by Laxmi Natraj
The next day Purohitji called for John in the night at 3:00 a.m. and took him to the temple. Reaching the back door he opened it. He walked in and motioned John to follow. As he waited he found that John was hesitating to step in. John said with folded hands, “Sir, I am already a sinner. I don’t want to add to the weight of my sin. I don’t want to make your temple impure by my presence.”
Purohitji smiled and said, “John, everyone’s body is perishable one day. Only the brain of the human creates love, hate, wealth, poverty etc. and for all of this man keeps fighting throughout his life. Religion is only a set of rules that keeps man in balance and gives him peace of mind. All religions of the world were founded only with these motives. But some cruel men twisted these principles for their own vested interest and succeeded in corrupting people. They deceived them, and brainwashed them and forced them to go into war. But for all this, still our soul inside the body is pure and it does not follow any religion. So do come inside.”
Walking all through the long ground level corridor they came to the front side of the temple. Purohitji started climbing the steps leading to the second level. John, following Purohitji, for the first time, climbed the steps from the ground level to the second level. Purohitji made a total prostration in front of the deity Lingeshwar and John followed suit saying, “Lingeshwar Maharaj ki jai!”
Purohitji got up and now walked towards the Nandi God. He knelt down near the ornamental pedestal of Nandi God and softly prayed for a few seconds. Searching with his fingers, he spotted the special black metal knob on the carved lotus flower of the stone. It was hidden very cleverly between the petal and leaf carvings of the Nandi’s pedestal.
He started turning the strong metal knob fixture. A number of levers hidden under the temple floor, connected all the way to the lever of the metal safe, hidden inside the last stone step of the five steps leading to the sanctum, started moving. Finally the rectangular box like safe, flushed below the steps, swung open. It was lined with soft velvet inside to protect all the treasure it was holding.
John was awe struck. Hundreds of years back, such an engineering marvel was constructed, in a humble temple, and that too, on a total stone structures. Purohitji stood near the safe and looked inside the 20” by 60” rectangular metal safe box lined with rich, soft velvets. With utmost reverence, he tenderly ran his fingers over the contents of the safe. Then he touched his eyes with the fingertips with which he touched the treasure, and then to his chest.
John stood frozen watching this absolute devotion of Purohitji and to the treasure kept safe, hidden for hundreds of years. Purohitji looked up at John and with his hand, gestured him to come near the safe.
His voice choked with emotion as he talked, “John I am going to give you this one thousand year old precious, treasure of the temple, which belonged to the great Maharishis of our country. You can use them according to your need but later return them safely back here. Though you had helped the criminals under pressure, you are a doctor by profession, and if you invent any new medicine with this treasure, it will be useful to this world. It will also serve as a penance for your fault. That is the reason I am showing you this priceless treasure of the temple. You can come later in the night and remove the treasure. Here is a duplicate key of the back door. Use it when you want.” John stood too frozen, unable to say a word.
Purohit once again prostrated in front of God and prayed. He walked back to the Nandi and turned the knob again. The safe closed and got flushed under the steps as before. He checked back if it was tightly closed. Then both of them came out in complete silence.
A shadow had followed them all the way and stood watching all this. It left the temple moments before those two came out.
Chapter 42
The Makeover
After a long discussion, when all the makeup needed for Nakul was finalized, Makarant turned to Utkarsh and smiled. Utkarsh became nervous fearing what was going to happen to his precious hair. Thankfully his hair was saved.
Utkarsh was advised to make fewer changes compared to Nakul. As the villagers had seen him only for a short time, when the dead bodies were being removed, the makeover for him was decided to be little lighter. His hair was to be made partially grey and he would also wear a bodysuit and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. They were told to come the next day to get a dress rehearsal and full acting training as to the finer points of walking, talking etc. .
Added to all the makeup Makarant took care of the way they would speak. As Nakul’s school days were spent in Bangalore, he had a sound knowledge of Kannada. So Makarant suggested that he should take the character of a man from Karnataka and speak with a deep Kannada accent to make his role fool proof. They sat and decided about the names they will have. It was decided that Nakul will be named Dr Krishna Reddy, and Utkarsh would be Dr Anna Khonde, a Maharashtrian. They thanked Makarant and left for the day.
As they returned, Nakul took the bike to some other special police department. This was the backup department where the special police people prepared the authentic documents, like fake passports or identity cards, or bank credit cards etc. for the Crime branch to help them for their investigation. He asked the policemen working there to prepare the required Government documents and papers of agricultural research departments in the name of Dr. Krishna Reddy and Dr. Anna Khonde, to make their visit authentic. Finally, they promised to come after two days as they were to go the village in a new avatar only after two days.
After this long drive they returned dead tired to their office. Nakul and Utkarsh officially applied for three days leave in advance from the office starting the next day.
That night Nakul called Shiva on the phone. As Utkarsh gave him a surprised look he winked at him with a mischievous smile. As Shiva answered he asked very casually, “ How is everything going on in the village Shiva? How is Purohitji’s health? Is he better now?”
