The White Light Calling - 16
Paval looked at the tall woman whose form in moonlight made a beautiful silhoutte with a silver glow.
"Chemba" she called her softly first.
Chemba didn’t hear her. She was staring down. Paval followed her eyes.
The huge falls that had brought them here had branched out into few smaller ones and one such thing was gushing out water into a circular looking pit right across them farther down on the other side of the falls. It looked like a private pool with a little falls in it. Why is she staring at it?
“Chemba?”Paval shook her mildly by her sleeves.
“Huh..what?”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Paval I think we need to cross over”
“I was thinking the same. Look” she pointed at the platform.
“What ?”chemba looked at it confusingly as she couldn't find anything interesting where she pointed out. Her mind was elsewhere.
“If I am right, that’s where we saw the white light."
“huh..ok. So how do we get there?”
“How would I know.”
“Mm.”they were looking at options to cross over when suddenly Paval asked.
“Hey.. Do you have that phone with you?”
“What phone? Only maran had one remember?”Chemba turned towards the falls and turned back in a flash
” Wait. This is vikki’s bag. He was having a sat phone and If the guys didn’t take it, it must be…”she reached into the side pouch of the bag and pulled out something
“Voila..here it is…”
“Good! Just as I thought. And since we have communication we sh.."
"Can we call Madhan from this. Can we?" Pava saw the glitter in Chemba's eyes as she asked.
She smiled at her with a shake of her head, "I am sorry Chemba, but that might not be a good idea. We do not know in what position he is. We might get him into unnecessary trouble by calling him suddenly. And besides, if he did get a chance and the signal he would probably call. Right?"
"You are right" Chemba's voice went down a few decibles. She was disappointed but yet she didn't want to do it just because she might get him into trouble. she sighed.
“Don't look so sullen. We can still make some use of it, like to pass on information. Can I make a call?”
“Oh don't be silly. Ofcourse you can.Just make sure you have ample sky above you, to get the satellite signals you know?”
“Oh! Ok.. Just give me a minute I will make a call, to move this over to higher officials in the capital.”
She said and moved to the nearest clearing off from the cliff. Chemba stood in the dark, her heart now wildly beating for madhan. ‘Oh madhan where are you?’.
As if he heard her unsaid words, she saw some moverment down on the platform.
What was that? She squinted her eyes to get a better look.
In a few seconds something miraculous happened down there.
There in the platform, a light glowed from the ground, like it came from underneath. like a new trap door being opened in dark. A human form emerged from inside the light.
Good lord! An underground facility? They never even thought of it.
Two more came out of it. And then one more after a little while. One fellow then pulled out something from inside a bag and fixed it in his face and so did others. She looked closely. Oh well! here are our famous siddhas, she thought.
She looked at them closely and found something weird. They were all tall defintely above five six at the
most, she could make it out even from this distance.
Then who was that guy who helped her find oviya?none of these men had that cylindrical shape. Did she see the real agathiyar?? she shivered for a second and then smiled thinking 'how paranoid could i get?'
Ok, if these were the culprits, then where is Madhan?
She didn't have to wait so long for the answer. Just as they came out the four men started climbing up in a small trecherous path few feet up and started into a path that lead them straight to the falls.
Few minutes later she saw the underground door open up again. This time she saw a tall form getting out of it with a little difficulty and moving hurriedly to hide, looking on all sides.By now chemba was sure that it was Madhan. God he is alive. She couldn't help avoid the heavy sigh that escaped her. She then hastily looked at the men.
They had by now come out of the bushy path and was in the clearing once again.
Chemba's heart skipped a beat. What if they see him?
But the shadow(Madhan) cleverly hid itself behind a huge tree. Only then did she see that the men were coming straight in her direction. Even if they can't come here they might see her from where they were.
She jumped up and ran out to paval.
“Yes, boss. Boss, I will take care don’t worry. You need not come.”
".."
“Ok . Call back soon. “with that Paval closed the phone, looked at chemba and asked “what’s wrong?”
“Hide.. Find..”
“what?”
“we need to hide first” she said urgently.
Paval looked about her and found a nice clean cleavage between a huge tree and a big rock.
