Free KALYUG by R. SREERAM Page A

remarked.
    ‘Of course,’ Raghav Menon agreed. ‘Even Indira Gandhi had to go to then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to get him to sign off on the Emergency – as constitutional as it was. If you look at it another way, every new government – voted or coalesced – has to present itself to the President first to stake a claim. Why change tradition?’
    ‘Why indeed?’ I muttered sarcastically, albeit quieter than I intended to.
    At that precise instant, the door to the cockpit opened and the co-pilot walked over with a folded sheet which he handed over to Raghav. With a slight bow, the co-pilot retreated to his place while Raghav unfolded the sheet and read the message. A genuine smile of satisfaction briefly lit up his face; then abruptly, as if he had suddenly remembered my presence, the saccharine smile was back. He passed the note over to me.
    Clockwork, said the message. Maintain STA.
    ‘STA?’
    ‘Scheduled Time of Arrival,’ he explained. ‘As I am sure you might have guessed, there are other . . . events, shall we say, that are happening on the ground even as we are on the move. Everything’s choreographed to the last second, action and reaction accounted for. Chess pieces, if you will, playing towards an inevitable checkmate.’
    ‘The best laid plans of mice and men,’ I pointed out.
    ‘You really are a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?’ he asked, but there was no malice in his tone. At least, none that I could detect. Then he stretched his hands high above his head, almost touching the overhead compartment, before standing up.
    ‘There’s a loo at the back, if you want to use it. I’m going to have a coffee from the pantry – do you want some?’
    I shrugged my acceptance of the second offer, but the power of auto-suggestion soon had me falling in with the first offer as well. I walked over to the back and used the small toilet there to relieve myself, returning just in time to find Raghav Menon placing a cup of coffee in the recess in my armrest.
    ‘Thanks,’ I said reluctantly as I sat down. The brew was hot and fragrant – probably out of a flask and not a machine, I thought automatically. You don’t live in any of the southern states without learning to identify the type of coffee with just a whiff. I took a sip that confirmed my diagnostics – hot and strong – and my estimate for the company I had went up just a slight notch. At least, I thought to myself sarcastically, I wasn’t dealing with an amateur coffee-maker.
    ‘O bat els bisapening?’
    I barely recognized the words coming out my mouth. In fact, I barely registered the sensation of a thicker tongue, for the plane suddenly seemed to pitch and sway menacingly. I raised my hands to my face and clasped it quite firmly with all twenty fingers, but that seemed to have little effect on the way my vision danced languorously in front of me.
    Too late, I realized I had been drugged – or worse, poisoned. As the world faded to black around me, I knew that I would be unharmed. Killing me with a poisoned coffee was pointless, especially in light of the effort that had been expended in getting me into this aircraft and plying me with fantastic tales. My last coherent observation was my book slipping off my lap and falling to the floor and I slumped into an uncomfortable, and involuntary slumber as the flight continued on its way to New Delhi.
    23rd March, 2012. New Delhi.
    Terror strikes Delhi again , screamed the headline in a national daily. Beside the main column, inside a box barely four inches by six, another headline informed, Decorated General’s Wife Among Victims.
    Inside the box, affixed with a photo stamp, the Press Trust of India elaborated:
    22 March, New Delhi: One of the most high-profile victims of yesterday’s attack has been identified as Mrs Syeda Qureshi, wife of decorated war veteran Major-General Iqbal Qureshi of the 21st North Battalion. According to eye-witness accounts and CCTV footage retrieved from the mall,