KALYUG (2 page)

‘We’ve lost contact with the party headquarters,’ she said, exhaling audibly. ‘Not just the party headquarters, but most of the others. Everyone’s off the grid. I can’t even reach the PM.’

Gyandeep turned around. It took him a few seconds to process every input and run through all the possibilities, but only one really appeared to him. He opened his mouth to speak, then waited, challenging his brain to find another alternative – any alternative, anything was better than the scenario that faced him.

Nothing.

‘It’s Kalyug,’ he said finally.

Leela looked at him incredulously. ‘That’s impossible,’ she blurted out. ‘They are not ready. Our models said they need another two-three weeks at the least . . . maybe it’s just a rehearsal.’

‘No,’ Gyandeep said, shaking his head vehemently. ‘The isolation of all the leaders would be their Brahmastra, their most powerful weapon, but one they can’t use more than once. Think about it – the moment they try something like this once, every agency is going to safeguard against a possible next time. Procedures will change; personnel will be monitored. If this is a trial run, then they can’t hope to repeat it in a fortnight, or even a month . . . or possibly ever, because we would be there to stop them.’ He sat down wearily. ‘We’ve failed. Kalyug has begun.’

11.15 a.m., 16th September. Chennai.

A tall, impeccably-dressed man – one who obviously believed in crushing handshakes – separated himself from a group of five other suit-clad executives as I walked into the security office at the Chennai International Airport. He looked to be in his early thirties, and walked towards me with long, purposeful strides. Even as he introduced himself as the Raghav Menon who had spoken to me over the phone, I was rushed through the protocols and into the boarding area. Without any hesitation, he led me to the nearest gate where a jeep waited to take us to a small Learjet parked near the outer edge of the tarmac. Throughout the journey, Menon fobbed off all my attempts to discover what was happening, instead keeping me off-balance by shooting me continuous questions about life in the last two years. I had a vague feeling he was consciously avoiding the topic in front of the driver – but it did not make sense to talk about my history while ignoring whatever present had brought us together. No sooner had we stepped inside than the door closed and the aircraft started to taxi.

It was only after we were strapped in for take-off did he finally let me get a question in. ‘Where are you taking me, Mr Menon? What’s with all this rush?’

Before answering, he took something out from his briefcase and laid it on my lap. My own face stared out at me from the back cover of
India, 2012
. It was the hardbound edition, one of perhaps a couple of hundred that had ever made it off the press – and let’s not even talk about the sales figures. Depressing stuff.

But it was intriguing that it was back in focus. It was a chapter of my life I was happy to leave behind, and the only party who should have been even more eager was the government that had jailed me for the same. I had been vindicated by the courts, the only victory in a war that I had surely lost, and the government – the one that continued to this day – pilloried by the judiciary. My arrest had been the topic of vicious, but ultimately pointless, debate; my release had been a column of less than a hundred words in the press. The day of my release, a famous celebrity had given birth to a much-awaited baby.

‘Do you want my autograph?’ I asked him sarcastically. His cloak-and-dagger act was starting to piss me off.

‘No,’ he said evenly, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. ‘Two years ago, you wrote this book. About a coup happening in India.’

‘Three years,’ I corrected him. ‘It took me six months to write and another six to find a publisher. But yeah, I’m glad you read it. Or the blurb at the back. Or the reviews. So what?’

As the wheels left the ground, he grinned. ‘So how would you like to have a ringside seat when it actually happens?’

1

22nd March, 2012. New Delhi.

‘Major-General Qureshi? There’s a Raghav Menon here to see you.’

The major-general waved an impatient hand at his aide, signalling that the visitor should be sent in, without taking his eyes off the report in front of him. Though the report had confirmed his worst fears half an hour ago, he had still gone over it twice again, hoping to see something that he had missed, something that would tell him things were not as bad as they seemed. But try as he did, an undeniable fact stared back at him from the white sheets.

