The Fires Within; Arthur C Clarke

THE FIRES WITHIN

The Fires Within

An astoundingly different story by Arthur C Clarke, this is a surprisingly similar viewpoint to what I held in my childhood :D 

I knew it! I am a prodigy!

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    ‘This,’ said Karn smugly, ‘will interest you. Just take a look at it!’

 He pushed across the file he had been reading, and for the nth time I decided to ask for his transfer or, failing that, my own.

 ‘What’s it about?’ I said wearily.

 ‘It’s a long report from a Dr Matthews to the Minister of Science.’ He waved it in front of me. ‘Just read it!’

 Without much enthusiasm, I began to go through the file. A few minutes later I looked up and admitted grudgingly: ‘Maybe you’re right — this time.’ I didn’t speak again until I’d finished....


 My dear Minister (the letter began). As you requested, here is my special report on Professor Hancock’s experiments, which have had such unexpected and extraordinary results. I have not had time to cast it into a more orthodox form, but am sending you the dictation just as it stands.

 Since you have many matters engaging your attention, perhaps I should briefly summarise our dealings with Professor Hancock. Until 1955, the Professor held the Kelvin Chair of Electrical Engineering at Brendon University, from which he was granted indefinite leave of absence to carry out his researches. In these he was joined by the late Dr Clayton, sometime Chief Geologist to the Ministry of Fuel and Power. Their joint research was financed by grants from the Paul Fund and the Royal Society.

 The Professor hoped to develop sonar as a means of precise geological surveying. Sonar, as you will know, is the acoustic equivalent of radar, and although less familiar is older by some millions of years, since bats use it very effectively to detect insects and obstacles at night. Professor Hancock intended to send high-powered supersonic pulses into the ground and to build up from the returning echoes an image of what lay beneath. The picture would be displayed on a cathode ray tube and the whole system would be exactly analogous to the type of radar used in aircraft to show the ground through cloud.

 In 1957 the two scientists had achieved a partial success but had exhausted their funds. Early in 1958 they applied directly to the government for a block grant. Dr Clayton pointed out the immense value of a device which would enable us to take a kind of X-ray photo of the Earth’s crust, and the Minister of Fuel gave it his approval before passing on the application to us. At that time the report of the Bernal Committee had just been published and we were very anxious that deserving cases should be dealt with quickly to avoid further criticisms. I went to see the Professor at once and submitted a favourable report; the first payment of our grant (S/543A/68) was made a few days later. From that time I have been continually in touch with the research and have assisted to some extent with technical advice.

The equipment used in the experiments is complex, but its principles are simple. Very short but extremely powerful pulses of supersonic waves are generated by a special transmitter which revolves continuously in a pool of a heavy organic liquid. The beam produced passes into the ground and ‘scans’ like a radar beam searching for echoes. By a very ingenious time-delay circuit which I will resist the temptation to describe, echoes from any depth can be selected and so pictures of the strata under investigation can be built up on a cathode ray screen in the normal way.

 When I first met Professor Hancock his apparatus was rather primitive, but he was able to show me the distribution of rock down to a depth of several hundred feet and we could see quite clearly a part of the Bakerloo Line which passed very near his laboratory. Much of the Professor’s success was due to the great intensity of his supersonic bursts; almost from the beginning he was able to generate peak powers of several hundred kilowatts, nearly all of which was radiated into the ground. It was unsafe to remain near the transmitter, and I noticed that the soil became quite warm around it. I was rather surprised to see large numbers of birds in the vicinity, but soon discovered that they were attracted by the hundreds of dead worms lying on the ground.

 At the time of Dr Clayton’s death in 1960, the equipment was working at a power level of over a megawatt and quite good pictures of strata a mile down could be obtained. Dr Clayton had correlated the results with known geographical surveys, and had proved beyond doubt the value of the information obtained.

 Dr Clayton’s death in a motor accident was a great tragedy. He had always exerted a stabilising influence on the Professor, who had never been much interested in the practical applications of his work. Soon afterward I noticed a distinct change in the Professor’s outlook, and a few months later he confided his new ambitions to me. I had been trying to persuade him to publish his results (he had already spent over £50,000 and the Public Accounts Committee was being difficult again), but he asked for a little more time. I think I can best explain his attitude by his own words, which I remember very vividly, for they were expressed with peculiar emphasis.

 ‘Have you ever wondered,’ he said, ‘what the Earth really is like inside? We’ve only scratched the surface with our mines and wells. What lies beneath is as unknown as the other side of the Moon.

 ‘We know that the Earth is unnaturally dense — far denser than the rocks and soil of its crust would indicate. The core may be solid metal, but until now there’s been no way of telling. Even ten miles down the pressure must be thirty tons or more to the square inch and the temperature several hundred degrees. What it’s like at the centre staggers the imagination: the pressure must be thousands of tons to the square inch. It’s strange to think that in two or three years we may have reached the Moon, but when we’ve got to the stars we’ll still be no nearer that inferno four thousand miles beneath our feet.

 ‘I can now get recognisable echoes from two miles down, but I hope to step up the transmitter to ten megawatts in a few months. With that power, I believe the range will be increased to ten miles; and I don’t mean to stop there.’

 I was impressed, but at the same time I felt a little sceptical.

