THE MAHABHARATA QUEST:THE ALEXANDER SECRET (26 page)

64

Ocean of milk

Vijay stared at the sight that greeted his eyes. Before him stretched a vast body of water. So vast that its edges could not be seen except for the shore that was nearest to him. The lake seemed to occupy almost the entire cavern from what he could see.

But it was not the discovery of the lake that stunned him. Van Klueck had told him about it and he had been prepared to find a large body of water. What took his breath away was the appearance of the lake.

As far as he could see, the surface of the lake reflected silver-white in the colour of the search light. As the others joined him and stood gazing at the lake, as overwhelmed as he was by this sight, the searchlights revealed the endless stretch of silver-white water, calm and still, with not a ripple.

‘No wonder they called it the Ocean of Milk,’ Van Klueck muttered at Vijay’s side. ‘And now we know why.’

But there were more surprises in this immense cavern. As the searchlights played along the wall that supported the stairway an array of metal pipes and stone channels came into view. A large stone channel ran along the wall, coming from the direction of the lake, ending at a large stone basin. The other pipes and channels connected a number of small stone basins to each other and to a large metallic contraption that towered above them. The metal used for the pipes and the device was black. The searchlights did not detect the slightest sign of rust in the metal. Like the metal disc they had found last year, Vijay thought to himself. To him, the entire apparatus looked rather like the brewing vats he had seen in some of the micro-breweries in the US.

A shout came from one of the men. ‘There’s something moving here!’

The searchlights were all aimed in the direction the man indicated. Everyone stood still. For a while nothing moved.

Then, something wavered at the edges of the light. A large, circular form. To everyone’s surprise, a huge tortoise ambled into the pool of light created by the searchlights. It was a large specimen, at least twenty feet in length. Vijay couldn’t believe his eyes. The creature moved slowly across the pool of light and disappeared into the darkness on the other side.

‘Okay, get to work,’ Van Klueck ordered. ‘I want samples collected and secured in the next ten minutes. Then we get out of here.’

Vijay walked to the shore of the lake and studied the silvery surface. It was impossible to believe that this was the very body of water that was described in the myth. Except that he now knew the real reason for the colour of the water. This was the source of the bacteria that the Order had found in the mummy of Alexander the Great. He had drunk from this very lake on that fateful night two thousand three hundred years ago.

But why had he died? Why hadn’t it worked for him?

‘Time to go,’ Van Klueck’s sharp voice intruded on his thoughts. ‘Everyone out.’ He turned to Vijay. ‘You had better have the meaning of the final verse for me by the time we get back to Jalalabad.’

The riddle solved

Colin and Alice sat in the study, waiting for Vijay to call. There was no way for them to contact him since Vijay had not been permitted to share the satellite phone number. Shukla had retired to his room, ostensibly to sleep. Though Colin wasn’t sure how much sleep he would get, since there was still no news of Radha.

The phone rang, the sound shattering the silence of the night. Colin scrambled to pick up the call, activating the speaker so Alice could also participate in the call.

‘Hi Vijay,’ he greeted his friend. ‘Alice is here, too.’

‘Guys, I hope you have something for me. Anything.’

‘We do.’ Colin couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice. ‘The last location you need is the Ustyurt plateau which straddles Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The place mentioned in the verse is a natural formation called the Three Brothers, which is in the Kazakh part of the plateau. It’s in the boondocks of Kazakhstan. Quite painful to get there. Alice and I researched the whole darn thing for three quarters of an hour.’

‘Excellent!And the arrowhead? The one that “shows the way”?’

Colin told Vijay what he had discovered via the internet.

‘Sounds logical. Amazing but definitely possible. I would bet on this anytime.’

‘So would I. But, frankly, I have no idea what you will find there. I couldn’t crack the meaning of the “kernel of the quest”.’

‘I know what it is. It is the virus. The plateau is the source of the virus. We found the source of the bacteria in the Kunar valley. That’s where the
amrita
was manufactured. So the only thing that’s missing is the original version of the virus. And since the virus is the key ingredient for the
amrita
, it has to be the kernel of the quest.’ Vijay told them about what he had seen in the Kunar valley.

‘So now only the verse that mentions the stuff that Callisthenes collected from Bactria remains to be deciphered,’ Alice observed. ‘Do you want us to research that as well?’

There was a pause and muffled conversation. Then Vijay came back on the line. Apparently he had been consulting with Van Klueck. ‘No need,’ Vijay replied. ‘They’re working on it. Now that they know what the verse is about and they know where to find the stuff that the verse mentions, they will do it themselves. Thanks, guys. You’ve been a ton of help.’ Vijay signed off and disconnected the call.

Colin looked glumly at Alice. ‘He didn’t mention Radha even once.’

Alice pondered this. ‘You’re right. He didn’t sound like he was happy that he was now in a position to negotiate
her release.’

‘Not that he would have been successful if he tried,’ Colin reasoned. ‘But it sounded to me like he’s given up on the chances of getting her back.’

