Vimana (11 page)

What did he mean?

'Yes, Aaditya. This was when I and my crew first came to your planet.'

A million questions were racing through Aaditya's mind, and not knowing where to start, he blurted out, 'So you're aliens?'

Brahma smiled.

'So many people say that. What a curious word:
Alien
. Considering how long we've been here, one would have hoped for more hospitality.'

He laughed at his own joke, and Aaditya stared at him, wondering if the old man was crazy or trying to tell him a tall tale. Oblivious to Aaditya's incredulity, Brahma continued.

'What you choose to believe is of course up to you. I can but share the truth. This, Aadi is a recording of our first descent to Earth.'

Aaditya turned to the image again. It showed what seemed to be North America, but as the ground loomed even closer, Aaditya was mystified by one thing.

'I see no lights, no cities, just barren earth. Why is that?'

Brahma turned towards Aaditya with a smile.

'You see none of those, my son, because this recording was made 15,000 years ago.'

***

Aaditya sat in stunned silence as Brahma continued with his tale.

'We are part of an alliance that seeks out planets that can harbour intelligent life, and we nudge them along till they develop to a level of self-awareness where we can ask them to join our alliance.'

'An alliance. Like a military alliance?'

Brahma shook his head. 'No, far from it. It is an alliance that shares knowledge and resources; that seeks to nurture that most precious thing in our universe- life.'

A map of the Indian subcontinent came into view.

'We first landed near what you today know as India, then set up bases across the world.'

Red dots emerged across multiple locations on the map- Egypt, South America, India and Europe.

'At that time, we found that your people were barely entering the phase of what you consider civilization today. It was far too early for us to make contact. We debated that last point, but the question for me was sealed when some of your people chanced upon us and began to think of us as gods.'

Realization dawned on Aaditya.

'That explains your names. Those are all names of Hindu gods.'

'People in other regions gave us other names, but having landed here first, we adopted these names over time. You know, Aadi, we should have never stayed. What we should have done was go back, and report that it was still too early to visit Earth.'

'Then why did you stay?'

'Because some of us broke our faith.'

The angry response had come from Indra, who had walked into the room flanked by Shiva and Vishnu.

'One of us got greedy. Seeing the primitive stage of development here, he decided to enslave your people and rule as a false God. He built monuments to his vanity and caused untold suffering. He began to corrupt others in our crew with promises of power.'

The holographic image now showed slaves pulling huge stone blocks towards a giant half-finished pyramid. Vishnu took up the tale.

'We tied to reason with him, pleaded with him to not go down this path, but he was beyond reasoning. When we threatened force, he took his many followers and set up a base here.'

A dot glowed in the Mediterranean Sea.

'We knew him and his crew as Ashwins. Indian mythology calls them Asuras and we became known as the Devas. The land they hid in is known to your people as Atlantis.'

Aaditya's eyes began to roll over, and noticing his reaction, Brahma stopped.

'So you don't believe me?'

'I'm sorry but you expect me to believe that you're 15,000-year-old aliens? That sounds too far out for me.'

Brahma wiped his hand and the holographic display disappeared.

'That is your choice. But what I can tell you is that if you do not believe us, I really don't see any point in you staying here. How can you help us when you don't even believe in us?'

Indra now spoke. 'As Tanya may have told you, we initially welcomed people who stumbled upon us, since we hoped they could act as a bridge to your people when the time comes to reveal ourselves. But nobody really stayed. If you want to stay, we would be happy to try again, but as Brahma said, you need to fully understand what you're involved in.'

Aaditya pleaded with him, 'Look, I would love to believe you, but this is so weird that I'd rather believe you're some kind of secret government organization that's saying this to prevent me from knowing the truth.'

Vishnu asked the others to step back. 'Aadi's stakes in this are much more personal than for anyone before him, and let us not forget that Kartik lives today because of him. So, let me take him on a trip and try and show him some of our history at close quarters.'

