It was a grainy video grab from a boutique’s surveillance video from across the scientist’s house and it showed the attempted assassination in fairly good detail.
The bikers had been identified from their bodies – they were Ajmal Ahmed and Nur Mohammed, two suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operatives who had sneaked into the country a couple of weeks ago and against whom a massive manhunt had been launched with little success. Nur had pulled out his gun and had been about to shoot the said scientist, when their plans were thwarted by a man in a Maruti Ertiga van, who rammed into the terrorists’ motorcycle head on, got down from the van, and pumped bullets into the assassins, killing them on the spot before whisking away the scientist in his van. The man in the van was Jai.
Ajith cursed yet again on seeing Jai’s face.
The video grab had very clearly shown Jai’s face as he had turned for a brief moment after taking the shots at the terrorists. There was a brief glimpse of another pair of hands, probably feminine, which had helped the old scientist get inside the van before it sped away.
The video was analysed and some geek at NIA, sitting behind a computer screen, had identified the face from the alert that Mumbai police had issued ten days ago. Ajith, as the officer in charge of Jai’s case, had been summoned to Chennai immediately to join a task force that was being formed to find the retired scientist who was still missing.
Ajith was at his wit’s end, trying to piece together the puzzle. He could not for the life of him understand how Jai and Juliet had ended up in this mess with the LeT. That was simply not the boy’s game. The situation was becoming murkier by the minute.
He had a feeling that he was missing something big here.
***
Ajith reached Chennai late at night and the police jeep immediately took him from the airport to the scene of the crime in Kalpakkam.
The place was a circus, with at least a hundred vehicles with different coloured beacon-lights parked on the street outside the house. Ajith went inside and there was a brief round of introductions. The who’s who of Chennai police and the Secretariat were present. The Chief Minister had just left, having spent close to half an hour with the distraught family members. She had assured the waiting media that all efforts were underway to bring home the retired professor safe. She did not let go of an opportunity to take a dig at the Central Government, under whom the security of the nuclear installation of Kalpakkam fell.
‘Professor Ananthakrishnan is an asset and this brazen act of his kidnapping is a serious blemish on the Indian security agencies,’ she stated to the reporters.
Chennai police and the NIA were not just paying lip service to the importance of the case; they really were running up and down the state trying to turn up leads to the missing professor’s whereabouts. Everyone present greeted Ajith cordially and he reported to the Commissioner of Police, Chennai. He then sat down with the investigating officers of the case, two NIA Detectives, Durai Murugan and Jos Fernandes. They went through a rough sketch of what had happened during that day and then, Ajith was brought up to date with what progress had been achieved until then. The investigating team had traced the Ertiga van to a beachside hotel not far from Kalpakkam. The hotel manager had no idea when his guests had slipped out, as the vehicle was still parked on the hotel premises.
Beyond that – zero, zilch. It was then Ajith’s turn to bring them up to speed about what had transpired in Mumbai. He narrated the case history of Jai and Juliet and how they had fled Mumbai after the brutal killing of Rashique Bhai. The Mumbai police had launched a massive manhunt but whatever they had did not point to this. This was a total surprise for them.
They asked Ajith to stick around for a few days and help them track down the professor. Ajith knew that if Jai and Juliet were apprehended, they would be in the Chennai police’s or NIA’s custody for the time being. He would have to ask for special permission to interrogate them if they were caught.
Ajith was mentally preparing for a long night ahead and a longer stint in the coming days, when there was a sudden commotion outside. A taxi had just stopped outside the house. To everyone’s surprise and relief, Professor Ananthakrishnan got down from the taxi, paid his fare, and walked into the house. He walked up to his front door and greeted everybody and he was ushered inside immediately. He was in good health and just asked for a glass of water.
Everybody had a million questions. After the family reunion and the mandatory shedding of a few happy tears, the professor was made to sit in front of the Commissioner of Police, Tamil Nadu, R Ezhilarasan. He started questioning the professor.
‘Sir, where were you taken?’
Professor Ananthakrishnan looked at him.
‘Well, a young boy and his wife,’ he paused, and then continued, ‘saved my life. They then took me to a hotel in Chennai and asked me to wait until all danger had passed. Then they took me out in a car and dropped me in Guindy. I caught a taxi and came back here.’
The Commissioner was puzzled.
‘Sir, do you know that the boy and the girl are from Mumbai and are fleeing the law for multiple murders?’
The professor feigned surprise.
‘Are they? That is amazing, because they seemed like such a nice couple. They said that it was a coincidence that they had chanced upon the shooting and they had felt obliged to intervene in the manner they did.’
The Commissioner was not convinced
‘They took you in a van from here to a hotel here in Kalpakkam, from where we have recovered the van, and then in a car to the city. Was that not odd?’
‘Well, the whole thing was odd. The day itself was. I was seeing a gun pointed at my face for the first time in my life.’ He paused, reliving the moment in his mind and then continued, ‘Yes, there were many oddities about the whole affair, but what was I to do? They had just saved my life and they were incredibly nice to me. I had my suspicions. But as I said, they had just saved my life and they were so awfully nice.’
