Confessions of an Epic Indian

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SHOCKWAVE
VORTAL CODEX: BOOK 1

Ashok Banker

for yashka banker
on her 16th birthday
(only two years late!)

DO YOU WISH TO ENTER THE VORTAL?

Timewarp
For reasons that become clear after reading the full story, the events described in this story take place in the year 2000. All references to songs, movies, etc, are appropriate to that year.

Basic Ishtory
It all began when Mikey Vatsal accidentally discovered that new site on the Internet.
The one that asks you to forfeit your soul to the Webmaster before entering.
And which opens a quantum doorway that takes you to infinite alternate versions of our world.
Each time a person opens the Vortal to go through to another world, another person gets shifted into our world, to maintain The Balance.
Now, the Vatsal family is locked in a life-and-death struggle to close the Vortal and restore our world to its normal state.
But they seem to be facing a few obstacles.
Several billion of them in fact.

Meet The Vatsals
Virendra Vatsal: Father, 46, CEO of Virtual Reality Systems Inc., an IT firm that develops software solutions for prime US and European firms. “Vir.”
Sarla Vatsal: Mother, 43, a successful freelance journalist and author of non-fiction books. “Mom.”
Viveka Vatsal: Daughter, 21, fresh college grad, accepted to MIT but wants to set up her own animation portal. “Viv.”
Vaibhav Vatsal: Son, 17, Arts graduate, wants to go to the States and direct blockbuster science fiction movies. “Vhy.”
Mahesh Vatsal: Younger Son, 12, Net nerd, wants to eat home-delivery pizza and surf the Net for the rest of his life. “Mikey.”

1
IN WHICH THE VATSALS SECURE A NEW RESIDENCE, MIKEY SHOWS US THE EMAIL THAT STARTED IT ALL, VHY MESSES UP HIS HOT AND HAPPENING DVD DATE, RUCHI SEES SOMETHING WIERD IN MIKEY’S ROOM, MIKEY DOES A ‘HOLLOW MAN’, & VIVEKA CATCHES VHY AND RUCHI DOING A TOM & NICOLE. ACTUALLY.

1.1 V R Family
The door of the flat opened slowly, revealing only darkness. The five shadowy figures standing in the doorway stepped forward slowly, hesitantly.
One of them did something with a gadget on the wall and with blinding suddenness, every light in the place came on at once.
“That’s much better,” said Sarla Vatsal, smiling at her husband. At 43, she could still make all heads turn when the hunt went by. In fact, Vir thought as he walked back to her side, she seemed to grow more attractive as she matured. Maybe it was just him, but he thought she looked better than she had when they’d met back in college in the hey days of bellbottoms, afros, disco and dum maro dum. Perhaps it was the fact that she had maintained her figure so well, even after three children, and had refined her sense of grooming and fashion that added the extra layer of gloss. Whatever it was, he counted himself lucky as hell. ‘Luckier than Dilip De’, as his brother Anant had commented wryly once, in his customary laconic-sarky style.
Their youngest son, Mikey, a precocious 12, and currently going through a i’m-a-hacker-cowboys-aren’t-i-cool phase, groaned and slipped on his Ray-Bans. “Dad, next time you try to blind us, give us some warning, please?”
His short stature was accentuated by his wide girth; too many hours of sitting before computer and television screens had made him softer and heavier than his parents would have liked. But even putting on weight was a kind of rebellion for Mikey; and despite his excess bulk, he still looked cute, especially when he tried to look mean with his mohawk punk haircut and multiple earrings on the left ear.
“Shut up, Mikey,” snapped his older brother Vaibhav. “And don’t wear your sunglasses indoors. It’s bad luck.”
Vaibhav, or Vhy as he preferred to be called–as a baby, his stubborn response to everything was “Why?”–was as lean and tall as his younger brother was short and fat. He had his father’s dark good looks and masculine intensity. At 17, he was already starting to fit into the intense ‘hero’ slot. Except that he was much more laid back than his looks suggested: Vhy was the quintessential ‘chalta hai’ guy.
“That’s only for hats, stupid,” Mikey retorted.
Their older sister Viveka sighed. “Will you two stop fighting for once. This is important, okay. Try to focus.” Her Indian dressing–she was in a khadi churidhar kurta that showed off her slim but full figure beautifully–was deceptive. She was more foreign-savvy than either of her brothers. Though God help you if you ever questioned her Indianness. A graduate of Michigan State and diploma-holder from Columbia State University, New York, Viv was the classic NRI- returns-to-her-roots icon. And like all desis with return-postage stamped on their foreheads, she was far more ethnic and desi in her tastes and language than either of the boys, with a genuine international outlook. A young Shabana Azmi could have played her in a film version of her life!
Looking at his family, Virendra Vatsal felt he might have actually done something right with his life after all. He had worked bloody hard to climb to the position he was in today, and the company he and his brother had started, and which he had taken over after Anant dropped out to concentrate on his medical career and then built into a thriving independent IT and BPO firm, was his pride. But it was his family that was the true icing on his cake. Looking at them, sharing the same life-space with them, always made him feel that it was worth every midnight deadline and overnight office stay over and jet-lagged international business tour.
Overwork had added deep circles beneath his eyes and brought his severe eyebrows closer together in an intense stare; but these only made him look more ruggedly attractive, in a way that his wife Sarla described as “Bachchan+Tommy Lee Jones+Al Pacino = mature hunk!”
Now, he put an arm around his wife, squeezed tight and gestured casually at the brightly-lit flat.
“So?” he said softly, almost romantically. “What do you think?”
Raising his voice, he repeated the question loud enough for everybody to hear. “What do you all think? Is it home?”
The five of them looked around the flat.
They walked through the corridor, looked into each of the five bedrooms, the spacious attached toilets with gold-trimmed porcelain fittings and kingsize bathtubs.
The balconies, every one of which had a great view of the ocean and half the city’s coastline from Juhu on the right all the way to Cuffe Parade on the left.
The furniture which was almost all wooden and designed in that Scandinavian way that looks elegant but is functional too.
The electrical fittings designed to meet the needs of a post-millennial Net-connected family: designer lighting with individually customized settings.
The gizmos in each bedroom: 34” colour TVs with cable, DVD players, 1200-watt stereo systems with hidden speakers, PCs with cable modems, and every other gadget an urban Indian family could possibly desire.
When they met back in the huge living room (35 by 42 feet, with a sea-facing glass enclosed verandah at the far end), they all looked a little dazed. Except for Virendra Vatsal, who had spent the last 11 months getting the apartment custom-interior-designed and fitted in complete secrecy, and was now as nervous as a first-time applicant for an H1B US Visa.
“I thought you just bought an empty flat,” Sarla Vatsal said, staring at her husband.
What do they call it? A shell? A shell. ”
“Yeah, dad,” Vhy said. “You didn’t tell us you were getting it all done up and furnished and all.”
“I thought he was up to something,” Viv said smugly, smiling at her father. “I told you guys he was up to something. That’s why he wouldn’t let us come and even see the building till now!”
Mikey chewed his gum and adjusted his Ray-Bans and lounged on a beanbag sofa and looked around for the remote to the 54” Thomson TV. He found it but decided against it after a warning look from his alert mother. He shrugged and switched on his Discman instead: The scratchy, tinny sound of Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” escaping from his headphones was audible to everyone.
“So?” Vir Vatsal asked for the tenth time in as many minutes.
“Say something! I spent 11 months and almost every rupee of our savings to put this place together. Was it worth it or not?”
Sarla frowned at him: “Every rupee? You said you wouldn’t touch the longterm investments.”
He grinned. “I didn’t. ”
“You know what?” Vhy said slowly, turning around as if trying to absorb the essence of the whole flat from where he stood. “I think it’s the coolest place I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” He added: “Not just homes. The coolest place. Period.”
“I don’t know about cool,” Viveka said, arms crossed over her khadi kurta, frowning intently. “I think it’s way beyond cool. I’d go for awesome. What say, mom?”
Vir Vatsal, grinning with relief at his children’s comments, looked anxiously at his wife.
Sarla Vatsal frowned in a way that was exactly like her daughter Viveka. She tilted her head to one side, exactly like her son Vaibhav often did when thinking. And she pretended to chew her lower lip, the way her youngest son Mikey always did when concentrating.
And then she raised both her hands, the silk saree’s pallu draped over the left, and brought her palms together with force. Producing a sound that echoed like a bullet through the flat. And then repeating it over and over again with increasing frequency and impact.
Her children joined her in the standing ovation.
Sarla Vatsal gestured to her husband between rounds of applause.
“Author! Author!” she said, the way an audience does after viewing a great play or concert.
Vir Vatsal, the author of the performance in question, grinned with relief.
When they stopped clapping, they all came and hugged and kissed him warmly.
“Dad, it’s phenomenal,” Vaibhav said. “Really amazing. You’re maha cool!”
“Great work,” Viveka said, planting a lipstick mark on his left cheek. “Now this is what I call great design sense.”
Sarla Vatsal pinched his right cheek and punched his shoulder. “You rascal, Vir,” she said. “I can understand keeping it a secret from the kids. But how could you not tell me what you were up to? For eleven months? I was beginning to think you were having an affair!”
He looked at her solemnly. “I was.”
She blinked.
“I was having an affair with you,” he explained. “But I was married to this flat!”
They all laughed at that.
Vaibhav said, “Hey, where did Mikey disappear to?”
They looked around. Their youngest brother was nowhere to be seen.
Vir laughed. “I think I can guess where he is.”
He led them down the corridor to the bedroom with the black door and the skull-and-crossbones sign with the words “Enter At Your Own Risk” painted in bleeding red paint. He opened the door and went in. They all followed him.
There was Mikey. At his new PC, already on the Net, surfing through an MP3 site for clips of the latest Billboard hits.
“Hey, dad,” he called out without looking back at them. “This cable modem is okay. But can’t it go any faster?”
Vir Vatsal looked at his wife and grinned. “He likes it too,” he said. “That makes it official!”
And that was how the Vatsals got a new home.
And would probably have lived happily ever after.
But then the e-mail came.

