yet it did not. Do you know why?’
‘You tell me.’
‘It’s searching for something.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Raghu said. ‘What’s it searching for?’
Eshwar said, ‘I need to start from the beginning and I will try to be as brief as I can.’
He did not wait for a reply.
‘Your father and I decided to stop the Sutram.’
‘What is the Sutram?’
‘An anomaly, a thing that should never have been. It is against all laws of this universe, even those of physics,’ Eshwar threw Sheila a glance. ‘It is one of many probabilities. These accidents do occur in the most well-laid plans and after all, the universe, or the many universes are random..., right Sheila?’
She nodded assertively.
‘So we, your father and I, set about to conceive a method to destroy it. We hit upon a tool that could work.’
‘The fusion, right?’ She asked.
‘That’s right. The only thing was to find out what the syllable was.’
‘How did you know about the syllable?’ Raghu asked.
‘Well, there are a lot of things I know. One of them is the fact that sound was a catalyst in creating the universe. I am a scientist, that way. I have done my share of experimentation in my time.’
Sheila said, ‘That’s a little vague, don’t you think.’
Eshwar shrugged, pulled out a piece of paper from his coat pocket and a cheap pen. He wrote what appeared to be mathematical equations on it for a few seconds and then gave the formula to Sheila. He said, ‘This is the formula to destroy the Sutram.’
Sheila studied the equation. Her initial scepticism turned to utter amazement when she checked and rechecked the formula, during which time the two men sat without uttering a word. Finally, she said, ‘The vibrations, the exact resonance, how…’