by Vasu Velamur
A minute passed by, and she looked at the boys and they had nothing to show and looked like they said they gave up. This was when Vindhya got into the case and said she will guess the answer since they both do not have a concrete one.
She asked the king “Your majesty, can I ask you some questions?”
“Yes beti, go ahead”
“Your majesty, I have one doubt. Do you think that princess Chanchal was very proud of herself? With her chess skills that she agreed to the marriage on the assumption that she will never be defeated”
“No, Chanchal was always prone to defeat, and she is a very down to earth person”
“Might be that as she won matches, she became overconfident. Then thought that she was smart and then became arrogant?”
“No way beti. Even after rejecting Uday, she was open to another round of swayamvar. So she cannot be arrogant”
The timer was down to 60 seconds, and the boys were ready to go back in time and accepted defeat. Vindhya said she still had some time and wanted to try at least to take a wild guess.
“She accepted defeat, walked to the stage on acceptance and then she went backstage. What happens there?” Vindhya thinking out loud, “that is the clue guys”
The timer was now down to 30 seconds. They had to tell the answer. The king asked them, “Do you have an answer?”
“Yes” shouted Vindhya
“What is it?”
The guys were dumbstruck. They did not know what she was going to say, but whatever it was, they were ready for a backward time travel. The sooner the better was what Ranga thought. She ran towards the King and said “Might be she is not arrogant and I have the answer”
“What is it? Why is she rejecting the marriage proposal?”
“Unlike all other princes, Uday did not go for the match straight away, right?”
“Yes, he saw her playing all the other matches”
“He sat and watched all her moves from the audience and had completely studied her. So what does it make Chanchal to Uday?” she paused for a second then started again since the timer was now at 15 seconds. “He was like a disciple who learned from his teacher”
“So?”
“That a teacher cannot marry his or her student. It’s accepted in our Indian tradition that Mother, Father, and the Guru are all equal to God. So Chanchal has realized that Uday was first a student and then only a selected groom. When she went backstage and told the same to Uday, he agreed and hence the marriage proposal got rejected.”
“Wow Beti, you are excellent” congratulated the queen. “We know the sacred relationship of a guru and a shishya, and I now am clear in my mind. We will fix Chanchal’s marriage soon and will invite you for that”
“Sure, I like to dress her up, please”.
No sooner had she spoken those words, the timer ran out and showed a green screen. This meant that they had passed the current test and were ready for the next journey. Before they could even say goodbye, a cloud of white smoke filled the environment. As usual, they felt light and drifted into space.
The only sound that they heard, for now, was a low humming sound. That of a submarine hull at its top speed. None of their muscles could move, but it was exciting for all. Vindhya was sure that they were not going back in time. She only hoped to move sometime closer to their known technologically upgraded world. All she wanted was to get back to her denim and T-shirt mode and not anymore of the traditional dress.
The boys were thunderstruck by the explanation she gave and wondered how she figured it out. The first thing when they landed again they wanted to know how she solved it. These two guys could not figure it out with all the facts in their hands.
The sound and white light put them into a deep sleep, and nothing much happened for some time. Maybe the device was calculating which time and place they should go from here. Were they to travel ahead in time or within time or backward in time? That’s what everyone wants to know, but as the king said, let’s be patient and hear the full story.
∞∞∞
Chapter-12
Landed At The Scotland Of The East
Monday 03:17 PM
It was Vashist who first woke up from the deep slumber. He was immediately worried and looked around the place. They were all inside a wooden hut with three separate beds made of choir. The other two people were still in their deep sleep. Vashist did not know what to do. Should he wake them up or wait for them to get up on their own? The confusion continued.
He went for the least risky option of remaining quiet, slept in his bed, and waited for them to wake up. Around 5 minutes of wait and he could not bear the empty sound in the room. Panic set into him and was not sure who had the device. The thought was to meddle with the device until they woke up. Then he got an idea to venture outside the room. At least explore where on the planet earth did they land.
As soon as he reached the door, he found it chained and nailed. It looked like the door was locked from the outside. He tried to push it, banged himself on the door twice. Still, it was of no use. The door was made of sturdy wood. The locks were of cast iron and molded with rock. He then peeped over the window and saw the best landscape ever. It was all-around green, mountain tops were visible and dense forest. The weather was chilly and the initial guess was Munnar. The rooms looked far plainer than the ones in Munnar.
Unfortunately, that thought was very short-lived since he heard some noise. Two people were talking close to the hut. The dialect was very different and foreign to him. It neither sounded like Hindi nor like Bengali, but definitely not a south Indian. The rhythmic nature made it sound more like it belonged to the northeastern origin. Sounded more Assamese, but he wasn’t positive. He assumed it was Assamese or Bengali or even Nepali, but he was uncertain.
