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  But Niraj Roy was not Niraj Roy at that moment. It was pure survival instinct and the desire to live longer that were in control and making all the decisions. With his eyes closed, Niraj let go off Reddy’s hand. In fact, Niraj’s eyes were closed ever since the impact of the plane against the mountain. Reddy’s eyes and mouth were wide open as he fell, before hitting his head on a rock below. Reddy’s last words briefly flashed across Niraj’s mind, “I know I can rely on you with my life, Niraj.”

  Anil and Umar too shut their eyes as they thought of the master controller of the universe in their last fleeting moments.

  When the three lucky passengers on the unlucky flight opened their eyes, they saw and felt chilly waters all around them. “Maybe this is how heaven or hell looked,” they thought. They felt the urge to take a deep breath, as they pushed themselves onto the surface of the water. Anil frantically kicked his legs and hands as he did not know how to swim. Fortunately, the water was not that deep. As they rose above the water surface and looked around, they saw each other and the beautiful mountains enveloped by a milky cover of dense white clouds. The earth had never looked so close to heaven before.

  They had landed in a small pond of water on a plateau somewhere mid-way in the mountain range. They had survived the crash. Just the three of them.

  4

  “Is this true?! Are we actually alive?” Umar shouted loudly, looking up at the sky, half in joy and half in disbelief.

  Anil and Niraj were too exhausted, physically and mentally, to say anything. They sat down on the grass near the pond, folded their hands and looked up.

  “Let’s get out from here before it gets dark,” Umar suggested to the other two men.

  “Yes, Umar has a point. I don’t think the rescue team will be able to find us that quickly, if at all they look for us. They may assume that the whole plane crashed and got burnt. The rear part of the plane, which brought us here, is now deep inside the pond.” Anil applied his management concepts to explain the surreal situation.

  “Hi! I am Niraj. Niraj Roy. I think the rescue team may count the number of dead or burnt bodies and find that some are missing.”

  “I doubt they would be able to do so. And even if they do, they may assume that the missing bodies have been eaten by the wild animals,” Anil replied immediately.

  “There are wild animals here?” Umar and Niraj asked almost in unison.

  “It’s a dense forest area. Why would the wild animals not be here? This is their home,” said Anil.

  “I just want to go home. Let’s get moving,” said Umar, the youngest and the most energetic among the three. He had been injured the most in the accident but he was unmindful of it.

  Niraj went to the edge of the plateau and quickly made a mental note of the topography. He came back and explained his strategy to Anil and Umar.

  “I think we can quickly reach the bottom of the mountain through the trail made by the mountain goats. From there, the river is just a few kilometres ahead. We can reach the river by night. And then we can keep walking along the banks of the river the entire night. I am sure by morning we will come across someone to help us.”

  The three of them were ready to embark on their next journey together. Walking down the mountain was not easy, especially for Anil who had a bad knee. But if he could survive a plane crash, he surely could survive a worn-out knee, thought Anil, as he continued to keep pace with Niraj and Umar. Other than Umar slipping on the loose pebbles once, there was no other mishap on the way to the base of the mountain.

  Niraj was thirsty, while Anil was hungry. Luckily for them, Umar had a small bottle of water in one of the many pockets of his loose-fitting trousers and a bar of Snickers in another pocket. This was a habit he had developed ever since he started going to the gym. He would never go out anywhere without these two items and a small album containing a portfolio of his photographs. Umar quickly checked inside the biggest pocket and was relieved to find his album intact.

  “Umar, are you a model?” Niraj asked.

  “Yes. And I hope to get into movies too,” said Umar.

  “Well, I hope the deep scar on your face heals fast then,” Anil said bluntly.

  Umar had felt the pain on his face and he knew there was a cut. But he did not know how wide or deep it was. The icy-cold water of the pond and the adrenaline rush in his body had numbed his pain. He raised his hand to his face to feel the cut. He knew immediately that it was worse than what he thought. He did not know whether to curse Allah for ruining his dreams or thank him for keeping him alive. He also knew he had no time for deliberating his fate and future in the middle of a forest, when the sun was just going down.

  “Let’s move on,” Umar shouted, trying to hide his distress.

  The trio reached the banks of the River Beas when it was nearly dark. As the water was not deep, they took a quick dip and also drank water from the river to their heart’s content. Fresh and energised from the pure mineral water from the mountains, they started walking along the river, according to the plan. They walked continuously for the next four hours, holding each other’s hands and puffing and panting even in the chill of the night.

  “Anil, what do you do?” Niraj asked Anil who was struggling the most.

  “I am a professor at IIM-Ahmedabad. And you?”

  “I offer security services to a small group of businessmen and celebrities,” Niraj said and then added with a bit of dramatic flourish, “You are the brain. And I am the body. The brain needs less energy than the body. You should not be tired.”

  “You are the brain, and you the body. And I was to be a heartthrob. Of millions. But now…,” wondered Umar aloud, as his mind wandered afar.

  “Don’t fret over it, Umar. You will still be the heartthrob of your mother and father. And that’s more valuable than anything else. A lot of people don’t realise that…,” consoled Niraj, as his mind wandered too.