1.2 Mikey
So you see? It all started pretty cool. Like, we had this great new house, Dad’s IT firm’s share price was in the stratosphere, Viveka had just got accepted by MIT, Vaibhav had a new girlfriend even though he hadn’t told mom and dad about it yet, and I had these terrific new toys to fool around with. Life was “Smooth,” like Rob Thomas says.
The first couple of months were really wow. We were planning to go to Florida in the Diwali vacations, like, you know, do Disney World and trash the place. Have a blast, basically. I hadn’t made any new friends in the new building, and maybe that’s why I started spending more time on the Net. Wouldn’t you, if you had such a cool new PC and cable modem? Vhy prefers watching movies with his gf, but he’s a moron, even if he’s my bro.
Besides, I didn’t need friends. I had all the friends I needed on the Net. There was Sally in New Jersey, Zac and Par in Sweden, Stu in Alaska… a whole bunch of great people. ICQ was my life.
I don’t even remember who first forwarded the e-mail to me. Was it Joe in Wichita? Or Evvy in Frankfurt? I don’t know.
All I know is that I was at this really great Shockwave-enabled horror movie site that showed you a haunted house and let you go through the rooms and all kinds of stuff. And while I was logged on, the ‘You have new mail’ thing began flashing so I checked it out.
And there it was: A chain letter. Except that this one was different. I knew it even then, at the start. And I should have done what I always did-dragged it to the commode icon and dropped it in the loo. But I didn’t. Maybe it was the title in the subject line that got me. Or the fact that I was looking at that haunted house site and listening to Uriah Heep’s “Fallen Angel.”
Whatever.
But I made the fatal mistake of reading that e-mail. And I was basically hooked, even though I didn’t realize it at that time.

Subject: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: WARNING: DO NOT VISIT THIS SITE
Date: 28 Jul 00 16:49:14 CDT
From: NetWizard243
To: mikeyvats@redmail.com
>>>>>Hi, friend. Please pass this message on to as many people as you can. This is
>>>>>a matter of life and death okay. This is not a joke. It’s serious stuff, guys. If
>>>>>you ever come across a link to this site, don’t repeat DON’T click on it. It
>>>>>will take you to a website that is not normal. I mean, it’s not even really a
>>>>>website. It’s some kind of weird crap. Maybe it’s black magic. I don’t know.
>>>>>But do not visit it, or type it into your URL address bar or click on any link that takes
>>>>>you there. It’s really bad karma. Trust me.
>>>>>http://www.enterthevortal.com

1.3 Vhy
Looking back now, I guess I feel guilty. As Mikey’s older brother, I should have been looking out for him. Sure, we fight all the time, and I hate his choice in music and movies and stuff, and he hates my choices. But we’re still brothers, after all. And I should have seen it happening and stopped it.
Mikey has a tendency to get carried away. That’s his nature. But this time, it wasn’t wholly his fault. I see that now. Although at the time, I blamed it all on him, the truth is there was something supernatural about that e-mail. Even now, when I look at it, it has a weird kind of draw.
Like, even though it’s shouting out don’t visit that site, what you really feel like doing is do visit the site. You know. Like the little warning on DVDs and LDs that says “Contains full frontal nudity, simulated sex and profanity. Not suitable for children.”
Which red-blooded teenager can resist renting that movie?!
And telling a nerd like Mikey don’t do something is like challenging him.
So naturally, the first thing he did after reading that e-mail, without even thinking for a second about it, was to click on that link and go straight to the site.
Even then, the whole thing might have stopped right there and then. If it wasn’t for Ruchi. That’s my gf. My parents were out of the house, they had tickets to Jesus Christ Superstar that night, and Ruchi came over to watch a DVD with me. And there was this really hot scene in the movie, and I got a little carried away too, I guess.
And when I tried to put my hand on her… Well, you should see her, and you’ll know why I got carried away in the first place.
Ruchi constantly gets teased in college for her looks. All the guys call her, “Twinkle Khanna plus.”
The first part is because she does sort of resemble Twinkle: those wide, slightly sad eyes and slightly hooked nose and clean-cut Punj features. As for the ‘plus,’ that refers to a certain part of her anatomy. To be precise, as Thomson and Thompson say in Tintin comics, the precise part on which I had my hands at the time, precisely. Excuse me if I’m drooling while I do a mental replay of the scene! I’m only thinking about her ‘plus’ points!
But hang on; let her tell you how it happened. Precisely.

1.4 Ruchi
Hi, I’m Ruchi. I don’t know why I’m here, but I’m a part of it, so it makes sense. Sort of. I think. Actually, nothing makes sense about this whole scene at all. But it happened. I know. I was there.
I have this problem with my parents. They’re really conservative. You know how it is: Indian girl isn’t supposed to go out with a guy until she’s married. It sounds 18th century, but a lot more parents are like that than you’d think. Wearing jeans and a tight top to college is one thing. Wearing a guy on your arm to a date is something else altogether.
So, actually, what happened was that I was still refusing to let Vhy (that’s what everyone calls Vaibhav, BTW) intro me to his parents. Because, basically, once they knew, maybe they might want to talk to my parents. And that would have been The End. Phillum Samapt.
But somehow I let him talk me into going to his house that evening, while his parents were out seeing some play or whatnot. I had heard so much about the new house for the last two months, I was maha-curious. So I thought, okay, just pop in, see a movie, eat some home-delivery, and vamoose.
Actually, it started that way. He called me when his parents were leaving and I came over. He showed me the flat. It was stupen. Amaz. Phenom. No words. Like a movie set. After I finished ogling, he took me to his bedroom. Put on the DVD. And we started watching Eyes Wide Shut.
Now, I’m not one of those kind of girls, okay. I haven’t let Vhy go much beyond kissing me even. Actually. And for the first part of the movie, while we drank fresh limes and sat on his really comfy sofa (his bedroom is massive), all was well. It was the whole “Hum tum ek kamre mein bandh ho” scene from Bobby and it was cute, sexy and very exciting.
Then the hot stuff started. I’m talking about that orgy scene. If you’ve seen it…well, if you see it in a group in a theatre, it’s nothing much, actually. But when you’re alone in your bf’s bedroom, alone in the flat (or so we thought) and the AC’s on, and you’re maha-relaxed. And you’re ogling Tom Cruise’s back-he has a really sexy back, and his buns… Stop me!
So then Vhy started nuzzling, okay. Then he was kissing, okay. Hand on my thigh. Okay. Really close to me, close enough to feel his heart going thud-thud. Okay.
But then he started getting carried away. And so did I. I’ll admit it frankly. I got carried away too.
Don’t ask how far, okay. This isn’t a Shobha De novel.
But pretty carried away.
Like at one point I remember, he was whispering in my ear: “Don’t worry, don’t worry, Ruch, I’ve got Durex.”
That was his mistake. And my saving grace.
The fact that he didn’t say ‘condom’ or ‘contraceptive’ or whatever. He said ‘Durex.’ And the image of those ads where all these foreign couples are doing it-on the kitchen table, the bed, the sofa, with that dan-dan-dan music going in the background. And the chutti bai going all blush-blush-red-red with embarrassment when she finds a discarded pack on the ruffled bed.
Just his saying the name made me remember my father switching the channel when the ad came on, and how embarrassed my mom looked. It made me remember my parents.
And that broke the spell. And that’s when I shoved him away, got up, adjusted my blouse, and stormed out of the room. And walked straight out the front door.
Except that it wasn’t actually the front door. I was like new in this flat, and more over-heated than day before yesterday’s pizza, and I just went through the first door at the end of the corridor, thinking it was the way out.
It was his kid brother’s bedroom. Vhy had told me he was out for the evening, everybody was supposed to be out. But he was right there. Sitting at his PC.
And something totally weird was going on. Actually.

1.5 Vhy
Actually.
That’s like Ruch’s favourite catchword. She uses it like my daadi—bless her soul—used to use ‘Hey Ram’ or the way Americans seem to love to inter-marry the foulest abuses with variations of J.C.’s name.
Actually, this, Actually, that. Actually…? Actually!
Sometimes, when we’re having a bit of a tussle over something, I can get really irritated by her using that word. But this time, she was totally justified.
I was coming out of my room, heading for the front door—because obviously I thought that’s the way she had fled—when I heard her gasp behind me. I turned, and saw her standing there, at the door to Mikey’s bedroom, looking in. She had this expression on her face, I don’t know how to describe it.
It was like she had seen a T-Rex lumbering toward her.
She backed away, all the way to the wall of the corridor, banged her head against the wall, just a bit, not really hard. And stopped dead.
“Ruch?” I said, going to her. “Look, I just got carried way, okay. You don’t have to go just because—.”
I still hadn’t caught on to what was going on. But then she turned and grabbed my hand so tight, I knew at once something was off.
“Vaibhav,” she gasped, saying it the way she does when she’s really upset, or emotional. “Your brother…he just…I mean, actually…actually…”
I stared at her, then at the door to Mikey’s bedroom. It was still ajar. I looked at Ruchi again. “Actually what?”
She opened and closed her mouth, like a fish in a bowl. “He…actually…actually…”
See what I mean about the ‘actuallys’? They can totally get on your nerves!
I patted her shoulder, comforting her. Then went to Mikey’s door and pushed it open slowly. I looked in.
There was Mikey’s comp, the monitor displaying the usual dozen-odd browser pages, email clients, direct messaging clients, etc. Probably chatting with fifty different people at the same time, using fifty different handles himself! That was Mikey. The room smelled of stale pizza, spilled cola, and the usual group of Mikey smells. Except for something else. A strange, pungent odour that I couldn’t quite place.
I poked my head all the way into the room and looked around. “Hey, bro? You here?” I was hoping he had been sitting securely in his room all this while. It was one thing to watch Eyes Wide Shut with my gf in the privacy of my room, behind closed doors. And quite another to have my kid brother sneaking around, listening at keyholes—or worse, looking in. Shudder. Or Yucks! as Ruchi would say.
But Mikey wasn’t like that. He wasn’t into things like eavesdropping and peeping through keyholes. Nah. He was glued to his comp, and if he’d gotten up for a minute, it was probably to answer some unavoidable call of nature, or to fetch the next pizza or can of cola. Right now he was probably in the loo.
For a second, out the corner of my eye, I thought I saw the image on his monitor change, as if a screensaver had come on, and I glanced back it. But it was the same as before—more or less, I guess. No screensaver, just a bunch of browser pages and chat thingies.
I turned back to Ruchi. She was staring goggle-eyed at me.
“He’s not here,” I said. “Probably in the loo.” Or in the kitchen, getting himself another can.
She put a hand to her mouth. “He was sitting at his comp when I looked in, Vhy. Sitting there. Actually.” She said it once more, just in case I hadn’t got it the first time round: “Actually!”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, more than a little irritated now. I was still flushed from our little, ahem, grope-fest. “He probably stepped out just now.”
“No!” she almost shouted. “I mean just now, just this minute. He was sitting there. And then he wasn’t!”
I stared at her. “He wasn’t?”
She nodded so vigorously, I thought her head might fall off. She started to add something, then thought better of it for some reason, but I clearly saw her lips move to form the first syllable of, what else, “Actu–.”
There was a sound behind me. I turned and looked into Mikey’s room. He was sitting there at his desk, typing away at his keyboard feverishly, tapping and clicking on his mouse like a net-nerd in the heat of an online auction for Re 1 air tickets. I frowned. He looked like he hadn’t moved for hours.
“Hey, Mikey?” I said, puzzled.
“Yeah,” he said after the usual long Mikey pause to allow time for my words to penetrate through his thick fog of net-nerdiness.
“Where were you just now? Like a moment ago?”
“Here,” he said shortly. That’s Mikey, my bro, man of few words. Few spoken words.
“No, I mean, when you got up and left your comp just now, where were you? In the loo?” He couldn’t have been out of the room, obviously, because Ruchi and I were standing right here. “Or the balcony?” Though that sounded stupid the minute I said it—why would Mikey go to the balcony?
He turned slightly, just enough so I could see his partial profile. In the light of the monitor he looked a bit less chubby than usual—probably the angle or the light. “Never got up. Never went anyplace. Sitting right here for the past hour and a half.” He paused. “Since the pizza arrived.” He added after a moment: “Get the door, will you? And get a life.”
I shut Mikey’s bedroom door slowly. When it clicked softly, Ruchi flinched.
I turned and stared at her. I was starting to understand why she was so freaked.
“Ruchi….When I looked into the room just now…Mikey…He wasn’t there just a minute ago, right? He wasn’t sitting at his desk, right?”
She shook her head. What had she said when I found her in the passage? “Just now, just this minute. He was sitting there. And then he wasn’t!”
And now he was sitting there again. As if he’d never gotten up at all—and he even said he hadn’t gotten up. And I didn’t see why he would be lying—or how he could be lying. I was standing right here when he re-appeared again at his comp, after all. I would have seen or heard something if he had come from the bathroom and sat down at his desk.
Which left only one explanation: Mikey had disappeared from his chair, then reappeared moments later.
Actually.