A spark went inside of his head and he shouted out, “HELP, HELP” and waited for a response. After a while, nothing changed. The people outside continued their conversation as though they heard nothing. So Vashist shouted even louder and still it made no difference. They continued to focus on their engrossing conversation. Then he changed his strategy and shouted “mujhe bachao”. His Hindi vocabulary wasn’t noteworthy. Still, it did not make a dent in the conversation outside. He panicked more, but all the efforts resulted in Ranga’s waking up.
Ranga frowned and flexed his hands and shoulders. He was weak but with a lethargic action tried to open his eyes and warmed himself. While he circled his hands it struck a meaty blow on Vindhya and she too got up. This chain of events calmed Vashist a lot. If in the real world he would have done the same, he would have got himself lynched for waking them up. Here is a place where they did not know the location or in which period they were in. So it sounded acceptable.
Ranga shrugged his shoulders and asked, “What time is it, dude?”
“I don’t have any clue for what, where, when we are in yet. I woke up only two minutes ago and tried to figure those data out, unsuccessful for far”
Vindhya had her problems. “Look wherever we are. Can we get some food soon? I am hungry”.
“Look, she is back to her normal behavior”
“What’s wrong in asking for food, I am hungry and not like you dumbo camels who eat once in 2 weeks”
“Let us not start all over again” Ranga separated both of them “we have a task to complete. Let us look at how to get out of this place”
“That reminds me,” said Vashist, “the door’s locked, and I couldn’t break it open. There are iron locks molded into granite rocks in that door.”
“Don’t trouble yourself, get me the device”
“I don’t have it. I’m never allowed to touch it”
“It’s safe there in my backpack” said Vindhya, who pointed to the table near the window.
Vashist reached for the bag and got the device to power up. There was something strange that came up on the display. Only half the characters lit up on the display and exactly half on the upper part. That too for the even numbers rows and the lower
half for the odd-numbered rows.
“Might be the display has got some errors”
“Why? Let me have a look” asked Ranga.
“So you can solve these issues. The guy who could not even change his ringtone of his iPhone is going to have it done now.”
“Why not?”
“Then do it now” Vashist threw the device at Ranga
“Guys, be careful this device is the only thing that can get us back to our original time and location. So be careful with it please” Vindhya lectured when Vashist signaled her to stop.
“It’s all in control now” said Ranga, “and it works perfectly”
“Ah, see I told you. Because of this shaking movement when I threw it worked. You are shouting at me. Whatever I do is always for the best for us”
“Enough, we call this fluke in English” Vindhya gave back the signal to Vashist to stop talking
“I don’t understand one thing in this puzzle”
“What part do you understand first? Then we can see about what you don’t”
“Usually there will be a timer for us to give us a sign. Then a place somewhere to go in search about the story” said Vashist, a little puzzled “I only see a small timer with O O and an arrow. What does that mean?”
“Oh, it’s not O but zero, your IQ score reflects on the device”
“Let’s come back to normalcy and first try to understand what it means,” said Ranga. He tried to be calm and took possession of the device.
They stopped fighting for a minute and saw what the O O & the arrow meant. For Vindhya, it sweated and called for the fan. All the three of them looked up to the ceiling and found nothing. It was a thatched house and so the ceiling is not strong enough to hold fans. The boys also felt hot, and something in the room was not normal.
It was Vindhya who wanted to spring up with zeal but was too weak to get up. Vashisht, who looked anxious, asked, “Have you got some ideas?”
“Yes guys, that symbol means oxygen levels. They are going down in this room”. She was frantic “we need to solve the puzzle before the oxygen levels deplete and kill us”
“Oh god, Ranga, see if anything is there on the device now”
“Yes, Vin, the puzzle is coming up. We need to find 6 items and these are in code words” said Ranga “Let us take 2 each and work on it”
“How about you guys divide yourself while I try to do pranayama?” said Vindhya.
“It’s not time to play Vin”
“No, I am serious. When doing pranayama I am holding my breath and you can use the saved oxygen”
“Why risk Vin?”
“I know you two can make it. I have full confidence in you guys”
“OK, done. Vashist, let’s start while she does her yoga now”
The puzzle was simple, yet time-consuming. So they both kept the device in the center of the bed to view it in concurrence. Then they worked on the puzzle. Vashist took the bottom one and Ranga took the upper half. Vindhya saw them agree on the puzzles, closed her eyes, and did pranayama. She aimed to withhold the breadth for over 10 seconds.
The timer ticked on and it started with 300 and now at 240. Ranga knew it and signaled to Vashisht that they had only 4 minutes left to solve the puzzle. It seemed easy, but they had no clue about what theme it was. His first puzzle engrossed him, which was the lengthiest of them. So he never looked up and was in his world trying to get to the solution.
Once in a while, Vindhya used to get up from her asana and cry out “Guys are you done? Or should I continue my meditation?”
“Continue please” Ranga would say calmly. Both the boys were under tremendous pressure.
“How many more minutes before we all kick the bucket?”