 That’s all very well,’ I said, ‘but surely the deeper you go the less there’ll be to see. The pressure will make any cavities impossible, and after a few miles there will simply be a homogeneous mass getting denser and denser.

 ‘Quite likely,’ agreed the Professor. ‘But I can still learn a lot from the transmission characteristics. Anyway, we’ll see when we get there!’

 That was four months ago; and yesterday I saw the result of that research. When I answered his invitation the Professor was clearly excited, but he gave me no hint of what, if anything, he had discovered. He showed me his improved equipment and raised the new receiver from its bath. The sensitivity of the pickups had been greatly improved, and this alone had effectively doubled the range, altogether apart from the increased transmitter power. It was strange to watch the steel framework slowly turning and to realise that it was exploring regions, which, in spite of their nearness, man might never reach.

 When we entered the hut containing the display equipment, the Professor was strangely silent. He switched on the transmitter, and even though it was a hundred yards away I could feel an uncomfortable tingling. Then the cathode ray tube lit up and the slowly revolving timebase drew the picture I had seen so often before. Now, however, the definition was much improved owing to the increased power and sensitivity of the equipment. I adjusted the depth control and focussed on the Underground, which was dearly visible as a dark lane across the faintly luminous screen. While I was watching, it suddenly seemed to fill with mist and I knew that a train was going through.

 Presently I continued the descent. Although I had watched this picture many times before, it was always uncanny to see great luminous masses floating toward me and to know that they were buried rocks — perhaps the debris from the glaciers of fifty thousand years ago. Dr Clayton had worked out a chart so that we could identify the various strata as they were passed, and presently I saw that I was through the alluvial soil and entering the Lireat clay saucer which traps and holds the city’s artesian water. Soon that too was passed, and I was dropping down through the bedrock almost a mile below the surface.

 The picture was still clear and bright, though there was little to see, for there were now few changes in the ground structure. The pressure was already rising to a thousand atmospheres; soon it would be impossible for any cavity to remain open, for the rock itself would begin to flow. Mile after mile I sank, but only a pale mist floated on the screen, broken sometimes when echoes were returned from pockets or lodes of denser material. They became fewer and fewer as the depth increased — or else they were now so small that they could no longer be seen.

 The scale of the picture was, of course, continually expanding. It was now many miles from side to side, and I felt like an airman looking down upon an unbroken cloud ceiling from an enormous height. For a moment a sense of vertigo seized me as I thought of the abyss into which I was gazing. I do not think that the world will ever seem quite solid to me again.

 At a depth of nearly ten miles I stopped and looked at the Professor. There had been no alteration for some time, and I knew that the rock must now be compressed into a featureless, homogeneous mass. I did a quick mental calculation and shuddered as I realised that the pressure must be at least thirty tons to the square inch. The scanner was revolving very slowly now, for the feeble echoes were taking many seconds to struggle back from the depths.

 ‘Well, Professor,’ I said, ‘I congratulate you. It’s a wonderful achievement. But we seem to have reached the core now. I don’t suppose there’ll be any change from here to the centre.’

 He smiled a little wryly. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘You haven’t finished yet.’

 There was something in his voice that puzzled and alarmed me. I looked at him intently for a moment; his features were just visible in the blue-green glow of the cathode ray tube.

 ‘How far down can this thing go?’ I asked, as the interminable descent started again.

 ‘Fifteen miles,’ he said shortly. I wondered how he knew, for the last feature I had seen at all clearly was only eight miles down. But I continued the long fall through the rock, the scanner turning more and more slowly now, until it took almost five minutes to make a complete revolution. Behind me I could hear the Professor breathing heavily, and once the back of my chair gave a crack as his fingers gripped it.

 Then, suddenly, very faint markings began to reappear on the screen. I leaned forward eagerly, wondering if this was the first glimpse of the world’s iron core. With agonising slowness the scanner turned through a giant angle, then another. And then— I leaped suddenly out of the chaii~, cried ‘My God!’ and turned to face the Professor. Only once before in my life had I received such an intellectual shock — fifteen years ago, when I had accidentally turned on the radio and heard of the fall of the first atomic bomb. That had been unexpected, but this was inconceivable. For on the screen had appeared a grid of faint lines, crossing and recrossing to form a perfectly symmetrical lattice.

 I know that I said nothing for many minutes. for the scanner made a complete revolution while I stood frozen with surprise. Then the Professor spoke in a soft, unnaturally calm voice.

 ‘I wanted you to see it for yourself before I said anything. That picture is now thirty miles in diameter, and those squares are two or three miles on a side. You’ll notice that the vertical lines converge and the horizontal ones are bent into arcs. We’re looking at part of an enormous structure of concentric rings; the centre must lie many miles to the north, probably in the region of Cambridge. How much further it extends in the other direction we can only guess.

 ‘But what is it, for heaven’s sake?’

 ‘Well, it’s clearly artificial.’

 ‘That’s ridiculous! Fifteen miles down!’

 The Professor pointed to the screen again. ‘God knows I’ve done my best,’ be said, ‘but I can’t convince myself that Nature could make anything like that.’

 I had nothing to say, and presently he continued: ‘I discovered it three days ago, when I was trying to find the maximum range of the equipment. I can go deeper than this, and I rather think that the structure we can see is so dense that it won’t transmit my radiations any further.

