‘Isvara, Jeevas, Prakriti, Samay, Karma,’ Shukla muttered. ‘The five basic truths that form the subject of the Gita – But none of these can be described as mixed up.’
Silence descended on the group as they pondered this riddle. Vijay buried his face in his hands and concentrated hard. What was his uncle trying to tell him? He thought back to his childhood, the years he had spent with his uncle to find clues to his uncle’s thought process.
Suddenly, it struck him.
‘Anagrams!’ he cried out loud.
The others looked at him curiously.
‘It’s an anagram,’ he explained. ‘Uncle was very fond of two things; solving crosswords and solving anagrams. He’s used an anagram in the email.’
Colin smacked his forehead. ‘I should have seen it. It’s there in plain view. And it’s the only basic truth that I knew.’
‘What are you both talking about?’ Radha interjected.
‘Vijay explained, his face flushed with the thrill of having solved the first riddle. ‘It isn’t the truth that’s mixed up. It’s the word that describes the truth, an anagram.’
‘Oh, I see it now.’ An understanding spread through Radha’s expression and even Shukla and White nodded.
Now that it had been explained, it was obvious. ‘The subject that leaves a mark upon us for our future lives. “A Mark.” Unscramble it and you get Karma—the subject of the Gita that affects our future lives according to Hindu philosophy.’
‘Okay, so how does Karma lead us through the door of knowledge?’ Colin looked puzzled again.
Vijay’s elation at having found the first clue slowly dissipated. They still didn’t know where the key was.
‘You have to look deeper within,’ Radha read the second line of the email.
‘I think your uncle was telling you to look deeper within this email,’ Colin guessed. ‘There’s more in here than just the anagram.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Radha stretched both her hands out in excitement. ‘Look at the third line.’
‘Study, the Bhagavad Gita.’
White frowned. ‘But we’ve already used that clue to find the anagram.’
Radha shook her head. ‘Look deeper within,’ she urged, quoting the email. ‘Read the line again. There’s a comma after the word “study.” The line isn’t an instruction to study the Bhagavad Gita. I think the comma was put there to draw attention to the word “study.” It isn’t a verb.’
‘It is a pointer.’ Vijay realised that Radha was onto something. ‘The key is in the study.’
‘And it has something to do with Karma,’ Colin joined in, excitedly.
Vijay looked around the room, at the windows, the bookcases lining the walls, the paintings that flanked the doorway. If the key was in the study, why hadn’t Farooq found it when he had searched the room after murdering his uncle?
‘Where...?’ He started to ask, then broke off and his jaw dropped. It had been staring them in the face all this while.
The painting to the right of the doorway in the study; the one that had the word Karma boldly printed above the sketch of the Buddha.
He slowly rose and walked to the painting. Was this it? Where was the key?
‘Papa,’ Radha broke the silence as they clustered around the painting, scrutinising it intently. ‘Didn’t the Wheel of Law propagated by the Buddha have eight spokes’?
‘Yes. Eight spokes for the eight principles of Dhamma, the faith.’
As Shukla replied, they all realised why Radha had asked the question. The Wheel of Law depicted in the painting didn’t have eight spokes.
It had nine.
They stared at the nine-spoked wheel for a few moments. The key had been hidden away in plain sight. Who would have thought of counting the number of spokes in the wheel?
‘Ingenious,’ Shukla muttered admiringly.
Vijay reached out for the wheel. It was embedded in the painting, barely a few millimetres protruding from the canvas. His fingers touched the wheel. It was metal; the same dark metal that the disk was made from. He grasped the wheel and tugged at it gently.
It refused to budge. But Vijay persisted.
Finally, there was an audible click and the wheel came loose from the painting.
Holding it tenderly, like a newborn, Vijay carried it to the coffee table and inserted it into the hollow innermost circle of the metal disk. With a soft click, the key slid into place. Elated, he moved the wheel in a clockwise direction. It had locked onto the gear wheel and both the circles moved together. Then, there was another click and the wheels came to a stop. They had locked themselves into place.