1.6 Ruchi
Actually, that wasn’t the whole story. After we went back to Vhy’s room and sat and talked about it for a bit—and I mean, talked, okay, no hanky panky stuff—I told him to stop and rewind.
“Which part?” he asked, puzzled.
“The part when you looked into Mikey’s room and saw his comp. What was on his monitor?”
He shrugged. “The usual thingies. Net stuff.”
I shook my head. “I saw something else. Actually.”
He frowned, with a trace of irritation. “Like what?”
I shivered. “I don’t know. Some kind of interface. It was all black, with white lettering and red lettering, but it wasn’t like the usual html page, you know what I mean? It was like, I don’t know, a video playing.”
He turned to look at the door of his room, thinking. “Maybe it was a video. He plays a lot of heavy metal and punk rock videos while chatting, some of those are really whacked stuff.”
“Maybe,” I said reluctantly, “but I think this was something else. I saw a word, big letters, Portal, I think…no, with a V. Yes, actually, V.”
“Vortal?” he asked, crinkling his forehead the way he does when he’s getting one of his migraines.
“Yeah! Actually! Vortal, that was it. What is that anyway?”
He rubbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger, massaging it. “I don’t know…ask my Dad later” he shook his head. “Anyway. When you saw this Vortal thingie…where was Mikey?”
I remembered and shuddered again. “That was when I saw him…you know.”
“Disappear?”
I nodded, swallowing. Suddenly I realized my throat was parched. “He was there when I looked in, and I was just going to say I was sorry for barging in like that, and then, he just…vanished…actually…and that’s when I was left looking at monitor and saw that word.”
“Vortal,” he said, tonelessly. After a moment, he said, “Was it like, a very dark screen, blinking very fast, almost like a hypnotic rhythm…?”
“Exactly! You saw it?”
He shook his head, rubbing his face. “I don’t know. I thought I saw something when I was looking around his room, but when I turned back…” He sighed. “Listen to us. This is crazy. It’s impossible. I mean, we couldn’t have seen what we saw. Mikey couldn’t have vanished and then reappeared like that. There must be some kind of logical explanation.”
“Yeah? Like what?” I sounded angrier than I meant to, but it was so like Vhy to just brush me off. If he hadn’t seen Mikey not in his chair and then back in his chair again, we probably wouldn’t even be having this conversation, and that realization bugged the hell out of me.
He looked up at me like he was angry and sad both at once. He saw that I was bugged and backed off. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t know.”
We talked some more, and then, I saw the time and had to vanish myself. I was coming out of his room, and he stopped me and took hold of me and kissed me, real tender-like, and said, “Sorry I got carried away before.”
When he’s nice like that, and gentle, it really makes me melt, like icecream on a hot sunny afternoon. So I kissed him back. And he kissed me back again. And before I knew it, we were like, melting together. Never heard the front door opening, footsteps, nothing.
The next thing we know, someone was clearing her throat like, so loudly, she sounded she was gargling Wokadine—I know, because I had to gargle that horrid iodine-tasting stuff when I had a bad throat last summer and it was like yuckville.
Vhy and I broke it off right away, and looked around, wiping our mouths guiltily.
His older sis, Viveka, was standing there, one hand on her hip and looking with raised eyebrows at us. “Hi, guys,” she said. “Having fun?”
She sounded p’d off.
I left Vhy to make the lame excuses. And left. Haven’t been back since.

2
IN WHICH VIVEKA DOES FLAPJACKS WHILE VHY DOES WHACKO, MIKEY PUTS ON A NEW PERSONALITY FOR BREAKFAST, VHY AND RUCHI ‘RESEARCH’ SNATCHER FILMS, & VIVEKA ENCOUNTERS THE VORTAL.

2.1 Viveka
I heard Vhy coming in to the kitchen, and saw him looking around hesitantly. I was making pancakes—flapjacks as Steve used to call them back in NYC—and the place was full of the smell of roasting dough and maple syrup.
The maid was at the far end, rolling more atta with a belan.
I glanced around. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, not very enthu.
I turned a flapjack over. Nice and golden brown, just the way I liked them. I waited for Vhy to get his nerve up.
“Viv,” he said. “About last evening…”
“Say no more,” I said without turning around. “It’s our secret.”
He heaved a sigh of relief. “That’s great. I was worried that, you know, you’d get all high and mighty and moralistic like you always do. And last night, you weren’t really in a mood to talk.”
He was right. After I caught him and Ruchi making out in the passage—in the passageway of all places!–I was sort of curt with him, told him I had something urgent to see to, and we’d talk about it tomorrow. This was tomorrow.
I finished the flapjack, dumped it on a plate, and turned to look at him. A strand of hair had slipped out of my hair-band and it fell down over my face. I pulled it behind my ear and waved the dripping spatula at him. He backed off a step.
“Don’t get me started, okay?” I said, waving the spatula for emphasis. “You’re seventeen. Too young to be bringing girls into the house when Dad and Mom are out. Definitely too young to be getting upto adult-like mischief in your bedroom!”
“Come on,” he said, embarrassed to be discussing this with me in front of the maid. Not that Shanti-bai, our Marathi maid, ever understood anything we said, she barely spoke Hindi let alone Angrezi. “You make it sound like I sneak a different girl into the house every day of the week! Ruchi’s my steady gf. And we were just watching a movie, that’s all.”
I looked at him with with squinty eyes, trying to give him the Arnold. “Yeah, sure, and Eyes Wide Shut is a Disney animated film.”
He grinned. “Can I help it if she has a thing for Tom Cruise’s buns?”
I started to smile at that. Then smelled my next batch of flapjacks starting to get over done and flipped them over quickly.
“Okay,” I said over my shoulder. “So I won’t be running to Dad or Mom to deliver a full confession about your extra-curricular activities. But the next time you want to bring your gf over and make like Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, do us all a favor, ask them for permission, okay?”
Vaibhav pretended to look confused. “Ask Tom and Nicole for permission?”
I swatted him lightly on the shoulder with the spatula. “Ask Mom and Dad, you nut. Now, get the hell out of here before you make me set the place on fire.”
He didn’t leave. He waited a moment while I finished the batch and put them onto the plate the maid held out.
“Sab ko bolna ke naashta tayaar hai,” I said to the maid, speaking slowly and carefully to make sure she understood. I think she followed the general gist at least.
Vhy said, “You know, it’s great your Hindi sounds so desi even now, after seven years in the US of A. Not like those pseuds who go to New Jersey for a week and come back sounding like third-generation ABCDs.”
I glanced at him again. “What’s on your mind?”
He shrugged. “Nothing, really.”
“Come on. I know you, little bro. Something’s bothering you. If it’s about the grope-fest last night…relax.” I made a gesture like I was zipping my lips. “My lips are sealed with Sellotape—no, with Fevicol!”
When that didn’t even get a teensy smile out of him, I knew something was wrong. He shook his head. “It’s something else…It’s about Mikey.”
I frowned. “What about Mikey?”
While I was talking, I opened the fridge and took out the butter dish. “Isko bhi rakhna table pe,” I said to the maid. Vhy waited until the maid had left the kitchen before going on.
“Ruchi and I,” he said. “We saw something last night in his room. Something really weird going on.”
I shrugged. “Like what?”
He hesitated. “This is going to sound wierd.”
“Try me.”
He was silent for a minute or two. That told me more than anything else. Vhy had always been able to tell me anything. Well, almost anything. But somehow, I didn’t think this was some girl-boy thing he was talking about.
After a long pause, he launched into an explanation of what he and Ruchi had seen. I got the impression he was leaving out some stuff—probably the shenanigans he and she were upto just before she went out of his room—but soon I was caught up in his narration and trying to understand what he was saying.
“So let me get this straight,” I said when he’d finished. “Ruchi saw Mikey sitting at his comp. Then he disappeared in front of her eyes. And then you saw the empty chair, and then saw him come back. Out of thin air. Right?”
He nodded unhappily. “I’m telling you, Viv, it sounds weird, I know. But something happened there.”
I sighed and wiped my hands down the front of my Italian-style red-and-white checked apron, leaning back against the granite platform. It was warm from the heat of the stove. “What happened? He was kidnapped by aliens and then they dumped him back because he was too expensive to feed?”
“I don’t know. But Ruchi and I both saw something else. First there was this thing happening with his computer monitor, like darkness coming out and enveloping him. Deleting him out of existence. That’s what she saw. All I saw was just something black throbbing like a trance-rhythm light sequencer. And the word ‘Vortal’.”
“Vortal,” I repeated.
“Yeah, that’s like a—.” He stopped. “What is a Vortal anyway?”
“A vertically integrated portal…” I saw him looking at me with that ‘huh?’ expression. “It’s a bunch of websites all linked together. Like a family of websites.”
“Oh,” he said. “Like a webring.”
“Not really but close enough. Look it up, will you?” I paused. “What I do know is this, it isn’t something out of Harry Potter!”
He sighed. I could see from the way he was looking at me, that he thought that I thought that he was pulling some kind of elaborate prank on me.
“I’m not joking, Viv. I’m serious. Mikey disappeared for five whole minutes last night.”
“Vhy, will you listen to yourself? How crazy this sounds?”
He sighed again, pinching the skin between his eyes, an old habit he had when he was tense about something. “I know, sis. Ruchi called me and we talked this morning. Neither of us got much sleep last night. And we both agreed that we hadn’t just imagined it or anything. It really happened.”
I shook my head, unable to decide whether Vhy was pulling my leg or suffering from some kind of delusion. Somehow, despite how crazy his story sounded, I didn’t think either applied in this case. “Look, bro, I know you’re a good kid. But you’re making me wonder if maybe the two of you were doing more than just watching a movie last night in your room.”
Vaibhav looked confused—and slightly guilty too. “What do you mean?”
“You know. Maybe sharing a toke, or a joint, or something?” I almost regretted the words when I said them, but they were out before I knew it.
Vaibhav looked offended now. “Drugs? You think we were stoned?”
I shrugged. “Come on, Vhy. Indian kids these days…”
Vaibhav looked like he was about to deliver a little speech on Indian kids versus American kids. But he visibly controlled himself.
“No drugs,” he said stiffly. “And no alcohol. Or pills. Or intravenous shots or anything. Ruchi and I are 100 percent clean, okay? For God’s sake, you’re my big sister, you should know I hate that crap.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, backing off. “Don’t get all upset. I was just asking.”
“And I answered. No drugs. I saw what I saw. And so did Ruchi.”
I chewed my lip. “I don’t know what to say then, Vhy. I guess you saw something, but maybe you made a mistake or something. I mean, people don’t just vanish into thin air.”
Vhy shook his head. “Come on, Viv. If you don’t believe me, say so. But we saw it. It happened. I don’t know how or why. I just know it did.”
We were both silent again for another long moment, then a voice called from the living room. It was Mom, calling us for breakfast. The maid returned, carrying the empty platter. “Memsaab kehti hai bahut achcha banaya hai. Amriki roti aur chahiye,” she said. Either she had picked up a smattering of Bambaiya Hindi, or we had changed our bai since my last sojourn in the US and I hadn’t noticed.
I turned back to the stove. “Vhy, I have to do breakfast, okay? We’ll talk about this later.”
I didn’t turn back to look at him, but I sensed after a moment that he had left. I felt relieved as well as ashamed. Relieved because I really hadn’t known how to react to such a story. Ashamed, because obviously Vhy believed that story, and I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a worse thing.
So I did the only thing I could under the circumstances: I made more flapjacks. And then I joined my family for breakfast.

