She looked around at the people. There was a steady stream going in and coming out of the station. People catching their trains to go home. Or people arriving together in hordes at the station, before dissipating, and making their way home. Weary faces, tired bodies, sullen spirits jostled with eager anticipation, dreamy looks and expressions of happiness.
Which one of them would come for her?
Her eyes settled upon a short, stout man, in a tee shirt and jeans, wearing a baseball cap, who was walking rapidly towards her. Dismissing him from her mind, she allowed her gaze to wander over the faces in the crowd. But no one she could see appeared to be a likely candidate.
‘Maya?’ A soft voice at her side made her jump.
It was the stout man she had just observed.
The last person she would have expected.
He smiled at her. ‘I’m Ratan Tiwari. Virendra called me and asked me to come for you. Don’t be nervous. You are safe now.’
She stared doubtfully at him.
He seemed to understand the look on her face. Reaching inside his tee shirt collar, he pulled out a gold chain to which an amulet was attached. He extended it as far as possible for her to see.
‘Here,’ Tiwari said. ‘Virendra asked me to show you this as proof of my identity.’
Maya studied the amulet. It seemed to be identical to hers.
She smiled back at him. ‘Thank you, Tiwariji.’
‘Call me Ratan,’ Tiwari beamed at her. ‘I hate the “uncle” and the “ji ”. Makes me feel much older than I really am. I really am not that old, you know,’ he said with a guffaw.
Maya’s spirits rose. It was difficult not to be cheerful around this man. His smile and his jovial demeanour were contagious. There was also something very reassuring about him. He hadn’t referred to her father or her recent traumatic experiences, even though it was hardly likely that he didn’t know about them. Virendra would have been sure to have told him. Maya was grateful for this reprieve; her memories were all she could cope with for now, without another person stirring them up all over again.
‘Come on, then,’ Tiwari continued. ‘Let’s go.’ He motioned towards the exit from the station.
Maya began walking with Tiwari by her side. ‘Where are we going?’
Tiwari smiled at her. ‘My wife is preparing dinner for you. You will spend the night at our house. Tomorrow morning . . . well, tomorrow’s another day and we can worry about it then. Here we are, now, here’s my car.’
Maya slid into the front passenger seat, while Tiwari chattered away.
‘Fasten your seat belt. And away we go!’
As Tiwari kept talking, one thought bothered Maya. Why had Tiwari hedged about what was going to happen tomorrow? She hoped there was a plan to follow. After all, she couldn’t stay with Tiwari and his wife for the rest of her life.
What lay in store for her in the morning?
Somewhere on the highway beyond Agra
‘Sir, they didn’t stop at Agra,’ Constable Harish reported to Kapoor.
‘They didn’t? Then where are they going?’
‘I’m not sure, but if I had to guess, probably Gwalior, sir.’
Kapoor quickly googled the distance between Agra and Gwalior. ‘You could be right,’ he agreed. ‘Gwalior is just a shade over two hours from Agra by road. Let me know when you reach.’
‘Okay, sir.’ Harish yawned and frowned to concentrate on the road. The car he was following had not stopped even for its occupants to have dinner. Clearly, they planned to eat in Gwalior.
He wondered what he would discover when they arrived at their destination.
Chapter Seventeen
The Diary
Ratan Tiwari’s house
New Delhi
Maya sat on the bed and pored over the handwritten diary that she had retrieved from her father’s study.
They had reached Tiwari’s house and his wife had fussed over Maya, making her hot chocolate, served with cookies, and then cooking up a scrumptious dinner comprising dal, rotis, fried okra and potatoes in a delicious curry.
All through dinner, Tiwari had regaled Maya with jokes and witty anecdotes. They had even exchanged views on some stories from the Mahabharata. Tiwari was a PhD in Sanskrit and taught at Delhi University, in a South Campus college. He was chuffed to know that Maya, too, was fluent in Sanskrit and had read the ancient texts.
It was only after she had eaten that the exhaustion kicked in. Maya had not realized how drained she was — physically, mentally and emotionally. All the thoughts and emotions that she had brutally suppressed until now came flooding back, threatening to pull her under, drown her with their intensity.
Tiwari and his wife, sensing that Maya was tottering on a precipice, suggested that she retire and try and get some sleep.
As she said goodnight, Maya heard Tiwari mutter something under his breath. His careful intonation indicated to her that he was chanting some sort of a mantra, but her tired mind was too foggy for her to make out the words, which he was mumbling softly, almost to himself.
As Maya entered her bedroom for the night, a surprising sense of peace, calm and quietude settled over her like a cloud of sweet fragrance. She immersed herself in it, allowing her tired mind and body to surrender to its caress.
But Maya could not fall asleep. There was something she had to do first. Fighting back her drowsiness, she picked up the diary. Ever since she had fled her house, she had clung to that diary without a thought. But now, she finally had time to be curious. What did the diary contain? Why was it so important that her father had insisted she retrieve it before she escape? If he had considered it to be important enough for her to risk being observed by Shukra, why hadn’t he told her what to do with it?