The rows of inscriptions were perfectly aligned once more. And this time they knew it was the correct sequence of lines.
Shukla took the disk in his hands and began reading out the new arrangement of words in the inscriptions.
‘“The Nine have gone forth to the edges of the empire
The first, in appearance, is different from the rest
The second gazes over the sea, waiting for the ships to come in
The third speaks the name of the Emperor
The fourth is seventeen
The fifth writes with a hand that is different from the rest
The sixth is greater by one than the other upright ones
The seventh pays homage to the Wheel of Truth
The eighth does not have all that the others do; but is special for he also has that which the others do not
The ninth speaks in two tongues.
Together, they guard the way to the truth that is protected by the Nine.”’
There was silence when he finished. The verse still didn’t make any sense.
Colin gave voice to their feelings. ‘The key does nothing more than re-order the combination of words.’
‘This sounds a bit like a description of people,’ White ventured. ‘Perhaps it describes the original Nine Unknown Men?’
‘And how are we to figure out the identities of nine men, who have been dead for over 2,000 years?’ Vijay demanded testily but then checked himself. ‘I’m sorry. This is getting to me. I thought finding the key would send us on our way. But it hasn’t helped a bit. We are no closer to finding the secret of the Nine than we were yesterday.’
‘I don’t think this refers to the original Nine,’ Colin said slowly. ‘The Nine were a secret brotherhood. These secret societies operate on the principle that no one member knows the identity of all the others. Each member knows the identities of one or two others. And they never use their actual names when addressing each other. This ensures that betrayal by any one member doesn’t lead to annihilation of the group. If the group is targeted by a traitor, they may lose a few members, but the brotherhood lives on.’
‘How do you know so much about secret societies?’ Vijay looked at Colin quizzically.
‘Hey, all the thrillers about secret societies work on this principle.’ An impish smile played across Colin’s face.
Vijay threw a pen at him. ‘You and your thrillers, again.’
‘Colin is right in a manner of speaking,’ Shukla explained. ‘As a secret society, it is highly improbable that any reference to their members would be included in a riddle. First, their identities were secret, so how could anyone decipher the riddle when their names weren’t known? Second, this riddle was meant to last for centuries, to be used when all else failed, and then only to protect the secret. The names of the original members would be forgotten, as they are now, even if they were known. That eliminates this possibility.’
‘What about the emails?’ Radha peered at the printout. ‘Any other clues there?’
‘The third email talks about following the edicts of Asoka and a voyage of discovery. And the fourth one mentions seeking out the Nine if something were to happen to Vijay’s uncle. It also refers to a path of truth to find a way out of any illusion.’ Colin’s face was glum.
‘How are we to follow Asoka’s edicts?’ Shukla wondered. ‘Follow them, as in,
apply the principles they preached, or physically follow them by visiting the sites where they were found? They are all over India and some are in museums.’
‘Well, we have sought out the Nine in a manner of speaking, haven’t we?’ White pointed out. ‘Finding the verse on the disk which is about the Nine; wouldn’t that classify as seeking out the Nine? Perhaps your uncle was trying to tell you to get the metal disk from the locker. Which you did.’
Vijay frowned. ‘You could be right. But what if uncle meant that we need to follow the clues in the verse to seek out the Nine, using the descriptions provided?’
‘I’m hungry,’ Colin announced, his stomach diverting his attention from the subject of the emails.
Vijay grinned, his mood lightening momentarily. ‘The way to your heart is through your stomach. That’s the advice I’ve always given your girlfriends.’
‘Is that why they’ve always stuffed me with food?’ Colin rolled his eyes. ‘I used to wonder.’
‘Let’s have dinner, then,’ Vijay suggested. ‘Perhaps if we give this a break, the answers will come to us.’
