KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE--CHAPTER 98

                         KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE—CHAPTER 98

The Super Star raised a hand, and that moment the stick disappeared! Kabaligan was at his feet. He could not believe what had just happened. He stared up at the Super Star. Without trying to rise up, he started to entreat him, “All these years, my good sir, I had been thinking am the master of the art. I have two spirits to do my biddings. But you seem to be a past master of this art. Please teach me the art. Because I have never seen such a spectacle in which my own spirit would do thy biddings. Please, Master, do instruct me in that art. And I would do anything for you. I have vast wealth and gold coins of the king’s treasury well stashed under the subterranean cellar. I would give you, just hand them all over to you to be taught the art by which you used my spirit to beat me up. Please, sir!”

“You keep silent, for a while, man. My art could never be taught to a cannibal like you. Moreover, only persons of impeccable character could be taught such tricks. You are not even a man—a beast. How can I teach you such sidhis?”

As though the matter was over, the Super Star said to Valli and her sister, “Both of you have been freed. You can come away from the post!”

Lo and behold! Both the girls came in a rush to thank him. And Kabaligan started to cry bitterly. “I tell you, sir, I will turn a new green leaf in my life. I won’t even eat the animal flesh hereafter. I would turn completely a decent and normal guy. I would give away all the gold coins to the poor and impoverished. Please take me as your…”

The Super Star behaved as though he did not hear anything. Moreover, he raised his hand over the head of Kabaligan who had still been at his feet. That instant moment he fell deaf and dumb! He started to quake and quiver in fright. The Super Star raised his hand again. This time Kabaligan fell at his feet in a swoon.  

Valli gripped the hands of the Super Star. “O, my good sir. You are a white magician? From what you said to Kabaligan, I can understand it is a siddhi you acquired after long years of Tapas. O, my good sir, don’t leave me in the lurch!” She said in a pitiful voice.

At that moment had come running into the hall none other than Kumanan, the Devil incarnate.

“Hey, Valli! What is this, I see you completely free. And who is this mannnn…mmmhooommm…Haven’t we already met, sir?” He asked and then he answered the question himself. “O yeah. I saw you in the temple this morning. But whoever you are you have no right to set Valli and her sister free. For this, I will punish you after I have dealt with the two sisters.” He spoke with such arrogant confidence.

“You idiot! Congenital idiot!” Valli spat at him venomous words. “Look at you friend, Kabaligan, the cannibal. He has swooned at the feet of my man. Ask of his forgivance. He will forgive you. Or I will beg him to forgive you for the sake of your wife and mother. They are such sweet people. Now, fall at the feet of my man, or else is the situation!”

“What!” Kumanan, for the first time, saw his friend at the feet of the Stranger to that place.

“Now,” Valli said, “It is your turn to ask for forgivance. This minute!”

“What nonsense is all this, and who do you think I am?” Kumanan, with those angry words, Kumanan took some powdery substance from a paper sachet from under his cap and tossed the powdery substance at Valli and her sister. That instant they had started to become concrete statues. Not actually concrete, for at that time it was not available. But they had become grey statues. Kumanan turned and tossed some more at the Super Star.

Super Star simply laughed. “You can’t do that to me, you dirty rascal. I am not belonging to your time. I belong to a different time and world.!”

It was now the turn of Kumanan to get surprised and become awe-imbued. “I have heard of Siddhas come out of their body and go to any world they please. Are you one such person?” he merely mumbled. “But I have tossed some substance at you and it has fallen on my best friend, Kabaligan at your feet. He has become a grey statue too. Alas! Ok, why have you come from your world? And you are a look-alike of that Brahmin, Sivanesan, Aren’t you. Then I can see the reason. You are related. You have come to see your forefather. Sivanesan is your forefather, right!” He laughed. “If only you half know what we have in store for him!” He laughed vulgarly.

“Sir,” Manikkam spoke, “You have done enough damage by giving this bastard all those details. He is nobody’s fool. He has instantly connected you and Sivanesar.”

“To whom are you listening, Sivanesan?” asked Kumanan. Then only the Super Star understood his to what contingency his ordinary words let his forefather, Sivanesar into. So without much of an exertion, he stared at Kumanan fixedly. He started to become a grey man from foot up. Kumanan was not afraid of what was happening to him. Now his waist had been turning a grey statue!

