Kashi: Secret of the Black Temple (Harappa Series)

by Vineet Bajpai

  They were now seated around a large fire, right outside the tent of the emperor of the dark forests.

  All of them had heard about Nara-Munda. Heard a lot, in fact. About the sheer size of his gigantic frame, about his mindless cruelty and his fiery temper. By now each one of them was regretting having come to this rotting hell of a place. It was only the certainty of death at the cold, unstoppable hands of the great flood that had compelled these savages to visit savages even greater than themselves.

  They knew that without the Ark they were doomed. And Nara-Munda was the only one who could create a real chance of getting it.

  What emerged from the tent was not a man. It was a monster.

  Nara-Munda was nearly eight arms in height and towered terrifyingly above all else around him. With a girth as thick as an oaken tree-trunk, he looked like a mythical creature straight from the dark depths of paataal.

  His biceps were fuller than the waists of most men. His legs looked like the limbs of a rhino. Every step he took seemed to shake the earth. His shaven bald head was smeared in red, which most observers could tell was stale human blood. The only clothing he wore was a tightly knit, knee-length lower made of elephant hide. His massive, muscular torso was tattooed with frightening faces of demons from daitya mythology, that looked like speaking, scowling faces in the orange light of the bonfire.

  But the scariest element of Nara-Munda was his facial features. If pain had an expression, it would look like this giant cannibal’s face. His massive head, his bulging eyeballs, his leathery lips, his sunken cheeks, his perpetual frown and those icy, permanently intoxicated eyes…made him look like the messenger of suffering and death.

  He was one.

  ‘Welcome to our home, my friends!’ shouted Nara-Munda, his arms outstretched, his voice throaty like that of an abominable giant.

  The warlords had no choice but to offer bleak smiles and nods in response. Each one of them was a feared militia chieftain in their own regions. But today, face to face with the colossal and cruel Nara-Munda, they appeared to be nothing more than helpless, wet puppies.

  The beast continued.

  ‘Today we gather here to forge the mightiest military alliance in history. Together we shall not only attack and capture the great Nauka, but also rule the planet once the deluge subsides. Our armies together will march like an ocean of arms and armor, and will sow fear in the hearts of the builders of the titanic boat.

  I thank you all very warmly for submitting allegiance to my banner. From now on you will live and fight under my protection.’

  There was stunned silence. None of the chieftains had offered any allegiance. This was supposed to be an alliance among equals. But Nara-Munda seemed to have a very different plan.

  ‘And as an initiation ceremony into my sovereignty, please accept this humble offering from the daityas,’ said the monster, as he gestured to his men to do the needful.

  Plates were passed around to the warlords.

  Roasted man-flesh!

  Even as the chiefs of the wildernesses gaped at each other, stunned at Nara-Munda’s unbelievable audacity, one of the younger warlords decided to protest. He was sitting right next to where the daitya beast stood. He was quite a strong man himself.

  ‘This was not what was communicated to us by your emissaries, O king of the dark forests. There is no question of your sovereignty. And what is this nonsense about serving us human meat? Once the battle is over, we will all decide who shall be the master and commander of the great Ark. You will have your say just as any of…’

  Even before the young warlord could complete his statement, Nara-Munda’s giant right fist moved with the speed of an arrow and struck the man across his face. The impact of the blow was more lethal than a stone mace. The young chieftain spat oodles of blood, his teeth flew out from his mouth and one of his eyeballs got dislocated from its socket and plunged out hanging from his cheek.

  He crumbled to the ground, squirming with pain.

  Nara-Munda leisurely walked up to the writhing man, looked at him struggling and slowly put his gigantic foot on the man’s head.

  The man was already half-dead with the blow, but he was alive enough to thrash around, in the agony of unbearable pain. He slapped his hands frantically at Nara-Munda’s foot, pleading with him to let go. The daitya was slowly fracturing his skull.

  The demon did not stop, did not show mercy. He did not know what mercy or compassion meant anyway. He kept pressing down his brawny pillar of a limb on the wretched man’s cranium, which soon cracked, crushed and popped open from the top, spilling his gooey, bloody brain matter out on the ground.

