99 Palms: Horn OK Please (17 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

***

Roses are red and violets are blue,

Adventure awaits those who act on impulse, yes, it’s true;

A discovery of a secret door, we used our scientific bent,

We chanced upon the secret door quite by accident;

Meta-materials & chirality, stuff we never knew existed,

We discovered the secret tunnel, travelled under the riverbed;

The song of the singing bowl travels through the air,

Uncovering a secret passage to the Nine Unknown’s lair;

We should’ve known better, things aren’t so obvious,

This was application of advanced science, quite devious;

Imagine the havoc it would cause in the hands of a crazy fool,

An acoustic doorway, a Swastika that’s chiral, was so cool!

Under the bed of a river looking for the Lost city of Gold,

Through a passage, a tunnel under the Dhamek Stupa, so old;

Our dreams fuelled by greed, the soul silently screaming,

We’ll travel across dimensions, Hell! I must be dreaming;

A secret passage that gives out light,

We travel in search of Shambala, in the still of the night;

But if smiles and Imagination make you say ‘Cheese’

Drive on, for that’s the philosophy of Horn OK Please…

***

The Tibetan Singing Bowl sings:

We were on our way to the Dhamek Stupa well before sunrise. It was 4:00 AM and even the roosters in the sleepy town of Sarnath were asleep. Derek was driving as Goose sat beside him, tightly clutching his shoulder bag that contained the Tibetan Singing Bowl. I stared at the cryptic notes that Lind had written down for me on a piece of paper last night. The coffee with Lind had been awesome last night. Hound played around nervously with his treasure, the broken piece of clay tablet he’d found at Kalinga when we were checking Emperor Ashoka’s rock edicts. It was evident that something was playing on his mind that he was not sharing with us.

Screeching to a halt at the parking lot near the heritage site, Derek brought Motormouth to a halt and said, “This is it, dudes. Our last chance of finding the secret entrance, fingers crossed!”

“Amen to that, bro, it’s time for the bowl to sing”, said Goose, stepping out of Motormouth as he slung the bag across his shoulder, “Let’s roll”. It was pitch dark when we reached the Sarnath. The sun would probably be up in a couple of hours. We were the only ones around. Perfect timing.

Looking around, there was nobody in sight as we jump the fence covering the Dhamek Stupa and ran straight to the votive Stupa where the rainwater was being sucked in.

Fumbling with his shoulder bag, Goose took out the Tibetan Singing Bowl along with the wooden striker and handed it over to Derek. Placing the bowl on his left hand, Derek slowly started moving the wooden striker around the circumference of the singing bowl’s open mouth. Within 69 seconds, the shrill sound emanating from the singing bowl filled the air. Derek continued to move the wooden striker around the bowl as we hoped that a mysterious hatch would appear out of nowhere. Nothing happened.

Hound slumped to the ground and cursed under his breath, “Damn! All that nonsensical talk about meta-materials and acoustic cloaking was a waste of time. We’re back where we started!”

Derek kept the bowl and the striker aside as he fished out a packet of cigarettes, “Calm down. This is our only bet”.

Cigarette in hand, Goose was staring at the ghostly silhouette of the massive cylindrical Stupa. It looked eerie. “There’s got to be an answer, Dude, this stuff has to work! I can feel it in my bones”, I said as I stared at the Stupa along with Goose while Hound continued to whine.

“Man up, bitch! We can’t just give up, we still have time till sunrise. We’ve just got to try the singing bowl elsewhere”, said Derek, kicking Hound on his shin making sure it hurt him.

“Stop it! I’m about to blow my top, don’t push me!” yelled Hound as he clutched his knee, rubbing his shin.

“Wow! That’s it. The top! It’s the top!” said Goose, suddenly getting up.

“What? What’s the top?” I asked, looking at Goose, whose mind seemed to be in a whirl.

“Dudes! We should have figured it a long time ago.  The top of the Dhamek Stupa – it’s been enlarged six times. It’s got
Swastikas
carved all around it! Do you believe the top of the Stupa is unfinished? I can bet my life on that the top of the Stupa is made of some meta-material that’s got a negative refractive index, bends light and makes it invisible to the naked eye!” said Goose, pointing to the unfinished top or the
harmika
of the Dhamek Stupa. We stared at it for some time. The sprinkling of stars in the night sky made it look even more eerie.