She replayed her father’s words again and again in her mind, trying to remember exactly what he had said. Had she missed something? Was there a crucial clue that she had not picked up?
Her father’s words were etched into her mind. He had told her to pick up the diary and run. She was to call Virendra and tell him what had happened. That was all.
Nothing about what was to be done with the diary.
Then what was its importance? Why had he asked her to secure it in the first place?
Clearly her father hadn’t wanted it to fall into Shukra’s hands. That possibility gave rise to another set of questions.
A thought came to her. Could this be the reason Shukra had come to their house? Had he been searching for the diary and discovered that her father had it in his possession? And had Shukra killed her father because he had refused to disclose where it was?
Maya opened the diary. Perhaps there were answers within.
She flipped through page after page of neat handwriting. When she had taken a quick look at the diary earlier, she had thought the handwritten entries were in Hindi, since the script used was Devanagari. Now, however, she realized that some of the writing was in Sanskrit, though many pages were covered with writing in a strange, unfamiliar language, which she did not understand.
A verse caught her eye as she scanned the pages. It was a mantra. She looked at the title. It was called the Narsimha mantra.
She frowned.
Narsimha .
Where had she heard that word before?
Then it came back to her. The story of the avatar of Vishnu — the half man, half lion called Narsimha — who had killed Hiranyakasipu, the son of Diti. Hiranyakasipu had been granted a boon by Brahma that he could be killed by neither man nor beast. Vishnu had then taken the form of Narsimha — neither man nor animal, but a hybrid of both — and ripped the Asura apart, putting an end to his tyranny of the three worlds.
Was this mantra somehow connected to that story? Despite her long held belief that mantras were for the gullible, she was curious. The tale of Hiranyakasipu, who had made several futile attempts to kill his son Prahlad, only because Prahlad was a staunch devotee and believer of Vishnu, had ended with the appearance of the Narsimha avatar. But wh
at did that have to do with this mantra?
Maya read the mantra out loud.
‘Ugram viram maha vishnum
Jvalantum sarvato mukham
Narsingam bhishanam bhadram
Mrityur mrtyum namami aham’
She sat back after reciting it. What would happen now? When nothing happened, she yawned and flipped through some more pages of the diary. More pages with verses in the unknown language she had encountered in the earlier pages. Her eye fell on some diagrams and hand drawn sketches. What were these? Each diagram or sketch had a caption. But the captions were all in the same strange language that half the diary seemed to be written in.
She couldn’t make head or tail of it. What had her father intended her to do with this book when she couldn’t even read it?
She yawned again. This time, she didn’t attempt to repel the onslaught of sleep. Keeping the diary aside, she switched off the light and lay down, surrendering finally to the welcoming arms of slumber.
Chapter Eighteen
The Dream
Ratan Tiwari’s house
New Delhi
Maya’s body jerked violently and she sat up with a start.
For a few moments, she was hopelessly disoriented, unable to figure out where she was.
Gradually, Maya recognized her surroundings. She was in the guest bedroom in Ratan Tiwari’s flat. She had been reading the diary. And then, she had fallen asleep.
Until she had rudely been awoken by something. She was puzzled. What had disturbed her sleep? She had distinctly felt her body jerk violently.
Through the foggy recesses of her mind, the memories crept back. The dream.
She remembered now.
Slowly, like an ink stain spreading through fine fabric, the memory of the dream strengthened and became more vivid as the images of what she had dreamt of grew clearer.
And what a dream it had been! A dream that was as baffling as it was staggering, as terrifying as it was amazing.
Maya had dreamt that she had floated out of bed, out through the window, and into the sky teeming with stars. It was an amazing feeling, the sensation of lightness, almost weightlessness, and the ability not just to fly but also to look down on the world from above.
The dream had shifted from one location to another as quickly as her thoughts changed. One moment, she was hovering over Tiwari’s house; the next, she was inside the sitting room of her house — the room where her father had been brutally murdered a few hours ago. To her amazement, she had been able to pass through the walls of the house.
Her wonder had swiftly turned to sadness as she saw the blood spattered carpet and couch. There were blood stains on the walls too. Unable to take any more of this sight, her thoughts had unwittingly changed to focus on Arjun’s house. In the twinkling of an eye, she was in the same room where she had seen the two terrifying creatures earlier that evening. But now, in her dream, the room was empty, and seemed just like it had always been, all these years.
Maya had found herself thinking about Arjun, and was instantly transported to another place, a location which she did not recognize. She saw the Land Cruiser that belonged to Virendra, driving along a narrow, single lane road, hemmed in by fields on either side. In the distance, the horizon was an uneven stretch of black — like dark clouds amassing, preparing to unleash havoc on the countryside around.
The thought of dark clouds triggered the memory of the man, Shukra. Who was he? How did her father know him? What unknown power did he have that had enabled him to torment her father in the way he did?
Almost instantly, at the very thought of Shukra, she was transported away from the scene with the Land Cruiser, to a place that was darker than night, where even the glow of the stars could not be seen.
