99 Palms: Horn OK Please (13 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

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Roses are red and violets are blue,

The Holy Ganges, bathe in it, your body’ll be as good as new;

There’s something special about the place, it’s not magic,

There’s something about the water, it can heal the sick;

It’s not blind faith, not Grandma’s tale, it’s a scientific marvel,

It’s the phages, the ‘X-factor’, only pure science can unravel;

The pure water from Ganges can kill germs, it’s got power,

The foolish people around have now turned it into a sewer;

You don’t suppose that it’s been worshipped for nothing?

Faith & belief kept aside, the Nine have done something;

The phages grow, they keep the oxygen content real high,

But the clue lay in the ‘X-factor’, we wanted to know why!

The road to Shambala lay on the banks of Ganges somewhere,

We need to look for it, use this knowledge to find out where;

If smiles and Imagination make you say ‘Cheese’

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

***

Rolling into Varanasi:

We’d recently learnt that Kashi or Benaras or Varanasi are the same place, thanks to the brilliant minds we seem to be meeting during our quest for the lost city of gold. The city dates back to the 7
th
century BC and is a contemporary of Babylon or Neneveh, a city where religion is a way of life, a city where life is considered spiritual, not just limited to the physical. The place had a certain feel to it and the flow of energy is almost tangible. We knew we had come to the right place.

Bamboo parasols dotted the place with many holy men sitting under them at the
Deasashvamedha Ghat,
where we sat watching the sunrise, waiting for Dr. Wei Wang. This particular spot where I wrote this paragraph is supposed the be the holiest spot of Varanasi as swarms of tourists took a dip in the holy waters of what is considered the most sacred river on earth, river Ganga. It was right in the center of the marketplace in the heart of the city.

We had checked into a resort in the outskirts of the town and took an
auto-rickshaw
through the narrow lanes and by-lanes of one of the oldest cities in the world. We’d crossed an old 17
th
century temple known as the Vishwanath temple, the shrine of which is topped by 750 kilograms of solid gold. We wondered where all the gold came from.

Dotted with shops all around, the city came to life very early in the morning as temple bells rang all around. Faith, religion and belief aside, we were after the gold. Dr. Wei Wang was supposed to meet us here. We took in the sunrise along with the cooing of doves and the foolish squawks of awkward crows.

“Wei should be here anytime now”, said Derek as he continued to click photographs of devotees and holy men taking a dip in the river.

“No rush, I’m enjoying sitting here”, I said as I played around with my iPad and chanced upon what Mark Twain had to say about the city, “Benaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together…”

“True that! Just look at the place, man, no wonder it is called the Holy City of India, The City of Temples, the city of learning, the city of light and what not. This is truly my Incredible India!” exclaimed Goose as he couldn’t seem to get enough of the vibrancy all around.

Just as Varanasi is the holiest city for Hindus, it is said that Sarnath, barely ten kilometers away, is the holiest city for Buddhists. That was our final destination for the Dhamek Stupa was close to the Ganges, close to where we were right now. Sarnath is said to be the place where Buddha delivered his first sermon. Maybe, Emperor Ashoka’s ‘ashes’ were immersed into the Ganges right here where we were sitting, way back in 232 BC under a shroud of secrecy. If only these stone steps could tell us the story.

Meet Dr. Wei Wang:

“Hey! That must be her, that must be Wei”, said Hound as he saw a pretty oriental woman trying to make her way through the crowds towards us. She seemed utterly disoriented in this place.

Derek waved out to her and she recognized us as she smiled and sashayed towards us. Dressed in some loose robes that defy reason and meaning, she was a thin, slender woman in her late twenties. She had short, cropped hair and a pleasing personality. Tall and lithe, she looked like a broomstick wrapped loosely in a gaudy bed sheet.

“You must be the famous four and you must be Derek, the dude who called me”, said Wei, extending her hand out as we shook hands. Pleasantries over, she came straight to the point, “Uzki told me that you are looking for the entrance to Shambala, the ridge. Bounty hunters, eh?”

“Yes, ma’am, you’re talking to ‘em. We’re the Indie Jones of India”, said Hound, bowing in mock reverence.

“Great. She told me that you have cracked the location coordinates of the ridge and that’s at the Dhamek Stupa, barely 10 kilometers from here”, said Wei, pointing towards Saranth, the place which was supposed to lead us to the center of the earth in search of Shambala.

“You need to know this very clearly that the journey to the center of the earth is not something simple and straight forward. Even I don’t know. But I do suppose you need to know about the secrets of the Ganges for you may need to have special suits that would need to be loaded with holy water” Wei said in a serious tone.

“Wow! No kidding? The water looks so filthy!” exclaimed Goose, pointing at the Ganges as we all looked at the tourist who was scrubbing himself furiously, soap all over. This was his idea of a bath.

“Yes, I shall explain. This holy water, which you just termed as ‘filthy’, is exactly what may keep you alive in your journey to Shambala. There is another thing I think will be of use to you is a wild-guess location of where the ridge could potentially be. So pay attention to what I must tell you”, said Wei, looking sternly at Goose, as a teacher would look at a student while admonishing him.

“Yes, 2,500 kilometers of the purest river on earth has been badly polluted by industrial chemicals, farm pesticides and other sewage by completely ignorant people. I have the greatest regard for this river, holy to many, a pure marvel of science to others like myself”, said the microbiologist in Wei as it seemed to surface in her.

