The Mists of Brahma

by CHRISTOPHER C. DOYLE

  ‘Where can I find boatman Raju?’ Mirza asked the nearest boatman he could see.

  The boatman pointed out a boat with faded blue paint still visible around the bow, among the row of boats that lined the banks of the river.

  Mirza walked along the river bank until he reached the blue boat.

  A man was sitting in it, waiting for customers.

  ‘Raju?’ Mirza enquired.

  The boatman looked up hopefully. ‘Yes, sir. You want to go bathe in the Sangam?’

  Mirza smiled. ‘No, Raju.’ He flashed his identity card. ‘I’m from the police. Special Task Force.’

  Raju froze, his face lined with fear. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, sir. I’m just a simple boatman.’

  Mirza winced; it always bothered him that the ordinary citizen’s first reaction to the police was one of distrust and fear. ‘No, no, Raju,’ he hastened to reassure him. ‘This is regarding the photograph that you were shown yesterday by Nitin. He told me that you recognised the man.’ He took out a copy of Srivastava’s photograph and showed it to Raju.

  The fear disappeared from Raju’s face and he nodded vigorously, anxious to be of help.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied. ‘I recognised him immediately. But as I told Nitin, I haven’t seen him for many years. Maybe ten years or more. Perhaps even fifteen years. I don’t know.’

  ‘Tell me more about him,’ Mirza urged. ‘Anything that comes to mind.’

  ‘Is he in trouble?’

  ‘Not really. But what you tell us could be useful, and may even help us to help him.’

  Raju nodded. ‘In that case I will definitely tell you, sir. This man is a good man. Srivastavaji. That is his name. I still remember after all these years. He would come every Tuesday to the temple,’ he indicated the Lete Hanumanji ka Mandir, ‘and then go to bathe in the Sangam.’

  He shrugged. ‘For some reason, Srivastavaji developed a fondness for me and would only take my boat to the bathing spot. Since he was a regular and we had become friendly, I would wait for him every Tuesday. But then, one day, he disappeared. Just like that. I assumed he had fallen sick. I waited every Tuesday, for several weeks, but he never returned. After some time, I gave up. I feared he had died.’

  ‘No,’ Mirza reassured the boatman. ‘He left Allahabad and went to live in Delhi instead.’

  ‘But why didn’t he say goodbye? He was such a nice gentleman, such a warm human being.’

  Mirza nodded. ‘Did he ever get his family along when he came here?’

  ‘No.’ Raju shook his head. ‘But he told me about them. We would talk. When you meet someone regularly, once a week, for years, you do get to know something about them. He had a wife and a son. The son was born some months before he stopped coming here.’ He looked at Mirza. ‘Before he went to Delhi.’

  ‘A son? I thought he had a daughter?’

  ‘A daughter? No, sir, only a son. If he did have a daughter, he never mentioned her.’

  Mirza frowned. This was at odds with the information he had. Kapoor had told him that Dhruv Srivastava had a daughter. Ajit had also testified to that. He had seen father and daughter enter their house in Delhi shortly before Srivastava was murdered.

  Where was the son then?

  ‘Is he happy in Delhi, sir? And his family? His wife and son?’ Raju wanted to know.

  ‘Yes, Raju.’ Mirza pressed some money into the boatman’s hand. ‘Thank you. You have been very helpful.’

  Raju smiled, showing discoloured teeth, stained with paan and tobacco, and pocketed the money happily. ‘You are welcome, sir. And please give my regards to Srivastavaji whenever you meet him!’

  Mirza nodded and made his way back to the entrance of the temple, where Harish was waiting for him.

  ‘Anything?’ Harish asked.

  ‘Lots. DCP Kapoor was right. Something did happen here in Allahabad,’ Mirza replied. ‘Srivastava had a wife and a son. That’s definite. But they weren’t with him in Delhi. Only his daughter lived with him in Delhi.’

  ‘So what happened to the wife and son?’ Harish asked. ‘Did he leave them behind? Did they separate? Divorce?’