  The warlords could not believe the barbarianism of this beast of a man. Their hearts had stopped and their blood had frozen in their veins. It was way better to drown in the waters of the great flood than to serve this fiend. But it was too late. They were already trapped in the claws of the daitya emperor.

  Nara-Munda looked around with bloodshot eyes, pausing his deathly glare at each of the warlords for a chilling moment.

  He then growled like a fuming dragon.

  ‘Anyone else wants to be the master and commander of the Ark?’

  Banaras, 2017

  THE BLACK DEATH

  His phone alarm beeped heavily in the dark room.

  Vidyut woke up at 4.30 am, as was instructed by his Baba.

  Today was the day. The big day that the Shastri bloodline had been waging war for, over several centuries. The day against which Romi Pereira had cautioned Vidyut, moments before biting into cyanide. The moment that Bala had betrayed him for. The prophesied hour that Trijat Kapaalik had promised to keep Vidyut alive till, and the one-eyed monster Brahmanand had laughed.

  The Rohini Nakshatra.

  It was tonight, close to midnight, that the prophesied Rohini Nakshatra was going to erupt in the night sky - creating a holy-hour that was second to none. A constellation in which the greatest avatars and the most magnificent prophets were born. A divine arrangement of the Sun, the Moon, the planets and the galaxies that, for a few minutes, made Kashi a perfect spiritual cocoon.

  Vidyut sat across the yajna-kunda, facing his Baba. It was still early in the morning and the matthadheesh had organized a havana, with a view to strengthen Vidyut for what lay ahead over the next seventy-two hours. The havana was arranged in a beautiful yet intimidating temple of Kaal-Bhairava that lay deep in the heart of the matth’s raakshasa-khannd. Vidyut had never seen it before.

  The temple walls were made of dark stone and had the figurines of Lord Shiva’s various gana or disciples carved into them. There was a statue of Shiva-gana Kannappa. Also, one of Poosal. But the most dominating among those was the black bust of Bhairava that lay inset in the core sanctum of the temple. The people of Kashi say that Bhairava must be worshipped with great reverence, as he is the dwaarpaal or gatekeeper of Lord Shiva.

  As several accomplished pujaris or priests of the Dev-Raakshasa matth busied themselves in the detailed preparations for the holy fire-pit, Dwarka Shastri began from where he had left off.

  ‘Stopping the New World Order is not just about stopping a sinister organization from taking over global control. It is much more than that. The secret brotherhood has its own plans for how they want to solve the problems of this world – terrorism, climate change, water-shortage…everything is on their agenda. But the solution they wish to implement is more brutal than anything history has witnessed before. As they see it, population explosion will be the fundamental undoing of the human race. So, in their view, by culling down ninety percent of the world population, they will be doing mankind a great service and offer it protection against certain extinction.’

  This was getting more and more macabre. More insane than Vidyut could ever imagine.

  ‘But this crazy, Baba! Are these people deranged or are they some lunatic doomsday predictors? Yes, the planet has issues. Yes, something significant needs to be done before we are over the tipping point, whether it is global warming o
r religious fanaticism. But how can the challenges of humankind be addressed by wiping out humankind itself?!’

  Dwarka Shastri raised his hand in blessing the priests that were arriving into the Bhairava-mandir and bowing to him.

  ‘What do you know about Black Death or the Black Plague, Vidyut?’

  The devta was taken aback by this sudden mention of a medieval tragedy.

  ‘A little bit, Baba. I know that it was a devastating outbreak. Black Death or the Black Plague or the bubonic plague spread like an epidemic of epic proportions during the 14th and the 17th centuries, especially across Central Asia and Europe.’

  ‘And that major cities like London, Paris and even Moscow felt the blow of the plague,’ added Damini. She had been called by Purohit ji to attend the havana by the devta’s side, and she was as well-read as Vidyut was.

  The matthadheesh was listening. Once Vidyut and Damini paused, Dwarka Shastri spoke again.