 ‘I’ve tried a dozen theories, but in the end I keep returning to one. We know that the pressure down there must be eight or nine thousand atmospheres, and the temperature must be high enough to melt rock. But normal matter is still almost empty space. Suppose that there is life down there — not organic life, of course, but life based on partially condensed matter, matter in which the electron shells are few or altogether missing. Do you see what I mean? To such creatures, even the rock fifteen miles down would offer no more resistance than water — and we and all our world would be as tenuous as ghosts.’

 ‘Then that thing we can see— ‘Is a city, or its equivalent. You’ve seen its size, so you can judge for yourself the civilisation that must have built it. All the world we know —our oceans and continents and mountains — is nothing more than a film of mist surrounding something beyond our comprehension.’

 Neither of us said anything for a while. I remember feeling a foolish Surprise at being one of the first men in the world to learn the appalling truth; for somehow I never doubted that it was the truth. And I wondered bow the rest of humanity would react when the revelation came.

 Presently I broke into the silence. ‘If you’re right,’ I said, ‘why have they - whatever they are — never made contact with us?’

 The Professor looked at me rather pityingly. ‘We think we’re good engineers,’ he said, ‘but how could we reach them? Besides, I’m not at all sure that there haven’t been contacts. Think of all the underground creatures and the mythology — trolls and cobalds and the rest. No, it’s quite impossible — I take it back. Still the idea is rather suggestive.’

 All the while the pattern on the screen had never changed: the dim 3etwork still glowed there, challenging our sanity. I tried to imagine streets and buildings and the creatures going among them, creatures who could make their way through the incandescent rock as a fish swims through water. It was fantastic ... and then I remembered the incredibly narrow range of temperature and pressures under which the human race exists. We, not they, were the freaks, for almost all the matter in the universe is at temperatures of thousands or even millions of degrees.

 ‘Well,’ I said lamely, ‘what do we do now?’

 The Professor leaned forward eagerly. ‘First we must learn a great deal more, and we must keep this an absolute secret until we are sure of the facts. Can you imagine the panic there would be if this information leaked out? Of course, the truth’s inevitable sooner or later, but we may be able to break it slowly.

 ‘You’ll realise that the geological surveying side of my work is now utterly unimportant. The first thing we have to do is to build a chain of stations to find the extent of the structure. I visualise them at ten-mile intervals towards the north, but I’d like to build the first one somewhere in South London to see how extensive the thing is. The whole job will have to be kept as secret as the building of the first radar chain in the late thirties.

 ‘At the same time, I’m going to push up my transmitter power again. I hope to be able to beam the output much more narrowly, and so greatly increase the energy concentration. But this will involve all sorts of mechanical difficulties, and I’ll need more assistance.’

 I promised to do my utmost to get further aid, and the Professor hopes that you will soon be able to visit his laboratory yourself. In the meantime I am attaching a photograph of the vision screen, which although not as clear as the original will, I hope, prove beyond doubt that our observations are not mistaken.

 I am well aware that our grant to the Interplanetary Society has brought us dangerously near the total estimate for the year, but surely even the crossing of space is less important than the immediate investigation of this discovery which may have the most profound effects on the philosophy and the future of the whole human race.


 I sat back and looked at Karn. There was much in the document I had not understood, but the main outlines were clear enough.

 ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘this is it! Where’s that photograph?’

 He handed it over. The quality was poor, for it had been copied many times before reaching us. But the p~ttern was unmistakable and I recognised it at once.

 ‘They were good scientists,’ I said admiringly. ‘That’s Callastheon, all right. So we’ve found the truth at last, even if it has taken us three hundred years to do it.’

 ‘Is that surprising,’ asked Karn, ‘when you consider the mountain of stuff we’ve had to translate and the difficulty of copying it before it evaporates?’

 I sat in silence for a while, thinking of the strange race whose relics we were examining. Only once — never again! — had I gone up the great vent our engineers had opened into the Shadow World. It had been a frightening and unforgettable experience. The multiple layers of my pressure suit had made movement very difficult, and despite their insulation I could sense the unbelievable cold that was all around me.

 ‘What a pity it was,’ I mused, ‘that our emergence destroyed them so completely. They were a clever race, and we might have learned a lot from them.’

 ‘I don’t think we can be blamed,’ said Karn. ‘We never really believed that anything could exist under those awful conditions of near-vacuum, and almost absolute zero. It couldn’t be helped.’

 I did not agree. ‘I think it proves that they were the more intelligent race. After all, they discovered us first. Everyone laughed at my grandfather when he said that the radiation he’d detected from the Shadow World must be artificial.’

 Karn ran one of his tentacles over the manuscript.

 ‘We’ve certainly discovered the cause of that radiation,’ he said. ‘Notice the date — it’s just a year before your grandfather’s discovery. The Professor must have got his grant all right!’ He laughed unpleasantly. ‘It must have given him a shock when he saw us coming up to the surface, right underneath him.’

 I scarcely heard his words, for a most uncomfortable feeling had suddenly come over me. I thought of the thousands of miles of rock lying below the great city of Callastheon, growing hotter and denser all the way to the Earth’s unknown core. And so I turned to Karn.