Five minutes later, Aaditya was in the hangar, in front of a large vimana that had a beak like a hawk and wings drawn on either side along with sharp talons. Vishnu asked Aaditya to get into the cockpit. 'This, Aadi, is my vimana, the
Garuda.
Put one of these on as well.
'

He handed Aaditya an earpiece similar to the one he had taken from Kartik. In an instant, they were out of the hangar doors and Aaditya felt himself flattened against the seat as the vimana accelerated nearly vertically. When it stabilized in level flight, Aaditya saw the holographic display showing the vimana at an altitude of 100,000 feet and a speed of more than five thousand kilometres per hour. Vishnu looked at his expression and smiled.

'
Garuda
is not even being stretched here, but I thought for starters, I'd lay your doubts to rest about this being an aircraft from Earth. You know your planes, so tell me, is there any craft you can think of that could do this. Or this?'

Aaditya shook his head mutely as the vimana accelerated to six thousand kilometres per hour and climbed to the very edge of space. Aaditya found his breath being taken away by the sight he saw- pitch black space above, and the Earth far below.

Vishnu kept talking, taking up the story where Brahma had left it.

'For some years, the Ashwins were content to live in their land, and rule over their domains in Egypt and South America, and we kept trying for a peaceful solution. But perhaps we waited too long. They mistook our patience for weakness, and began a campaign of conquest. We were always few, perhaps a hundred of us, and a similar number of them, so they needed foot soldiers to occupy and hold land. Know how they did that?'

Aaditya shook his head, as an image came up on the display in front of him. It was that of the kind of men he had encountered at the Old Fort and on his roof- large, dark, and with the ridged forehead.

'
Daityas
,' Vishnu continued, 'They took some of the early proto-human species and created cloned monsters. Strong, ruthless and obedient, but not very smart. With those demons, they unleashed their reign of terror. They sided with human dictators, promising them power and helping with these demons and their technologies, but in reality making them slaves.'

The display now showed vimanas flying high overhead, as a medieval looking army laid siege to a fort. Aaditya interrupted Vishnu. 'If this is true, and they were interfering in human affairs with these daityas and their vimanas, someone would have noticed it.'

Vishnu smiled.

'They did. In a way, we are lucky that you modern humans have such short memories and that you've come to trust nothing but what you discover for yourselves. Otherwise, our existence would have been no secret.'

 He pointed to the display where text emerged in a language Aaditya did not recognize, and then dissolved into its English translation.

Vimanas, decked and equipped according to rule, looked like heavenly structures in the sky . . . borne away they looked like highly beautiful flights of birds.

'That's from the Indian epic Mahabharata
,
written some three thousand years ago.'

Another quote appeared.

The Puspaka Vimana that resembles the sun and belongs to my brother, was brought by the powerful Ravan; that aerial and excellent car, going everywhere at will, is ready for thee. That car, resembling a bright cloud in the sky, is in the city of Lanka.

'That's from your Ramayana, written even earlier. And it isn't just your people who recorded it. Another quote.'

A rushing windy great thundercloud like flying craft flew out of the north.  The vehicle had the appearance of brilliant glowing fire all around it and the centre of the illumination the vehicle was polished metal.

'
That's Ezekiel speaking, in the Bible.'

Seeing Aaditya's expression, Vishnu added with a smile, 'If you don't believe me, Google it, as you say nowadays.'

'Did you fight these Ashwins then?'

'Oh we had to. We couldn't let them continue. Not after they crossed a threshold we never imagined they would.'

'What did they do?'

In response, Vishnu took the vimana into a gut-wrenching dive and sped towards the Earth.

'Look down. What do you see?'

Aaditya saw a lake...no, as he looked closer, he could see that the water was contained in a depression of some kind.

'Looks like one of those meteorite craters that you see on Discovery Channel.'

Vishnu nodded.