2.2 Vir
Halfway through breakfast, I realized that something was wrong with my family.
On the surface, things seemed fine.
Viveka was in and out of the kitchen, trying to show the new maid how to make American-style flapjacks. She had developed this urge to cook since she’d come back from New York. It was part of the whole rediscovery of her ethnic roots she was going through, along with dressing Indian and wearing a nose ring and talking in Hindi a lot.
I had to admit I quite liked the cooking part at least. Viveka was a natural born chef, able to turn out a masterpiece the first time she tried out a recipe. If I didn’t praise her openly, it was because I had learned the hard way that in these post-millennial times, some women considered it an insult to be called a great cook. As in “just a great cook, is that all you think I am?” Which wasn’t entirely wrong, after all, Indian men can be chauvinistic as animals. It didn’t make any difference that I was actually the best cook in our house–although I didn’t get many chances to cook anymore since the business took off bigtime.
So when Viveka offered me another Amriki chapatti—I mean, pancake!–I pretended to think for a moment, then said, “Why not.”
She served me the flapjack, watched me smear a knifeful of butter over it, then add maple syrup too—I liked the combination of sweet and salty. I cut a piece with my knife, speared it with my fork and was about to raise it to my mouth, when I noticed her still standing there, watching.
“What?” I said, frowning. That was when I realized that Sarla, my wife, was also watching me. Both women had similar expressions on their faces. Like mother, like daughter.
I put the fork down on the plate. “Whose birthday did I forget?”
Vaibhav rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Dad, tube-light!”
I couldn’t think of anything I’d done to warrant the Garuda-eye stares. “I give up,” I said at last. “What’s my crime, m’lord?” I corrected myself: “M’ladies?”
Viveka and Sarla exchanged a glance. It was one of those typical women’s looks that openly express disdain for the male of the species—these guys!
“Vir,” Sarla said softly. “At least for politeness sake, say something about the flapjacks.”
“It’s okay, mum,” Viveka said with extra-sweetness. “If he doesn’t like them, I can understand.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Is that what this is about? My not praising her flapjacks to the skies? God, you women! I’ll never understand you. The last time I praised your cooking, Sarla, you gave me a half-hour lecture about how demeaning it was to a women to be called a great cook.”
Sarla’s eyes flashed angrily. “You made a statement to the effect that I belonged in the kitchen! Did you expect me to touch your feet for that, patidev?”
“Sarla, all I said was that if you chose to become a cookbook author, you’d beat Martha Stewart hands down!”
“Sure, and the fact that you chose Martha Stewart as some kind of epitome says a lot about–”
I made a time-out gesture. “Bas! Full stop. Let’s not get into that all over again.” I looked up at Viveka, taking her hand in mine. “Bete, Viv. These are the best goddamn flapjacks I’ve ever had in my entire life!”
Viveka smiled. It was a giant, ear-to-ear banana smile, the way she used to smile when she was a toddler and I used to pick her up and throw her up to the skies, eliciting gasps and giggles. Even after all these years, it made my heart glow.
“He called them goddamn flapjacks,” Vhy said teasingly from the other end of the table. “So don’t mistake it for a compliment, Viv.”
Viv ignored her brother. “Have some more, dad!” She started to shovel two more jacks onto my plate.
“Viveka,” her mother admonished. “You’ll make your father fat! Bad enough I have to fight to keep Mikey’s intake down.”
“But he loves them, Ma!” Still, Viveka put the jacks back on the platter. I grinned with mock frustration.
“Women,” I remarked deliberately. “Can’t figure them out, can’t do without their figures!”
This time, both Viveka and Sarla rolled their eyes in despair. “Men!” Viveka looked at the remaining flapjacks as if wondering whether to throw them at me. I prepared to duck.
“Relax, Viv,” Vhy said as he put his fork down. “Mikey’ll be here in a sec. And he’ll polish off the lot. In fact, make sure you have another truckload ready for him! You know how he loves breakfast.”
“And lunch. And dinner. And snack-times. And midnight snacks. Etc, etc, etc.”
She glanced at Vhy, and I saw a look pass between them. Something odd. I also noticed that Vaibhav hadn’t finished his pancake, and that even his attempts at breakfast-table banter seemed a little forced today, almost as if he was trying hard to cover up the fact that he didn’t feel like bantering.
Viveka broke the eye-lock between herself and her younger brother, and called to Shanti-bai to bring the last stack out.
Mikey appeared just then. Whistling. That wasn’t unusual in itself. But he was also neatly dressed in a shirt and trousers—an actual pair of trousers. I put down his knife and fork and stared at my youngest child. I hadn’t even known that Mikey possessed anything but jeans and Tee shirts with pictures of hard rock bands!
“Hi, everyone,” Mikey said cheerfully. He took a seat and looked around the breakfast table. “So how’s everyone this morning? I mean, is it a great day or what?”
Pin drop silence followed. Sarla Vatsal was in the act of pouring tea for herself and Viv. Viveka had sat down to sample her own cooking. Vhy had been trying to get a coffee stain out of Page 314 of the Harry Potter novel he had been pretending to reread while making his forced banter. He was staring at Mikey like he had seen a ghost.
Mikey rubbed his hands together, smiling as if he hadn’t noticed anything amiss. “Flapjacks for breakfast? Smells great, Viv.”
Viveka managed to stutter out a response: “Help yourself, Mikey.”
He nodded and reached for the platter. At that point, I started to relax. Very well, so perhaps Mikey wasn’t his usual grouchy self. So he was dressed unusually neat for a change. Perhaps he had actually discovered how to use a hairbrush at last. And perhaps he had misplaced his trademark Sony Discman and the latest hard-rock CD.
But he was about to eat like a ‘healthy baby’. And that was normal for Mikey.
We all watched as Mikey took a knife and cut himself a slice of a flapjack from the platter. He slid the piece onto his own plate, picked it up with his fork, and ate it.
“Hey,” he said to Viveka. “This is great stuff. You really are a woman of diverse talents, sis!”
Viveka blinked and stopped chewing her mouthful of flapjack. I saw her cast a glance at Vaibhav. She looked almost scared, but that couldn’t be. I must have misread her look. Why would she be scared of Mikey?
Mikey put down his fork, picked up his glass of milk and drank it down without a pause. He dabbed his mouth with a napkin and smiled at everyone again.
“Okay, that’s it for me,” he said. “Busy day. Going over to the library to check out some new books. See you guys later, okay? Bysie-bye, family. Love y’all.”
And as all of us watched with silent stupefaction, he picked up his tote bag and was out of the door.
I was the first to find my voice.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, addressing myself in the general direction of my wife. “But did that young person bear a passing resemblance to our son, Mahesh Vatsal, aka Mikey?”
Then, before anyone could respond, I shook my head and answered my own rhetorical question. “Nahi, bhai, I must be mistaken. He hardly ate breakfast. He finished a full glass of milk. He’s washed, groomed, and dressed like a normal 12-year old boy. He was friendly and cheerful and polite to everyone. And he said he was going to the library, to borrow books!”
I looked around at my family. “That’s not our son Mikey. It’s just somebody who happens to look like him!”
I grinned as I said it, meaning it as a joke of course. But the look of utter horror that came over Vaibhav and Viveka’s faces looked real. As if they took what I said dead seriously.