 ‘That isn’t very funny,’ I said quietly. ‘It may be our turn next.’

Creepy Crawly Diets :)

Written in one of my whacky moods, a rejected article for HT Edge:

Its tea-time and you want something nice and light to munch. How does a fried wasp sound? Or probably a “fat-bottomed” ant?

Before you shout “Atrocious” you should know that a policy paper on eating insects is being formally proposed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. Touted as “Green Meat”, insect meat could be a highly simple, cost-effective solution to the twin problems of global warming and land-resource over-utilization. Arnold Van Huis, the author of the UN paper points out that at present livestock occupies 2/3^rd of the world’s farmland and generates 20% of all greenhouse gases. With world population estimated at 9 billion in 2050, the meat consumption will shoot to such extents that the land needed to support livestock would amount to another Earth!

Compare this to the meager land insects occupy and the high levels of proteins, vitamins and mineral content they have (twice that of livestock). Indeed they could be the next big thing in food. They also come with the added benefit of 10 times less methane emission and 300 times less nitrous oxide (both potent greenhouse gases).

India could derive a few whacky benefits from the weird UN proposal, considering it is a tropical country where insects grow to large sizes and are easy to harvest. With 1500 varieties of insects to farm, we could export the newest delicacies on the block for huge profits. Insect farming would provide livelihood in a country where unemployment rules and no poverty alleviation programme has an impact. Farming of pests such as locusts would not only protect crops but would also benefit the environment by reducing use of pesticides. On the side, it would protect forests where wild insects are collected. It could also be a great solution to the food scarcity problem remote villages in India face.

“Ah! Here comes the yuck factor” you say, but you’ll be surprised to know that insects are eaten in many parts of India such as the Santhal tribal belts (Ant eggs and larvae) and the North East (Grasshoppers and Giant water Bugs). With a bohemian and increasingly daring generation coming of age, insects as food could just work, given the introduction is smooth and appetizing. So here’s to the new bug on the block!

To Samy, With Love

"Divya!! It is very big…. Crawling under your shirt collar… so big, so big!" My voice was barely a whisper.

"What is it? What's under my shirt collar?" Divya asked.

"Its so big… so big!" was all I could manage.

"Oh my god! Is it a snake? Tell me Vasco… What is it?" Now Divya was working into a panic.

I could only eye the large roach moving under the collar and whimper, too afraid to even take its name. You would have expected the thin girl who walked into the midst of this scene to be as scared as we were; but she simply went up to Divya, shook the offending roach off her and shove it out of the room while I screamed and danced like a dervish.

That was Sameera: insect-hunter, lizard-hater, TV-tuner, anime-lover; quirky enough to admire ingenious anime villains and hate harmless strawberries and flowers. Divya, in an inspired moment, named her our "Antichrist Superstar" a title which piqued Samy and also made her smile despite herself.

Though the superstar liked Pink shrieking "So what? I am a rockstar…" she didn't like Divya and me crooning Escaflowne, an anime title song we had taken a fancy to. The moment we went, "Ee---eeeee---ssscaaaaa---flowneeeeeeeeeeeeeee" Samy griitted her teeth and plugged her ears in an effort to block us out. But we chanted on and on, in different tunes and pitches till she gave up and sat with her back to us, her lips twitching in an ill-suppressed smile.

Samy smiled a lot, an indulgent sort of smile. Of course no less was expected when she put up with such harum-scarums as Divya, Keerthi and me, her PS-mates at NAL, Bangalore. She smiled when Divya said the day had become too boring and went on to imagine ghosts, ghouls and secret portals to hell into our mundane room. She smiled when Keerthi said, "Its 10:46 am right now, lets meet up in 13 minutes-that is 10:59- at the gate." She smiled, sitting calmly on her bed while I searched frantically for my shoes one morning until her pity was roused. Then she came forward to magnanimously lift up the blanket and reveal the errant shoes lying on my bed where I had absent-mindedly put them along with my clothes the night before.

That smile, the pet-peeves about strawberries and lizards, that peculiar taste in songs… they made Samy a real person to me. It is always these little things, the traits and quirks that make a person unique and real to you. And when such a person is torn from you it hurts.

Samy died last month in a road accident. Ever since Keerthi told me the news one morning, I've been hoping he will call and tell me it was all a sad sad joke. I've not even told my family about this painful incident in this mad, desperate hope…. It is not easy to believe that a person you can clearly picture in your mind, calling out in her warm, familiar way, could really be gone. That a road accident snuffed out a bright, budding life is just not acceptable. The bus-driver who was at fault for driving in the wrong lane still lives, probably with a few injuries but my friend died. I want to go back in time and warn the driver, to tell him a few minutes saved is not worth a life lost, but death has a horrifying finality about it. Samy won't come back and so it becomes more important to me that all the rest of the people I hold dear to my heart stay safe. Road incidents kill more people than any war or riot does. Please do be careful that no action of yours causes such pain to yourselves or to others.