“Such miraculous things are possible to the highly civilized human species, no? I am thankful for your confiding in me.” Now his chest area was turning into a statue. He stared fixedly at the Super Star. “See, if you come here, we could come to your place, no?”

Now his throat was turning grey. “I would like to come to your world!” he managed to mumble before his mouth turned grey.

The Super Star had become so very worried and mesmerized at the long star Kumanan kept throwing his way.

And just before his eyes turned grey Kumanan managed to wink at the Super Star.

The Super Star wanted to test the substance in the sachet. So, before Kumanan’s head had become grey he took off his headgear and took out the substance.

At the very moment, Valli’s parents and grandfather had come rushing in. Manikkam said, “Sir, toss the substance on them. They should not see their daughters having become statues. Their hearts will simply stop to beat!”

So the Super Star tossed the substance in the wind toward them. They too, that instant, became statues!

“Come on, sir. We have little time left for the Time Machine. Come, make haste!”

So the three of them started to go out of that big mansion of Kabaligan!

KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE--CHAPTER 97

                                   KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE—CHAPTER 97

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Kabaligan laughed and started to speak in a sissy voice, “What’s this, darling. You speak of him as though he were your husband! In a short time, you and your sister will succumb to Kumanan’s sensual hunger. And then you would become the food to quench my bodily hunger. Doesn’t your man know this fact?” With that he laughed in a coarse way.

“What horrendous things you speak of you Man-eating beast!” the Super Star exploded. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, you filthy rascal?”

“My good, sir!” Valli exclaimed. “I am a thousand time grateful for your tongue lashing the beast. But he is also a terrible person practicing Black Magic. Please go while there’s time left.”

“O, Valli,” laughed Kabaligan, “while you speak ill of me, it stimulates my palates. Ok, now it’s time your man got a sound beating” and with that, he raised his hand and made a pattern in the air and then said, “shshshooo!” towards the Super Star. Lo and see! Out of nowhere, there appeared a tough and stalwart stick and it came dancing in the air towards the Super Star. And Valli screamed, “Run, run. Make a dash for it!”

But the Super Star simply raised his hand and the stick stood suspended in the air! And then he made another move with his hand. What a splendid sight it was for Valli! For the stick started to dance towards the Black Magic Practioner and gave him a sound beating. “AAh, oooh” the petrified Kabaligan cried in utter amazement and unspeakable pain. “What kind of a rascal are you, beating your own master!” he kept admonishing the stick. But the stick continued to give him a thorough beating! At this, the amazed Kabaligan came running toward the Super Star and fell at his feet. “Please, stop the rascal, sir. I am your slave from this moment!”

KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE--CHAPTER 96

                             KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE—CHAPTER 96

“Hello, sir?!” Valli whimpered from the post to which she was tied. I kept wondering if I couldn’t see your face before I died, sir! You have come right on time! Thank you, sir! Why are you still in a monk’s get up, my dear, sir? It is not as if you are a monk. But on whatever purpose you have come from your country to our country, it is my desire that your desire should be realized. But I have seen you for the last time. Thanks. Don’t tarry here. This is no place for folks like you. You can’t help me even if you wanted to. This is the place of a man who indulges in black magic. He will kill you the way he is going to kill me and my sister. Go! Before Kabaligan comes here, please sir, go! Go away from this place.

“O, I see. Is he a fake monk, my dear?” Kabaligan came there from one of the rooms leading into that big hall. “Thank you for the enlightenment. For, I shouldn’t care to tangle with real monks!”

Valli gave a start. “O, Yee Gods! Now my dear man has become putty in the vile hands of this magician. Save my darling man from his clutches!”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” the black magician, Kabaligan laughed in a way that froze the flow of blood in Valli’s system. “In a short time, Valli, my darling,” Kabaligan said in a sissy tone of voice. I should like to see your man see you and your sister being raped and then cooked and eaten by me. If he objects to see the scene, he could become my evening meal and I would eat you tomorrow!”

“Hey, stop it, will you?” the Super Star thundered, “Are you a man at all. No, you are  less than a beast. Do you think you could get away from it all? Never, so long as I am alive I won’t let your paw touch my girl and her sister!”

Valli could not believe her ears. “My dear man! Thank you for you manly words. Yes, you are cent percent right, he, this Kabaligan is not a human being. He is a beast. Please make good your escape while there’s still time. That is before he invokes his Evil Spirit!”

KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE--CHAPTER 95

                          KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE—CHAPTER 95

“Thank you, amma” the Super Star said to the old woman. “You have helped the boy very much. That will help you in your last days.”

“Thank you, sir.” The old woman went away after the Super Star lifted the basket on to her head.

Leaving the boy there on the bench they went a few paces away. Then Manikkam said we can travel in time, sir. That way we can be at the ‘mansion’ of Kabaligan without any loss of time.

“Where is the Time Machine?” the Super Star asked.

“Time Machine is not necessary, sir. We have come to Karikalan’s time. Once we are here, we can go anywhere within and out of Chola Country without the Machine. All we have to do is think of the place we want to go and we would be there!”

“Then what are you waiting for? Let’s go,” the Super Star said.

“So be it!” Manikkam said. Immediately they were standing in front of the big house of Kabaligan, Kumanan’s friend.

“Where’s the Mansion?” asked the Super Star.

“That big structure is the Mansion, sir,” said Manikkam, “What did you expect? A huge concrete structure? We are at the beginning of the first century, sir. For them, this is a mansion. Though it is a structure with a thatched roof, the built-up area is more than two thousand square feet. And it is very high. So it is just that it is called a Mansion!”

Around the Mansion there was a fence. The high gates were locked. Within the fence, around the Mansion there were lots of grounds shorn of even grass and weeds.

“Let’s go inside over the gates, sir.”

They went into the Mansion, having crossed over another pair of gates to the Mansion proper.

Inside there was a huge hall and there were two posts to which the two girls had been tied.

“Anbare! (Hello, Mister)” welcomed Valli. “At last have you come to see me for the last time? We are already destined to die a violent death, sir!” she said in a pathetic tone of voice.

KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE--CHAPTER 94

                             KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE—CHAPTER 94

“What are you talking about, Manikkam, my boy!” exclaimed the Super Star. He felt like having been attacked by the thunderbolt.

“What shall I do, Swami? Both my sisters are my very life. My parents and grandfather have gone in search of them. They left me alone in the house. I could not remain there for long. Then I thought of you and the other Swami. I reckoned you might not have gone far away. But I could not find your whereabouts. Now I am very tired. I could not help my sisters. Please, Swami. Do something!”

The Super Star could not tell if it was the doing of Manikkam, the senior, or had come deep from his own self; he behaved like a real ascetic. “My son!” he addressed the small sobbing boy, “This is a small and inconsequential thing. Had you to go through so much in emotion over so little a thing like this? Jei, Bhagavati. May the peace of the Goddess come to you!” The small boy immediately stopped sobbing. There had come on him some miraculous changes. He even started to think of his bodily feelings. For he said to the Super Star, “Sir, I am very hungry. I was so much involved with the loss of my sisters that I didn’t even drink the gruel that I had to give you two and didn’t.”

With that he, having become conscious how tired he had become, sat on the red brick bench beside the Super Star.

“Where’s that butter-milk vender?” the Super Star ruminated. “She was here a minute ago.”

“Milkshake and buttermilk!” the old woman was coming their way with a basket suspended on her head. 

“Amma,” the Super Star spoke to her, “the small boy is very hungry. Have you got any gruel left?”

“O yes, enough to make a horse lose its hunger!” she asked the Super Star to help lower the big basket on her head. The Super Star helped her lower the basket on to the red brick bench.

 She served the gruel in a tumbler asking the boy if he liked the gruel raw or with the country brown sugar. The boy said he wanted lots of brown sugar should be added to the gruel. Then the old woman took from the basket another tumbler and added sugar and mixed it by pouring the gruel from one tumbler into the other. After mixing the gruel thoroughly she gave the tumbler of gruel to the boy.

While the boy was eating the gruel without any spoon greedily native to his age, the old woman started to weep, and said, “This boy reminds me of my own son! He used to eat greedily like this one. And he was a lovely boy! He would never cross the line drawn by me as a boy. But…!”

“Is he no more, Amma?” the Super Star asked.

“No he is very much alive and he is an important man in the King Karkalan’s foot army. But he has teamed up with that fellow, Kabaligan. He has become greedy and wants to influence the King’s mind so that the king would make him a minster for the propagation of Sanskrit.” 

On an instinct, the Super Star asked if Kumanan was her son’s name. The old woman was taken aback. Then she saw the boy who had started to doze off having eaten to his contentment. “He was a well-behaved boy at this boy’s age. But once he grew into a man…phew…I couldn’t control him…”  

Now the boy started to snore, the Super Star got up and make place for him. And the boy stretched out on the bench and started to snore heavily.