‘You’ll excuse me,’ White rose and held out his hand. ‘I’ve got to get back tonight. There’s work to be done for the project and I should also update the Maharaja on what we’ve found.’
‘Well, there’s not much to tell him, is there?’ Vijay was despondent. ‘Thanks for being here, Greg.’
11
Day 5
Intelligence Bureau Headquarters, New Delhi
‘I don’t understand it.’ Imran Kidwai looked nonplussed. He was sitting in the office of Arjun Vaid, the Director. ‘The vault wasn’t on our list of possible targets. There was absolutely no intelligence to indicate a possible attack.’
‘Yet, you believe it was a terrorist attack.’ Vaid looked thoughtful. ‘The forensic report doesn’t help.’ He picked up a file that lay open on his desk. ‘They couldn’t identify the explosive residue. Samples of the residue have been sent to Israel and the US to see if the compound can be identified. But eyewitness accounts say it wasn’t a bomb that went off there.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Several people described the attackers as possessing a large contraption that was used to fire a projectile at the vault door; a contraption in the shape of a bow. In fact, one eyewitness even called it Lord Shiva’s bow.’ He snorted.
Vaid fixed Imran with a piercing gaze. ‘If the eyewitness accounts are to be believed, a low-grade explosive must have been used to fire something at the vault door. But why go to the trouble of hauling a machine that fires projectiles? Why not simply blow open the door using explosives?’
‘Imran shrugged. ‘I can only guess that they wanted something from that vault. Something that was too important to risk damage by using explosives on the door. But, I can’t see what they had to gain by targeting that vault. And no one has claimed responsibility yet, either.’
There was silence for a few minutes.
‘What about Murphy?’ Vaid looked quizzically at Imran.
‘Good news and bad news. Homeland Security in the US was able to determine that he boarded an American Airlines flight three days ago under an alias. We traced his arrival in Delhi. He checked into a five-star hotel in Gurgaon, but checked out yesterday. That’s when his trail goes cold. We’re still trying to locate him, but so far we’ve had no luck. I’ve got the Gurgaon police involved as well.’
Vaid looked at the report again. ‘Fine. I know you’re on it. But I want to close this one way or the other. And soon. The Home Minister’s breathing down my neck after this report. He’s got enough on his hands and doesn’t want something that can give the media another scoop. We have to find out if this is a real threat and contain it. Or put it to rest.’
Imran understood. There were five state elections looming, all critical for the ruling political party. That gave this matter a totally different perspective, apart from the more obvious one of national security.
He returned to his office and dialled a number. ‘Pramod, listen carefully. I have a hunch.’ He proceeded to give detailed instructions to the person at the other end of the line and then replaced the receiver in its cradle. He had no idea if his hunch would work. He knew he was grasping at straws. But what else could he do?
Tour Around Jaungarh Fort
‘I really haven’t come been to the fort too often, so I don’t know my way around very well,’ Vijay confessed as he guided the group along the maze of corridors and narrow staircases that led from one room to another, connecting, through narrow staircases, the different levels of the fort, as it climbed the hillside.
They had finished dinner and Vijay had offered to take them on a tour of the fort to take their minds off the puzzle.
The stairways between the levels were steep. Five hundred years ago, the architects of the fort had designed it with the intention of thwarting enemies who managed to infiltrate the outer defences. Pursuit by the enemy on these stairs would be difficult. Each stairway ended in an intersection of four corridors, a design aimed at confusing and delaying an enemy in pursuit. These intersections had doorways leading out of them that were less than five feet high, compelling passage through them by bending; another device to slow the enemy while the inhabitants made good their escape through numerous secret passages and tunnels.
‘Are these secret tunnels still accessible?’ Radha asked excitedly.
Vijay shook his head. ‘Some of them would have deteriorated and become dangerous to enter with the passage of time. I think uncle blocked them all up when he renovated the fort.’
They were now passing through the inner rooms of the fort which had smoothed, plastered walls with large, colourful murals painted on them.