  ‘That’s what we have to find out.’

  Chapter Seventy-nine

  Shukra Makes a Choice

  Sadhu Mandali

  The Sangam, Allahabad

  Shukra sat in the shade of a tree, his eyes closed, arms outstretched and hands resting lightly on his knees, apparently deep in a meditative trance.

  Around him, sadhus of various hues milled about, some arriving, others leaving. Yet others sat around talking.

  Shukra had chosen the mandali since it provided him the perfect opportunity to stay in Allahabad without having to disguise himself or create an illusion to look different, and remain inconspicuous. Dressed in saffron robes, his hair bunched up in a topknot with sacred streaks of ash and a red tikka on his forehead, he looked like any other sadhu here.

  Mandalis like this one were numerous and scattered all along the banks of the Ganga at the Sangam. Sadhus from all over India sought shelter here.

  But Shukra was not meditating. He had had enough of that after 5,000 years of intense tapasya. He was reflecting on his two-week stay in Allahabad and the information he had uncovered.

  His encounter with Maharishi Dhruv in Delhi had been extremely disconcerting. Too many things had happened that day that he had not anticipated and which seemed to be totally out of his control. Including the manner in which the confrontation had ended.

  Too many questions had remained unanswered. Shukra had largely disregarded them after that fateful day; there were other, more immediate things on his mind. But there was something he couldn’t overlook any more. He could no longer ignore the peculiar sensation he had felt that day. Especially now that he remembered when he had experienced it before. It had been thousands of years ago, when he had resurrected his disciple, Kacha—the son of Brihaspati—after the Asuras had killed him and mixed his ashes with Shukra’s wine. Unknowingly, Shukra had drunk the wine and, with it, the ashes of Kacha.

  Shukra had sensed something abnormal at the time, which he had never been able to explain.

  Thousands of years later, something had happened at Maharishi Dhruv’s home when he had come face to face with Dhruv’s daughter, which, for some reason unknown to him, reminded him of that long forgotten sensation. He had been perplexed by it but had dismissed it from his mind as unimportant at the time.

  But his observation of Dhruv’s daughter indulging in atma travel at Bhimbetka had brought those questions sharply back into focus and made them relevant again.

  Shukra had realised that night that he would have to seek the answers that had eluded him so far in Allahabad. He had arrived here immediately after concluding the mission at Bhimbetka and handing over the spoils of that intrusion to Vishwaraj. He had also left detailed instructions for the young man, on what he needed to do next.

  The last two weeks had not been unproductive.

  Shukra had meticulously set about seeking information, speaking to all manner of people. He had posed as a news reporter writing a story about people who had moved out of Allahabad to big cities, and had found it to be a convenient ruse for asking all sorts of questions, which the locals had been unusually eager to answer. He imagined that everyone wanted to be a celebrity and have their voice heard.

  On these excursions to interview people, he had discarded his hermit’s attire for a casual shirt and jeans with sneakers, to look the part he was playing. His eyepatch made him look alluringly rakish. No one suspected who he actually was.

  No, the last two weeks had been far from fruitless. In fact, he had uncovered a goldmine of information.

  He had learnt that Maharishi Dhruv had lost his wife and son almost fifteen years ago, after which Dhruv had packed up and moved to Delhi.

  While Shukra had seethed at the memory of being outwitted fifteen years ago, this revelation had solved a mystery that had troubled him ever since he had discovered th
at the boy who was Yayati’s scion—the One of the prophecy—was alive.

  And that mystery was this: if he had not succeeded in killing the One of the prophecy, then whom had he killed?

  He was sure that he had killed a woman and her son. There was no doubt about that. It was not an illusion woven by Dhruv. So who had it been?

  Now he knew.

  Maharishi Dhruv had sacrificed his own wife and son to save the scion of Yayati, who must have been smuggled out by his uncle and mother to Delhi. Oblivious to this deception, Shukra had departed, satisfied that he had achieved his objective and rid himself of his prospective foe.