Samy and I made a hundred plans to meet up after PS ended. Haridwar, Delhi, Aurangabad… all were venues for proposed rendezvous. When I fall into thinking about our plans, I can't help imagining that I will bump into her someday, just the way I unexpectedly meet up with old friends sometimes. Grappling with harsh reality is a mind-numbing task, and I am very grateful I didn't have to deal with the grief alone when first I knew what had happened. I happened to be visiting Bangalore where Divya was at the time. We met up immediately, and held our own memorial service of sorts. We were quiet for sometime but old memories stirred us up soon and we talked away, remembering the beautiful times we had shared: the long walks along Airport road, the Sunday brunches when everybody pretended to like my bland aloo-mash, evenings spent huddled together watching "Supernatural", Divya and me laughing while Samy wrinkled her nosein disgust at the stray flower that had somehow landed on her bed.… Soon we were smiling,those memories of Samy seemed to make her a real presence among us. I felt a measure of peace in that moment, with a person who knew and cherished Samy as much as I did. Whenever the grief becomes too much to handle, I think back to that meeting, and feel better again. I know that Samy lives in my memories… and nobody, no event can tarnish them. I feel thankful that I knew Samy and had a part in her short life.

Lady Line and the story of the Rings

Gandalf flew over the mystic land of Go-A* trying to spot middle-BITS*, where he had a meeting with the Lady Line. He caught sight of a beautiful country, all domes and stately buildings, with tree-lined vistas and a river winding its sparkling course through it.
"Here we are" he thought, "now Lady Line must be in that there dome". He started descending, and perceived a crowd gathered at the steps. Lady Line was holding court. He landed softly at the edge of the crowd and looked up at the Lady. He was shocked to see a six-feet tall line, glimmering and shining, holding the crowd enthralled with the most enchanting voice he had ever heard. Meanwhile his own tall figure and billowing white robes had caught attention of the Lady, who now descended the steps and came towards him with graceful, long strides.
"Welcome Wizard Gandalf from sister world Ea" she said in her majestic voice.
Now that she was near Gandalf could see that the Lady was a very thin but very beautiful elf. She glimmered and shone as if seen through a sparkling mist.
"Of course the time of the elves draws to a close.. here in middle-BITS as in middle Earth on Ea. I have heard tell Lady Line intends to sail to the Far West soon."he thought.
To the Lady he said, "Your gracious highness Lady Line, I have come to Go-A to seek respite and recourse from the affairs of the Ring in Ea."
"I have been informed of your world and its travails, and I would like to hear more and help. Please be my guest at the Palace this afternoon" said her highness and with a sweep of her hand, bade him follow.
They walked to a beautiful palace, looking out at a great lawn abloom with flowers and shrubs of all hues. At the gate of the Palace stood two elves, one shuffling uncomfortably and darting fearful glances at the Lady and the other plainly angry, her nostrils dilating with the effort to keep from shouting. They both looked so funny that Gandalf sniggered. Lady Line raised her eyebrows at him, and hurried forward to the pair.
"Oh dear lady Don," she said in a plaintive tone, so melting that it made the shuffling lady sniffle, "please don't cry, but you do distress me. You don't mean to say you have lost the palace keys again?"
"She means to say exactly that, your highness." said the second lady, her scowl deepening and nostrils dilating ever more rapidly. Clearly her patience had been tried very hard by the lady Don. She went on speaking, "To cause least inconvenience to our esteemed guest, I suggest you sign this scroll immediately and have a new key procured". With this she produced a two scrolls, one which ordered the smithy to forge a new key for the palace and the other blank. The Lady Line took up the peacock feather quill proffered to her, and proceeded to sign on this other scroll, which activity caused Gandalf, who had been sniggering into his robes all this while, to let out a loud guffaw, for that signature was the largest ever, sprawling over the entire scroll, all loops and flourishes. Lady Line did her raised-eyebrow act again, which made him go back to sniggering into his robes.
After a messenger had been sent, bearing the two scrolls,to the smithy, Lady Line suggested they go sit in the lawn and have some light talk before lunch. Accordingly they went and Gandalf held the three ladies enraptured with his story of middle Earth and the elves, ents and hobbits. He had saved up the story of the Ring for later, when the Lady,with no keys on her mind, may hopefully suggest some solution to him.
Soon the new keys were brought over, and Lady Line, with many remonstrances, and to the utmost consternation of lady Omega (she of the dilating nostrils), handed the keys to lady Don. They went inside, the ladies still debating the keeping of the keys, and were soon in the chamber of Lady Line. It was in the topmost tower of the palace, and commanded a view of the lawn, the dome, most of middle-BITS, and the river sparkling in the distance. The view was enrapturing, but the same could not be said of the chamber. As soon as Gandalf stepped into the room, his slippers got stuck to the remains of some sticky sweetmeat her ladyship had been having last. When he extricated them and came inside he saw clothes strewn everywhere, books upon books (the lady seemed an erudite scholar) lay all rumble-tumble upon the royal table. A huge stand held anything that the Lady could rub, massage or squirt onto her face and hair. But unfortunately it held more bodies of insects lured by the night-lights than the cosmetics. Lady Don, on seeing the stricken countenance of the wizard, hurriedly started gathering up clothes from the floor, the bed and anywhere they were strewn and stuffed them in a heap inside the already overflowing cupboard. All this while, the Lady had been preening in front of the mirror, and now asked lady Don, "Dear Don, what do you think shall I wear tomorrow?"
Both the ladies then became engrossed in the subject of haute-couture and Gandalf, forgotten, sat morosely by lady Omega whose stomach gave loud groans in protestation to such frivolity as dresses while lunch stood waiting. But then something happened that drove food clean out of Gandalf's mind. The Lady Line, having decided her dress brought out a most ornate chest, decorated with elvish runes, and threw it open. There, dazzling in a hundred different hues, and cut in intricate patterns, lay hundreds of RINGS!
Gandalf was most taken aback but Lady Line calmly went on trying them, trying to decide what rings to adorn her ears with. Very agitated, Gandalf spoke, "But Lady,there are so many rings here!"
"I know, such darling rings, don't you think? They are my preciousss!" said the Lady, lovingly stroking them.
Gandalf writhed at the loving, caressing tone of the Lady's voice.
"But your highness they must be destroyed! That is what we are striving for in Ea, with one ring... but you.. you have hundreds.." he ended weakly.
Lady Line looked at him with sudden wrath flaming in her eyes, " Destroy them! destroy my precious! Gandalf, I declare you an enemy, begone from my palace" she cried.
A loud rumble startled them all, and before any of them could recover, lady Omega sprang up,"Your darlings and preciouses be darned! The old fool is right, destroy them, destroy these trinkets that make you forget food, that fount of life!" and with a mad gleam in her eyes, she made off with the ring-chest.
Lady Line stood stricken for a moment, then cried, "My slippers, my slippers, quick good lady Don, where are my slippers?"
"Err...Lady Line, I think I picked them and stashed them away with your clothes" mumbled lady Don, wringing her hands.
"Well, whatever will you do next?! But my darlings, my precious... I must save them!" with this Lady Line ran off bare-feet.
Gandalf stood a moment, mumbling to himself, hurried out of the room, stumbling on the sweetmeat again. He had decided to intercept the good lady Omega and make off with the chest of rings to the Sea, where it would be dropped and lie undisturbed till he solved the problems of Ea and could concern himself with Go-A. Lady Don ran after him. Loud shouts echoed in the palace. The two ladies were shouting unprintable things at each other while doing the Cat-and-Mouse routine. Gandalf ran to where the voices came from, lady Don still after him. A mad chase started, that kept all four running up and down the palace all afternoon, banging against walls, twisting their ankles and blasting curses(Gandalf with his wand, the ladies with their tongues). At long last Gandalf heard the screams drawing nearer. It seemed Lady Line had caught up with Lady Omega and was engaged in a scuffle. He put on a last spurt of speed, lest the rings fall into Lady Line's hands again. When he reached them, the ladies were wrestling with each other, Lady Line twisting lady Omega's hand while lady Omega held Lady Line's neck in a deathlock with her free hand. The treasure chest lay flung away, as yet unheeded. Gandalf made for it, but just as he came up to the ladies, lady Omega made an attempt to free her hand, raising it suddenly. The sudden jerk of the arm caught Gandalf squarely on the nose. He keeled backwards and fell senseless on the floor. The dull thud, and lady Don's cry made both ladies come to their senses. A wizard lay injured in the palace. This was grave.
They quietly carried him to Lady Line's chamber and lay him on the insect-strewn bed. It was decided to call over GoAir the wind-lord to have Gandalf carried back to Ea. He would be lowered into the ocean in a lifeboat, where he could lie undisturbed from the affairs of any rings for quite some time. That would give Lady Line time to close the gate to Ea, and to a furious Gandalf. Lady Omega, having sated her rumbling hunger with a cuppa-manna thought more benignly of the rings now, and was quite inclined to agree with Lady Line about the "funny old geezer".
With everybody's good humour finally restored, they had a good laugh over the minutes of the day's events that lady Don read out to them.