They sat together in silence, wondering what Vijay must be going through. He was alone in the company of people who had kidnapped his fiancée. And if he believed there was no hope for her, it was time to get seriously worried.

65

Jaipur, Rajasthan

Imran sat in the Mi-26 heavy lift helicopter, one of two that had been requisitioned from the Jaipur airforce base. The Mi-26 is the world’s fastest heavy lift military transport helicopter, which made it ideal for this mission. The two choppers were now being used to transport the commandos to the location that had been targeted by tracing the cell phone Radha had used to contact him.

They had just flown over the outskirts of Jaipur, leaving the lights of the city behind them, and were now passing over large patches of darkness punctuated by small patches of light. Against the night sky, he could make out the silhouette of the other helicopter, its bright red warning lights flashing with a steady rhythm.

Approximately ten minutes after leaving the city, Imran saw a large patch of light come into view dead ahead. It was the compound of the medical facility which was their target. As soon as they had pinpointed the location, an alert had gone out to the Jaipur police to set up roadblocks around the compound. But so far, the police had not reported anyone trying to leave the medical centre.

Imran was worried. That could mean only two things. Either Varun Saxena was not at the facility or he had left before the roadblocks were set up. Either way, he feared that the CMO of Titan had escaped the dragnet.

The immense helicopters began to descend as they reached the target location. There was a large driveway that led to the main entrance of the facility. It was in this driveway that they planned to land.

As the helicopters touched down, their hatches were opened and the commandos spilled out, securing the perimeter of the compound, taking up strategic positions. The main body of the commandos began stealthily advancing towards the building, followed by Imran. There didn’t seem to be an armed force within the building that would resist the operation but they did not know what to expect either.

The lights were out in the reception. The building looked deserted and silent. No one was around. Not even a night guard.

The commandos activated their night vision goggles and entered the building. Light switches were located. But there was no one here. The commandos swarmed through the two storeys of the building. There was nothing to be found. The place had evidently been evacuated.

‘Go through the CCTV archive. If they haven’t wiped it clean you may find some clues there,’ Imran instructed Arjun. His deputy left with the rest of the IB team to check the archives while Imran continued his inspection of the ground floor. When he reached the elevator, he recalled the discovery of the basement in the last medical centre they had searched in Delhi.

Imran checked the elevator and discovered the buttons for three basement floors. They could only be accessed using a card based security system. This time, he had come prepared. The electronics expert on his team carried a handheld master programmer that could override the elevator’s security system and allow them access to all the floors.

His earphone buzzed. It was Arjun. ‘Sir, there’s something you need to see.’

‘I’m coming now,’ Imran told him. He turned to the commandant of the commando team. ‘Sweep all floors once you gain access. Report to me when you are done. I want to know what’s down there.’

Before long, he was standing next to Arjun in the security centre.

‘Sir, there is something very strange here,’ Arjun remarked before playing the video clip that he wanted Imran to see. ‘The archives have been wiped clean. There are no recordings here except for one. I don’t understand it. Why would they wipe out everything and leave just one short clip??’

‘Let’s see it.’ Imran’s face was hard. He had a bad feeling about this. In his book, if only one clip had been saved from erasure, it was for a purpose. He waited apprehensively as the clip began playing.

The video clip showed Radha sitting on the floor pounding away at a laptop.

Imran was immediately alert and a sinking feeling overcame him. This was not good.After a few seconds, Radha put the laptop down and rose. She looked around cautiously and then moved away. As she moved, Arjun pointed to a flurry of action at the edge of the screen. There was no audio on the clip but the three guards with their guns raised were clearly shooting at Radha. Imran watched in horror as Radha collapsed in a pool of blood. There was blood all over the floor, pouring out of her bullet wounds.

The clip abruptly ended there.

Imran stood rooted to the spot. He was numb. He had just watched Radha die.

66

DAY SIX

Samudramanthan

Vijay sat in Van Klueck’s luxuriously appointed Gulfstream jet. They were flying to Aktau International Airport in Kazakhstan, from where they would be transported by helicopter to the location described by Colin. An armed escort was standing by, awaiting their arrival. It seemed that the Order was able to mobilise men and weapons almost anywhere they wished.

It was still dark outside. Van Klueck had insisted on leaving immediately. He had wanted them to be over the plateau before the sun rose. While they now knew what they were looking for, they still did not know the time of the day when the shadow would be cast to reveal the hidden entrance to the source of the virus. It was safest, he reasoned, to be there at dawn, just in case.

An advance team had already left from Aktau, traversing the distance of almost 400 kilometres in a 4-wheel drive, a journey that would take almost half a day on the sand and clay tracks that led to their destination. Their job was to scour the area, secure it and await the arrival of the main team.

A thought struck Vijay. The cavern with the lake in the Kunar valley had borne out what Van Klueck had told him earlier. But he still could not reconcile what he had seen with the myth from the Mahabharata.

He voiced his thoughts to Van Klueck.