The state of readiness at the borders was pathetic. Even worse, there was more danger to his troops from within than from without. And while he now knew with some certainty where the problem lay, he was not sure how to deal with it. The last seven years of bridging the never-ending gap between the Army and the Ministry of Defence had sapped a lot of his hope for a quick and fair decision-making process.

He finally looked up as a tall, well-dressed man appeared at the doorway. There was a semi-rigid bearing to the visitor, as if he had once been held to the same discipline and rigour of the Forces before being ‘at eased’ by a civilian life. A black suit – on a warm Delhi day, Qureshi mused absently – that looked expensive, well-coiffed hair and a black, leather briefcase completed an air of prosperity around the man. Qureshi instantly suspected him to be an agent for one of the international gunrunners – the legitimate ones – and instinctively guarded himself against the pitch he expected.

‘Major-General Qureshi?’ queried the man, stopping near the edge of the desk and surprising the army-man with a sharp salute. ‘Raghav Menon, late of the 21st Battalion, Karnataka Corps. I opted out as a Major. It’s an honour to meet you, sir.’

Somewhat mollified by the salute, Qureshi gestured to Menon to take his seat. Even as he was sitting down, the latter produced a visiting card that he laid, almost reverentially, on the desk. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me, Major-General. I was not sure if I would be able to catch you before you left for your meeting with the joint secretary.’

Qureshi looked up sharply, his senses back on full alert. The meeting at the Ministry of Defence was supposed to be top secret, known to less than half a dozen people – all of whom he trusted implicitly. Had they been indiscreet with someone outside his circle of trust? Or, an unpleasant thought, was there someone inside that circle that he should not have trusted? He placed the report back on his blotter, making sure that he kept it upside down. That report was
the
reason for his meeting the joint secretary later.

Without saying anything, he picked up the visiting card.
Raghav Menon, Group Executive, Public Relations, GeetSeth Media Pvt Ltd.
GeetSeth was a familiar name in Delhi, a publisher who had several local newspapers and magazines catering to each strata of society. The content was often the same, while the packaging and language varied for each set. Qureshi was not a personal fan or even an idle consumer, but his wife spent more than a fair share of time on the gossip, literary and lifestyle sections.

Chalk weapon sales off the list, Qureshi thought as he turned the visiting card over. A mobile number, neatly handwritten, was the only blemish on an otherwise white rectangle. Unless he wants to do an article on the Army’s procurement process. Everybody was searching for a scam these days, and who could blame them? The scams these days made Bofors seem like pocket-change. He dropped the visiting card into his card holder before speaking.

‘And how can I help you, Mr Menon?’ he asked, deliberately ignoring the visitor’s former rank. To Qureshi, one either lived and died within the Forces, or lived and died outside it. As a member of a media group that was possibly looking for an exposé on his beloved Army, Menon would be dealt with professionally and curtly.

‘There is an International Conference on Conventional Weapons and Warfare in Mussoorie next month,’ Menon said, taking out a colourful brochure from his briefcase. ‘We are – I mean, GeetSeth is – sponsoring it. We would like you to be one of the key speakers for this event, sir.’

‘And what qualifies me for this . . . honour?’ Qureshi asked, his tone leaving no doubt as to the sarcasm intended.

Raghav Menon appeared nonplussed at his reaction. Giving a short, nervous laugh, he recovered, saying, ‘Your esteemed and invaluable service to the nation, sir, and the experience that you have gained out of all those active years . . .’ his smile faded even as the major-general’s became broader.

‘And what do you know of my career?’ Despite the lighter tone he adopted now, Major-General Qureshi’s eyes conveyed the same cynicism as earlier. ‘As a senior serving officer, my records are classified. Which means I am very curious about how you managed to retrieve those details. If, indeed, you actually know what you are talking about, instead of sitting there spouting off platitudes no self-respecting officer should fall for.’