  ‘You are right. Yet I say you both know nothing about the Black Death. No one does!’ snapped Dwarka Shastri as he spoke the last three words.

  The matthadheesh’s eyes were burning with rage.

  ‘Millions of lives were lost. Or please allow me to correct myself - tens of millions of people died across Europe and Asia after being infected by the plague. It is well documented and accepted as the deadliest pandemic to have struck our species in its recorded history. It is hard for people to believe the figures today, but the Black Plague is estimated to have wiped out thirty to sixty percent of Europe’s entire population!’

  Vidyut was listening intently. While he had heard of the Black Plague and how it had ravaged the world for centuries, he was not aware of the extent of loss of human life.

  Dwarka Shastri continued.

  ‘The death toll was horrifying and it is hard for us to even imagine what the world would have gone through during the bubonic plague. It is estimated that world population came down from 450 million to under 350 million in the 14th century. You see, Vidyut, anywhere between 75 million to 200 million human beings succumbed to the plague. This one disease reduced world population by a whopping twenty-five percent! The Black Death killed half of Paris’ population. It wiped out forty percent of Egypt. Half of Florence. Sixty percent of London. A third of Moscow. The list is endless. While these sound like statistics today, can you even begin to fathom the unspeakable pain and suffering the human race must have endured? Millions of children dying in the arms of their helpless parents. Streets of cities strewn with rotting bodies. Infants left crying in cradles, both parents lying dead. Riots, looting, murders…

  It took the world over two hundred years to recover back to its original numbers.’

  By now Vidyut’s mouth had gone dry. He could figure why the bubonic plague had earned the morbid title of The Black Death.

  But there was more to come.

  ‘For hundreds of years it was believed that the Black Plague was caused by the bacteria Yersinia Pestis, that spread across Asia and Europe along the Silk Route, carried by fleas and rats. But the guardians of the Black Temple knew that was not the whole truth. It was only as late as 1984 that the Zoologist Graham Twigg contested this theory. Without getting into the scientific facts and details of his argument, let me share with you his conclusion.’

  The last devta was not even batting an eyelid. He was captivated by what his great grandfather was describing.

  ‘Twigg concluded that the bubonic plague was caused not by Yersinia Pestis, but by a lethal form of anthrax.’

  ‘Anthrax? Isn’t that the feared bacterial spores that can be used for bio-terrorism?’ asked Damini.

  ‘Exactly, Damini. The Black Plague was the most merciless act of bio-terrorism in the history of man. Someone purposefully, with a preordained design of radically reducing the world’s population, ruthlessly culled down a hundred million human beings.’

  There was silence for a few moments, the only sound being the rustle of seating mats and pooja material being placed around them for the havana. The implication of what Dwarka Shastri had narrated was clear to Vidyut. But he needed to reconfirm it. Something like this was unthinkable, unpardonable.

  ‘Baba, are you saying that it was the Order that unleashed the deadly Black Plague on mankind?’ asked Vidyut, his eyes red with horror.

  ‘That is precisely what I am saying, Vidyut,’ replied Dwarka Shastri simply. ‘And they are going to do it again. This time, on an even larger scale.’

  The Marshes of Aryavarta, 1698 BCE

  MILLIONS OF ARROWS

  Several weeks had passed since Prachanda had arrived at the Ark construction site with his men. The asuras had slowly but surely become an integral part of the great Ark’s working and fighting force. The last basecamp and colony had been pulled out and all of Aryavarta’s surviving souls were now aboard the giant boat.

  Manu had found an invaluable ally in the asura-king. Prachanda had three decades of experience in managing and disciplining a vicious army. His proficiency was now extremely useful in organizing the varied troops of the Ark. There were the Harappan soldiers, tens of thousands of them. No less in number were the supremely skilled fish-folk, who Matsya had attached to his beloved Satyavrata. Prachanda’s asuras added a few thousand more to this impressive military. Last but not the least were Dhruv and his handful of exceptional fighters – those who had been trained by the great Vivasvan Pujari himself.