“Come on, jump in. It won’t be a big deal to hide in this darkness. Don’t worry they can’t find us. And whom
are we hiding from?”
“I ..I saw few men out in that platform. Look” they could clearly see the platform from their hideout.
The men seemed to be submerged in some important talk. They then slowly went near the falls. They went in, and vanished.
“what? Are they taking a shower or what?” chemba grated irritatedly.
“I don’t think so. Just hold your breath for some more minutes.”
It seemed like an eon for chemba. Her mind was jumping out to that one man who hid behind the tree.
“Paval”
“Sh…”
“what?”
“Do you hear that?”paval whispered now.
“what? I don’t hear anything”
“that..the disturbance in the water. Oh my god! chemba look”
The men just emerged out of the falls. When the last man came out, paval saw the clean caving behind the screen of water.
“Bloody hell, such a path? Just like in movies. Do you think they made it?”
“Nah.. I think they just found out that little beautiful secret of the nature. Sh. They are near.”
The men were coming straight towards them. They were talking to themselves. Paval and chemba sharpened their ears and listened to their conversation.
“Do you think he can escape? Did you check him before we leave?"
“Well I did check before we went into the lab."
"So you didn't check before we came out?" the tallest of them stopped and looked(probably glared) at the other.
"Oh come on. Where can he go? I safely locked him in the store room. And escape from here? Not a
chance. He cannot get out of the room first let alone come out of that hole and even if he did, he cannot go down climbing with his injured hand. The tigers would have a feast today.”
Injured? Chemba’s heart flustered.
“Well you should have been more careful. How did he smell us anyway?”
" He belongs to that silly trekking group whom kanganan was talking about. He must be one among them. I
guess he was lost and found us by coincidence. He saw us sending out the signal. And we saw him too. So got him in one knock and kept him in the room and then signaled you back. But you did come quick.”
“Yeah I was in the kudiyiruppu. what about the others from the group?”
“ I heard from selvaraj that two of them drank our special mineral water and are in the hospital now. They had led out a search to find the others.”the third man spoke.
“What if they find our place?”
“Oh no worries. I got a message an hour ago that they found them all except one. This fellow is probably
the one. They didn't find us until now, who would dream of an underground testing lab in the hills?"
"Yeah. except that previous officer who opposed us" the fourth more silent one spoke in a low grunt.
"Oh! you mean the one who served himselves as dinner for the tigers? yeah he wouldn't talk anymore" the tall one who seemed to be the leader laughed. It sounded demonic in the silent night.
“Yeah,that case is closed and so will this ”
They laughed among themselves and walked past them.
One whole minute passed. The girls didn’t utter a single word. Even after that chemba was speechless.
‘Madhan is injured?’
“Chemba get up. We need to go. At least we don’t have to think about the enemies now. They are all gone. Hopefully.”
They slowly came out of the hiding and followed the path from which the fraud siddhas came.
But before that, paval made a call to her boss. A long one. When she came back Chemba looked restless. Her jaw was sight tight. what happened? wondered Paval.
“What did your boss say?”chemba asked her . They were climbing up the rocky surface to get to the falls.
“Muthu my boss, is quite fast. He had already talked to a minister and the commissioner who he is really in good terms. He is right now checking out the medical research labs, especially the ones operating with foreign money. He will soon trace out the root. Then it won’t take them long to cut the tree. I have informed about the return of our siddhas. Big welcome awaits them down there. I just hope they wont be warned before that.”
“Right now we need to save madhan. That is what is more important.”Chemba chimed in.
“Right” now Paval understood the agitation. They had now come near the falls. The sound of the falling water was deafening now. The slight drizzling of icy cold water made them shiver. They entered the tunnel and walked in silence and darkness.
“Can we switch on the torch now?”
“I would do it gladly but they might see it from down. No"
“So much for a help. It has been useless since we brought it here.”chemba gave a shaky laugh.
When they came out to the platform, Paval was cautious and they moved slowly towards the uprooted tree.
They couldn’t find the entrance for the underground lab. While Paval was looking out for any sign of that opening Chemba ran to the huge tree and looked behind.
A wild hare ran out of it's hole scaring the hell out of her. Apart from that nobody was there.
will shine one more time.....