2.3 Vhy
After breakfast, I had to rush to college. We were having a meeting of the Class Reps for our annual inter-college festival. I was Drama and Literature CR for my class, and I had to be there. I caught Viv’s eye as I left the house, and she looked away. I knew she was as confused as I was, but hopefully she was starting to take me seriously.
Let’s face it. That guy at the breakfast table this morning? He wasn’t Mikey. Not my brother, Mahesh Virendra Vatsal. He was someone else. Have you seen that old sci-fi horror film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Go check it out. Better still; check out the remake, it’s pretty neat. And there’s a sequel to the remake, called Body Snatchers, starring that really cute babe who co-starred with Michael J. Fox in For Love or Money. Which, by the way, was the film that was cogged by apna desi filmwallahs and remade as Yes Boss starring Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla…
As usual, I’m totally off the point. Films have that effect on me.
I thought about Mikey all day. Ruchi and I kept looking at each other in Psycho that morning, and in English Lit, and even in History. Well, actually, I dozed off in History. Making up for the restless night I had after seeing that weird crap last evening. Besides, Babur and Humayun had waited three hundred years for Vaibhav Vatsal to learn all about them, so they could wait a while longer.
Anyways.
After classes, Ruchi and I met in the canteen. Because of the transport strike, there was only Marie biscuits and those really awful teacakes with the tutti-frutti—I hate tutti-frutti, don’t you—but we didn’t mind, because we weren’t that hungry. There was a song playing from the new Hrithik Roshan movie, Fiza, on the canteenwalah’s music system, and I spent a moment trying to figure out the chorus line. What in blue hell were ‘maahivey’ and why would anyone want to call them? Sometimes, I just can’t understand Bollywood films.
After Sampat the canteenwalah had made his usual caustic comment about an unpaid bill and I had done my usual ignoring, and we were sitting at a table with steaming cups of chai and a plateful of Marie Biscuits in front of us, Ruchi looked at me and said,
“Snatched.”
I blinked at her. “Kya?”
“Snatched,” she said again. “Like in the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
I grinned. “That’s what I love about you. The fact that you’re as much a movie buff as I am. I was thinking about that exact same movie all morning. The part where the alien plants grab the humans when they’re sleeping, and duplicate them in these kind of vegetable pods.”
She was nodding enthusiastically. “And as the pods develop, the humans are sucked dry of life. Until finally the pods become exact replicas of the people and take their places.”
We grinned. I put my hand over her hand. Actually, I wanted to do more than just that, but the last time I got caught doing more, when the supervisor asked me what we were doing, I wisecracked, “Practicals!” and it got me a two-week suspension, which was killing, because it meant two weeks without seeing Ruch every morning, so I’ve learned to curb it a bit.
She frowned and pulled her hand away. She did it real smooth-like, but I knew it was her way of telling me to back off, this was not the time or place to get cosy. I sighed and put my hand on a Marie biscuit instead. She did the same.
“But that can’t be what happened to your brother,” she said, dipping a Marie in tea and bringing it out soppy and steaming. “He couldn’t have been ‘snatched’.”
“Why not?” I asked, biting the bait—and the Marie.
“Because there’s no pod.”
I thought about that. She had a point.
“Okay, so what about The Puppet Master? Remember that one, with Donald Sutherland? Maybe he got this alien parasite attached to the nexus of his spinal cord and brain?”
She grimaced. “That was yucky. Actually. But yuckier than that was the rip off with the slug-like thing that takes over a cop who goes on a killing spree. What was that called?”
“Maniac Cop,” I said at once.
She slapped my hand. “Come on! That was another series, about a cop who dies and then becomes a crazy zombie who goes on a killing spree. I’m talking about the one with the alien slug that attaches itself to the back of the cop and then makes him go on a killing spree.”
“Same difference,” I said, dipping my Marie again into my chai. When I pulled the biscuit out again, it was gone, like it had been dissolved by the spraying blood of the aliens in the Alien quadrology.
“You dipped three times,” she said smugly. “I told you a thousand times, never dip more than two times.”
“This is important,” I said, getting up. “We should go research this.” I gestured to her, mouthing the lyrics of the song playing in the background: “Aaja maahivey.”
“Research what?” she asked, puzzled. “How many times you can dip Marie biscuits in chai before they dissolve?”
“No, Michelle-Pfeifer-with-brown-eyes-and-an-attitude. I mean, this alien movie stuff. We should go do some serious research, to help us figure out what’s happening to Mikey.” I added after a moment, hopefully, “If anything’s happening to Mikey. Come on, let’s go.”
Getting up, she stuffed another Marie biscuit in her mouth, and around the crumbling flakes, said, “Where? To the college library?”
I gave her a withering look. “No, yaar. To our library.”
She frowned. Then understanding dawned on her. I always like it when understanding dawns on Ruch. Her face sort of blushes just the way the eastern sky blushes with the coming dawn in a George Romero horror film at the end, while the end credits roll. Really romantic like. It makes me wonder if the blush stops at her neck or continues all over.
Note to self: Check if Ruchi’s blushes continue below the neck, and if so, then, how far exactly are we talking about here.
“Oh,” she said. “That library.” We were walking through the quadrangle now, the shouts and yells of the college basketball team echoing off the ancient stone walls.
“Yup. This is important stuff. Got to research it thoroughly.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me, linking her arm in mine as we exitted the college. “Yeah, right. And I bet I know which direction your research would like to go.”
I tried to look innocent. “Which way do you mean?”
She gestured at her open collar. “Down this way.”
I flapped my hands at her. “Lawksadaisy, woman! You have a doity mind. Kinna you think of anything but that allatime? Yousa be obsessed with it!”
She giggled. I was imitating five different actors in five different Oscar-winning performances, and it thrilled me that she could probably name each and every one of them. Ah, but that was why I adored Ruch so much. That, and her ‘plus points’, of course.
Note to self: Figure out if I adore Ruchi more for her knowledge of movie trivia, or for her ‘plus points’. Addendum to note: Research thoroughly before reaching conclusion.
“So where are are we heading actually?” she said as we came out on Mahapalika Marg. There was a morcha passing by, heading towards the Esplanade Court down the road—it was only a small one, the traffic jam was barely a kilometre long. Luckily for us, it was on the other side of the road. Sometimes, I thought, what Mumbai really needed was one giant morcha to protest against morchas.
I shrugged. “Sterling? Regal? New Empire?”
She thought for a moment. “Liberty. The box seats in the back of the dress circle…”
“…have the most privacy. Okay. Liberty it is.” I opened the door of a black-and-yellow taxi waiting on the curb, and gestured with a flourish. “Enter the dragon.”
She paused before getting in, placing a hand on my shoulder. For a moment, the mischief left her pretty face and she looked into my eyes with a genuinely anxious look.
“Vhy,” she said. “Something weird is going on with your bro, isn’t it?”
I sighed, then nodded. “Yeah. And I haven’t a clue what to do about it.”
She frowned. “Then why are we going to see a movie? Shouldn’t we go talk to your mom or something?”
“That’s why we’re going to do research.”
She smiled weakly. “As if.”
I looked at her squarely. “You have a better idea?”
She shook her head, then suddenly pecked me on the cheek.
“No kissing until researchers are in the library, lady,” I said mock-sternly. “First rule of research.”
Then I got in the taxi with her and we departed for the hallowed halls of researchdom. Yeah, yeah, I know, I should have been trying to figure out what was wrong with Mikey—if anything was wrong. Instead, I was copping out and going to a movie hall, to spend the afternoon making out—ahem, researching—with my gf.
But the truth was, I didn’t know what else to do at the time, yaar. I was a little creeped out, and I didn’t want to admit it, and so I was doing the only thing possible—‘avoidance avoidance mechanism’ as we say in Psycho class.
It worked pretty well too.
Until later that day, when something else happened, and things got really scary.

2.4 Viveka
I didn’t really think much of the breakfast show. Or whatever you call Mikey’s behavior that morning. True, it seemed very odd that he should suddenly turn over a new leaf. But stranger things have been known to happen.
After I mulled over it, I felt that Vhy was just over-reacting. I know how tough it can be with same-sex siblings. I’d just read a Ph.D. thesis about it by a friend at New York State. Susan Ing, a Vietnamese student I’d met while doing my post-grad diploma course in Film Production at Columbia, NY. Of all the places possible, we’d met at an all-night showing of Miyazake films. She was the closest thing to a best friend I had besides Steve.
But then Steve was much more than just a best friend.
Speaking of which. Steve had e-mailed his animated short film to me the previous night. I got his sms telling me he’d sent it, just before the interval of M:i-2 during that big shootout in the research lab. The minute I got it, I apologized to my movie companions—two old school friends I hadn’t seen in ages—ducked out of M:i-2 and came home early, just in time to catch Vhy making out with his well-endowed gf in the passage of our house.
But when I tried to run the file on my comp, it wouldn’t open. I thought the file might have got corrupted or something, so I’d MSNed Steve telling him I was online and to resend it to me via MSN Messenger right now. But by then, he was neck deep in some rush job animating a sugarfree chocobits cereal logo for an ad agency—literally while the creative director of the agency sat beside him, chewing his nails anxiously because the presentation was the next morning—and wasn’t even logged on, which of course I didn’t know until the next day, because after 2 a.m. I crashed out.
Today, when I got to my comp after finishing some chores that couldn’t wait, it was late afternoon. I found his emails saying he was resending it in a different format, just in case. But there was something wrong again. Try as I might, I just couldn’t get the file attachment to open.
It was frustrating as hell. Steve had been working for ages on this short film, and had talked my ear off about it, both while I was in New York and after I came back to Bombay/Mumbai, and I knew the final result just had to be way cool. But I’m no comp whiz like Mikey, I can just about use the dumb machine to get my work done, is all.
I would have asked Dad for help. As the head of a software firm, he knows everything there is to know about comps. But he had left for office eons ago. Mom was working on her weekly opinion column when I knocked and then peeped in her room.
From the tapes she was forwarding and rewinding and watching, I figured it was something to do with cola advertising. Mom gets all worked up about social issues, and I can’t say I blame her. I was still trying to come to terms with how much India had changed in the seven years I’d been abroad, studying. Going by all the McDonald’s and Coke ads and Domino’s Pizza, it was almost like being in NY, NY again. Except for the state of the roads.
Mom was sweet enough not to mind my intrusion into her work-time. “Try Mikey’s comp,” she suggested. “Your father said he keeps upgrading it so much that it’s probably equivalent to some sort of a supercomputer by now. I’m sure his PC would be able to open your problem file. Besides, from what you’re saying, it’s probably a patch you don’t have—and Mikey will have every patch ever invented, I’d think.”
Why hadn’t I thought of that. “Great idea! Thanks, mom,” I said. And went into Mikey’s bedroom. His computer was already on—I doubt he ever puts it off—and in a few seconds, I was accessing my mail again. It was almost scary how fast and smooth his machine was, even when compared to my P-III. I felt a delicious thrill when I saw the icon of Steve’s file.
Crossing my fingers and sending up a silent prayer to Goddess Saraswati as I waited. I double-clicked the file icon when it appeared and…
Bingo!
The animated short began to play almost instantly. The sound was so loud it blew me away at first. Mikey and his hard rock. I turned it down frantically, then relaxed and turned it up a bit again. Only Mom was home, and in her bedroom with the door closed and her TV on, she probably couldn’t hear a thing. Still, I took a second to shut Mikey’s bedroom door.
For the next four minutes and twenty-three seconds, I was mesmerized. The instant the film finished, I replayed it. And then again. And again. I must have gone through it a dozen times before I finally forced myself to quit the program and get up from Mikey’s chair.
I paced up and down for several minutes, excited out of my skull. I decided to call Steve right away and tell him how much I loved the film, how much I loved him, and what a great talent he had. I mean, this was what he and I had spent hours talking about back at Columbia: Animation film that was like the Brothers Quay on ganja but with the solid plotting, cyberpunk craziness and adultness of the best shonen anime. I can’t even begin to describe it actually. You would just have to see it to know how totally brilliant it was.
It was one thing to talk about it; but he’d actually done it! Let the folks at Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks see this and eat their hearts out: Even Dinosaur with its $80 million budget looked like an assembly line product compared to some of the techniques Steve had innovated here. And he’d done it alone—taking two and a half years and a shoestring budget. I was certain if he took this to someone like Steve Jobs or David Geffen or John Lasseter, he’d instantly be offered a multi-million dollar contract—and he’d probably refuse it, preferring to work on spec rather than ’sell out’ to mainstream Hollywood. That was Steve, the maverick genius. And my guy. I felt proud and happy for him.
I sat down at Mikey’s comp again, closing down the movie program and clicking on the SeeMail icon. That would connect me directly to Steve’s laptop and WAP phone. Wherever he was, he’d get the message, open up his laptop and be able to video-talk with me. It was the next best thing to catching the next flight out, which was what I really wanted to do.
Something odd happened with Mikey’s monitor at that point.
It went completely blank for a second.
Not just blank, black.
Like someone had put the lights out inside.
And then these words appeared on the screen, glowing like monster eyes in a horror movie:
Do you wish to enter the Vortal?