  For Shukra played by the rules. His objective was to kill the boy. Once that was accomplished, there had been no reason to stay on in Allahabad or kill anyone else. It would have served no purpose.

  Shukra frowned as he thought of how he had been fooled by their plan.

  In these past two weeks, he had also learned about Dhruv’s daughter, Maya. He had had a brief glimpse into the girl’s mind when he had encountered her at Dhruv’s house in Delhi. He had seen enough to determine that she knew nothing of Dhruv’s real identity as a Maharishi. Her mind had been a complete blank. No mantras, no powers that indicated that she had inherited Dhruv’s Maharishi abilities.

  What he had learned in Allahabad hinted at why that was so.

  But it gave rise to other, equally perplexing questions.

  Like the one he was pondering over now.

  If Dhruv’s daughter had no powers and knew no mantras, how was she able to travel as an atma?

  He had witnessed this phenomenon for himself, but had no answers.

  How important was it really?

  And could it wait?

  He wrestled with his thoughts, unable to reach a conclusion.

  He had wasted two and a half months on what seemed to be a wild goose chase. Yet, he knew that he had to reconcile the obvious contradiction: Dhruv’s daughter had no powers, yet she was able to travel outside her physical body as an atma. This was an impossibility that he could not understand.

  He had an inkling of the possible explanation, and it was possible to validate his theory through a deeper investigation of the girl.

  But that would mean spending more time finding out what this aberration meant. And this, at a time when every day that passed meant less time to do what he needed to do. He was also acutely aware that the peak of Kaliyuga was approaching and that time was running out for him.

  Was it really worth his while to try and solve the mystery?

  Even if his suspicions were correct, the girl had no powers. Of that, he was sure. She would take years to gain powers even if she was able to. There was nothing about which to be apprehensive where she was concerned.

  Shukra knew he had to make a choice. He struggled with his thoughts, trying to cut through the confusion and arrive at a decision.

  Enough of this. He had work to do.

  The mantras had to be found.

  Shukra’s eyelids sprang open, his one good eye fixing the crowd around him with a piercing gaze. Inside the mandali, he did not need to wear his eyepatch. No one gave him a second look. He was just another sadhu in a crowd of sadhus.

  He rose and strode towards the entrance.

  It was time to leave Allahabad and revert to his original priority.

  Chapter Eighty

  Shukra Searches

  Maya’s House

  New Delhi

  It was past midnight. The streets were deserted. Under the streetlights, a lonely dog made his way across the road, sniffing around for food.

  Shukra appeared on the pavement opposite Maya’s house, materialising out of thin air. He looked around, then crossed the street to the front door of the house.

  Standing before the door, which had been locked and sealed by the police, he closed his eyes. A mantra unfolded inside his mind.

  There was a click as the lock slid back and the seal fell off. The door creaked open.

  After another quick glance around, Shukra walked in.

  As he entered the living room, he shut the front door and latched it from inside. A glowing sphere appeared at his shoulder, bathing the room in an eerie golden light.

  Shukra knew exactly where to look.

  The study.

  That would be the best place to start. Surely Maharishi Dhruv would have hidden it there, among his books.

  Another mantra silently unfolded in Shukra’s mind and a dozen clones emerged from his body, just as they had in the Hall of Archives.

  The clones quickly went to work, scanning the rows of books in the study, examining the ones that looked promising and discarding the others.

  In a short while, the entire study had been combed—bookshelves, desk and all.

  But what Shukra was looking for was nowhere to be found.

  The clones made their way through the house, examining every room, every cupboard, every drawer.

  Shukra waited.

  It had to be here!

  But, to his great disappointment, the extensive search yielded nothing.

  For a few moments, he stood there, thinking.

  It had been crystal clear when he had read Dhruv’s mind. The Maharishi had desperately fought to shield his thoughts from Shukra’s probing, but had not been entirely successful. Shukra had seen glimpses of the secret that Dhruv had tried so hard to protect.

  It had to be here.

  But it wasn’t.