The two men stared at each other, one daring, and the other . . . apparently wondering how to react. Finally, Menon let out a loud sigh. He seemed about to speak, then closed his mouth, then opened it once again. The soldier waited him out.

‘We would pay you handsomely, sir,’ he said.

‘And what would you pay me for?’

Raghav Menon hesitated once more before steeling himself. Then he nodded towards the report on the major-general’s desk. ‘That report on the quality of the survival kits purchased by the Army last year. The one that you were going to see the joint secretary about.’

11.35 a.m., 16th September. Over Chennai.

We were already a few hundred feet higher in the air – and climbing steeply – before I exclaimed, ‘What the hell do you mean?’

Sitting across the aisle, turned towards me, Raghav Menon continued to grin. ‘Exactly what I said, Mr Selvam. How would you like to be there when the coup you wrote so much about actually happens?’

‘That’s impossible,’ I expostulated. ‘What I wrote was fiction. Complete, absolute fiction. Well-written, if I do say so myself, but still, at the end of the day, fiction. That means it can never happen.’

‘Correction,’ he interrupted with a smile. ‘Fiction means it never happened. Impossible, now that’s the word that means something can never happen.’

‘Whatever,’ I said, shrugging off the lesson on semantics. ‘So it’s impossible. Fiction, now and forever. A coup in India can never happen. That’s just . . . just ridiculous!’

‘Oh?’ As if mocking me, he pointed to my book that still lay on my lap. ‘So all that . . . whatever you’ve written there. That was all just a bunch of ridiculous possibilities?’

‘That’s what writers do! We take one fantastic concept, one big lie, and build a story around it. Facts and theories, all perfectly valid, all perfectly wound around one big idea. That’s what makes a story interesting.’ I held up my book, shaking it as I made my point. ‘What I’ve done here is the exact same thing. One big lie – the coup. And it’s a lie because it can never happen.’

‘Why?’

‘Why?
Why?
You are asking me why a coup won’t happen in India?’ I spluttered. ‘Because you need the right people to execute that coup! You need muscle power to suppress the opposition. Only the Armed Forces can provide that kind of muscle and they are far too patriotic to do that. Forget patriotism, there is no way all the three branches will be able to co-ordinate and execute the whole operation without falling apart and exposing themselves . . . and . . . oh, there are simply too many reasons.’ I tried to organize the thoughts running through my head but that was a losing battle. ‘You want to know the single biggest reason it won’t happen?

‘Because it won’t work. It. Just. Won’t. Work. Any coup here is doomed to fail and therefore, there is no point in launching one anyway. We are simply too big and too . . . chaotic to have a successful coup. Unless the whole aim is to destroy the nation – but even that’s not a guaranteed outcome . . . No, you can’t have a coup here because it just doesn’t make any sense . . .’

‘For a guy who wrote so articulately, you don’t make a lot of sense when you speak, do you?’ Menon remarked.

As I glared at him, I realized that he was goading me – and enjoying it thoroughly. And succeeding. For a moment, I actually entertained the thought that he was insane. But insane people are not given Learjets and government vehicles and allowed to do as they please. Then again, this was India. It was improbable, but not impossible.

I decided then, I was going to turn the tables and join him in his little game. ‘Why don’t you tell me, Mr Menon? Why would a coup happen here?’

16th September. Siliguri.

Air India Three One Five landed smoothly at the Indian Air Force Base in Siliguri and was directed to an old hangar off the main runway. The prime minister, who had dozed off somewhere over Odisha, was roused by his PR officer. Both men knew immediately that they were not at their intended destination, New Delhi, for they had flown into the Indira Gandhi International Airport often enough to recognize it.