3
IN WHICH SARLA GETS AN EMAIL, VIVEKA CLICKS ON A WEB LINK, SARLA CALLS VIVEKA FOR LUNCH–AND GETS A VERY HOSTILE REACTION, AND VIVEKA FINDS HERSELF GONE, BABY, GONE.

3.1 Sarla
People think that being a celebrity columnist is all about attending parties and socializing. I suppose that’s true of most of what they call “Page 3″ columnists these days. But for me, it’s about stating a point of view that hasn’t been expressed before. Making people aware of a new aspect of an important social issue. That’s why I write the columns.
I was supposed to be reading the proofs of my new book, but I had to finish my weekly column first. I know the paper it appears in is a Page 3 rag, but it also happens to be the largest circulated rag in the city, and if I could subvert it to present the other side of the story, well, why not? At least that’s what I told myself each week when my deadline loomed near and I wondered why I’d ever agreed to work to a deadline for a column in a newspaper which spent more column inches covering parties and fashion than real news.
When Viveka knocked at my door that afternoon, I was still trying to find the Pepsi ad that had sparked off the idea in the first place. You probably know the one I mean: the one in which Shah Rukh Khan takes a sly dig at a Hrithik Roshan lookalike. There was a rumor that Hrithik Roshan was starring in a Coke ad featuring a grossly overweight SRK lookalike, as a rejoinder to the Pepsi ad. I didn’t know whether or not that was true, but the issue raised some interesting questions about celebrity models and advertising ethics and it was just the right kind of balance between the ‘in the news, in your face’ topics that BT liked to cover and which gave me some scope to take the Page 3 types down a peg or two.
In fact, Viveka peeped in just when I’d found the right tape and was fast-forwarding on cue, searching for the ad. I never resented the demands of my kids on my time; it wasn’t because I thought I was a ‘mother first, last and always’ but because my kids were also my best friends.
She said she had a problem opening a file attachment on her comp and wondered if I could help out. I smiled at her. The only thing that interests me about computers is the fact that they make it a lot easier to write and revise text. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just super-efficient typewriters. And of course, email is a miracle drug.
“Try Mikey’s comp,” I suggested. “Your father said he keeps upgrading it so much that it’s probably equivalent to some sort of a supercomputer by now. I’m sure his PC would be able to open your problem file.” From what she’d described about her problem, it sounded like an upgrade problem, I told her, and Mikey’s computer would definitely have the upgrade—or if it didn’t, then nobody else’s would.
She said that was an excellent idea and left. I forgot about her instantly. By then, my deadline was looming. I’d already got a polite but anxious email from the sub who coordinated the page, asking if I could send it in a bit early because they had a whole lot of pictures of some beer baron’s new yacht to lay out and needed to figure out how to fit my column on the same page.
I winced when I read that email: rubbing shoulders with a beer baron’s new yacht (and several new trophy girlfriends, I’m sure) didn’t jibe with my idea of journalism, but I reminded myself of the lakhs of readers who would read my “brilliantly presented arguments” and maybe think twice before buying their next heavily sugared and caffeinated MNC cola.
(The quote is from Vir, who made my day when he praised a column I’d written last month on the pros and cons of American movies doing so well in India. Every once in a while, he says something like that which makes me think it wasn’t such a bad idea marrying him.)
After viewing the Pepsi commercial a couple of times, my thoughts fell into place. I only had to touch the keyboard, and my thoughts flowed from my mind down to my fingers and appeared as words on the PC screen.
About an hour later, the column was written, revised and re-revised. I logged on to e-mail it, and downloaded my new mail.
There were several new e-mails from my publishers, editors, friends in India and abroad, and of course, the junk mail—“Have Viagra delivered directly to your mailbox!”—that always irritates me hugely. Besides the fact that penile enlargements are not high on my list of priorities.
When I first saw Mikey’s e-mail, I almost mistook it for spam—that’s the correct term for electronic junk mail I’m told. Then I saw his name in the Sender column and relaxed. I clicked on the email heading, thinking it was so like Mikey to email me instead of talking.
This is the mail that opened up. Mikey’s E-mail. Or so I thought at the time.
To: sarlavats@redmail.com
From: mikeyvats@redmail.com
Subject: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: WARNING: DO NOT VISIT THIS SITE
Date: 29 Jul 00 11:18:05 CDT
>>>> This is the website you’ve been looking for:
>>>> http://www.enterthevortal.com

3.2 Viveka
Do you wish to enter the Vortal?
I stared at the question on the screen. It looked like one of Mikey’s hacker things. Some kind of security program he had installed to prevent anyone else from accessing his private files. Maybe I had accidentally clicked on something I shouldn’t have clicked on.
I know how touchy hacker wannabes can be: I’ve known my share of them back in the States. So when that weird black screen and the question came up, my first impulse was to just walk away. No point wasting my time trying to crack this or whatever it was. I could have gone to my own comp and SeeMailed Steve from there just as well.
But Steve’s film was in this comp. The file. And I didn’t want to lose that. So I decided to just tap a few keys and see if I could get past the security screen. Maybe if I pressed Escape? In my somewhat limited knowledge of computers and their glitches, that was one that almost always worked, so…
So I pressed the button.
And the screen changed instantly. But instead of the program quitting, as it should have, the screen went black again.
Then another line came on. This one said:
Are you willing to pay the Price?
I sighed. I hated this hacker crap. I tapped the button again, several times, then I tried holding down Alt-Control and hit Delete. That should definitely Quit the program.
Instead, the screen went black again for a moment, and then another line appeared:
For the duration of your visit, your soul will be forfeit to the Webmaster. If you agree, proceed.
This time, I actually stopped and took my hands off the keyboard.
I mean, there was something weird about this whole charade. Even if it was one of Mikey’s hacker programs, what sort of question was that? “Your soul will be forfeit”. I didn’t like the sound of that. This may sound a bit strange, coming from a States-returned Michigan U grad with a post-grad diploma from Columbia U, NY, but I happen to be spiritually self-aware. Not religious, mind you, but definitely spiritual…And the idea of forfeiting my soul, even if it was only a figure of speech, didn’t appeal to me.
I decided to stop right there. Forget the file. I would go call Steve from my comp and when Mikey got home that evening I’d ask him to retrieve the file.
But as I turned to go, I thought I heard a voice whisper: “Viv.”
It was Steve’s voice. I was sure of it. I turned back and stared at the screen. But it still showed only that last creepy statement.
I frowned, trying to understand what was going on. The only logical thought that occurred to me was that somehow I had connected to SeeMail and Steve was already online, talking to me. But because of this weird glitch on Mikey’s comp, I couldn’t see him.
As if on cue, he spoke again. “Viv?” he said. “Did you see it?”
“Steve!” I said. It was him then. Damn this hacker program. Then I had an idea. Maybe if I just pressed the SeeMail button again, it would make this stupid Vortal thingie go away and…
Without thinking, I reached out and pressed the SeeMail button on Mikey’s computer keyboard.
And the screen changed. Snap.
And my whole life changed with it.