Secrets of the Ganges:

“Know that the water of the Ganges river used to be called the
‘Water of Immortality’
by King Akbar who always used to carry pots of this water with him. Even the East India Company used to load their ships with water from the Ganges during their three month voyages to England for the water from Ganges never went stale. The holy men of India seemed to know of these secrets since long. It’s a pity you don’t seem to understand it”, said Wei, staring at the Ganges as though speaking on its behalf.

“The secret society of the Nine Unknown is said to be behind it, right from the time of Emperor Ashoka. Why is this place so holy? I am a microbiologist and I can safely say that today, there is no scientific evidence to say why it is so. Some ancient scholars point to the theory of sterilization by radiation for no harmful bacteria or microorganism can survive in the holy waters of Ganges for more than six hours!” said Wei as she walked towards the Ganges, a few steps down and scooped out a handful of the same and drank it.

“See? You call it filthy and I just drank some of it. The water is said to be pure for it contains bacteriophages that have the ability to sterilize the water. But why are these not formed in other rivers around the world? Why Ganges alone?” she spoke in a tone that betrayed a sense of lack of knowledge about the truth, squatting on the steps as tourists and devotees went about their ritual dip in the water. No one seemed to bother about our existence. We were having a private conversation in a crowded holy place.

“The water from Ganges never putrefies, it never goes stale. That’s because this river seems to contain 25% more oxygen than any other river in the whole world. What causes it? How does the replenishment of oxygen happen in a river which seems to be treated like a septic tank by uncaring corporates and small industries around the place?” quizzed Wei as Goose went about scooping out a handful for himself and drank it. It was his way of apologizing to Wei for his ignorant statement.

“So how does all this oxygen in the water help keep the water pure?” Derek asked.

“Good question. The high oxygen content in the water kills pathogens quickly and therefore it never lets it spread or multiply. Simply put, I can drink the water from right beside a floating corpse from the Ganges and yet it wouldn’t hurt me. Shouldn’t that make it holy for the unscientific mind?”  said Wei as she watched a dozen devotees go straight into the river for a dip.

“Oh! By the way, if you boil water from the Ganga, its properties change. The magic is gone. Also, the Yamuna river which joins Ganga near Allahabad doesn’t have these properties.  So that makes me wonder. Why is only the water from Ganga so pure? The high oxygen content is understood by the bacteriophages, but how on earth are these formed? Why is Varanasi the source? What makes the molecular structure of water from Ganges so different from water from anywhere else?” said Wei, looking at me intently as I stared at her in shock and awe.

“The bacteriophages? The phages? From what you say, shouldn’t that be the logical answer?” said Goose, echoing what was on my mind as Derek and Hound nodded in agreement.

The mysterious ‘X factor’ in Ganga:

“Unfortunately, that’s where our science ends. These phages are not unique to Ganga. Many microbiologists have researched the topic. I have spent 8 months here, taking samples from different parts of Ganges and interestingly, that’s not the right answer” said Wei, taking a deep sigh as she sat and looked at us with a smile.

“Well, haven’t other researchers tried to find out the reason?” I asked at the risk of sounding rude.

“Of course, Chief. There was an independent producer called Julian Hollic who conducted the exact same experiments that I am conducting. He attributes the purification not to phages but to the “mysterious X factor” or a disinfectant that seems to kill millions of bacteria within six hours. However, he too concedes defeat to the actual source of these regenerating phages that seem to self-multiply and increase the oxygen levels by 25%!” exclaimed Wei.

“Wei, all that is fine. This is good coffee conversation. How does this theory really help us with our quest for the lost world of Shambala? How does all this relate to what we need to look for the ridge at the Damek Stupa in Sarnath?” said Hound, mildly irritated by the fact we seemed to be talking about yet another grandma’s tale.

“No, Hound, this knowledge is important for you to have. Trust me. Before you came to Varanasi, Dr. Uzki had mailed me the coordinates of the ridge at Dhamek. In order to find it and to make sure that your journey to the center of the earth is going to be a safe one, I did a few back calculations” said Wei in her defense as she fished out a small diary from her rather large handbag.

These handbags that women carry can even hold an elephant, I tell you. The things one can find in a woman’s handbag can impress any scientist. We wondered what she’d pull out of it – an elephant? A map? A treasure chest?

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

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Roses are red and violets are blue,

We were on the road, shining & new;

With the clues we had been able to crack, we were in ecstasy;

We were on the throes of a new discovery, to realize a fantasy;

The cylindrical Dhamek Stupa was to greet us at Sarnath,

Hell! We needed some rest, I desperately needed a bath;

Every stopover in our journey posed a new mystery;

We cracked ‘em one after the other, we created history;

It wasn’t just greed that drove us now,

The thirst for adventure is a bitch, if fuelled us & how;

What’s obvious to the naked eye isn’t always reality,

We were getting educated in topics like chirality;

If it weren’t for the timely help, we would’ve failed,

But with their help, we had every mystery nailed,

Superstition isn’t our bent of mind,

For in pure science, the answers that we find;

We would soon be rich, we’ll have unlimited wealth,

We were inching closer, a place of wonderful health;

If smiles and Imagination make you say ‘Cheese’

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

***