  Anil was hardly paying attention to them, as he was following a pair of eyes stalking them from behind the trees for a while now. He was not able to figure out the animal. But he knew that the pair of eyes was clearly interested in the tired and fatigued group that was struggling to keep awake and keep walking.

  Anil picked up a stone from the river bank and threw in the direction of the animal. He also tried to shout with whatever little energy he had left. “Shoo… shoo! Get away, you animal! You cannot eat us today. We have the blessings of God.”

  “Don’t count your blessings so soon. God can take back what he gives,” a voice shouted back at them from behind the trees. He was a man. And he emerged from behind the trees, from darkness into the light of the half moon. He was a middle-aged man, wearing an orange dhoti-kurta and sporting long trussed hair and an unkempt beard. He had a trishul in one hand, probably to defend himself or hunt in the night for his prey. The three men closed ranks, unable to decide what to do next. They could not understand if the strange man was a friend or a foe.

  “Do not worry. I will not harm you. I am just a simple sadhu. I believe you people survived the plane crash earlier in the day?”

  “Yes, yes!” the trio shouted in relief on finally finding a friend.

  “Come with me. I have a small shelter nearby. You can rest there and have some fruits. And then in the morning, I will show you the way to the nearest city.”

  The sadhu’s shelter was a comfortable abode inside a cosy cave. On the floor, there were several layers of warm branches, leaves and twigs that served as a bed. Umar and Niraj had several apples and peaches before they hit the comfortable bed.

  Anil, who was a light sleeper, usually read late into the night, much after Romi slept. That night, he wanted to learn something from the sadhu who had forsaken all desires and material things and overcome his fear to live alone in the dense forest. Anil went outside the cave where the sadhu was smoking ganja, sitting on the branch of a tree. Anil could easily identify the smell of ganja thanks to his days at the IIM hostel.

  “Baba, can I disturb
you a bit? And just talk in general?”

  The sadhu looked at him in amazement. With a jump, he got down to the ground.

  “Come, let’s take a walk,” the sadhu said, waving to Anil.

  “At this time of the night? Are you not afraid?”

  “I left the thing called ‘fear’ when I gave up my job as a nuclear physicist in the USA.”

  “What? You are a nuclear physicist?” Anil was shocked. He started walking behind the sadhu.

  “Yes, I was. Now I try to understand God’s physics, which is not too different from all the quantum physics I learnt.”

  “Baba, I don’t know how we managed to survive today. Only the three of us survived in the crash. There must be some God’s physics behind it. Or God’s mercy!”

  “God is indeed merciful but he does not mess with physics. If the three of you survived today when you were not supposed to survive, then I am afraid my friend, the cyclic nature of time will catch up with you soon. To quote the philosopher Walter Kaufmann, ‘According to the eternal laws governing the combinations of this eternal play of repetition, all configurations which have previously existed on this earth must yet meet, attract, repulse, kiss and corrupt each other again.’”

  “That’s scary! So the three of us may die together again in a plane crash? When?”

  “Nobody knows the exact physics of God. The cycle of time can vary for different objects in the universe. Our sages say it is within a period of one year for humans. And it might not be a plane crash. But, from what our sages have said and written, whenever and however it happens, it will happen within a day to all three of you and through a similar medium of God.”

  “Medium?”

  “Yes. I meant if plane was the medium today, then it may be an angry mob tomorrow. Or it could be a boat or a car. Or an animal or an earthquake. Anything!”

  “Interesting! Baba, there was another very interesting event that happened about a month ago. I had a dream. It felt as though I was part of the dream. It was about a plane crash in Patna, and it actually happened at the same time I was dreaming.”

  The sadhu stopped walking. He smiled. And then his smile broke into laughter. A creepy laughter in the dark night of the forest.

  “My friend! You have witnessed God’s physics first-hand then! Have you heard of quantum theory? The theory states that a matter can exhibit both wave-like and particle-like properties, and upon observation it can exist in parallel in two dimensions or two universes. Like layers of bread. A lot similar, but still different. So there may be several similar people living different lives in different universes. Some are dead and some are alive. This is acceptable even by our modern science.

  But according to our wise sages, God has always been a bit partial to the earthly beings. He allows one of the human splits to live on the earth, for some people. You probably had a split of yourself and you experienced his death in the Patna plane crash.”

  Anil noticed that the sadhu was no longer smoking ganja. But he seemed to be on a different high. The high of a scientist who had just completed an experiment proving his hypothesis.

  “So how does this split happen baba? And when does it happen and to whom does it happen? And does it mean I cannot have another split in future?” Anil was always curious about thoughts and new ideas.

  “If sages knew all the answers, my friend, we would be God ourselves na? We don’t know to whom it happens. But the split probably happens when a person is at a very low point in his life and has to take one of two decisions to get his life back into shape. One decision shapes his life and the other decision creates the life of a split. But the universe realigns itself to give continuity of time to the life of this split. After that, who is a split and who is the original—nobody can say. If your cycle of life is to be created again before the eventuality that God’s physics has planned for you, then you or anybody else can have another split.”

  “How would you, as a nuclear physicist, explain all this baba?’