‘Of course the Mahabharata explains what we found,’ Van Klueck sniffed. ‘You just need to interpret the verses correctly.’ He stood up and walked to a cabinet, pulled out a thick book and returned to his seat, placing the book on the table. ‘Do you understand Sanskrit?’

Vijay shook his head.

‘Of course not. Like most Indians.’ Van Klueck couldn’t hide the disdain in his voice. ‘I am fluent in the language,’ he continued. ‘So let me explain it to you.’

He opened the book and flipped through the pages. ‘This is a volume of the
Adi Parva
, the first book of the Mahabharata. This is the book that contains the myth of the
Samudramanthan
or, as it is popularly but erroneously called, The Churning of the Ocean.’

For the first time Vijay realised that the European’s diction while speaking Sanskrit was almost perfect. It carried little of the usual accent that most Westerners had while speaking the language. He must have learned it at a very early age and then practised it through the years, in order to be fluent while speaking and reading, Vijay mused.

‘Ah here we are,’ Van Klueck put his finger on the page. ‘There are a few shlokas in the
Adi Parva
that tell us about what happened thousands of years ago. The traditional interpretation, however, has overshadowed the original meaning of the shlokas and the true nature of the event was lost over time. In fact, the English name given to this tale is itself a misnomer. It is true that
Samudramanthan
can be interpreted to mean “churning the ocean”. But the root of
manthan
is
manth
or
math
. Which can have multiple meanings in English. Churn is just one of those meanings.
Math
can also mean stir, agitate or mix. So, if we were to disregard the traditional interpretation of the title itself, it could mean either “stirring the ocean” or “mixing the ocean”. Which, as you will see, is more appropriate to describe exactly what happened. And the apparatus we found by the side of the lake is where the mixing happened. The water from the lake must have been pumped via the stone channel along the wall and the stone basins were used to collect and channel the rest of the ingredients into the mixer. It is possible that the device used to pump the water created the illusion of the lake water being churned, hence the popular interpretation of the root
math
to mean “churning”. Let me elucidate further.’

He peered at the book, switching on the overhead light as he did so. ‘Let’s take this shloka:

The traditional meaning of this shloka is: “after churning the great ocean by the Gods and the Danavas, the water of the sea will become an urn of nectar”. But if you replace the word “churning” with “stirring” or “mixing”, using the root
math
, the entire meaning changes. You can now interpret this as: the Gods and the Danavas mixed or stirred the water of the sea and it became an urn of nectar.’

He moved to the next shloka and read it out.

Here, the traditional meaning is: “(After) acquiring all the medicinal plants and jewels, O gods, churn the ocean then you will gain the nectar”. Again, replace “churn” with “mix” or “stir” and you can see where the verse on the cube describing the plants and fruits becomes relevant.’

Vijay couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Here was a myth that he had heard dozens of times while growing up and Van Klueck was giving him a totally different interpretation from the one he had learned.

‘Now, here’s a shloka that directly addresses what we found in the Kunar valley:

The traditional meaning of this shloka is: “Then the Gods and the Danavas stood on the bank of the ocean and said for the sake of nectar we will churn the water”. Here, interestingly,
samudram
can be interpreted to mean “gathering together of waters”. The reference is clearly to a large body of water. Which is what we found, isn’t it? So, this shloka can actually mean: “then the Gods and the Danavas stood on the bank where there was a gathering of waters and said for the sake of nectar we will stir or mix the water”.’

He flipped a few pages and indicated another verse. ‘Here’s where the science comes in. Of course, you need a radically different mindset, an open mind, to interpret this shloka correctly:

Traditionally, this has been interpreted to mean: “Then, smashed by the great mountain, various aquatic animals proceeded together towards their destruction and were reborn a hundred times in the salt water”. The translation of the word
jalacara
to mean “aquatic animals” is erroneous. This word means “water-goer or living in water” and can refer to any organism in the water. Including the bacteria that inhabit the lake we found. Note also that the word
vinispishta
can mean “ground down, crushed into powder”. Finally, again, there is a reference to a salt water body.
Ambhasi
is water and
lavanam
means salty, so here we are again, talking about a body of salt water which perfectly describes the lake we found. So, the new translation goes like this: “the marine organisms, or bacteria, in the salt water were destroyed and reborn a hundred times”. A rather good depiction of what happens when the retrovirus infects the bacteria and changes their genome – a rebirth of sorts, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Mr Van Klueck,’ the pilot’s voice came over the speakers. ‘We’re beginning our descent into Aktau. Landing in
30 minutes.’

Van Klueck shut the book and looked at him appraisingly. ‘There’s more of this. Much more. But do you see how the Mahabharata actually tells us that a scientific event took place thousands of years ago? And it wasn’t an ocean or sea, but a large, saline body of water that provided the basis for this event. Which you have now seen with your own eyes.’

Vijay nodded. Words failed him. He was only just beginning to grasp the immense hidden meaning behind the shlokas which superficially told the tale of a fantastic event.