The Fairy from the Portrait

Kanishka trembled with ill-concealed joy. She had been waiting quite some time now. At last she heard quick footsteps in the corridor and there seemed to be a gleam about the air outside. She waited with bated breath as the footsteps sounded nearer and nearer until they were almost outside her door.

Then there was bang and thud and a loud "OW!!! Grrrr!"

Kanishka jumped quickly and opened the door. On her doorstep there lay a fairy.

"Thank God she had wings.." Kanishka would say later "... for otherwise I would have thought it was just one of my prankster friends out to have a laugh at my expense"

Indeed, with glasses askew, loose T-shirt and jeans that were torn at the knees, the figure that sat holding its head with both hands could hardly fit human imagination of a fairy. Only the wings, and a soft halo gave away the fairy.

"Err...Hi, you must be one of those from the Portrait. Why don't you come in." said Kanishka, not knowing what else to do.

The fairy was shaken out of her daze and said,"Yes, I am Omega. We made an appointment in your dream...." again she became abstracted and started to look around for something.

"Have you misplaced something?" asked Kanishka

"Yes, I had brought a surprise for you, but I don't know where it landed when I fell." said Omega morosely, still looking all around. Kanishka spotted a squashed package lying at the far end of the corridor. She brought it over and said, "I think I have found my surprise."

Omega looked up, and heaved a sigh of relief, "Yes that's it. Go on, open it."

Kanishka opened the package expectantly. A shrill voice cried out, "OMEGA YOU CHUMP!"

Kanishka was taken aback to see a chocolate cake frowning at her out of the package.

When it realised it had shouted at the wrong person, the cake became embarassed.