  “Very simple. It’s God’s quantum theory. God makes the observation in a singular moment, that low moment of an individual I mentioned earlier. And then the quantum theory is applied, making matter, the individual in this case, split into different worlds.”

  “Yes, you do make it sound simple indeed! Is there any way you will know who your split is?’

  “No, you will never know. But your names and stars are always aligned. The first name of the split will have the same letters as your first name. So the wise sages say! You will never know each other, but you may feel the presence. It is like the déjà vu feeling you people describe. You may have dreams about each other, just like you did. And very interestingly, you may even be able to develop the talents of each other.”

  “Wow! This is indeed amazing! Thank you baba, but I think we should catch up on our sleep now.”

  “You go ahead. I will complete my meditation first.”

  As Anil started to walk towards the cave, not too far away from where baba and he were talking, he heard a voice behind him.

  “One last thing. I don’t know if this is true or not. And I don’t know what the sages think of it. But my mind says that if the cyclic nature of time catches up with you and your two friends, then it should catch up with your splits too on the very same day. Physics leaves no residue like chemistry.”

  The next morning, the three survivors were guided to a nearby town by the sadhu. After a few emotional phone calls to their near and dear, Anil, Umar and Niraj were back in Delhi within a day. The first thing that Anil did, after embracing Romi firmly for several minutes, was to check the internet for the names of the dead passengers on the Patna air crash. His eyes were glued to one name on the list—Lian Cummins, a PhD student from the University of Chicago. He was going to Patna for a research project funded by the Gates Foundation.

  5

  Umar was disappointed that he had missed his first major modelling assignment. The client had replaced him with another model.

  Umar’s first visit after coming back home from Himachal was to the most reputed cosmetic surgeon in Delhi. He knew that in order to get back his career he had to get back his face first. Show business was all about show. And what showed on his face was not very pleasing.

  The treatment continued for about two months. At the end of it, when the surgeon revealed Umar’s face to him in a mirror, Umar could not help but cry out aloud. He had not even cried after the plane crash. He had not whimpered even once on the arduous journey through the forest, but he could no longer hold it. The deep and long scar on his right cheek had healed, but it had left an ugly mark behind.

  “Don’t worry, son. You can still try and follow your dreams. Don’t lose hope,” Umar’s father tried to console him. Umar had lost the most valuable asset in his line of business: his face. Losing hope was a natural reaction.

  “Umar, you know the hero I had a crush on? He had a scar on his face too,” Umar’s mother said shyly, while serving him some biryani. Umar loved his mother for always being there for him, even if she had to fabricate an impromptu lie.

  “And I am sure amma that he had a big paunch too. If you continue to serve me this biryani, I will have a scar and a paunch too!”

  “But amma is right, Umar bhai jaan. Scars make men look sexy. The scar shows the man has gone through a tough fight and survived,” said Umar’s younger sister. She was a cute girl who was completely unlike the snobbish girls of Vasant Vihar.

  “Okay good! Instead of getting you married to a man with two big cars, I will get you married to a man with two big scars,” said Umar, pulling his sister’s hair.

  Umar was happy that his family could still laugh together, despite the tough times. A broken career can be resurrected but a broken family cannot be united. He thanked God for giving him such a wonderful family. He decided to go to Mumbai the very next day. He reasoned that he had a better chance in the movie industry than in the modelling industry. Modelling was all about looks. But movies were about looks, talen
t and an X factor. Maybe his scar could prove to be his X factor, thought Umar.

  Umar knew a few people with the right contacts in Mumbai. They helped him get a few appointments with casting agents, directors and producers in the industry. But wherever he went, the answer was the same, “God has been so cruel. If you did not have the scar, we could have made you the next Akshay Kumar.” In some places, it was Salman Khan or Amitabh Bachchan.

  One director was a bit generous. He proposed the role of a villain to Umar.

  “You will be a combination of Anil Kapoor and Shakti Kapoor. I will make you the new Gabbar Singh. It’s a small role. But very impactful. Total script-changer role! People will whistle when you come on the screen.”

  “That’s so kind of you, sir. I am ready to take up this role.”

  Umar had always been a hero in real life, but he was happy to accept the role of a villain in reel life.

  “Great! You will have to meet my producer who will sign on your agreement and other terms. Luckily, he is in town today at a hotel in Juhu. I will set up your meeting with him.”

  Umar reached the hotel in Juhu on time, and requested the receptionist to call the producer in his room. “Sir, he has asked you to go up to his room. His room number is 1704 on the seventeenth floor,” the receptionist told Umar, after talking to the producer.

  Umar rang the doorbell of the room. He was welcomed inside by the producer. The producer was about fifty years old, quite short with a receding hairline. He was neither thin nor fat. He flashed a pleasing, abundant smile to Umar as they entered a dimly lit room. Umar tried to walk on the right side of the producer. He then sat on the producer’s right side, on the sofa. He wanted to take no chance with the scar on his right cheek, X factor or not!

  “You know, your role will shatter all the records of villains in the industry. Heroes will want to become villains after this movie releases,”’ the producer explained excitedly to Umar. He then offered him a glass of imported beer.