“We have time Vin, continue”
After a few minutes passed by with no sound from the boys, Vindhya woke up from her meditation mode. She then called out, “Ranga, what is the status now”
“We have around 2 minutes left and almost done”
“What almost done - show me the results”
“You continue please” Ranga begged and his eye gave away the answer to Vindhya
“Come on Ranga, be serious Don’t play now”
“That’s it” shouted Ranga and then came towards her and hugged her “Thanks Vin for the hint”
“What?”.
“Now -we have it under our control” Ranga reassured that all was in control “we have what we were searching for”
“What is it?”
“These are puzzles of games name"
“Ooh, I have no role in this, games and me are poles apart. Let me get back to pranayama”
The timer was down to below 90, and now the guys lined up their answers. Vashist said, “When it hits 30, give me all your answers and I will key it in. So we have time for corrections”.
Ranga nodded and got back to the puzzle. The count-down timer raced up, and the guys felt the reduction in oxygen levels. They felt a bit hallucinated and also felt signs of nausea.
This time around when Ranga checked the timer, it displayed 45. He signaled to Vashist that he had finished his lot and asked what happened to him. Vashisht signaled back that he got stuck on one. Then both of them got together to solve it. This slow sound of movement woke Vindhya up and she asked, “What is the status now?”
“We’re almost done, only one more remaining and we have 45 seconds to go”
This alarmed Vindhya and she opened her eyes and found that both of them were battling for the device. This prompted her to shout at them, “Look guys, stop fighting. The way you are doing it is like watching the finals of Wimbledon”.
“You are a wonder, Vin” cried out Ranga and he made a big high-five with Vashisht
“Why what happened now?”
“We’ve finished” and Ranga punched in the answers and waited for the results. [Answers given at the end of the book]
The screen turned green completely, and it flashed - O2 levels optimized for three people. Then the friends awaited for their next puzzle and the display looked stuck. Nothing but the green colour was there. Then Vindhya, in a burst of enthusiasm, did what they did in the beginning. She shook the device up and down. To their surprise, it worked.
The present screen faded out to the next one, which looked like a tribal area. It had some kind of festival performed there. They had never seen such a scene, but they knew it was not from south India. It belonged to the northeastern part of India.
The attire was a longish, sleeveless coat without a collar, fastened by thongs in front. The women wore a crown of silver or gold. A spike or peak fixed to the back of the crown, corresponding to the feathers worn by the menfolk. The gathering looked like a marriage of a famous personality within that group. The figures in the center looked a little on the fatter side. Vashist was prompt to comment, “He looks like a fatter version of Yousaf Pathan”
“You and your cricket, first let me know how to walk out of this hut and find out where we are,” replied an angered Vindhya.
“For that, we need something big and strong to break the iron moulds”.
“So, how do we do that now? Looks like there are no instruments here for you to work with”
“Wait - Now that the O2 levels are stable let us think our way out”
“Yes - you are the one who woke up before us. Tell us if we can do something now”
“I heard a couple of men talking in a strange dialect but I shouted for help but they kind of ignored me ”
“How can they, you fool” Vindhya tapped on her forehead. “You spoke in a completely unfamiliar language than what they can understand”
“Why can't they understand one word of Hindi - I shouted mujhe bachao.”
“Then we are in a place where Hindi is unknown. So there is another place apart from Tamil Nadu haha.”
“Shut up” interrupted Ranga, who until now studied the photo. “Look here, we need to find some tribal people who to my understanding look like Assamese or Nepali
s”
“So - mujhe bachao is not understandable to them?”
“Look here dude” said a calm Ranga. He then explained the complete problem. “At the time you woke up, your throat was dry, the normal voice would be hoarse plus there was less oxygen”
“So?”
“So - the number of decibels that you produced was not enough for those people to get distracted”
“Great - I got it” said Vindhya who rushed towards the window. She climbed on it and removed a few bamboo sticks from it. She removed a long iron pin from the windowsill and punched a big hole in one end and three small holes in the other end.
Then she closed the holes with her fingers and blew with all her strength. It was a cacophony but it was sure to save them. She kept blowing it for a while till someone outside heard it. They could hear a few footsteps which rushed towards their hut. Having heard the footsteps, she started blowing with more vigor. These guys closed their ears in the hope they would die rather than listen to this cacophony.
Finally Ranga lost his cool and rushed towards Vindhya. He then, without a warning, pulled the pipe out of her mouth and said, “Enough, we have made the needed distraction. Now let us cry for help. That’s a lot civilized”
“Fine” said an angered Vindhya, “for this why do you have to pull it without warning”
“If I had given any indicator, you would have run. We wanted to stop it so I did it”
“Fine, I will get my chance sometime but will not forget this incidence”
“Chod dho” said Vashist, which angered Vindhya more. Since she doesn’t like Vashist speak first and that too with his Hindi. To top it all his south Indian accent, all summed up irritated her.
Back to the footsteps, the sound attenuated, and there was a lot of hustling and whispering going on. From the sound of it, they could guess that an entire community was present there. It was over three and so they termed it a crowd. Ranga and his friends were very puzzled. Why should all of them come towards the hut and then stop their actions to help them?