The professor chuckled.
‘And hey, the boy still had the gun with him. So I was in no position to ask him anything. I was just thankful to have lived through this harrowing ordeal. I would like to take some rest now, if you don’t mind. Can we not continue this tomorrow morning?’
The Commissioner asked a few more questions which the professor evaded very skilfully. Then, it was decided to leave the professor for the night and to resume the interview sometime later in the morning.
That night, the professor had a sleepless night. He tossed and turned in his bed, thinking about Jai and what he had told him. Was it even possible to be immortal? What was it about the white rooms in Jai’s dreams? The strange white rooms with the sixteen-hour clock face. It couldn’t be a figment of his imagination. Impoverished slum-boy underworld shooters did not dream of white rooms with dual moonrises and heterochronistic timepieces.
Or did they? Anybody could dream any damn thing they wished to dream.
He did not know and this not knowing and understanding frustrated him. But he had to find out the truth for himself and getting to the bottom of Jai’s predicament was a welcome challenge for his semi-retired life.
He was an academician and his life had been devoted to research: building self-sustainability for India and creating a credible nuclear deterrence for his nation. Nothing could match up to that. But his new passion was more for his personal gratification. This new pursuit of his was possibly the last frontier that remained to be conquered by science.
The human brain.
The more he delved into the intricacies of it, the more intricate it became. Physically, it was just a mass of neurons connecting with each other in a web, but these connections made it possibly the most complex computer on the Earth. People have been trying to replicate neuronal networking in the making of computers and have covered only baby steps, reaching less than one percent of the brain’s computational capacity. Even the fastest supercomputer made, the Tianhe-2, falls short of the estimated computational
power required to simulate a human brain in real time.
He often pondered why the human race should undergo so much suffering when each one of them had been endowed with the most powerful tool on the planet. Maybe it had to do with the fact that each of us only uses roughly ten percent of the computational power of the brain at any one time. But then, perhaps it was just as well. He sometimes shuddered to think what would happen if the whole of it was available to all of us.
The whole world out there is just how the human brain perceives it, thought the professor. How you perceive something depends on the powers of perception you possess. It was akin to a colour-blind person perceiving the world in different hues of grey, never ever knowing what the red of a setting sun or the rose of a blushing maiden looks like.
The world outside could seem entirely different to each of us depending on our perception; or the world outside could just be a mirage, existing inside us, inside our brains. The more he thought about it, the more bizarre the conclusions became. The possibilities were endless and the rewards of understanding the human brain were phenomenal. What could be done with that understanding was beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings.
Philosophical questions aside, his job was to sift the fantasia out of the various anecdotal reports of extraordinary phenomena and to look for possible scientific and rational explanations. Many of these phenomena fizzled out on closer scrutiny but some withstood scientific enquiry. And these few tormented him.
Maybe now he had a chance. He did not believe in luck. Yet Jai was pure luck, to have landed right on top of him, just when he needed him.
Yes, he could do great things with Jai…
Chapter 19
An Intimate Congress
Chennai, India
21 May, 2012
Jai had gone out and got a new SIM card for his newly acquired ‘Nookia’ phone. As soon as it was activated, Jai sent a message to the professor:
‘’
That should be enough.
Jai and Henna were in a farmhouse, all by themselves. The professor had called in a favour from his friend, a famous orthopaedic surgeon in Chennai, who had driven over to the farmhouse and given him the keys to the farmhouse. He had enquired about Jai and Henna but the professor had simply said:
‘The less you know the better, Naren.’
Dr Naren Ramakrishnan had not asked any more questions and had left. The professor had settled them in and had also left soon after that. Before leaving, he had assured Jai that he would contact him as soon as he got things ready for them. Till then both of them had to sit tight and keep a low profile. The professor expressly asked Jai not to venture anywhere outside.
Jai had not asked him any further questions.
It was already eight in the evening by the time Jai and Henna got the long-unused rooms tidied up a bit. Jai was feeling hungry and so was Henna.
Jai went to the shacks lining the main road and packed a meal of dosas for both of them. Henna had found some fresh sheets in the cupboard and had spread them on the bed and on the sofa in the adjacent living room.
Henna put their dinner on two plates and handed one to him. She was unusually happy. She smiled often at Jai and Jai even heard her humming a song.
‘Why are you so happy today?’
Henna looked up at Jai.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I just mean that you are in high spirits today.’
‘Well, I feel good today. Feel good about the way we were able to help the old man.’
‘Yes, that was nice. Saving lives feels so much better than taking them.’
They chatted during their dinner. They had not been able to have this light-hearted a time since they had left Mumbai. It was impossible to do so in Chennai as they were constantly conscious of being hunted fugitives. Nevertheless, the lightness of their being tonight had much to do with rescuing the life of the venerable professor.
When they had finished dinner, Henna took away the plates, washed up, and put them to dry on a rack in the kitchen. Jai headed through the dim-lit corridors of the house and out of the back door, which led to a walk around the three-acre grounds of the farmhouse.