3.3 Sarla
I puzzled over Mikey’s e-mail. What website had I been looking for? I didn’t recall asking him to recommend any website to me. In any case, I felt he spent far too much time surfing the Net. Even buying a complete set of all four Harry Potter novels didn’t seem to have awakened his interest in reading.
But perhaps it was something he’d come across in his travels through cyberspace and thought it might be of some interest to me. Probably a literature website? Or a writer’s resource? I doubted that. Mikey wasn’t really the sort to even spend a moment on anything that didn’t interest him. Let alone to recommend it to someone else. And there was something about that email, and that link that…well, I don’t know what I felt exactly, but it didn’t feel right, somehow.
My cursor hovered over the link, and I was tempted to click on it. If only to see what it was that Mikey thought I would find so interesting.
But just then, another e-mail from my publishers came into my Inbox. It was the Executive Editor and CEO, David, urging me to finish going through the proofs of my book and courier them back to Krishan, my desk editor, so that they could meet their tight production schedule.
I took his advice. Logging off at once, I turned to the large stack of typeset pages and began poring over them, pencil in hand. As always happens, I gave it my full concentration and everything else ceased to exist for the duration.
When I looked up again, more than two hours had elapsed. Someone was knocking on the door.
I called out to the person to come in. It was Mala, our new housemaid-cum-cook.
“Memsaab, khana lagaa doon?”
I looked at my watch. Was it really past 1 o’ clock already? There were still about seventy pages or so left to check, so I decided to break for lunch and finish them in the afternoon.
“Theek hai,” I told her. “Viveka-didi ko bhi bolna lunch will be served in fifteen minutes.”
She went out and I took a minute to freshen up. She was waiting when I came out of the bathroom.
“Viveka didi not there,” she said.
I frowned. I clearly remembered Viveka saying she was home all day today. Something to do with watching Steve’s film.
I walked down the corridor to her bedroom. Empty. Then I saw her computer screen with its unusual animated screensaver—she’d designed it herself—and remembered. She was probably still in Mikey’s room, using his PC to read that problem file.
Mikey’s room door was locked. I knocked on it softly. We always knock before entering in our house. That’s the kind of family we are—respect one another’s privacy.
There was no response. Not even a “One sec, mom, be with you in a minute”.
I waited a few moments longer, thinking that she might be in the bathroom or on the phone.
Then I knocked again.
When there was no reply this time, I assumed that she was absorbed in something. Viveka has inherited my intense concentration, just like Mikey, while Vaibhav has Vir’s more easygoing multi-tasking nature. I called out, “Viveka, bete, lunch is ready. Come before it gets cold.”
And I started to walk away.
I had barely gone down the corridor when I heard the sound of the door opening. It made a bit of noise, as if she had to fumble with the latch a couple of times before getting it open. Which was odd, because all the latches work so smoothly and perfectly—Vir takes his time but always makes sure he gets the job done first class.
I turned back, and saw a head peeping out from around the door. Her hair was so wild and dishevelled, it took me a minute to realize that it was Viveka looking out. What had she done to her hair? It had looked fine when she popped into my room earlier.
“Bete, lunch is ready.”
She started so violently, I got a shock. For a second, when her head snapped towards me, I thought of some wild animal. Like a predator about to attack. I frowned. What was up with her today?
“Were you able to open that file on Mikey’s comp, bete?” I asked.
She stared at me fiercely, with an expression I’d never seen on her face before. “What’s wrong, Viveka? Why do you look so–“
I stopped. She had opened the door a few inches further, and I could see a little more of her now. Her shoulder and part of one leg. She was wearing some dress I’d never seen her in before. I couldn’t even begin to describe it, but it certainly wasn’t the jeans and tee shirt she had been wearing just a couple of hours ago.
And her hair wasn’t just dishevelled, it was tangled, wild, as if it hadn’t been combed in days, and as I looked intently at it, I could see that there were actually things caught in it. Was that a fragment of a dried leaf? How could it be? She had been in Mikey’s room all this while, hadn’t she? What was going on?
“Viveka?” I said, unsure now.
She kept on staring at me with that same fierce, intense expression. Her eyes flicked briefly to look this way then that, as if she was trying to…what? Understand where she was? That was what it looked like, but that made no sense whatsoever. She was home, after all.
She continued to look at me with that same predatory expression.
And for some bizarre reason, I began to feel afraid, very afraid. Of my own daughter.

3.4 Viveka
I felt a strange sense of disorientation. The way you feel when you’re travelsick.
Or when you’ve been on the roller coaster one time too many and have just gotten off and are standing on steady ground at last, your head reeling, your blood roaring in your ears, and your eyes blurry and unable to focus clearly. I wear contacts, and sometimes, if I spend too much time at the comp, things become blurry and I have to stop and stare into the distance for a while before my eye-muscles relax again.
But this was different from anything else I’d ever felt before.
It was like I was standing still and rushing forward at an incredible speed, both at once. Like being on the world’s fastest escalator ride, moving so fast that the world around me was a blinding haze of light and color.
This weird sensation lasted just a few seconds. I was forced to shut my eyes and for a moment I thought I was going to puke.
And then it passed.
And the world returned to normal. Or so I thought.
I opened my eyes slowly, my ears still ringing from the after-effect of that…Whatever the hell it was.
And what I saw shocked me speechless.
I felt myself starting to panic, breathing faster and shallower, hyper-ventilating. I turned to look this way then that, trying to convince myself that this was not real, that I was still in Mikey’s bedroom. That this was some kind of bizarre hallucination.
I turned around and then around again, trying to accept the evidence of my senses. To believe that what I was seeing was real. How could I be sitting in Mikey’s bedroom one minute, and then be here the next minute? In this…place…wherever it was, whatever it was?
I closed my eyes and opened them again. Shook my head, looked up and down again, tried to breathe slower, calm myself.
But nothing changed. I didn’t go back to Mikey’s bedroom, to my house. I was still here. In this place.
It was impossible. Yet it had happened. That disorienting sensation, that feeling of flying through space, of being taken. Apprently, it was all real.
It was as if something great force had picked me up physically and flung me through a doorway into another world.
A world where Bombay, Mumbai, the world as I knew it, was no more.
And another world had replaced it. A nightmare world.

3.5 Sarla
How could I be terrified of my own daughter? My ‘biggest baby’ as I used to call her. My sweetest, most well-behaved, obedient, but intelligent and independent child of all.
I tried to get a hold of myself. There was surely some logical explanation for her strange appearance and behaviour.
“Viveka?” I said again, still feeling unnerved by the strange way she was staring at me.
I took a step forward, intending to go to her, to touch her forehead. Fever was the first thought that came to my mind. She did look feverish. Almost animal-like with that intense, vulpine look on her face. A hungry, crafty look.
I suddenly found myself unable to walk all the way to her. My feet just stopped. It was fear, I know now. Despite the evidence of my eyes, my other senses were already screaming to me that this was not Viveka, this was not my daughter standing there before me. This was someone else… someone dangerous. My instincts knew the truth at once.
But my conscious, rational mind couldn’t accept what my instincts were telling me. How could it?
“Bete?” I said yet again, trying to connect with her. If she would only speak, just once. If I could just hear her voice.
She parted her lips. Finally, I thought with a faint sense of relief.
But instead of speaking, she howled.
Really howled, the way a lioness or some other predatory creature howls. Baring her teeth.
And what teeth they were—yellowed and filthy as if she hadn’t cleaned them in weeks. Her open mouth was like the dark maw of some predatory animal. I felt the blood drain out of my head. Those teeth, those eyes…the way she howled made my skin creep with horror.
“Viveka?” I cried out. “What is it? What’s happened to you?”
I forced myself to move again, to go towards her, to comfort her and hug her. Help her. I was her mother after all. And something terrible had happened to her somehow, even in the safety of our own house.
The instant I moved, she broke off that awful, soul-scraping howl.
And she leaped right at me. Her hands reaching out like claws, mouth bared like a vixen pouncing on her prey.

3.6 Viveka
I forced myself to breathe normally, to avoid hyper-ventilating as I tend to do when faced with a crisis. I closed my eyes for a moment, covering my face with my hands, trying to re-boot my consciousness, to start again to understand my situation.
This is what came to me:
One moment, I was sitting before my brother Mikey’s computer back home in Bombay, India. The next moment, I was in a world that was like no place I’d seen before.
No, that’s not quite right. I had seen this place before. It was Pali Hill, the Westward side, with a view of the sea and Carter Road. Or what should have been Pali Hill and Carter Road. It looked totally different, but geographically it was the same place. I realized that now, with my eyes closed.
Slowly, my breathing a little calmer now, I uncovered my face and looked around again.
Yes, I saw it now. This wasn’t just Pali Hill. It was the exact same spot where our building stood. It was just that the whole region had changed so drastically, it had seemed like another world at first.
Instead of the mass of buildings and roads and all the other stuff that make up our civilized Bandra suburb, the Beverly Hills of India as some people call it, there was only devastation.
The shells of ruined structures lay scattered all around, for miles in either direction. They were the shells of buildings and houses, but not the kind that we have in the real Bombay. These were strange, squat constructions, none more than a single floor.
Even knocked down, burned down, destroyed, I could tell that they were not modern housing, not even the modern village housing. These were the kind of stone-pile and wooden cottages that existed in medieval times in India. Before even the Moghul era. And even then, they were not like the typical medieval Indian houses I had seen in history books or museum recreations. There was something essentially different about them, but not being an anthropology or architecture grad, I couldn’t tell right away what that difference was.
But where was the Bombay I knew? It was as if it had never existed!
The tall skyscrapers, the arcing flyovers, the endless causeways, they were all gone.
Instead, fires billowed everywhere, obscuring the landscape with clouds of dark, evil-smelling smoke. The ground was blasted and pit-holed, like a war zone. Large craters pockmarked the land at intervals of a few dozen metres, as if there had been artillery shelling or aerial bombing. No, not quite. It was more like the kind of pockmarked landscape caused by cannon fire. I knew this because one of my other Columbia U friends, LuAnn Bowie, was a Civil War re-enactment performer and was always watching movies set during the American Civil War: this landscape looked like the fields of Virginia after General Lee had passed through on his way to Florida.
Except this wasn’t an American Civil War movie, it was real, and I was in Mumbai, India.
Even the sea, the beautiful Arabian Sea that I had a view of from my bedroom window at home, was horribly changed. It was discoloured and covered with a scummy layer, like a stagnant pool in a gutter.
The wind groaned and whistled through the ruins of the structure I was standing in, stinking of odours I couldn’t recognize. It made me gag with revulsion.
Carried on this stinking wind were the sounds of people screaming, gunfire, explosions, and God knows what else.
How had this happened? Clearly, toto, I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. But how had I got here? The last thing I remembered was that bizarre screen on Mikey’s PC, asking me those strange questions. Something about a portal. No, not portal. Vortal. Surely, entering that command hadn’t brought me here? How could a computer programme transport me to…to wherever the hell I was.
One thing I knew for certain: I wasn’t dreaming or imagining this. It was vividly, terribly real.
I looked around at my immediate surroundings, searching for something, anything that could help me make sense of what had happened.
I seemed to be standing in the debris of a house. A simple structure, just four brick walls and a thatched roof. More a shanty than a proper house. But from the ruins scattered everywhere, it seemed that this was the kind of house everyone lived in. The splintered and heat-fused fragments of various household items lay in the debris around me—remnants of cooking utensils, clothes, wooden furniture. Simple, crude things, at the level of what you might expect to find in a Indian tribal village maybe, not a 21st century Indian metropolis.
A sound from afar distracted me for a moment. I walked to the Eastern side of the plot. I looked out in the direction that should have shown me a view of Khar-Danda on the left, old Khar and Bandra in front and Linking Road-Turner Road-Hill Road on the right.
Instead, what I saw blew my mind.

