Raju Ganapathy

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Raju Ganapathy

Action

The Last Escape

The Last Escape

9 mins
272


7:00 Hrs 22nd March 2020, India

The Janata curfew had begun. A few days ago, the national cum global statesman who was no more globe-trotting, grounded in India, had made a televised address requesting citizens to observe this self-imposed curfew. He did not say what his government would do or plan to do to tackle the Coronavirus. Many said this was a precursor to the national lockdown to the much- anticipated community transmission of the virus. Some leading government institutions of health stated that so far, the community transmissions stage has not begun. Can the curfew help in preventing it? Debates were going on everywhere.

It got noted that masks and sanitizers flew off the retails shelf. It was only known to the few discerning individuals that the condoms too flew off the shelves. But being a conservative country, the retailers didn't announce openly that the stocks of condoms were no longer there.

In a nondescript apartment in Bangalore, three men had assembled. These were no ordinary men. They all had IQs to the level of Einstein and had multiple PhDs from Harvard, Princeton, MIT, and the likes of it. Their expertise lay in demography, political science, futurology, and quantum computing simulations.

The youngest of them was active in Tinder and had gone to the local shop to get his supply of condoms. When told "no stock" an alarm bell rang in his mind. As he had told the other two men of this, one of them quickly rang a number. The CEO of the famous "Moods" condom company picked up the phone. The CEO confirmed that the manufacturing could not cope up with the demand. The company had recently introduced a brand named "Cockey" with the tag line "Nothingness is the Feel." Immediately some right-wing outfits had protested against the launch. As anticipated by the CEO, the brand got a lot of free publicity in the media, both social and TV. The CEO further confirmed that he had preponed the expansion of the plant capacity, and he had successfully obtained a loan from the "No Bank."


The youngest of the group struck some keys and fed some data into his terminal. Through some private and highly secretive arrangement, the computer terminal got linked with the latest version of Deep Blue at Carnegie Mellon University. For the information of the layman, Deep Blue was the computer that defeated Gary Kasparov in a brilliant game of chess a few decades ago. Within a few seconds, the Deep Blue threw up some figures on the screen. The baby boom got projected in the cow belt region. Not unexpected as the region also fared the worst in the country in terms of Human Development Index.

The elder among them suggested the" Bangalore 2040 scenario" to Deep Blue. He was not shocked when he saw the result. The Bangalore demography that got projected changed dramatically. Hindi became the language of the city's majority. Kannada became the language of the minority natives. He declared the silicon- valley had become Chambal valley.

The man who remained silent who has been tracking communal flare-ups in the country asked Deep Blue for projections. They saw spikes around 2030 and a climbing graph from 2036-40 period. He was doing an individual assignment on parliamentary representation across India and typed some keys of the terminal. As he had guessed rightly, the states of the cow belt now controlled 50% of the parliamentary representation. He made a chilling statement that Yogi and Sadvi Pragyani would become the PM and HM or DM by 2040, respectively. They would ride successfully the wave of communal riots expected to spike from 2036-2040.


In the Himalayan region, in a labyrinth of caves, Yogini was sitting in deep meditation. She was the Director of the Indian Vedic Research Organisation (IVRO). The name was just a spoof. She was leading a top-secret project called "Pushpaka." Its aim to develop a mega satellite of specific capacity that the world had never known. The robot of Rajini fame was to pilot the satellite. The second objective was to scout around in the universe for a hospitable planet where purebred Indians could settle down. The third objective was to trace semen samples of yogis and rishis, which have been kept in a deep-frozen state in the Himalayan caves, according to some ancient texts. Yogini was trying to get in touch with the spirit of a Maharishi. The ancient text had mentioned some mantras. If chanted correctly, the apparition of the Maharishi would appear and share secretive codes with the meditator. The codes would help decipher the ancient texts and unravel the scientific design of the satellite. With her ability, Yogini was only successful to the extent of 20% in the project. Without Maharishi, she could not proceed even an inch. She lost track of when she had the last meal or the last sip of water. It was a penance she had decided to continue that would end in her death, or the Maharishi would come to her rescue.

IVRO periodically made public some inane discoveries based on ancient science. The media lapped it up and heaped criticism on the PM and the ruling party. Not known to them was the fact that this was a deliberate diversionary art that the PM had mastered. It kept the spotlight away from the actual research that the IVRO headed by Yogini was carrying out. Even the three men with the Deep Blue didn't suspect anything so far.

Yogini made her first breakthrough on the day the nation was observing Janata's curfew. Maharishi's apparition came and revealed to her a cipher code. She programmed Robot with that code and Robot learned to operate the satellite. Only flight testing remained.


