1589 AD
The calm of the night was broken by a loud shriek of pain and the sound of growling of an unhuman nature. The Sukhwali village at the foothills of Himalayas, nestled in a valley, was a peaceful and serene place. The villagers ran out of their huts in disbelief that their sleep was disturbed by sounds so ugly and violent. They all stood staring at the cave from where the sound seemed to be emanating from. The echo of the cry seemed to be still hanging in the nighttime air, as the growling kept growing louder. The entire village stood there, stunned still for a few moments and then started noticing the fear hanging from the eyes of the men and women around them. A few men murmuring to each other in one corner started running towards a hut at the far corner of the clearing. As those men had suspected, Jaaka was not in his home and neither was his goat. He had seemed to left behind all his other meagre belongings like his rice bowl, his leather tote, his writing quills and even his beloved brass pot.
Jaaka was the village outcast who lived alone and loved his goat the most. The young populace considered him mad and wanted him removed from the village; the more matured citizens were more sympathetic towards him and considered him sick and a simpleton; then there were some who considered Jaaka to be enlightened and a psychic. Since the last new moon night, Jaaka could be seen walking around the village with his goat, warning people about the spirit in the cave. Now, he was nowhere to be found.
The growling noise from the cave kept increasing in volume and in intensity; and then seemed to stop for just a few seconds before the loud explosion that spewed fire, dust, smoke and debris from the mountain all over the valley. The bodies were instantly flung meters away, the skin barely hanging from the bones. Everything in the village was on fire- the trees, huts, animals- even the well had flames leaping from the water below. Then another explosion happened and the entire village was under rocks and ash. There was no sign that life ever existed in that small hamlet. All was buried, the hopes, the aspirations, the memories, the sounds; what remained was only a pile of glowing stones near the cave, the amber light casting dreadful shadows all around in the dark moonless night.
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2022 AD
Paul walked out of his office and into the canteen with a big smile and a hop in his step. Everything was planned and ready for his long overdue vacation. The leave had been granted, bags had been packed, tickets had been booked and the Airbnb had been paid for. His bus was to depart at 7:30 PM from ISBT for Bhuntar and from there he had booked a cab till his destination, Dilwada in Himachal Pradesh. Paul, better known as Pulastya Mallya, had been looking forward to taking a break after all the overtime he had to put in because the bank he worked in was merged with another bank, which led to massive paperwork and changing of assets in the books of both the banks etcetera.
Paul reached Sikhwada at eight in the morning, surprisingly well rested in the gently rocking bus ride, winding its way through the Himalayas. After spending most of the day in the local shopping street, he had an early dinner and went to bed at nine in the night excited about the next day’s trek for which he had travelled all the way from New Delhi. It was a three-day trek in which he would cover close to 47 kms and a change in altitude of about 3700 ft.
Paul was ready with his backpack and his trekking gear, eagerly waiting for the rest of the people, having reached the earliest. There was a small kiosk serving hot tea and soupy noodles near the meeting point and Paul was helping himself to a quick breakfast, watching the light drizzle fall diagonally in the strong wind. Soon, people started to arrive for their respective treks and Paul got busy getting to know others. The weather kept getting gloomier and it started to really pour. The mood in the camp, however, was upbeat and full of excitement. There were groups of boys and girls sitting with their respective tour leaders understanding the route they were going to take and the dos and don’ts of the journey. Paul’s party of trekkers included a married couple, a couple of girls from DU enjoying their summer break and a group of three men. Being the only person who had come alone, he quickly chose to walk with the DU girls in order to have company for the long and arduous task they had all undertaken. The girls, Meenu and Ria, were happy to have Paul’s company as well- he was a funny guy and also had a Bluetooth speaker which he had inserted in the bottle holder of his bag and was playing the latest Punjabi Pop.
The first break they took was after two and a half hours of climb at a small village where the fierce river they had been following upstream became calm as it took a turn around the village. The green river banks gave Paul an opportunity to open his shoes and dip his aching feet in the cold water and to wash the sweat from under his cap. The guide advised them to eat a hearty meal as the next village was at least four hours away. All of them sat on a big table, talking about their big city lives while waiting for the meal to arrive. Weather had turned really ominous in the meantime and dark clouds had completely engulfed the sun. By the time they finished eating, it was raining heavily making all of them decide to wait till they proceeded any further and take a nap.
