RESONANCE

by AJAY

  Haridwar and Dehradun

  The District Magistrate of Haridwar requested the Brigadier of Dehradun cantonment to immediately dispatch five hundred army personnel to Dehradun, as the local police were unable to control the millions of devotees, who had refused to accede to the request of not taking a holy dip in the Ganges. The CISF unit of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited had spared fifty guards and sent them to Haridwar. But it had not proved sufficient.

  Five MIG-29 jets carrying twenty thousand tons of high-grade explosives took off from Dehradun AFB and within ten minutes started to encircle around the Tehri Dam, waiting to receive the signal from the ground.

  Resonance

  Imran Shah Malik stood up and turned to Aban, "Is it the same watch that your Chacha Jaan handed over to you?"

  Aban nodded.

  "Thank Allah. Now listen, Aban. Take my pen."It was a Montblanc Meisterstück 149, which his wife had gifted him on the diamond jubilee of their marriage. "The pen and the watch go together. Do as I say."

  Aban followed the instruction of his Abba step-by-step. "Fix the date as 14th, the day Wednesday, and the time to 07:08:06. In the next step, pull out the crown and insert the nib of my pen into the crown-slot of the watch. That will activate a small pin inside."

  Aban completed the task and the watch began to tick.

  "Good job, my son. You did it."The father smiled.

  "I don't see anything happening."

  "As soon as you completed the procedure, the pin released the eccentric weight, the winding rotor of the watch. Then, the spiral mainspring unwound. When the watch started to tick, it ran a tiny dynamo that supplies power to a miniature chip and a hidden antenna inside your watch. It transmitted the destruct code through Ku-band 138.225 MHz emergency frequency. The same frequency was set in the explosives device in the far away hills. So, nothing exploded at the far side. That is why you didn't see anything happening. "

  The AC of the NSG and his team shot down the remaining Jihadists and then reached Imran Shah Malik. The AC pointed his SIG pistol at him, "Turn around and put your hands behind your head."The other Commandos overpowered him. "Take him to the base."

  "If we have to avert disaster, I'll have to dive into the lake."Imran Shah Malik resisted.

  "Shut up."The AC thundered.

  "Try to understand, mister. The explosives at the toes of the dam will explode in half an hour exactly. If that happens, then no one can prevent the dam from breaking."

  "Free him,"Siddhartha interjected.

  "I can't trust you anymore, Mr. Siddhartha Rana. I'll do everything to protect the dam. I've seen enough explosions in the dam and waves in the reservoir."

  "You have just seen the tip of the iceberg."

  "That's enough. If you say a single word now in defence of this terrorist, I'll be constrained to take you in custody."

  The oscillation in the reservoir went on increasing. The wave returned from the far side of the river towards the mid reservoir. Aban turned to Siddhartha Rana, "It's time. The coordinate is 30°24'56"North, 78°27'51"East and the elevation is 699 metres."

  "What's that?"

  "The exact location in the middle of the reservoir. Tell the commander to drop the bomb this minute."

  The AC was hopping mad. He shouted at Aban, "So, you are also with this bastard. Whom are you instructing to drop bombs?"He turned to his commandos, "Arrest the boy."

  Siddhartha pulled out a small communicator from his pocket, wrote the coordinate and elevation and set the beep code. He pushed the green button and the message transmitted to the IAF Mig-29. Then, he turned to the AC, "Look in the sky. They are our Air Force. They are going to bomb the mid of the lake. That is what Aban meant. Let's move out of here."

  "Why should they drop bombs, when we already have had enough explosions?"The AC was befuddled.

  "It'll kill the oscillation of the lake, the resonance inside the hollow structure of the dam and in the canyon."Siddhartha explained very calmly, "And now I want you to free both Imran and his son Aban. Forget about this dam. It's only a small accident compared to what can happen in a few minutes. Only they can save our entire sub-continent."

  The AC hesitated. Suddenly, a flash of light of a relatively mild explosion snapped their attention. Siddhartha asked, "What was that?"

  "You know about a traitor of your country, who was alive till a few seconds ago. He wore a jacket and went to that far hill. Both water and fire conspired against him,"Imran Shah Malik responded.

  The MiG-29 dropped twenty thousand pounds of bombs in the middle of the reservoir. It created a high wave which moved outward in concentric circles. It collided with the incoming wall of water. It was as if two giants were engaged in a royal battle, waiting to tear each other apart. The combined waves rose to hundreds of metres and then collapsed. Two big trailers moving on the National Highway turned turtle, while a few cars were swept away to the far side of the hill. The water reached the New Tehri Village and smashed the houses and shops with full force. The Principal of the All Saint Convent School was worried after he had watched the oscillation from the window of his room. So he asked all students to climb to the roof of the school building. The water struck the school with a loud slap, but moved on without causing much damage.

  Slowly, the oscillation of the water in the lake died. The swaying dam stabilized. However, the new explosion generated a sixty-foot wave, which surged ahead at sixty miles an hour, strong enough to hammer the dam with full impact."

  Juhi, who had been watching the entire scene in horror, ran to Aban. Imran Shah Malik saw her. He turned to Aban, "Is she Juhi?"

  "Yes, Abba."

  "Your Ammi told me once about her after you left for America. That time I asked your Ammi to convey my disapproval. I wanted you to keep away from any Hindustāni. I was wrong."

  "Oh! My God,"the AC shouted, "The dam is going to crumble."

  "No, it won't. The wave will simply overflow over the top of the dam, taking all of us with it,"Aban said calmly, "unless we remove the explosives at the toe of the dam."