“I am a hermit, Amma. I can’t give you any money!”

“Neither had I expected to pay in cash, sir. Instead, please bless me so that I would die in peace!”

“May God bless you, Amma. And by the way, do you know where the Kabaligan’s place is?”

She told. And it translated into fifteen kilometers in metric measurement. She also gave the direction to the big house of Kabaligan. “It’s a mansion, swami!” she said. “It is situated on the outskirts of Uraiyoor city.”

KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE--CHAPTER 93

                          KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE—CHAPTER 93

When they were talking the Super Star said, “There comes Manikkam, the boy. I am sure he hasn’t seen us yet.”

“Sir,” Manikkam, the senior said, “from this moment you are the only person sitting here. The grandfather and I would disappear into thin air. We would be with you, sir, and you can communicate to us and even see us, but nobody else can see or hear us. And that goes for the small boy, Manikkam too. You would tackle the small boy. I think he has a crisis on hand. Let us hear what he’s got to say.”

Now the boy had neared the Super Star. When he had actually seen the Super Star, the boy had broken into a trot and soon was standing in front of the Super Star, “Swami, I have been running from pillar to the post in searching for you! At long last, I have been fortunate in finding you out!”

Manikkam, the Man, saw an old woman selling buttermilk and milk products. He wondered why the old woman seemed to matter to him. Anyhow, dismissing her out of his mind, he started to read the mind of Manikkam, the small boy, which was an open book. He could understand the boy was highly dehydrated. And he was also famished. And the other matters he read had simply thrown him off!  

“What’s the matter, Manikkam? Tell me” the Super Star asked.

“Sir,” the boy addressed the Super Star, “You should forgive me for this interference. You might not have forgotten about the matters we were discussing a little while ago at our house.” The boy spoke in a tired manner.

The boy had a look that made the Super Star regret that he did not have a son like him. “Ok, Manikkm, my boy. I haven’t forgotten anything. Tell me what the matter is” the Super Star encouraged the small boy.

And the small boy, Manikkam, started to cry bitterly. In between the sobs, he uttered, “Swami, I have a sister and a cousin, namely, Valli. Both of them have been kidnapped by Kumanan!” the boy continued to sob.

KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE--CHAPTER 92

                           KARIKALAN AND THE TIME MACHINE—CHAPTER 92

“I was in an unenviable position, sir” Manikkam said, “you had to be vetted all about the Time Machine, I had banked on your latest mental condition and that you would want a fresh ari and scene away from Chennai. But you had been tortured by the way grandfather behaved, to start with.”

“That’s the truth, Manikkam,” the Super Star agreed. “The way he had come down from the photo frame was a scarry experience for me. From that moment I wanted to get clear of your flat and go back to my empty flat!”

“You kept accusing me of being a sorcerer and a wicked man, sir!”

“Yeah, Yeah,” agreed the Super Star, “I really thought and afraid you practiced the Black Magic which gave a guy who had been mesmerized by the thought of ending my life the shock of the life! So all that had put a spanner in the wheel, yeah?”

“Yes, sir. And I left you for a time in care of my grandfather to meditate in the dark room. Once inside the dark room, I had the conviction that you had to travel in time, that otherwise, you would commit suicide. So when I emerged from the dark room, I kept encouraging you to speak about your family tradition. You remember, sir.?”

“Yes, and even though I had only made a passing reference to it you caught on to it, Manikkam.”

“Once again, the credit goes to the old man, sir. He had said lighting lamps and offering worship was your family tradition and your wife did not agree with you to the point of deserting you with your girl. And I wanted you to tell all the details if only to distract you. Moreover, I really meant to go to a particular forefather’s time when you came out in the open. But you kept cursing me instead of speaking about your family tradition. So I could not help you more than that. But when we entered the dark room, you kept speaking and asking questions and as a result, I could not meditate. But I kept telling myself that we wanted to go to the Mamallar’s time so my grandfather could be delivered and left there and we, after collecting the housefly and the lizard’s spirits could go to your forefather’s time. But the Machine had obviously an idea of its own. We came to Karikalar cholan’s time. And you picked up friendship with Valli and I found myself as the small Manikkam. It was then I decided that the Time Machine itself was invented for you, sir.”