“Wow! Seems like a good conclusion. But how do we climb the steep wall of 43 meters? How would the Nine Unknown do it?” I asked, intimidated by the sheer size of the Dhamek Stupa.

“Don’t worry, you know I can climb like an ape. With all the bricks around it, this one is a piece of cake for me. I’ll climb. Give me that bag, Goose. I’m sure the Nine Unknown can levitate themselves, that’s one of the sciences as well. I’ve heard many Lamas know how to levitate themselves, I’ve read that in
Tintin in Tibet
”, said Derek, as he slung the bag across his shoulder and ran toward the big Stupa.

As he started his ascent, Derek seemed extremely sure footed. We watched in awe as he reached the top of the Dhamek Stupa and waved out from there.

“Bastard! He never ceases to amaze me!” said Hound, smiling as he waved back. He was right. It was always Derek who would pull out a major surprise out of his butt crack at the last moment. We’d seen that in
‘Horn OK Please – The Scrotum Scrolls’
as well when he amazed us all by jumping off from Helga’s Bitchcraft from a great height and escaped unhurt.

The three of us took positions near the big cylinder of a Stupa as Derek started to move the wooden striker along the open circumference of the Tibetan Singing Bowl.

Sure enough, we could hear him yell from the top, “I see it! I see a hatch! It’s suddenly becoming visible. I can feel it with my foot now!”

“What’s it look like?” yelled Goose from below as the shrill sound from the singing bowl filled the air.

“It looks like a door handle! Step back, folks, I’m about to pull the hatch!” said Derek.

The Secret Entrance is found:

Sure enough, as he did, what we witnessed was nothing short of magic. This was pure science. As Derek pulled the hatch at the top of the Dhamek Stupa, the bricks on the Dhamek Stupa started moving. They seemed to realign themselves as dust emanated from the Stupa and the sound of bricks rubbing against each other followed. Then there was a loud metalling clang and the movement stopped.

As the dust settled down, a door materialized on the big cylinder out of nowhere. The door was about 9 feet tall and 6 feet wide. It had rich carvings on it that had faces on them. Nine faces. The Nine Unknown when they were humans before their evolution!

“Anything happened?” yelled Derek from the top. “Yes, come down quick! There’s a door that seems to have materialized out of nowhere! Come down safely” yelled Hound, looking to the top of the Stupa where Derek was dangerously leaning from.

We could hear Derek grunting as he climbed down. I pushed the door open and it revealed a steep flight of stairs.

“Wait for me!” said Derek, panting as he joined us.

Wow! This is so unreal! No wonder we could never spot the door. The hatch was invisible. The Nine Unknown were sure all brains. An unfinished top of the Stupa to the naked eye was a deliberate construction.

“Lind was right”, I mumbled as Goose peered inside.

“Oh my God! There seems to be a steep flight of stairs down to a flat surface. Funny, the rocks seem to be glowing a ghostly green!” said Goose, peeping in.

“Phosphorescence, I said. The rocks are glow-in-the-dark rocks. The Nine Unknown were real smart dudes” I said following Derek who scampered in first. We slowly started down the stairs as Derek led and I followed him. Goose was behind me as the narrow path would only allow a single file.

“Wait, folks! There’s a hatch on the inside, said Hound”, as he tugged on it. The door slammed shut and a metal clang could be heard on the top of the Dhamek Stupa as the sound of bricks filled the air once again.

Wow! That clang would have been the sound of the invisible hatch on top of the Stupa that Derek pulled. The door must have become invisible again and everything would have become as it was once again, spare the dust that might have settled down around the big cylindrical Stupa. Some keeper would come before the site opens and clean it. Or maybe, it would rain down and wash away the dust. No one would ever know. This secret society rocked. For some, it was magic, for others, it would be an application of pure science.

Barely a few steps down, the stairs ended and we entered a passage. The floor was wet and slippery. Derek stopped and looked at the roof of the tunnel. Water seemed to be dripping from four corners or a square at the top. The height of this part of the cave was about 25 meters.

“That must be the small votive Stupa, we’re right under the ruins of the monastery now”, said Goose, looking up at the point where the dripping came from. The tunnel seemed to look like the underbelly of a whale, the passage seemed to have been burnt through the rocks below Dhamek Stupa. “They ought to fix that leak before someone discovers this underground passage.”