Shiva replied, “Sir, too many things are happening suddenly. Yesterday…………………” Then he reported every detail of the Demolition Squad and how they were kept dangling on tenterhooks till the officers finished their intense inspection and later before leaving asked the villagers to regularize the papers as soon as possible.”
Nakul was beaming that his acting had such an impact on the villagers, especially Shiva. He answered with a feigned concern, “Oh God, your villagers would have been shocked. It is possible that John being a foreigner might not have collected all the required legal sanction papers and could have missed one or two unknowingly. Next time when I visit I will also look into the papers and help you people as much as I can.”
Shiva thanked him profusely. But as he was talking the line was having a lot of disturbance and Nakul could hear thundering. When he asked, Shiva said, “Sir it looks like we are going to have a thunder storm. There is too much noise of wind blowing. Ok Sir, I will call you later.” Saying this, he hung up.
Nakul burst into a crackling laughter enjoying his own acting and Utkarsh who had come to his room to discuss a plan, saw Nakul laughing so much for the first time.
Chapter 43
The Monitors
Five days back, Night 1:30 a.m.
As usual it was an underground room meeting. There were ten video screens on the tables and the five members of the group were watching the moving images which flashed once in a while on the screen, very carefully. They were watching them for the past one hour.
All of them now got up. One of them spoke, “It is such a pity that all our efforts are being wasted! We are yet to spot the treasure in the forest! We have covered such a wide area. However, we are still not able to zero down on the precise treasure point”
The second one said, “We have distributed our search quite far and wide. But still, we have not spotted the treasure. It only means we have to dig further. We will repeat the digging this time moving more in the interior of the forest. That is the only alternative left for us. The D-day is nearing and we cannot take any chances. Getting into this villa
ger outfit every day to hide our identity, cannot work for long. I am sure that police fellow sniffed something in his last visit. Luckily he is gone.”
The other one said, “Don’t underestimate that fellow. If my gut feeling is right, he will definitely come back and poke his long nose in our business.”
Another one spoke, “But I heard that they had closed the murder case file. Then why should he come back?”
The first one said “Because he was able to smell a rat here in the village. He had made a complete analysis of the medical bills and found out about the bulk purchase of fast foods, and dry fruits. So he smells a rat. And the dedicated officer that he is, he will come again mostly.”
Another one said, “Stupid John. He should have had the brains not to include those things in the medical bills. Dumb fool.”
The third one said, “Stop it, today we have to repeat our operation in the forest again. Secondly, we must find us another hideout. Though this room is fine, the getting in and out is a bit difficult. So that is also a point to be noticed.”
Everyone nodded. Then the first one said, “Ok, I will go and open the door, check and get out. When you hear my signal, all of you can come out. But Number five, you stay here for one more hour and watch the monitors.” The number five nodded.
He climbed the rope ladder and when three steps were remaining, he looked through the tiny periscope fitted there. Making sure that the area was clear, he climbed the last two steps and pushing the trap door came out. Pasting himself flat to the side wall he looked around. Ensuring that the entire area was clear he hooted like an owl. After two seconds he moved crouching through the hedge. Opening the trap door one by one all of them came out at an interval of five minutes and crawling out on their belly reached the end of the wall. All of them were dressed in villager outfits now. They crawled up to the bushes and then going through them, got up and walked.
The number five watched the monitors for one more hour. Then she came to the rope ladder, climbed up carefully holding her sari and looked through the periscope. Finding the place clear, she came out of the trapdoor, pushed the locking system and half crouching came to the end of the bushes. Then she got up walked quickly to her house. Opening the back door softly, she entered into the house in total darkness. The front room clock of the house, where Acharyaji was snoring deeply showed 2 a.m. She peeped inside the bedroom and made sure that he was still sleeping sound. Satisfied that the sleeping pills were working, she moved to her room. She set up an alarm for 5:00 a.m. on her wrist watch and curled up on her bed. Sleep deprived as always, she was asleep within seconds.
Chapter 44
The Storm
Purohitji went to bed. As he sat on the bed he decided that from the very next day he should start his puja in the temple on a regular basis which was being managed by the two new boys for so many days. He heard a lot of thunder and howling winds. He understood that a pre monsoon thunderstorm was going to crash down over the village. As he sat up he heard continuous rolling thunder and could see the flash of lightning reflecting through the window. He looked at the time. It was 11:30 p.m. He got up and looked through the open window. Along with the lightning and thunder, there was a strong gust of wind blowing, leaving the window and doors rattling violently.
Unseasonal thunderstorms, pouring in the summer months was not unusual in the Lingeshwar village. Hence he was not too surprised. But some vague, strange feeling, a sinking feeling in his gut, of an oncoming destruction, was making him restless. He got up and paced his bed room up and down restlessly. Then he sat down cross legged and chanted some Adhi-Bhautika Shanti shloka[14] for peace. The thunderclouds broke down into a ghostly rain. He could hear the noise of hail stones pelting his house mercilessly. Purohitji kept walking up and down till 4:00 a.m. He decided to go for a bath.