A vast multitude was gathered here. Maya hovered over them, unable to comprehend the scene below her. A distinct sense of unease had crept into the dream now. She wanted to tear herself away from this place, from the hordes below, but she could not.
In the distance, she saw a figure. The leader of this gathering. She wondered who he was, and floated closer to get a better look.
In the light of the torches that lit the rocky platform on which he stood, addressing his followers, she recognized him with a jolt.
It was Shukra! She couldn’t mistake that eyepatch, that face, and that single eye that had fixed her with a gaze so piercing that it could melt steel, back in the study at her house.
The torches threw a flickering light on the people in the front of the crowd gathered before Shukra. Maya shrank in horror as she saw them.
They weren’t people. Not normal human beings.
It was a motley group. Some of them were replicas of the creatures she had encountered at Arjun’s house. But there were others, more frightful in appearance, with eyes that were bloodshot; nameless creatures, some with spittle dribbling down their mouths, others with teeth that were sharp and protruding. It was like the population of hell had descended on this place.
Or was this hell itself?
Maya tried screaming but couldn’t. She frantically searched for a way out, anything that would get her away from here.
Shukra was bellowing something to his eager audience. Maya couldn’t make out what it was. She didn’t want to know what he was saying. All she wanted was to get out of there!
But it seemed that, even in her dream, she was trapped in this infernal place. She wanted to cry out for help, but no sound came out. Maya despaired. She knew she was dreaming, yet she could not bring herself to wake up. How long would this nightmare last?
Tiwari’s smiling, round face suddenly came to her mind, the comfort and security of his pleasant company providing a welcome distraction from the horrifying scene below her.
In a flash she was whisked away from the horrifying scene below her and was back to the warmth and comfort of her bed in Tiwari’s guest room.
It was then that she had woken up with a jerk, wondering where she was.
The scenes from her dream were all too real, etched in vivid colours. Even though she knew it had been a dream, she found herself trembling. The last part of it, especially, had been a nightmare, nothing less.
Finally, her exhaustion once more got the better of her. She gave up trying to understand what the dream had meant or why she had dreamed about these things at all, and floated off into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
Panna
Day Four
Near Panna National Park
Madhya Pradesh
‘Where are we?’ Arjun mumbled, waking up as the Land Cruiser jolted over yet another bump. The road for the last hour or so had been patchy and bumpy yet Arjun had managed to sleep through most of the last couple of hours. The fatigue of the long drive had caught up with him.
They had driven almost non-stop for around 12 hours now, halting only for a quick dinner at Gwalior. After that, they had resumed the journey, passing Orchha and Jhansi in the dead of night, the only souls seemingly awake while the towns and villages they passed through lay deep in slumber.
Virendra did not appear to be tired in the least. He had handed the wheel to Pramila for a couple of hours, after the call with Maya, while driving from Agra to Gwalior. But he had not napped in that time. Instead, he had been lost in deep thought.
Arjun had kept himself occupied through the journey with the playlist on his phone, but even he was beginning to get tired of listening to the same songs over and over again.
‘Almost there,’ Virendra said grimly, as alert as when they had left Delhi. ‘Just a few minutes to go.’
He had still not disclosed their destination to Arjun. If Pramila knew, she had also chosen to keep mum except for asking Arjun at regular intervals if he was hungry or thirsty. She had tried to keep things normal, talking about the last time she had been in Gwalior, which had been several years ago. Arjun knew she was trying to make things easy for him, but he just couldn’t pretend along. He wanted answers.
The SUV rumbled past a large signboard that proclaimed ‘Panna National Park’. Arjun gazed at the signboard, and at the gates to the park, which were locked, and looked at his watch.
Before long, the first fingers of light would creep over the horizon, signalling the advent of dawn and heralding the start of a new day.
They passed a small village. A goat tied to a post outside one of the huts bleated indignantly at the vehicle disturbing the peace of the early morning hours. An insomniac goat, Arjun thought to himself and grinned.
Through the windows of the Land Cruiser, he stared curiously as the village they passed gave way to forest on either side.
What wonders did the forest hide? Arjun mused. He had never been to Panna but looking at the dense foliage around, he was sure that the park would be wonderful to explore. He remembered one of his geography teachers mentioning it in class when he was in the seventh grade. Arjun wished that he had paid more attention then. It had been with reference to some geological formation, but now he didn’t remember.
He was jolted out of his reverie by the abrupt halt of the Land Cruiser.
Virendra had edged the car to the side and parked on the rough, unpaved shoulder of the road, which was wide enough to accommodate the vehicle.
‘Right,’ Virendra announced. ‘Here we are.’
The three of them got off the car, stretching their limbs, which were stiff from the long drive.
‘What now?’ Arjun wondered aloud.
For the first time since they had left Delhi, Virendra allowed himself the shadow of a smile.
‘You are going to see something really amazing,’ he told Arjun. ‘Come on.’
Chapter Twenty
The Pandava Falls
Near Panna National Park
Madhya Pradesh
The sky was beginning to lighten in the east, and they could just about make out a path that led down from the road, between the trees where the car was parked.
Son of Bhrigu Page 6