The lights dimmed for a brief interval as the power was switched from the jet engines to the generator. The PR officer switched on his mobile phones but they failed to connect to any of the networks. As part of his job, the PR officer needed to be available 24x7 – which was why, at taxpayers’ expense, the government had provided him with smart phones and SIM cards for every possible carrier. That not a single one among them was able to find a network – in the middle of the urban sprawl that he had witnessed as they landed – led him to suspect a jammer in the vicinity. In spite of himself, he tried all the usual tricks to get a signal – shaking the phones, holding them up above his head, walking up and down the aisle and sticking his arms towards the windows – but to no avail. Throughout the entire exercise, the prime minster kept looking outside, wondering about the retinue that should have surrounded them the moment they landed.

Has the swearing-in happened already? The thought crossed his mind a few times as he waited. Each time it did, he dismissed it. They wouldn’t have gone so far without informing him. Dammit, they owed him at least that much!

The stewards, the PR officer remembered noticing, had vanished into the cockpit as soon as the flight had landed – he had thought little of its significance at the time, but now, faced with the reality of being one of the two people occupying the fuselage of an entire aircraft, it led him to start thinking of possibilities. Foremost among them was the possibility of a hijack.

This is why you should have gone in for engineering, he chided himself, instead of going against his father’s wishes and getting into media and politics. He was about to delve deeper on what might have been, when the door to the cockpit opened and the captain stepped in. He took off his cap respectfully as he approached the prime minister.

‘What’s the problem, Captain . . . Munde?’ asked Kuldip Razdan, narrowing his eyes to read the name off the badge.

‘I am extremely sorry, sir,’ said Captain Munde, ‘but I’ve been ordered to seal the aircraft under further orders.’

‘Whose orders? Head office?’

‘Erm . . . no, sir. These orders come from someone . . . else.’ The captain’s eyes darted about nervously between the prime minister and his PR officer. ‘I was ordered by my superior, and he was given his own set of orders . . . I hope you will forgive me, sir. But you will want for nothing here, certainly. My crew and I have made all the arrangements for your comfortable stay, for as long as it takes, and if you need anything, you just need to . . . erm, press this button here,’ pointing to the call button overhead, ‘and we’ll be right with you.’

Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heels and started to hurry back towards the cockpit. Catching sight of the PR officer, he mumbled, ‘Sorry, sir. All mobile phones and other electronic devices need to be switched off at this point of time.’

16th September. Ghaziabad.

At the stroke of noon, a platoon of commandos entered the Julius Room of the International Conference Centre. The delegates within – leaders of most of the other parties and factions that constituted India’s political spectrum – were caught by surprise. Despite the fact that three separate mobile jammers had been humming silently for the last ninety minutes, the delegates were hurriedly divested of all communication devices with them. A cordon was thrown up around the building and every employee caught within running distance of the Julius Room was herded back inside.

The whole operation reminded the delegates of the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, when a group of heavily-armed terrorists from Pakistan attacked the city, killing with impunity anyone unlucky enough to cross their paths. There was an immediate sense of panic as several politicians tried to run for the exits and were turned away by the gun-toting commandos; the panic eventually started to subside as people realized no one was shooting anybody else. Yet. If it was not an attack, a collective realization rose, then it was probably a hostage-taking – in which case, they were safe. No one had any doubt that the government would give in. They considered themselves invaluable to the government and to the country, in that order.

Despite the seeming absence of a leader, the team of commandos moved as a well-oiled unit. There seemed to be little communication between them, save an occasional burst into the microphones mounted on their shoulders. All wore riot gear and carried automatic rifles and knives. The commandos in blue had their rifles loaded with rubber bullets; the commandos in black would shoot to kill. The blues outnumbered the blacks ten to one – and together, despite being outnumbered by their targets, they stood as an impenetrable barrier against the doors.

As the fear subsided, the voices of protest grew louder and louder. Every self-important character started to argue with the commandos closest to him or her, demanding explanations, apologies and the right to leave. The commandos stared back stoically, never responding, never reacting, never expressing the rising contempt as the abuses hurled at them became more insulting. Yet, no one moved forward towards the doors. No one dared to.