May 2024 India

Shahen Shah led the party to success in the general elections. The former PM got sent to join the Margadharshak Mandal. As predicted by Deep Blue, communal riots became a frequent occurrence accompanied by strong reactions from the neighborhood. India stood in splendid isolation. An axis got formed with Israel and the US. The phenomenal rise of Islamic fundamentalism became the feature seen the world over that got rooted in the Islamic countries. Russia, China, and North Korea formed the last block. Europe and Africa didn't count much in the scheme of things. UN had more or less became irrelevant. Post mortem analysis revealed that Coronavirus had deeply affected the human psyche, and the formation of exclusive blocks among countries was a result of the insecurity. Shahenshah was at his best when he made the right-wing sound-bites. The majority rallied around him from the world over. Peace went into hiding.

Back at Bangalore, the three men toyed with Deep Blue and predicted a nuclear war in 2030. There were no takers for their theory or the powers to be wanted destruction. In one of their session with Deep Blue, the three men had stumbled across some high-tech activity in the Himalayan region. But Deep Blue could not figure out anything more. The middle-aged man said he would make a trip to the Himalayas and explore as the trio got convinced something profound was happening in the Himalayan region. He never returned. It got rumored that he had become a Naga Sadhu himself enamored by their tradition.

Yogini had many fruitful sessions with the Maharishi, and by now, the project had reached 50% of its mission. Some locations for the hidden specimens of semen got identified. Spaceship design prototype arrived. Some initial shortlist of planets got prepared. With the ascension of Shahenshah, financial support for her project got continued. Robots had developed expertise in operating the satellite.


May 2029 AD

The assembly election in the most populous cow belt state was a shocker to Shahenshah. His party had lost. Something unthinkable had happened. The parliamentary elections were due in 2030. Unless something dramatic he undertook, he wondered whether he would survive. It was then he called the CDS (Chief of Defence Staff). He asked CDS to launch the 'Operation Mysorepak.'

Yogini was yet in one of her meditative trance when the Maharishi came into her vision. He asked her to get ready. By then, most of the boxes on the checklist got ticked. She had planned her test flight on 1st January at mid-night. The planet called 'Trishangu' got identified. It was supposed to have created by the mercurial Sage Vishwamitra for King Trishangu. Specimens of semen got discovered. The decoded text mentioned a list of purebred ancient Indians. The list consisted of who is who in ancient India. They were avatar like and possessed capabilities that humans couldn't even dream. The robot too was rearing to go. Yogini nodded her head in understanding. There was one detail Maharishi deliberately held back from her.

1st January 2030, 00 hrs

In a deep surgical strike of unfathomable dimension, the Indian Air-Force unleashed his Rafale Jets into Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). Indian Army rolled on then airdropped by the air-force helicopters. The scene was straight out of a Hollywood flick. By the end of Ist January, PoK was taken back by the Indian Army.

Yogini guided the Robot and they performed a test flight, and the Pushpaka took off. It was a hundred percent perfect take-off and landing. Chaos emerged as a result of 'Operation Mysorepak' and the world didn't take much notice of Pushpaka. However, the Pentagon, Beijing, and Moscow captured it in their satellites. The Naga Sadhu, too, saw some lights up in the sky. He understood that it was what he had looked for in the Himalayas but was now beyond botheration. Yogini received a mental pulse from Maharishi, asking her to load up the space ship and get ready for launch anytime soon.

In a military coup not unknown to Pakistan General Ayub took over their country and declared that Pakistan would retaliate. War of words got exchanged between Shahenshah and Ayub. White House in Washington became a hotbed of action. Putin, the modern Tsar of Russia, was likewise engaged with his team of military experts. Xi was brain-storming with his generals. Israel Premier was in a closed room discussion with the Chief of Mossad and the Chief of Airforce.

It was exactly one week later on 7th January that the city of Ahmedabad got partially destroyed as General Ayub did the first strike using a nuclear arsenal. Shahenshah pressed the button so hard that Islamabad got wiped out. In retaliation, New Delhi got destroyed. The nuclear holocaust had begun as other countries with nuclear arsenal too joined the war.

Yogini got up from her slumber and felt as if some spirit entering her. She proceeded to ask Robot to launch the Pushpaka. Again she went back to her meditative state, but Robot was alert as ever and did not want to put the satellite into auto-mode. Pushpaka was in space now in orbital mode.

Maharishi had known that Yogini was ready to mother and nurture the purebred Indians in Trishangu. In the last decade, Yogini became eternal and possessed qualities that any mother would require, and she alone was sufficient. Now Robot was there to ably assist her. Viswamitra, the Maharishi, smiled to himself. It had taken eons to achieve his ambition. Now, Sage Vashist would bow to his accomplishment. He had entered the body of Yogini and put the crew to permanent sleep. Only the Robot was alive and mechanical. The world knew very little of the fact that he had authored the ancient treatise on Metempsychosis.


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