99 Palms: Horn OK Please (15 page)

“No reason, Chief, I just wondered why they kept on enlarging the size of Stupas all around, be it the Sanchi Stupa or this big cylinder over here, but no one seems to have touched the votive Stupas. They’ve always remained intact. We’ve seen them in Ladakh as well, right?” replied Derek, thinking out aloud.

“Hmm…you have a point worth exploring, but first, Goose, cook up some of that bitch concoction of yours tonight and let’s do a rerun of our common dream sequence. I’d suggest we pay attention to every single detail we see in there if the dream recurs”, said Hound, as he eased himself behind the wheel. Motormouth came to life as he inserted the key. She purred.

There was something about this place that made every cell of my body come alive, maybe it was the pure concentration of the energy around the place. We had done a cursory recce of the site, I knew we would need help to find the secret entrance to the underground cave. Maybe, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to check with Lind whom we were supposed to meet tomorrow. Maybe, we may need to consult an expert in Brāhmī script to hunt for clues in the ancient scriptures of 99 Palms. We certainly needed to stop, think and plan now.

Dr. Lind Besua was supposed to meet us at the resort near Varanasi in a week’s time and we would explore everything around the Dhamek Stupa inside out. We must find the cave soon, there is not much time. Just a couple of weeks to Buddha Purnima, much work had to be done before that. We just had a week to discover the secret entrance.

A replay of the dream:

As soon as we reached the resort, Goose went about fixing our drinks. We needed a replay of the dream. Quick five shots down, my head felt woozy. Goose had poured in exactly 69 ml of Bacardi, 69 ml of Redbull, garnished the drink with five mint leaves each and it had tasted good. This is exactly how he does it, this is exactly what happens after we drink five rounds of stuff. I wasn’t feeling drunk, I felt strange. This concoction sure made me drowsy and we were asleep in no time. This was so cool, like action replay, we could tune in whenever we wanted.

A wasted week:

For a week, we spent all our time searching and seeking clues at the Dhamek Stupa. We found nothing. We had thousands of pictures of every brick, statue, carving, landscape and just about everything that was out there. We had spent time with practically every tourist guide at the Dhamek Stupa, hoping to get some new information but it was all in vain. Dr. Lind Besua was to arrive the next day and all we had were a bunch of pictures of Swastikas, Dhamek Stupa, Votive Stupas, bricks, statues and more. A few more days and we could probably hold a sermon for all the tourist guides and visitors to the Dhamek Stupa.

Our frustration knew now bounds. Every night, we would make Goose brew his awesome concoction of Bacardi, Redbull and mint leaves and would replay our dreams and see the same people and objects in the dream. Barely a week away from Buddha Purnima, we had tried our hand at finding clues in the ancient scriptures of 99 Palms, our dreams and Hound’s broken piece of clay tablet.

We had hit a wall. We needed to consult the expert, we needed Lind. We definitely needed some help.

***
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

***

Roses are red and violets are blue,

We make paper boats sail in water, it leads to a new clue;

We looked for the secret entrance everywhere;

While beauty is just a deception, the soul lies elsewhere;

A secret underwater Stupa, was it just a wild goose chase?

Were our conclusions right? Were we in the right place?

Serendipity is a boon, but the answer may yet elude,

We’d searched the place inside out for long now, Dude!

Recurring dreams left me with a woozy head,

We’d been searching high & low, reading text that was unsaid;

The ancient manuscripts of 99 Palms kept us on course,

We had to find the passage to the Stargates, no other recourse;

Sometimes what we see doesn’t really ring a bell,

We were missing something here, only time would tell;

Frustration took hold of my soul, despair danced on my mind,

But we wouldn’t give up, for the lost city of Gold we shall find;

The answers lay in front of us, it was a pity we couldn’t read,

Unable to unscramble clues, only shadows seemed to lead;

If smiles and imagination make your heart say ‘Cheese!’,

Drive on, for that’s the spirit of ‘Horn OK Please’...