“That’s not a leak, Goose, they’re deliberate holes in the ceiling for air to come in. There is no source for air otherwise. We definitely would need Scuba equipment and special suits as we head down. Wei was right”, said Derek as he started walking again. The passage was becoming narrow and our journey on an endless spiral of stairs became visible.

Under the bed of Ganges River:

There was no so sound except the sound of our feet. The cave seemed really ancient. The ancient masonry of the cave seemed rock solid, in very sense of the term. In the ghostly glow of the rocks, I could see stalactites and stalagmites all through the cave. The stairs were crudely formed and we had to be extra careful for they were wet and slippery. The dampness in the air added to the excitement as my heart seemed to be thumping faster.

The narrow cave seemed to be millions of years old. There were no bats, insects or reptiles around. The ghostly rocks must have had some insect-repelling properties. The air inside the cave seemed like a thousand years old and it didn’t seem like a regular passage that attracted much traffic from the secret society members. The inclination of the stairs had not been more than 45 degrees so that made the journey easy.

We kept climbing down for what seemed like an eternity. We must have journeyed for about a couple of hours for the descent was slow

“Can we stop by for some time, Derek?” huffed Hound, for he seemed out of breath, “It sure is going to be a steep climb back, all the way back to the top.

We had trudged for about seven kilometers downhill when the stairs ended abruptly, leading to a passage that was flat and straight. The stone curtain around us seemed to widen and we could see a few feet ahead of us with ease.

“No worries, bro. Catch your breath. It seems like we’ve climbed down to a point where I can see a long straight hike ahead” informed Derek.

“Where the hell are we now, mates?” said Goose, wiping the sweat from his brow with his sweatshirt. He was panting like the rest of us. Only Derek seemed to feel that we were out for a stroll in the park. The descent didn’t seem to have had any impact on him.

“I would guess that we have climbed down all the way from the Dhamek Stupa towards the Ganges river. I see a straight path ahead of us, seems like a long journey ahead. I suppose we have now reached the bed of Ganges River!” I said, considering what Wei had said about the concentration of the mysterious ‘X factor”  which was the highest in this area that made the phages grow to increase the oxygen content in the Ganges.

“Wow! Don’t tell me! You mean this is like a subway now?” quipped Hound, clearly surprised. His voice seemed to echo a bit. This was really cool!

“Yeah! I guess we’re right below an underground reservoir which would mean that the width of the Ganges river is actually much more than what it seems to be on the surface!” said Goose, getting up, “Let’s go, folks, next time let’s make sure we carry bottles of water.”

The path through the phosphorescent cave was much better now. Since there were no stairs now, it sure made for easy walking. As the cave became broader, the stalactites and stalagmites made an awesome sight. There walls of the caves were intermittently dotted with
Swastikas
all through. There was no sound. We were deep inside the bed of the Ganges river.

“How come there’s still air around us and it’s so cool when we’re so deep inside the earth?” said Goose as he trailed his hand on the rocky surface of the wall of the tunnel.

“Not sure, bro. I’m not sure how and where the air is coming from. It’s quire strange that we’ve not yet suffocated! It must be something about these rocks that must be taking in oxygen from the water and pushing it inside the cave like some kind of a fibrous membrane” I said, for I was equally clueless about it but that seemed to be the only plausible explanation.

“True that! We’ve walked for about five kilometers now already since our pit-stop and isn’t it funny that we are not feeling the fatigue now unlike when we were coming down the stairs?” said Hound, flexing his muscles, “Is it just me or do you folks feel it too? In fact I feel energized!”

“Must be, I feel fresh as a daisy myself”, said Goose, taking a deep breath, “How much farther do you believe we have to walk to reach the underwater Stupa?”

“I’d say we’ve almost reached the underwater Stupa. There! See the strange glow? It’s yellow over there, not green like in here!” said Derek, pointing to about 100 meters away. The glow definitely was yellow over there. Since the path was straight, we could see it quite clearly.

We had arrived. Our pace quickened as we neared the Underwater Stupa. It was at an elevated level of exactly seven stairs, a very small flight of stairs. This was it! This was our terminal to Shambala, the legendary city of untold riches. Emperor Ashoka sure was evolved!