  "How much time do we have?"

  "Ten minutes."

  "Well, I'll dive and try to remove the explosives,"The AC volunteered.

  Siddhartha interjected, "Hold on, Commander. Do you know the depth of the reservoir at this point? It is more than two hundred and fifty metres. No one can dive beyond thirty metres without SCUBA. Beyond that, the water pressure will crush you. Secondly, you will find the place too dark at that depth. How will you remove the explosives then?"

  "I can still try."The AC was persistent.

  "I'm a recreational Scuba diver. Only nine people have been known to dive below a depth of more than 240 meters, even with the most advanced SCUBA. So, free Imran."

  "Mr. Malik is neither a superman nor a fish. He can't dive to such a depth!"

  "I've read his file. When he escaped from Bangladesh, he jumped into the Bay of Bengal at Sitakunda and stayed inside the sixty-metre deep water for five long minutes without any breathing apparatus. Perhaps, that is a new world record, albeit undocumented."

  The AC nodded and the commandos loosened their grip on Imran.

  "Move away from this place. Climb up the hill as high as you can."Imran Shah Malik said, "It's time for me to go."He turned to Juhi, "Take care of Aban. I love him more than anything else."His eyes met Aban. "Tell your Ammi, how much I missed her when I could not return to Lahore after I fell into the Swat River. I love all of you."

  "Why are you saying this, Abba? You have to come to us."

  "You know, Aban. I'm a fighter. I'll try."The father said and ran to the place, where he had kept the SCUBA. He lifted his eyes and saw the NSG commandos and the AC climbing over the hills. He turned his gaze to the dam. Juhi and Aban were still looking at him from the top of the dam.

  Someone tapped Imran Shah Malik from behind, "Hey man! You're a true nationalist and brave."

  Imran Shah Malik smiled, "Time to say goodbye to another patriot."

  "Goo
d luck."

  While Siddhartha slowly walked towards the road, leading to New Tehri Town, Imran Shah Malik activated the submarine. He fed the schematic data and commanded it to remove the semtex from the toe of the dam. He wore the SCUBA suit and dived deep to remove the capacitors and other electrical devices, which were fitted earlier by Khalil Deek.

  "We will be swept away by this huge wave."Juhi hugged Aban.

  "It's not the water, but the air that bothers me."

  "Air?"

  "Yes. Bend down and hold that chain tightly. I'll join you."Aban pointed out to the loop of chains fixed with the spillway motors, just beneath Juhi's feet.

  "Come, Aban. Be quick."

  "I can't, Juhi. My Abba is still under the water."

  Imran cut the wire of the serial connection of the semtex explosives, affixed at different positions of the dam. Sixty of them went dead. Only the last one, connected with a battery and a capacitor remained to be neutralized. He reached, but before he could snap the connection, the strong eddies generated by the waves threw him upward and pushed him towards the surface of the lake.

  The submarine completed its computed task and turned its direction to nose up. It quickly emptied its ballast tank and moved upwards with high velocity to resurface. When it whisked passed Imran, a semtex carried by its robotic arm got entangled in Imran's leg. The propeller of the leaving submarine created a vortex that pulled Imran inside the funnel. Imran allowed his body to be sucked in for a while, then turned his head downward, headed straight into the funnel, reached to the upside down tip of the funnel and then swam parallel to the vortex. Finally, he pushed hard to propel himself out of the water.

  The submarine emerged from the water, sailed towards the northern part of the river and then activated its self-destruct code.

  When Imran Shah Malik resurfaced, he felt a sensation in his leg. Someone touched it and tried to remove the explosive, "How did you come here? I assumed you had left much earlier."

  Khalil Deek responded, "Did you feel proud of what you did today? However, I have to fulfill my duty. I told Saeed al-Masri everything. He asked me to bring you to him. He will deliver justice to you."

  "Go to hell. I'll pluck out the eyes of anyone, who dares to raise his eyes at our watan."

  The huge explosion broke the eddy. Aban saw a small portion of the water turn red.

  Juhi pulled Aban to her and wrapped the chain to his body. The tidal wave, moving with tremendous velocity struck the edge of the dam. It flung away and dropped with a thunderous splash into the downstream canyon, almost a kilometre away. The canopy of the water compressed the trapped air. As soon as the wave passed, the compressed air rushed to meet the vacuum created by the moving jet. The immensely powerful forward draft pulled Juhi and Aban, who dangled between sky and the concrete of the dam, clinging tightly to the chain, waiting for the worst to pass.

  Epilogue

  Chhota Badrinath was an ancient temple in Old Tehri Town. Those who could not reach the high altitudes of Badrinath, would offer their prayers here and go back home, carrying the same blessings as those obtained at the main Badrinath Temple. When the Tehri Dam was built, the temple was submerged alongwith Old Tehri Town in the backwaters of the lake. Wise men of the village used to say that it was located on a Ley line, and so, extremely powerful. They said that these Ley Lines were like puppet strings, in the hands of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh.

  In the same area, a fisherman had ventured out with the return of normalcy. He saw an old man's well-built body, drifting steadily ashore. He quickly pulled out the body onto his boat, rowed to the bank and shouted to his fellow fisherman for help. He removed the unconscious man's hand that rested on his thigh and pumped out the water from his lungs.

  1 Broughton Suspension Bridge in Britain and Angers Bridge in France gave way because of resonance when the frequency of the bridge harmonized with the rhythmic steps of marching foot soldiers. The forced resonance of the wind caused the Tacoma suspension bridge to collapse, simply by providing an external periodic frequency, which matched with the natural structural frequency of the bridge.