***

Meet Lind Besua:

She walked into our room on a Sunday morning, she breezed into my heart like a ray of sunshine. The pain and frustration of the week gone by simply disappeared in a puff of smoke as she came and sat right next to me, as she made herself comfortable on the sleeping bag. Terry had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. Her hair was short and she let them flow with the breeze. Her smile was infectious which made her simply irresistible.

An NRI, who lived in Los Angeles, she was a professor at Berkeley. Her body was well into workouts and I just couldn’t help but blurt out, “Oh! My God, you’re Lind? You’re damn gorgeous!”

I do supposed she blushed when she said, “You must be Chief, the one who Wei told me to be careful of”, said Lind as she slapped my knee, “Hey there! You must be the other three.  Pleased to meet you, I’m Lind. Sorry, I had to skip town last week and couldn’t meet you. I had to present my Physics research paper on
chiral meta-materials
, so I was in Bodh Gaya”

“Duh! What was that again?” said Derek, for whatever she said just went right over his head.

“Oh! Sorry! I don’t mean to show off. But the scientific Community at Berkeley, where I come from, is excited about this new breakthrough in a particular field of science. A scientist has discovered that he can arrange tens of thousands of gold swastikas on one square millimeter to form a new kind of material called ‘meta-materials’, that can artificially change the polarization of light. By manipulating the degree of twist of a swastika in a certain way, they can actually play around with the properties of light to make an object disappear to the naked eye!” said Lind describing the whole concept in a very animated fashion.

“Oh that! That fairy tale thingy about becoming invisible with an invisible cloak to become the perfect peeping Tom?” said Goose, grinning from ear to ear.

“Err…yeah, you could do that too”, said Lind, embarrassed at the possibility of misuse of such sciences in the hands of idiots, “Anyways, I hear you found out about the ridge at Dhamek and seem to have linked the possibility of existence of a secret underwater Stupa and the Ganges. Found anything yet?” asked Lind, curiously looking around for an answer.

“Like hell! We’ve searched the Dhamek Stupa and surrounding areas inside out and all we have are more than 5000 pictures of rocks, symbols, grass, deer and stones. We’ve messed up. Add our dream to top it all, we’re still clueless about it all. Lost is the true word”, I said, throwing an empty can of Redbull at Hound, “Also, the fabled treasure of Hound – the broken piece of clay – we’re toast. We just have a week to Buddha Purnima and we’re nowhere!”

“No worries. But, hey! I’ve got something to share with you, something really exciting from Dr. Natalie Jackson’s audio recordings before she took the bullet. God bless her soul!” said Lind, looking at the ceiling. We all looked up, stared at the dirty old fan that made a racket.

“Gosh! Audio recordings as well for our fabled case file?” said Hound, rolling his eyes.

“Yes, since Natalie wasn’t taking any notes, thanks to her, her recording of your complete conversation is with me. Thanks to Monica who immediately logged into Natalie’s Network, downloaded all files and passed it along with your case files. All data had to be erased from her computer”, said Lind in a serious tone.

“Monica never made a mention of this?” quipped Goose, wondering if she had hidden this information from him deliberately.

“No, Goose. Monica did all this after you all met her. We wouldn’t want the information to go all in the wrong hands. In fact, Monica did it to keep you all safe!” exclaimed Lind as Goose smiled. Ah! The sweet taste of coffee.

Buddhist Symbolism and dream Interpretation:

“Anyways, I took a note of all the objects you saw in your dream and here’s my analysis. The trident that you see in Emperor Ashoka’s hands in your dream signified Lord Buddha, the
Dharma
or the Law and the community of monks. The lotus in your dream signifies the pedestal of Buddha. It is where the scriptures of perfect wisdom are supposed to reside. The Swastika symbol, also known as the ‘Outer Door’, is the doctrine of Buddha. We’ll come to that soon. The water jug that you see in your dream represents the ‘water of immortality’ that is placed on the altar. You also mentioned that you see a Tibetan Singing bowl” Lind tried to draw a mind map.

“Yes, that helps. So, what does it really mean?” I asked, unable to hold back my curiosity.