  The news of all the bandit warlords accepting the unfettered monarchy of Nara-Munda had reached Manu. He even knew the circumstances under which this forced coalition had been forged. It only added to Manu’s worry. Nara-Munda was turning out to be more formidable than he had expected.

  Now it was simply a matter of time. The decisive battle was looming. Whether the gigantic armies of the daityas would arrive on the horizon the next day or the next month was the only question left to be asked.

  ‘Our greatest advantage is that we have plain, barren marshes all around the Nauka for as far as the eye can see,’ said Tara, as she circled an arrow around a drawing of the great Ark and its surrounding terrain.

  Preparations for the inevitable war had been commissioned on full-scale by the defenders of the Ark. All the able-bodied men were now called-to-arms, leaving the final stages of the vessel’s construction and maintenance to the elders, the women and the children. A large number of women also enrolled into the Damini Sena, boosting the numbers of Manu’s forces quite significantly. Everyone contributed equally to this heroic, this historical contest between the spirit of man and the fury of nature. Daily meetings were convened to track progress and bolster defense measures in every manner possible.

  ‘How is that an advantage, Tara? Barren marshes will only mean that enemy cavalry can gallop to the Ark without any natural hindrances. Their advance is going to be disturbingly swift,’ questioned Prachanda.

  ‘Yes, it will be. But not if we welcome them with a hail of arrows so dense that it covers every step of the surrounding marshes. We will inflict such heavy casualties on their troops that the approach grounds to the Ark will become a daitya and bandit graveyard!’

  Manu was mesmerized as he saw his beautiful, romantic, loving Tara transform into a lioness. She was a born General.

  ‘Okay, but how will so much firepower be garnered? We have archers alright, but not nearly enough to create such a storm of arrows,’ interjected Dhruv. If anyone understood archers and arrows, it was he.

  ‘I know. I have a plan,’ replied Tara, confident as ever.

  ‘As of this hour, we have fifteen thousand warriors in the Damini Sena. Given the brutality and debauchery of our foe, I would much rather have them all on the Ark than on the ground, face to face with those barbarians. And this could mean a great tactical advantage. If we divide the entire Sena into three units, one unit fighting at any given point, we can have five thousand women archers atop the Ark, covering its perimeter in all directions. Given that we have another seven thousand bowmen in Dhruv’s troops, we are talking
about nearly ten thousand archers in action at every point in the war!’

  Tara looked around the room, hoping to find some support for her proposition.

  ‘Don’t be absurd, Tara,’ said Dhruv, getting up from his chair.

  He could speak to Tara in this manner. They were childhood friends.

  ‘You seem to forget that none of your Damini Sena are trained in using bow and arrow. The daitya and brigand riders are expert horsemen. They will be attacking with furious speed and will be moving targets. How do you expect novice archers to stop them?’

  ‘I wish you used your brain a little more often, Dhruv,’ retorted Tara, rolling up her eyes.

  She could speak to Dhruv in this manner. They were childhood friends.

  ‘We will divide the archers into two sections. The trained archers, your archers, will be positioned on the lower decks. On the other hand, the Damini Sena will take positions on the highest decks. All they have to do is to fire a volley of arrows high up in the sky, shooting their arrows like projectiles. That does not require much training, given the vast ground they have to cover. Anywhere their arrows land, they will find their mark. The enemy riders and foot soldiers who escape this barrage can be picked by your marksmen archers one by one as they come closer to the Ark. Don’t you see, Dhruv, we will cut down enemy forces by half using just our archers! Our cavalry and infantry can then wreak havoc into the rest of them!’ exclaimed Tara, her eyes wide and her arms outstretched.

  Dhruv smiled, raised his eyebrows in evident appreciation and looked at Manu, who simply laughed and shrugged.

  The ace archer then turned towards Tara and nodded melodramatically.

  ‘Okay, my lady…let’s do it!’

  ‘Thank you, Dhruv,’ said Tara. ‘Now we have only one problem.’

  Dhruv frowned. ‘And what is that?’

  ‘We will need to forge millions of arrows.’