  Which could only mean one of two things: Either it had not been hidden in the house at all or someone had moved it from here.

  And there was only one person who could have moved it.

  The girl whom Shukra had encountered the day Dhruv died.

  Dhruv’s daughter.

  But he had examined her mind that day and found no knowledge of what he sought. She did not have it with her.

  So where could it be?

  Chapter Eighty-one

  Recall

  Police Commissioner’s Office

  New Delhi

  Raman Kapoor fidgeted as he paced the small lounge outside Ramesh Vidyarthi’s office. He had been making plans to visit Allahabad again; his team there, along with Mirza, had begun making good progress in collecting information about Singh and Srivastava. Kapoor had not been able to speak with them the last few days—the last report he had received was about Mirza’s conversation with a boatman and Harish’s success in talking to a couple of people at the Lete Hanumanji ka Mandir who recognised Srivastava.

  And that had been a week ago.

  In the midst of all his planning, he had received a sudden summons from the commissioner’s office.

  Kapoor always hated it when Vidyarthi did this. It meant that his boss was about to spring a surprise on him.

  Just over two months ago, Vidyarthi had assigned the Diya Chaudhry murder case to him, while temporarily taking him off the Trivedi case. He wondered what lay in store for him today.

  Well, he wouldn’t have to wait too long. The commissioner’s aide was indicating that Vidyarthi would see him now.

  Kapoor knocked on the door.

  ‘Come in, Kapoor!’ Vidyarthi’s voice boomed from inside.

  As Kapoor entered, Vidyarthi beamed at him and gestured for him to sit down.

  Kapoor took a chair and waited for the bombshell.

  ‘Well, Kapoor? There’s been total silence from you on the Diya Chaudhry murder case. Didn’t your visits to Allahabad help you crack it?’

  Kapoor knew he was being baited. He steadfastly refused to take the bait.

  ‘We’re getting leads, sir,’ he replied, ‘My men are following them up in Allahabad. We’re getting there.’

  ‘Getting there? In all the years I’ve known you, Kapoor, you’ve always got there. And no doubt you will in this case as well.’

  Kapoor groaned inwardly. This was, he knew, where the ‘but’ was going to come in. He waited for it.

  ‘But,’ Vidyarthi continued, as Kapoor had predicted, ‘it
has been more than two months and no resolution in sight, eh?’

  ‘No, sir. But I think it’s just a matter of time now.’

  ‘It always is, my man, it always is!’ Vidyarthi’s tone was too jovial for Kapoor’s comfort.

  The commissioner leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Look Kapoor, I know that, given time, you’ll crack this one too. But, quite frankly, two months is just too long for a petty case like this. There are bigger fish to fry, more important cases that I need you on, here in Delhi. I can’t have you disappearing to Allahabad ever so often, even if it’s only for a day or two each time.’

  Kapoor was silent. This did not bode well. Just when he felt his investigation was taking shape, too. He tried to contain his frustration.

  ‘I’m pulling you off the case for now, Kapoor. There’s an urgent new case that has come up. Involves national security. We’ve had a request from the Intelligence Bureau for one of our best men to work with them.’ He beamed at Kapoor. ‘Naturally, I thought of you.’

  ‘But the media, sir? I thought the heat was on you to solve this case?’

  ‘Ah, but we haven’t solved it, have we? And it has been over two months since that poor girl’s body was found.’ Vidyarthi leaned back in his chair. ‘In any case, the media has moved on. They have a very short memory. Just like the general public. Something happens, they flap around like mad, try to outshout each other on television, then something new comes along and they forget all about what they had been flapping about just minutes earlier.’

  Kapoor gnashed his teeth. He knew Vidyarthi was right. Two months was just too long given the short attention span of the media and its audiences. Diya Chaudhry was a distant memory by now, if not totally forgotten, unless something dramatically new came up to merit attention all over again.

  Something told Kapoor that he would get his big moment when he was able to piece together all the bits of the puzzle that lay scattered around him for now. But he needed time.