“Well per Buddhist symbolism, you see the
Trishul
, the
Padma
, the
Swastika
, the
Bhumba
and a Singing bowl. I would say that it signifies that Emperor Ashoka who protects is the protector of the Law in Shambala and may well be protecting you. You have been warned. The Lotus signifies that you have the access to perfect wisdom, but you don’t know how to read. It signifies your possessing the ancient scriptures of 99 Palms. The Swastika that you see is a clue to finding the secret underground passage to the ridge. The water jug is the water from Ganges river, so that signifies the ridge. The Tibetan singing bowl is a clue that I have not been able to decipher…” said Lind as her voice trailed off.

“That’s really nice to know! And you say that we have two clues which we need to go after. One is the
Swastika
symbol and the other one is the
Tibetan Singing bowl
that you’ve not been able to decipher. Right?” I asked, taking her hand in mine.

“That’s right, Chief”, said Lind, as she let me hold her hand. The smell of freshly brewing coffee wafted in to the room, right into my nostrils. Derek saw that and smiled.

“What about the fruit bowl that we see, Lind? What do you make out of that?” said Derek, curious to crack our disgusting, recurring dream.

“Err...well, since you ask, I’ll tell you. The banana that you see in your dreams signifies your libido – your mojo. The papayas that you see in your dreams symbolize the fact that you like big breasts. The avocado that you see in your dreams signifies a trance. The chestnut in your dreams is symbolic of your low IQ, it reflects the size of your brain”, said Lind, as she started at her shoes, visibly embarrassed.

“What about the potato, Lind? What does that signify? And the letter ‘R’? Any clues?” asked Goose, as he looked around the room expecting a nod from us all.

“I’m sorry, Goose, the potato signifies nothing. It is symbolic of you all. You are nothing! No clue about the letter ‘R’ in your dreams, the ancients used the Brahmi script so an English alphabet is completely out of place!” said Terry, throwing up her hands in the air.

“Ok, we could live with that for now, I suppose. So you’ve just analyzed the objects we see in our vision or dream, right? Do you have an interpretation of the dream, per se?” I asked, squeezing her hand and pulling her closer to me. She didn’t resist, she shifter closer to me.

“No, Chief. I cannot do that. However, from what I know of such cases in the past, once the whole episode takes place in one’s life, the visions would stop. In your case, I would suspect that once you have been to Shambala and back, the dreams would stop on their own. No amount of dunking all that alcohol would ever get it back”, said Lind, pointing at Goose, the inventor of the awesome cocktail.

“Fair enough, so I suppose we do have one very big thing in our favor, I would say we are being summoned to Shambala by Emperor Ashoka for some reason. We suppose he rules Shambala” said Hound, scratching his head.

Notes from 99 Palms:

“Now I’ll tell you what I learnt from the ancient manuscripts of 99 Palms. Once Monica got to know from Wei that you people have the coordinates to the gateway to Shambala, she’d sent me some real cool stuff as images from 99 Palms. I see you have it now. Go to the last few pages Goose? The pages right at the end where there is a picture of a pillar?” she said as she pulled her hand away from me and rummaged in her rucksack and pulled out her iPad.

As Goose and Hound tried to find the palm leaf that contained the picture, she scrolled on her iPad and read out aloud,
“Between sunset and moonrise, fill your heart with purity. With wisdom in your heart, the enlightened one must reach the heart of the temple, a pillar of light shall make itself known to you. The nectar from heaven must kiss the sacred stone for the doors to open!”

“I see it! I’ve seen this diagram before but I cannot make any sense of it. What’s it mean?” exclaimed Goose, holding the sacred palms in his hands delicately.

“I don’t know, I’ve no idea”, said Lind, “It’s a cryptic message. There’s more”, move to the next leaf please?” as she played around with her iPad again.