"I am sorry" it said in a much smaller voice, "...but that Omega just messed me up."

"Err... umm.... sorry Choco" said Omega in a faltering voice from behind.

That seemed to anger the cake once again.

" "Sorry?" "Sorry?" You nemesis of all cakes! What good is sorry when because of you my nose is now stuck to the lid of this package?! I wish fairyland scientists would hurry up with that Anti-Omega spell. In the pipeline they say... but do we keep falling prey to the greatest terror of cakes till then? I ask you....."

It would have gone on but Omega shut the lid back on and gave Kanishka a wan smile. Kanishka stifled her laughter and ushered Omega in. The room cheered her mood considerably.

"Look at the old Portrait! I like the way you have decorated it." she said, switching the lights off and on, enjoying the greenish glitter of the radium stickers that Kanishka had put on around the Portrait That Never Teared. "We had good times here," said Omega, reminiscently looking around the room " chatting away till late, debating hotly about something, sometimes studying together, or watching movies while eating pastry from Mongini's..." Omega's voice trailed off.

Kanishka looked at the Portrait closely. It was a simple portrait, done by an amateur painter, but its mystery lay in the fact that it refused to tear, even though decades had passed after it had first been pasted. The young faces there showed years of closeness and camaraderie. The eyes were bright with joyful companionship. Kanishka had always thought it to be unaccountably beautiful.

A loud rumbling brought Kanishka back to the present. She immediately ran to the window, to see if it was cloudy. She would need to collect her clothes before it rained, which it was sure to, with such loud thunder.

"Err... heh heh... in case you are wondering, that was not thunder, it was my stomach." said Omega shamefacedly, "I got hungry talking about pastries." she mumbled.

Kanishka gave a snort and disguised into a cough, briskly walking to the cupboard in an effort to fight an overwhelming desire to laugh.

"Will you have Maggi?" she asked

"Oh yes, Oh yes!" shrieked Omega and gambolled over to the cupboard,"Oh look... there are Banana Chips.. and Bourbon Biscuits too! I will surely tell Vazz you keep this room better than ever she did!"

Kanishka smiled. Fairy or not, Omega was just the same as she had read about in the famous comic book "MEG(H)A LAUGH DIGEST" She was sure Omega and Mohini had their Tom and Jerry fights in fairyland too.

" So how did you get to fairyland?" she asked.

"That is a long story.." said Omega, busily munching a biscuit, "see, we were all ordinary people, but together we were Magic. An atmosphere of that mysterious power called Love brewed of itself when we were together. Once, long after we had left this college, we all met and were chatting, smiling and laughing, as you can only in the presence of those most beloved to you, when we felt dizzy all at once, and all fell unconscious. When we woke we were in a different land, breathtakingly beautiful and brimming over with joy... Yes joy, gladness and mirth are tangible in that land, just like air. But sticking to the story, we were pretty perplexed how we came to be there all of a sudden. The explanation came (you know, ideas float around there, beautiful, lucent ideas not thought of here) and it was understandable even to us mortals. It had been the result of a transition. You know Heisenberg's principle, you cannot predict the position of an electron exactly, you only know the probability of its being somewhere in some point of time. It is the same with different planes of existence. They all revolve around the ONE, just like atoms revolve around the nucleus. You can never predict where one plane will be, it could be at a different orbit now, some other orbit the other moment. In such a moment of transition, when the plane of pure love (or fairyland to us) intersected with earth, we happened to be filled with that feeling and so got transferred to that plane."

"Woah that's a heady mix. Spirituality and Science in co-existence" said Kanishka, her head reeling.

"Heh heh. Well, we were just too curious about what happened to the place where we all first met, so we have kept constant tabs on the college and this room especially. You seemed very receptive, so we contacted you in your dream. You know that's when human beings travel the other planes uninterrupted. Today I have come to meet you and give you this phial." said Omega, handing over a small phial to Kanishka, "It contains Love, it is our blessing to a place which blessed us with joys unimagined."

With a last bite, Omega parted, leaving Kanishka dreamily staring out, the phial carefully placed in a nook, to shower all coming generations of inhabitants with love and joy.

PS: This post is written to relate to you the story of a very special person, Megha (I didn't leave much to imagination on that point) who is, by turns, a joker, a wise scholar, a clumsy, innocent baby and above all who shares with me a very very special bond. Its her birthday this 24/7 and though I can't be there to wish her personally, I want to tell her through this blog, that I am always thinking of her and missing her terribly.

Enchanted by Pop-Biscuits

Up and up the Faraway Tree they went,

wondering what folk lived behing those little windows...

They knocked at a little round door and the loveliest little elf answered.

"You look hot and tired..." she said,

" come and have some pop biscuits, I've just finished baking them".

The Enchanted Wood, and more particularly the giant Faraway Tree, whose top touches lands such as the land of presents and the land of parties, is every child's dream woven into words. Whenever I sat down to read this memorable book, I saw to it that I had something to eat... for how are you supposed to survive those hunger-pangs when you read about the mouth-watering Google-Buns and Pop-Biscuits that Silky the elf bakes or the Toffee-Shocks and hundred different kinds of jams that Moon-Face keeps?