Paul woke up to the sound of a loud thunder, panting for breath, covered in cold sweat. He quickly saw the sleeping faces around him to check if anyone saw him in this dishevelled state of being. Everyone was still enjoying their siesta and he glanced at his watch to realise it had been only fifteen minutes in which he had seen one of the most intense and scary dreams. Paul saw himself standing alone on a cliff overlooking a burning village. He saw destruction like he had never imagined was possible; everything in his sight was ablaze- huts, trees, cows, humans- and he was chained to a giant oak tree. He was trying desperately to free himself and help the burning children, but all his pulling and tugging had absolutely no effect on his bondage. Tears were rolling down his face and he was wailing in agony, just when an ear-piercing noise rang through the air and he woke up.
Paul quietly got up from the table and walked to the hut serving grocery items and bought a packet of cigarettes. He lit one and started smiling to reassure himself that all was good and it was just a meaningless dream. Finishing the cigarette, he walked back to the group as the weather began to clear up and everyone started to pick up their gears and sleepy bodies.
The rest of the day passed by like a slow-moving bus in a traffic ridden road. There were intermittent spells of heavy rain that kept them confined under trees for long durations of time. The group would then increase their speed whenever the weather cleared, thus making it a risky climb up the muddy trails. They finally reached their destination at Eight PM, long after the sun had set, against the estimated arrival time of Four PM. The trek after the sunset was spooky enough given the slippery path and cold water dripping from the leaves, the guide’s warning to all of them to stay together for the fear of bear attacks only made the last leg of the journey even more nauseating.
Once everyone had put up their tents around the kitchen hut and had freshened up, they sat together in one of the small rooms connected to the kitchen. There was enough food on the table to help their sore muscles recover; and enough alcohol to rid their bodies of the cold that seemed to have settled between the bones. Ria and Meenu were sitting together sipping on rum, observing the room around them; the married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Verma were half asleep on the table, sitting just out of courtesy to their fellow travellers; the three men were seemingly drunk, narrating a story to the tour guide and Paul about their encounter with the devil on some trekking trip in Rajasthan.
The tour guide, Vaibhav, said something funny and everyone started laughing in unison as he got up and asked everyone to disperse and catch on some sleep before the morning hike. Paul was sharing his tent with one other guy, Mahesh, and they decided to put off the lights as soon as they entered the tent. Paul immediately went into a deep slumber and the vivid dreams returned to haunt him. This time, he was running alongside a cliff overlooking a village. He was barefoot, he realised, as the little stones kept stabbing the soles of his feet. He was wearing a skirt-like garment made of animal hide and was carrying a goat in his arms. He was pacing swiftly and with the precision of an acrobat, never letting any step fall where he did not desire, balancing the goat like it weighed nothing. Finally, after many long strides, he was standing in front of a big cave opening, amber light glowing and dimming from inside the cave in perfect rhythmic patterns. Paul saw himself tying the goat to a tree near the entrance of the cave and whispering something in a foreign tongue in the goat’s ears. As he entered the cave, he could feel the vibrations of a sound emanating from somewhere deep under the earth’s surface. He took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the cave and then ran towards the source of the ambient light. Picking up a big stone from the ground, he flung it at the light-emitting minerals on the wall and a big crack developed on it. It seemed to have worked like a pressure valve opening because from the crack, gushed out a thick and warm liquid which threw Paul a few feet away on his back. The liquid kept bubbling out of the widening crack with a loud gurgling noise. Paul got up from the floor and fell on his knees, bowing his head to the crack on the wall and chanting a prayer in a language he had never heard before. The light from the wall was flashing more frequently now, as if getting energised by the words Paul was uttering. Paul was in a trance now, swaying his body with the melody of the prayer and then suddenly it was all silent; the prayer ended, the flow of liquid ended, the noises ended, the lights ended, and the dream ended.
Paul woke up feeling hungover after a night of heavy drinking. He was not in his tent, but in the midst of the forest, sleeping underneath a huge banyan tree, covered in a sap like substance- sticky and sweet smelling. There were flies stuck in his hair and he had mud all over his feet. He had no idea where he was. He did not have his phone with him. His heart started racing, recalling the tour guide’s words about bears living in these parts of the forest. He looked up at the sky and tried to guess the time and which direction he was supposed to head. It was still early morning. The sun was just starting to rise and he decided to walk towards the direction the birds were flying. After a short walk of ten minutes, he could see smoke rising in the air- he had reached the camp and could see the kitchen hall. He quietly went towards the washing area, avoiding being seen and cleaned himself thoroughly. After that, he went back to his room and found Mahesh still fast asleep inside his sleeping bag. Paul unplugged his phone from the charger and walked towards the kitchen, trying to make sense of what was going on.