Henna finished cleaning up and then joined Jai on the walk outside. Jai looked at her, and saw the hint of kohl in her eyes. That brought a smile to his face. Henna looked puzzled
‘Why are you smiling?’
‘You look more beautiful and radiant than a thousand brides put together, when you put kohl in your eyes.’
Her eyes lit up at the compliment and there was a hint of a blush on her cheeks.
‘Thank you. Thank you for the compliment. You are not looking too bad either, Sir,’ Henna replied with a twinkle in her eyes, ’I believe you are strong enough to take on a thousand grooms.’
‘I will, if they come for your hand.’
Henna laughed at that remark and reached for Jai’s hand. Jai felt her slip her hand into his and squeezed it gently. She looked up at Jai and blushed.
Her beauty reminded Jai of her vulnerability
‘Henna! I have pushed you into this quicksand of instability, fright, and flight. I sometimes wonder if I will ever be able to give you any semblance of stability at all.’
‘I wouldn’t want any life other than this, Jai. I wouldn’t want any life without you.’
Henna withdrew her hand and turned to Jai.
‘When I was in Mumbai in my previous life, I wanted to die each day but never mustered enough courage to do it. The past few days of my life outside of that hellhole, scurrying everywhere with you have been the best days of my life. If I die right now, I would be the happiest girl in the whole wide world.’
Jai did not know what to say. He just looked into her eyes, tears welling up in both their eyes. He pulled on her hand but Henna, overcome with emotion, shook her hand free and ran for the house.
Jai stood there in the dark, looking up at the full moon that began slowly to emerge from a cumulus of clouds, and gradually dispelled the darkness around him.
‘I wouldn’t let anything happen to you dearest, not till I die…,’ Jai murmured, and then laughed at the thought of his death, rather the many deaths that he had had in the past few days.
Henna was in bed by the time Jai reached home. He slipped under the blanket on the sofa but sleep was far from his eyes. His mind kept wavering to the kohl-lined eyes of Henna, which had expressed much more than her words. Those eyes had searched for love in his eyes and he was not sure if she had found what she sought.
She definitely deserved better. She deserved to know that he loved her more than anything else in the whole world.
He kept tossing and turning in his sofa and then got up for a glass of water. As he crossed Henna’s room, he heard Henna turn in her bed and gently pushed the door open. Her slender silhouette showed palely in the darkness of the room and her bosom rose and fell with each breath. He stood there for a moment and then turned to go away.
‘Jai.’ It was Henna’s voice, who was obviously crying again.
Jai turned and walked to her bed.
‘What’s the matter, dear?’ Jai placed his palm on her cheek and felt the tears roll down it on to his palm. She sobbed freely and held his hand against her cheeks.
‘I need you,’ Henna whispered again, looking into his eyes.
Jai sat on the bed, took her face in both his hands, and said:
‘I am here for you, Henna, always here for you.’ Jai sat by her on the bed. Henna rested her head on his shoulder. The crying had stopped.
She looked up at Jai, he leaned forward, and Henna closed her eyes just before their lips met. The kiss lingered on her lips and then she slowly opened her lips, giving him access to her mouth. That was the final straw. Their hunger for each other took over, their pent-up love bursting forth.
Both of them had had their fears and doubts. Jai was not sure if she had healed from her previous trauma and had not wanted to rush her into intimacy. Henna was afraid that Jai would not acc
ept her sullied body and soul.
Then and there, the doubts melted away in that kiss, and love, unexpressed till now, exploded in a fountain of lust and consumed both of them in an instant.
They disrobed each other with frantic urgency and Jai dove into her bosom, nestling his head in the valley between her breasts. Henna’s body responded to Jai’s with a fierceness of want and need. Her body had endured years of torture and befoulment. Jai’s embrace seemed to wash away the guilt and the sins of her past. She felt him between her legs and readily opened up for him. It was a cleansing catharsis for Henna’s body and she felt an explosion of ecstasy even before Jai had entered her. Her body was awash with a million tingling nerves and it convulsed in throes of pleasure repeatedly. Tears rolled down her eyes when Jai actually entered her, and her body exploded in yet another fantastic eruption of pure, guilt-free pleasure of passionate love and beautiful lust.
***
They did not have much sleep in the night having gone at each other again and again until they were tired to the bone.
Henna could not stop laughing the next morning and burst into peals of laughter every now and then. It was as if the happiness within her seemed to burst out of her in spite of her restraints. She could not bear to look into Jai’s eyes and turned a deep crimson each time he set his eyes on her. Jai saw the effect he was having on her, and could not help laughing, each time he saw her. He was relieved to see her happy and her smile lightened the darkness within him. He was happy that the trouble he had taken had not been in vain. The smile on her face was worth every death and every scar he had endured during the last few days.
The professor’s call came at nine in the morning.
‘Jai, how is everything?’
‘Everything is so very fine, Professor,’ Jai replied. ‘How are things at your end?’
‘Oh, I am doing fine, thanks to you and Henna. Now listen carefully, I have made some arrangements. I have called to tell you to be at the Chennai Cancer Institute at eight this evening. I will pick you up at the gate.’
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