Operation Meghdoot

He was in cloud nine when the invite came from the PMO. His memories flooded him like the monsoon rain. Right from his childhood that he could remember he was very fond of the clouds and the rains and played in it. Luckily, he never got a cold - feet or nose. Often, he would gaze at the clouds and see its shape changing. Sometimes it was an elephant, sometimes he could visualize the lion. He would then wish for a face and behold there was one. Whether it actually happened only Meghnath would know. His father had named him after the clouds and one wonders if he had a premonition of his son’s future.

Meghnath grew with rain and the clouds. He read stories about them. He wrote stories and poems as well. When he took to running in his school days, he bought the ASICS Cumulus shoes. Later he graduated to ASICS Nimbus and ran about. In the monsoon season, he would run behind the clouds. He took science as his school subject for he had made up his mind he would study only about rain and clouds. He was always ‘c’loud and clear in his thoughts about his career. His graduation and masters were in Meteorology.

Once he finished his graduation, he had bought the book “Chasing the Monsoon: A Modern Pilgrimage through India” and followed Alexander Frater in recreating his adventure. He came back enriched not only in the knowledge about the Indian Monsoon but people’s varied dependence on it. It was then he had also seen the movie Thodisi Rumani Hojaye and got enchanted with the role Nana Patekar who played a rainmaker. He dreamt of becoming one.

An opportunity came while doing his masters. He started devising a rainmaker that could induce rain and even go to the extent of assisting cloud formation. When the pilot was ready, he tested it the first time with the cyclone Vayu which was about to strike Gujarat. In a secret mission known only to the Director, IMD and the PMO, Operation Meghdoot was launched and he managed to push the cyclone away from Gujarat. Media did not catch hold of a hugely successful mission. It had deep implications for rain formation in the universe.

Now the invite had come to discuss patenting of the device and the PMO had arranged for a meeting with the Indian Patent office.

PM was thinking if this device could be used for cloud formation at will. Then this would become the most powerful arsenal for Indian defence. Then surgical strikes could be conducted at will. He took a geo-political gamble and twittered urgently for a disclosure in his televised talk. Nation awaited in bated breath. What now? He only gave a hint of the device and how India has successfully tested it with respect to Vayu. His talk was not all gas noted the global meteorologist as they were puzzled by the behaviour of the Cyclone. The Chinese Premier Xighed in disbelief and thought if this was true then India has become a global power. Imran asked his General if Pakistan Khan?

Back at IMD the PMO office called up the Director and announced an unknown budget to further develop the device and the Operation Meghdoot was to be headed by Meghnath. It was to be treated as secretly as Pokhran.

The armament industry world-wide was facing a recession as the orders from the Indian sub-continent had become a trickle. State actors had taken to stage acting now a days as there was no state support for their action. There was a huge clouding of consciousness in their mind. Has India done it as claimed, a question which cannot be dismissed like a meteorology prediction?

At the ASICS Japan, the company’s shoe designers were furiously working on a new model post PM’s talk tentatively named as ASICS Cirrus. ASICS anticipated a windfall of an opportunity in India in particular and anticipated a rainbow at the end of the dark clouds in their Indian business.

At a remote centre of IMD in Kerala coast, Meghnath woke up late for another day of hectic experimentation. He had read the treatise Brihatasamhita until the wee hours as it was considered to be an important book on atmospheric sciences based on ancient knowledge. He was elated when the custom build truck had arrived and he was all set to chase the monsoon once again, this time with his device. He was blissfully unaware of the gathering cloud on the horizon seen in Pakistan and China, a direct fall out of his pilot project