“Here it is. This is the first time the scriptures of 99 Palms make a direct reference to the secret society of the Nine Unknown!” said Lind excitedly as she leaned against me, “
The water of the Gods shall protect you in your path to nirvana. Shambala awaits the enlightened, there is no place for the greed. Those who shall come to steal the jewel of the doctrine shall face the wrath of the Nine”

“Wow! The Nine Unknown exists! Shambala exists! This one says it all!” exclaimed Derek, as he held his head in his hands, elbows on his thighs.

“You know what it means? The
‘Jewel of the doctrine’
means the legendary
Ratna mani
, the Philosopher’s stone. Per Buddhist symbolism, this is supposed to be an oval stone, a magic stone also known as the
Chintamani
, the wish-fulfilling jewel. Dude, this is exactly what you need and it exists!” said Lind as she was too excited to sit in one place.

Wait! There’s one more! This one’s my favorite and is mentioned in the last palm leaf of 99 Palms”, said Lind, looking at me, “I don’t know what it means, but I do believe this one is about your way back to earth”, said Lind, smiling proud.

“Well, what’s it say? We’re on the last leaf here, Lind, the one that has the picture of the
Swastika
symbol”, said Goose, as Derek and Hound looked at Lind with anticipation.

Taking a deep breath, Lind read out from her iPad,
“For you are now the awakened, the choice is yours. As above, so below, so within, so without. Shambala awaits you!”

“Well? That’s it? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I exclaimed, for this was one statement I’d read a million times and could never fathom the real meaning.

“Chief, I suppose, true wisdom lies behind this statement. This is the last statement written in 99 Palms. I would guess, if you figure this one out…you will be able to make your way back to earth and become all rich and famous” said Lind softly, gently brushing the back of her palm against my chin.

Hell! The gold can wait, not coffee with Terry!

The sky had suddenly turned grey and overcast. It was about to pour. There was a loud thunder as I jumped stood up and announced, “Dudes! It’s about to rain. I’m going out for some liquid sunshine at the Dhamek Stupa. Anybody game? Say Hell! Yeah!”

Goose made a dash for Motormouth’s keys as Derek and Hound hollered.

“Do you mind if you all carry on? I need to catch up with my sleep. Let’s meet in the evening? My room is just round the corner, come by later, Chief?” said Lind, as she stretched out her arms and yawned sexily.

“Of course, I will, gorgeous. Let’s have some coffee then”, I said as Hound winked at me and we left the room.

Of paper boats and an Idea:

Back at the lawns of Dhamek Stupa, we all sat on the rocks, staring at the gigantic cylinder with the unfinished dome on top. It was pouring cats and dogs and there was no one around. Sarnath was full of sensible tourists. Staring at the tall structure, I wondered why on earth would anybody take so much pain to enlarge the Stupa six times and yet leave the top - the
harmkia,
unfinished.

Fortunately, I had kept my scribbling pad well covered inside a polythene bag.

The sound of loud thunder intensified for it seemed to be a torrential downpour. Lightning bolts appeared on the sky like cracks on a big wall as the rain kissed four of us. Drenched from head to toe, Goose said, “Dude! Look at the site of the votive Stupas. It’s become a pond. All that water makes it look like a lake and doesn’t it look awesome with all those Stupas jutting out? Come on, guys, let’s make paper boats and sail them in that pond.” 

Hound smiled and said, “Just like childhood, eh? Sure, why not?”

The rain showed no signs of stopping and beat down on the lawns of Dhamek Stupa mercilessly as the big cylinder of a Stupa stood there majestically. Derek took out my note pad, tore out four pages and made paper boats. Hell! This was fun.

Handing over a paper boat to each one of us, he lay down the rules and said, “The pond around the votive Stupas if filled to the brim. We set out boats and try to sink the other one’s boats. Whichever boat capsizes last shall be the winner, OK?” The ruins of the monastery were invisible, fully submerged under the dirty, muddy rainwater.

We agreed and collected the pebbles around us to start a game of battleships. It was always about winning. We put the paper boats in the water, the sight of the semi-submerged votive Stupas looked fabulous. We watched them sail for some time till they reached close to the center of the pond and then started throwing the pebbles to sink the other one’s boat.