'Looks like one but it isn't. This is in Lonar, just a few hundred kilometres from Mumbai, and the crater you see is over six thousand feet in diameter and was formed over 12,000 years ago. It looks like a meteorite crater but no evidence has been found of an impact. Do you know why?'

Aaditya shrugged his shoulders.

'Because it's not a meteorite crater at all. It is the impact point of the first use of nuclear weapons in the history of Earth.'

***

Aaditya sat wordlessly as Vishnu took his vimana on a trip crisscrossing many continents at speeds well in excess of five thousand kilometres per hour, pausing only to show him a site of interest before moving to the next.

'The Ashwins used the nuclear weapon to support one of their human client states in a war, and then repeated it several times. It emerged that the first use was executed on the orders of one the Ashwin generals, a wonderful specimen called Maya, whom I believe you know well. When we sought to intervene to stop this madness, they used nuclear weapons against us.'

Aaditya involuntarily clenched his fist at the memory of the snake-eyed monster and also the fact that his father's last transmission had mentioned a red-tipped craft like the one Maya piloted.

'So many years later, the traces remain. In Rajasthan, near Jodhpur, there is still a mile wide area of high radioactivity. In the Middle East, there are peaks that seem to have been cleaved off, and their tops still show radioactive traces. Look below you and see the blackened top.'

'And I suppose that this use of nuclear weapons is also recorded?'

Vishnu shook his head, as if in mock despair. 'Ever the skeptic. But don't take my word for it. This is what the Mahabharata
says.'

The holographic display glowed with a new set of characters.

A single projectile

Charged with all the power of the Universe.

An incandescent column of smoke and flame

As bright as the thousand suns

Rose in all its splendor...

...it was an unknown weapon,

An iron thunderbolt,

A gigantic messenger of death,

Which reduced to ashes

The entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.

Aaditya was silent for a while.

'So you didn't retaliate?'

Vishnu began to set a course back to base as he responded.

'Oh we retaliated all right. We obliterated them. First we wiped out their major base in the Middle East- an episode that has gone down in human folklore as Sodom and Gomorrah. They had set up one of their generals in Lanka and we destroyed him, and then unable to break through their defenses, we used nuclear explosions to create giant tidal waves that destroyed their main citadel. And thus the legend of Atlantis was born.'

'And then?'

Aaditya could now see the Himalayan peaks over the horizon, as Vishnu responded.

'And then, we stepped back and looked at what we had unleashed. The Earth was devastated, the nuclear winter brought on a new ice age, and we left, vowing to return when the Earth was indeed more ready in terms of its evolution for us to make contact again.'

'But...'

Vishnu silenced him.

'I cannot give you all the answers in one flight. If you choose to remain, you will get all of them gradually.'

The vimana landed in a few minutes and Aaditya was back in his room, thinking over all that he had seen and heard. There was a knock on the door. It was Tanya.

'I heard about your trip. They must feel for your situation, otherwise I've never seen them take so much effort.'

Aaditya sat down beside Tanya.

'It all sounds so....'

'Crazy?' Tanya volunteered.

'Well, yeah.'

'Sometimes, Aadi, if there is no other feasible alternative than what you see with your own eyes, no matter how unexpected or improbable it seems, it is perhaps the truth.'

Aaditya turned towards her.

'I didn't realize you were a philosopher.'

She smiled. 'Hardly, but I've seen too many people discover this and then not be able to cope with it, or worse, use the knowledge to try and get fame when they go back.'

Aaditya just sat there quietly for a minute, still coming to grips with everything he had just learned. He felt Tanya's hand close over his.

'Aadi, I know just how tough it is to lose one's family, so I can understand your pain. If you do stay, and just want someone to talk to, I'm always here.'

Aaditya looked at her and smiled.

'Thanks. At least I have you to chat with and relate to. It must have been tough for you, being....alone here.'

Aaditya saw her face darken and mentally kicked himself for saying the wrong thing.