Pop-Biscuits appeared to me the most delicious eatables of all time, what with the honey filling your mouth as soon as you bit into them. I was pretty crazy about the Enchanted Wood as a child and even pretended that the discarded steel shelf in my room was the Faraway Tree. I used to put my sister on the top-shelf and pretend she was Silky, busily baking Pop-Biscuits for her friends (that was me and a host of imaginary people). I would lazily climb the tree, shelf by shelf, picking up an imaginary apple from this branch, a cherry from the other, chatting up Moon-Face and the Saucepan-Man, who lived a shelf below Silky, and finally reach Silky's house where we would gorge on the pop-biscuits.

The Saucepan Man with his saucepans

These biscuits were such a fascination with me, I even put them on the menu when we played Restaurant (yeah, you read that right). When my sister royally walked in and ordered Pop-Biscuits, she would be served Brittania biscuits with honey poured over them. People planning to visit me don't need to be worried, my Restaurant doesn't serve such Pop-Biscuits anymore. But although I grew up, the Enchanted Wood never faded from my memory.

In college I had an amazing time discussing books, right from Atlas Shrugged to the Alchemist with my friend Megha. We never discussed Enchanted Wood and Pop-Biscuits somehow, but they came back in our lives in a most amazing fashion. My friend Daniel, who is also my senior in college, happened to bring me Eclairs on one of his visits. I had never eaten Eclairs before, so I just thought they were regular cookies. I gave some to perenially hungry Megha and went off to do some work. Late at night, hunger struck and I remembered the eclairs and brought them out. I bit into one, and I thought for a moment that honey flew into my mouth. I looked at the cookie in surprise and realised it was filled with cream, not honey. But it was a pleasant surprise all the same, to taste something that really could be my beloved Pop-Biscuits. I rushed to Megha's room and asked, "Megha, woh cookies khaye?"

She was all excitement too, " Haan haan, woh ekdum Silky wale biscuits jaise the na?"

Eclairs-nee-Pop Biscuits

We stared at each other. It was like discovering my friend all over again. She had read the Enchanted Wood too! She knew about Pop-Biscuits!! We were soon talking away like crazy, analysing the Angry Pixie and Mr. Watzisname and laughing over Dame Washalot and imagining what fun life would be if we could be Joe or Bessie or Fanny, munching away at our Pop-Biscuits all the while. I'll remember that episode forever as one of the sweetest of my life, what with my dream of eating pop-biscuits coming true and sharing that experience with one of my dearest friends.

Me(left) and Megha

P.S. This post would be incomplete without a hundred thanks to Daniel, who made our trip down memory-lane possible. :)

The Auto Menace

Hey dudes and dudettes,
This blog is in tribute to all those Auto-drivers who live to transform the most easy-going, quiet individuals into raging, bickering passengers. All through my industrial training in Bangalore I ranted about the high rates they charged, but Bangalore's breed pales in comparison to Delhi's tribe of Auto-Rickshaw drivers. At least the Bangalore clan has meters, and most of the drivers abide by them, but come to Delhi and you'll find the drivers charging any amount they wish. Haggling for ten minutes makes them decrease the fare by 10-20 rupees which is hardly any compensation to your pocket. Then to top it all they have such rude language and absolutely no respect for passengers. I have had two bad experiences with these U.P. autowallahs: one charged 130 rupees where it should have cost just 80, and after driving some distance tells us "Auto dheere hi chalegi... kuchh pareshani toh nahi hai na" it drove me clean mad but we were running late and the auto didn't seem to be too slow so we went on, but with distance the auto slowed down to such an extent a bullock-cart overtook us at a point. I gave the driver a long sermon on honesty but he just kept smiling stupidly, then I gave him just 100 rupees(he still made a profit!) and he stood yelling and cursing at our backs.
The other was when we came back from the Ghaziabad RTO where we had gone to get my learner's license made. The driver overcharged, but that's something all auto-drivers do, this one was more insane than is usual among the tribe, he slept off while driving and when shaken awake said, "Kya aapatti hai? door door tak tirafeek nahi hai.. sone do" . Then he stopped at the main road and wouldn't take us to our society which is only a little way inside. When my mother asked him to drop us at the society he looked out of the corner of his eyes and in a most sarcastic tone said, "Madam tumhara dimag kharab hai". There he crossed the limit. My father stood ready to slap him and I pretended trying to pull my shoes off to beat him. That unnerved him and he apologised. ("Munh se fisal gaya bhaiya...").

People who know me are probably laughing their heads off at the thought of Vasudha beating somebody, even scolding somebody... but these mindless autowallahs have managed making me that angry. Its not something I am very proud of, I have managed to hold my temper through four years of college when some people gave me great temptation to lose it, but here, the autowallah finally got the better of me. But now that I have gotten angry enough to write a post on it, I want to put it to good use. Its high time we did something about the auto menace... I have thought of putting up posters in socities and malls informing people of the actual fare that should be charged and what they are being charged and encouraging them to sign, probably these signatures could be taken up to the DM or whichever person is involved (I have a very rough idea... only the poster part clear right now). The problem is not restricted to U.P. only... I went to Orissa recently and the autos there didn;t go by the meter too... this is a widespread problem so we could create FaceBook community or setup a website against such miscreants.... do you people have any ideas on how to bring auto-drivers to book? do let me know....