After his bath, he came out and saw that it was still pouring cats and dogs. The roads were already flooded. As he stood wondering, the junior Pujari Mahadev came near him and said softly, “Purohitji, brother Manjunath had already gone to temple for the morning puja. We felt that you are still very weak and you should not go out in this storm.”
Purohitji turned to him with a vacant look for a second and then nodded his head. He went to recliner chair and picked up his Geeta. It rained continuously the whole day. The torrential rain lasted for the whole day. Next morning he was happy to see that rain clouds had cleared off. He got ready to go the temple. Mahadev joined him. There was still water flowing up to his knee level on the road and he waded through it. He reached the temple. Mahadev opened the temple back door and both of them entered. Moving through the water filled first corridor, he climbed the steps for the second level.
He was surprised to see a lot of water logging. There was knee deep water, which had pooled at the second level of the temple and the whole Prahar was looking like a miniature pool. The rain water always pours from the overhead crack of the cave over the Lingeshwar deity, but generally it flowed to the second level and drained off quickly to the next level. But today it was not only just the water logging, which disturbed Purohit. It was the sight of some unusual tiny pieces of some strange material which were found floating on the water surface. Surprised he picked up one of the piece of the brown floating material and examined it.
His heart stopped beating as the realization dawned on him. He gently tried to unfold the brown, water drenched piece. There was no room for any more doubt about the material which was floating. An anxious Mahadev hurriedly picked up and collected, as much as possible, all that floating material and kept them on the steps leading to the sanctum.
A totally heartbroken, crestfallen Purohit waded through the water and reached the five steps leading to the Sanctum. His feet felt like they weighed a ton. An ominous feeling loomed over head. He leaned down near the lower most step to see the condition of the scriptures he had kept so safely in that water tight steel safe were. To his dismay, he found that the safe was found half open!
What he did not know was that earlier on the murder night ,when the third man kept back the scriptures in the safe, a badly bleeding and dying John tried his best to turn the knob of the safe. But because of his weakness, it was not closed tightly and a hairline crack was left open. The rain water over flowing from the sanctum had entered the safe through this gap and filled it. The water had exerted pressure and the safe had opened further and all the scriptures had got soaked and floated out of the safe and destroyed. Mahadev stood worried to see his Guru who was sitting so still looking deathly pale.
The scriptures also known as “Patra” in Sanskrit, were written by ancient Maharishis, carved on the special tender tree barks or on palm leaves. The Patra of this Lingeshwar temple were very special ones, as they contained the secrets of precious ancient medicines. After writing, these Patras were treated with some special chemicals so that the Patras remained unaffected by moth or moisture for centuries together. They had survived for hundreds of years handed over to the Purohits from generation to generation. These ancient Patras were really the true secret treasure of the Lingeshwar temple.
Purohitji now sadly remembered the night, when he had handed over the Patra, the great centuries old treasure of the temple to John on the night of his confession. Purohitji knew that some of these old scriptures contained information about very valuable medicines which could cure many illnesses including cancer. John had specialized in reading and understanding the scriptures. Purohitji gave the scriptures to him so that he could read and prepare those medicines, and there was a possibility that even his blood cancer could be cured. But, now all his efforts were a waste. John was murdered before he could make those medicines and the Patras had now been irreversibly destroyed by the rain water.
After a long time, Purohitji got up and said in a soft voice full of acceptance, “Madhav may be it is the wish of Lingeshwar that all the Patras be destroyed. One way it is good that in future people will not enter the temple to steal them and it will not fall in the hands of the crimina
l elements.”
He told Mahadev to bury all those collected pieces into a pit under the tree where it could totally decay on its own. Mahadev went on his knees and finding the choked part in the outlet of the second level corridor cleared it and the rain water started flowing out of the corridor.
Purohitji closed the empty safe tight by turning the knob at the base of the Nandi and climbed the steps of the Sanctum for the puja. As after every rain, a continuous stream of rain water was pouring on the Lingeshwar deity from the top. Purohitji stood watching the nature’s Abhishek feeling mesmerized by the power of nature and prostrated to the Lord, in utter submission.
Chapter 45
The Agricultural Officers
From the weather department Nakul came to know that there was torrential rain and the Lingeshwar village was totally flooded. He thanked his stars that they did not get trapped in the rain when were on their Demolition mission. Hence their initial plan two days got delayed and became four days. Then, as usual they reported to Makarant for their new Avatar makeup.
Early morning next day a government car entered the village. The villagers engaged in their usual morning work looked on curiously at the car. The car stopped in front of one house and a man with a broad framed spectacle, a total shaved head and a flat nose asked for the address of the Panchayat head. The villager promptly showed the house of Acharyaji and stood wondering about the new guest.