Paul shut his eyes and tried to catch every fragment of memory he had from the last night. He tried to call his mother to talk to her about the two dreams and if he ever sleepwalked during his childhood, but his phone had no network. He paced around reciting every religious hymn he could remember. If there was a spirit possessing his body, he wanted to flush it out by the sudden flood of mantras reverberating in his body and mind. Paul then started going back to the spot in the jungle where he woke up to check for any signs which might explain how he reached there. It was a simple hike through the clearings in the otherwise dense forest. When he reached the banyan tree where he had woken up, he saw that the tree was gigantic with thousands of branches spreading out in every direction. The bark of the tree was almost red in colour and was at least ten feet in diameter. It was not like any other tree in that area, towering above every other of its neighbour. As Paul was circling the tree, he stepped on some slime like substance oozing out of the ground. It was the same clear fluid which he was covered in when he woke up that morning. Paul got down on all his fours and started digging frantically, flinging muddy slime everywhere around him.
After twenty minutes of tireless digging, Paul could hear his name being called out by some people nearby. He realised in his state of confusion and daze he had not told any of his group members he was heading inside the forest. He called out to them and soon all eight of the others had found him and were staring at him dumbfoundedly. As Paul tried to explain what he was doing, Mahesh came forward and knelt down beside the hole. Mahesh picked up the slimy earth and had a perplexed look on his face. Mahesh looked at Paul and asked him what was the slime mixed with the mud. Mahesh explained that he is a geologist and he had never seen slime coming out from the soil. It was an aberration.
Mahesh and the group ran back to the village to find a landline phone they could use to call Mahesh’s office and take some more information regarding the weird findings of the group. Meenu asked Paul how he discovered the site and Paul had no plausible explanation to give to her so he skirted the topic and asked the group leader if he could stay here a bit longer and the rest of the group can go ahead with the scheduled itinerary. Unanimously, everyone shot down the idea as this sudden development was much more exciting than the trek, and all of them decided to stay back till the mystery was solved. Mahesh’s colleagues were equally shocked to hear about the slime-seeping soil and the description of the banyan tree and decided to send a team to the village at the earliest.
Three days later, a team of soil experts, mineral rocks expert and archaeologists descended upon the small village and started digging and taking samples in large beakers and jars back to New Delhi. While digging, they unearthed a few shining rocks from the site which was when Paul decided to tell them about his dream and the circumstances under which he discovered the banyan tree and the slime. The archaeologists’ team was most excited hearing about the dream because there had been similar folk-stories they had heard about sacred ancient villages around the Himalayas which had been trapped under thick layers of igneous rocks, resin like sap and ash; but this was the first time they had come across a site which might prove the mythical tales to be true.
Paul and the others were told to head back home by Mahesh, as it would take at least five months for the archaeological team to dig the area and find out more about the sap and the mythical sacred village. Paul was happy that he had led them to such an interesting find which may say a lot about the composition and history of the sub-Himalayan region and better prepare the future generations from any unknown disaster, but he was still keen to know more about the dreams and his mysterious venture to the banyan tree. Paul and the others were sitting at the bus station to book tickets for their journey back to New Delhi, feeling a little sad that their adventure was about to come to an end the next day. To celebrate their last night together, they decided to light a bonfire near their campsite and have a few drinks together with Mahesh’s team. Paul called it a night after a few drinks and excused himself from the party. He went for a walk nearby, staring deep inside the forest towards the direction of the banyan tree. Paul sat down on a rock and was searching for his matchsticks when he felt someone walk up behind him. He turned around thinking it must be Mahesh, but there was nobody to be seen. Paul saw a mist rise in the air around him and soon it enveloped his entire vicinity. The visibility became so poor that Paul could hardly see beyond two feet. Then he heard a voice, coarse and heavy; it was weighing every word before uttering it as if unsure about the impact the words might have.
“Thank you, Pulastya! Because of you, finally our great city will be rediscovered. I was sure of your capabilities and dedication. It is the reason why I chose you to show what had happened to us. Now the world will know that I was not mad to warn my neighbours. It really happened! The spirit in the mountain did swallow everything and everyone. Jaaka owes his reputation to you. Goodbye!”
And just like that the mist cleared up and the noises from the party could reach Paul’s ears again. The next day all of them left the village that was originally called Sukhwali, but nobody knew except Paul. Paul was just happy that he was privy to a secret that was buried deep inside the layers of Earth. After months of excavation, soil tests and geological studies, Mahesh called Paul one day to tell him that they had solved the mystery of the slime and the light-emitting rocks. These were spewed from deep inside Earth’s core through a volcanic shaft which got sealed shut after the eruption. It was probably the time when the Himalayas was still growing and seismic movements caused the minerals to be pushed up to the surface. This was a major breakthrough and they were writing a paper on it for The Science magazine. Mahesh said that they were mentioning Paul in the paper and he would be getting all the credit for the discovery. After a long moment of silence, all Paul could say was, “Jaaka thanks you!”
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