‘Frescoes of scenes from the Mahabharata,’ Shukla observed. ‘Your uncle loved the epic.
Vijay nodded. He recalled his childhood, sitting at his uncle’s knee, listening to stories from the epic embellished with a child’s imagination.
‘That is a portrayal of the Bhagavad Gita being delivered on the battlefield.’ Shukla pointed to a painting that covered the wall from floor to ceiling, with horses hitched to a chariot, stamping and tossing their heads while a man with blue skin clad in armour seemed to be preaching to another man armed with an enormous bow and a quiver of arrows on his back. ‘Lord Krishna, the avatar of Lord Vishnu, delivering the Gita to Arjuna, the archer.’
There were other scenes from the Mahabharata, in the other rooms; the death of Karna—the son of Kunti, mother of the Pandava brothers, and Surya, the Sun God—as he tried valiantly to free his chariot’s wheel from the mire; the famous scene where Draupadi, wife of the five Pandava brothers, is humiliated after she is gambled away over a game of dice.
It was nine o’clock when they finished the tour. Everyone was tired now, especially Vijay and Colin, who hadn’t slept the previous night, and they all retired to their rooms, glad to be able to rest.
For a few hours, the puzzle of the verse was forgotten.
12
Day 6
Jaungarh Fort
Vijay shifted uneasily in his sleep. He hadn’t slept well since he’d first received word of his uncle’s death. It was the same tonight. Nebulous dreams filled his sleep.
He now dreamt of a king carving inscriptions on rocks, going from boulder to boulder, chiselling away until each rock’s surface was fully covered with unreadable squiggles. Finally, nine rocks stood in a circle, like an eye gazing at the sky. And then he found himself watching the scene from above; looking down on the ring of rocks, in the centre of which stood the king, his hands triumphantly raised to the sky. In one hand he clutched a metal disk...
Vijay awoke suddenly and sat up in bed, dazed.
Then it came back to him; his dream,the king,the rocks. The inscriptions and the metal disk.
His dream, he knew, had its genesis in the events of the day: the discussion on Asoka’s edicts, the brotherhood of the Nine and the verse on the metal disk. But, something tugged at his mind, some thought hidden
away in a deep recess. He searched hard. He didn’t know why, but that thought seemed important.
Then, it came to him—a line from one of his uncle’s emails.
Follow the edicts of Asoka.
Abruptly, it dawned on him. He knew what had woken him. He had found the second clue! The one that would decode the verse on the disk.
Vijay smiled. They were back on track.
Old Memories
Vijay looked up from his laptop as Radha entered the study, looking concerned. There were papers scattered across the desk and the printer was churning out more paper.
‘What happened? We were wondering where you were. The butler told us you weren’t in your room and we couldn’t see you in the garden. I finally thought of looking for you here.’ She stood by his side, looking down at him. ‘Have you eaten anything? Everyone’s had breakfast already.’
Vijay ran a hand through his tousled hair and shook his head. He had been up since awakening from his dream and had spent the time working in the study. Until now he’d been too preoccupied to give a thought to food. At her words, however, he realised he was hungry. But first he had to tell her what he had discovered.
‘I’ve got it,’ his eyes gleamed with exhilaration as he looked up at her. ‘I’ve got the second clue.’
Radha smiled at him. ‘Come on downstairs. I’ll fix you breakfast. Once you’ve eaten, you can tell us about it.’
Vijay smiled back at her as she left. His thoughts went back to the day he met her, two years ago, for the first time after leaving the country. Vikram Singh had wanted something delivered to his old friend, Dr. Shukla, and Vijay had volunteered to be the courier.
Radha had been a childhood friend but he hadn’t seen her for 12 years. All he remembered of her was a gawky teenager with braces on her teeth, and an attitude. He had wondered what he would find now. He had gaped at the attractive young woman, framed by the open doorway at Dr. Shukla’s house.
The Mahabharata Secret Page 8