4
IN WHICH VIVEKA GETS A BALCONY TICKET TO A WAR, VIR GETS AN EMERGENCY PHONE CALL AT OFFICE, VHY HEARS A STRANGE STORY AT A HOSPITAL, & VIVEKA IS CHALLENGED BY AN ARMED STRANGER–WHOM SHE RECOGNIZES!

4.1 Viveka
I had nothing to compare it to, except maybe Hollywood war movies. But not the Civil War. This was more like the opening battle between the Roman army and the Germanic barbarians in Gladiator. Or the war sequences in Braveheart. Except that the detailing and costuming was more like, maybe, Moghul-e-Azam…no, no, not the moghul era, before that…Like Asoka. Sort of. Except that this was no movie scene or set.
Two armies were massed facing each other. On the far left, a huge horde were ranged in ragged lines. This one was massive, tens of thousands of men. From my vantage point, they were as small as bugs. And I could see them massed for miles to the North, perhaps all the way to Andheri, or what would have been Andheri in my world.
This huge army was advancing slowly but steadily on foot toward the South. Or South Bombay, as it would have been called in our world.
Less than a mile away was the other army, if you could call it that. A ragged group of opposition that looked pitiful in comparison to the approaching horde. There couldn’t have been more than ten thousand people in this army.
I shivered as I realized I was watching a massacre about to happen.
Who were these groups? The North Mumbai army seemed to be the aggressors, the South Mumbai one the defenders. That much was obvious.
But I was too far away to make out details of the actual people down there, let alone identify them. The smoke-filled air and dark, overcast sky also made it difficult to see clearly.
But I thought I saw men as well as women in the two armies. And from the dull reflections, it seemed they were armed with metal weapons, perhaps swords and axes and knives, things like that. Not guns and modern weaponry.
As I watched, the North Mumbai army halted suddenly. Figures riding horses rode before the massed soldiers, obviously giving orders. From the way they arranged themselves in a long frontline facing their destination, I could tell they were preparing for the first assault.
Absorbed in watching this incredible tableau, I took a step back and stumbled over something. A jagged metal object rushed at my face and neck, threatening to injure me dangerously.
Luckily, I caught myself on a broken brick wall, centimetres from the jagged edge. God alone knew what would happen if I injured myself in this world.
I glanced down to see what had tripped me.
It was a shoe. A Nike CrossTrainer, black with two white racing stripes on the sides, curling up in that trademark Nike tickmark style.
The sheer incongruity of the sight made me stare at it. Somehow, I didn’t think there were such things as Nike shoes in this world. Or Fountain Pepsi. Or Lays Onion Cream. Or McDonald’s. Or any of the normal, consumer culture of our technologically advanced civilization. That’s why the shoe was so obviously out of place.
But there was something else about it that caught my attention. It took me a moment to figure out what it was. In the distance, the faint sound of roaring began. The leaders of the North Mumbai army were pepping up their forces for the attack.
I bent down and picked up the shoe. It was almost mint-new, in perfect condition. Which it couldn’t have been had it lain here long. Which meant it hadn’t been here long.
And it was the exact same design and about the same size as the black Nike Crosstrainers that my younger brother Mikey always wore.

4.2 Vir
I was in the middle of a ‘rap session’ when the emergency call came.
‘Rap session’ is what we call our brainstorming meetings at Virtual Reality Systems Inc. We had this giant contract to develop thrillride CGI for a chain of US amusement parks, and it was taking up many more hundreds of manhours and grey hairs than I’d expected. Whenever we were stuck on a problem, we didn’t just sit around and bang our heads against the walls—we called a ‘rap session’ and banged our heads against each other!
Since the average age of our staff is 23, these ‘rap sessions’ are often similar to a Friday night get-together of coeds at a pub. There’s always music playing, food and non-alcoholic beverages floating around, plenty of caramel popcorn, pool and snooker balls clicking together at the four full-size tables, a basketball bouncing off one of the two backboards—one at either end of the office, giant TVs playing DVD movies, other screens showing the current cricket ODI or Olympics or KBC or whatever show people want to watch at that particular time, and general mayhem and madness.
As I said, it’s a lot like a teenage pub hangout, but without the alcohol. And amazing as it sounds, we do get a lot of productive work done this way. Except when one of our projects turn out to have more glitches than glitter. Those rare times (sigh) when that happens, we just add an ‘e’ to the word ‘rap’ and you can imagine what those sessions are like.
But this wasn’t one of those times. This was a total victory. My Hrithik Roshan team—our workteams named themselves after their favourite celebs, however unlikely—had come up with a set of applications that delivered everything we’d promised our clients, and then some. It was a zinger of a winner, and the mood in the office was celebratory. Half a dozen of the Hrithiks were desperately trying to convince me to relax the office rule on no-alcohol during office hours. Their argument was that since the staff at VR works in shifts, the office is working around the clock.
“So, like, Vir, that means it’s always office hours,” said Sajal, a bright young programmer who had dropped out of LSE to come back to India to ride the new IT boom.
“Which means, yaar, that there’s never a time when alcohol is allowed here,” grumbled Geethan, a wiz designer who hadn’t even gone to college yet but intended to do so after earning her first crore.
I winked at them. “You got it!” Raised my mug of chai and said, “But you can get high on thiamine too, you know. You should try it sometime.”
They were muttering ominously about a possible mutiny when my cellphone rang. I glanced at it: one of our home numbers. It was our new maid, and she seemed hysterical. I had to hold the phone away from my ear, she was talking that loudly.
I left the main office area and went into my cabin. We have an open-door policy at VR, and my cabin is actually just a glass cube, but I shut the door to get as much insulation from the hubbub outside as possible and tried to get the maid to calm down.
Finally, I understood what she was trying to tell me.
“Kya?” I understood what she was saying but I couldn’t believe it.
She repeated it, obviously in tears now.
“Theek hain,” I said. “I’m leaving right now.”
I left the cabin, speaking the word ‘Anant’ into my cellphone. I shook my head at the various people who tried to stop and speak to me. As the phone auto-dialled the number, I scanned the offic and found Shoma, my COO. I beckoned to her. She came over smiling, but saw instantly from the look on my face that something was wrong.
“Family emergency,” I said. It was all she needed. She nodded and walked me to the exit. Anant came on the line as I punched the button for the nearest lift. Shoma walked over and pressed the buttons for the other two lifts as well. For the first time in two years since I’d moved into this new office I wished it wasn’t on the 37th floor of the smartest new downtown office complex. It’s only in a crisis that you realize what big barriers space and time can be.
My brother’s voice was friendly and relaxed as always. For all I knew, he was in the middle of some extreme medical crisis right now, but he sounded like he was sitting by a pool with a pinacolada in his hand. That’s the kind of calm and nerve it takes to become one of the country’s best neurosurgeons.
“Vir?” he said. Anant’s not known for his loquaciousness.
“Anant, Sarla’s been injured. She’s being brought by ambulance to the hospital ASAP. Are you there?”
His response was instant and unruffled. “Right here, just out of surgery. Where are you?”
“I’m just leaving office, on my way. Can you–?” I didn’t have to finish the question.
“I’ll make sure she gets the best attention immediately. What exactly happened?”
I paused, aware of Shoma standing by, watching me with concern on her face. “Anant, I don’t know for sure. She’s unconscious and I only spoke to the maid. Apparently, Sarla was able to call the ambulance before she lost consciousness and the neighbour is waiting downstairs to direct the medics up as soon as it arrives.”
The lift came just then and mercifully it was empty. Shoma gestured, asking me silently if I needed her to come along. I shook my head and gestured to her to go back inside, hold the fort while I was gone. She gave me a thumbs up sign for good luck as the lift doors slid shut. I’m blessed to have a great staff.
As I rode down, my mind raced through what the panicked maid had told me on the phone. She must have been mistaken somehow—but she had repeated herself thrice or more. Each time she had said the same thing.
That Viveka had attacked Sarla and wounded her badly before running out of the house.
But it just didn’t make any sense.
Why would my daughter attack her own mother?

4.3 Vhy
Like, by the time I reached the hospital, I learned from a nurse that Mom was out of the operation theatre and back in a private room. She was still under the effect of the anaesthetic and nobody but Dad had been allowed to go in and see her. But Anant-tau was in the waiting room and he looked calm.
Then again, Anant-tau always looks calm. Even though I hadn’t actually seen him for ages, he had always had that calm in-control doctorish look, as far back as I could remember. He could have played the Michael Douglas character in Coma, maybe even the Hugh Grant character in Extreme Measures, or the maha cool Anthony Hopkins playing Dr Hannibal Lecter in the under-production movie Hannibal, but as usual I’m ranting on about movies galore. What can I say: It helps me chill, and I really needed to chill at a time like this.
I had got the news about Mom’s condition hours after it happened. That’s because I spent the afternoon watching a phillum with Ruchi that neither of us really paid much attention to, and after that we just did TP, had a bite, wandered around, the usual stuff. It was only when I came home in the evening that I got the news from our maid Mala, who was still shuddering from the memory. I got goosebumps when she came to the part where she found Mom…I don’t even want to repeat it right now, okay? I was feeling lousy as it is for not being there, not coming home sooner…I knew it wasn’t my fault, then why did I still feel so guilty, damnit?
I took a moment to breathe, trying to calm myself down. For the first time ever, I wished I had listened to Viv’s constant yammering about how yoga helps you control your senses, breathing, vagaira, vagaira…After I was sure I could have a conversation without falling apart,
I moved forward again, heading down the corridor and entering the glass-walled waiting room.
Anant-tau was talking to Mikey and Mrs Mudgal. Mrs Mudgal is our neighbour; she’s a bit of a gossip and I can’t stand the way she yaks to Mom for ages about celebs. Mom says that it’s because she’s from a middle-class background and she’s embarrassed by her son suddenly becoming famous, but it’s a hell of a strange way to show it.
They saw me and Anant-tau nodded, calling me over.
“Vaibhav-bete,” he said, putting his arm around me and squeezing, “there’s nothing to worry about. Your mom is out of danger. She’s anaesthetized, so you can’t see her for a while. When you do, you’ll be a little taken aback at the sight of the stitches, but really, the bandage looks more scary than the wound, and she’ll be fine within a month or two.”
“A month or two?” I was shocked. “Is it that bad?”
He smiled, but his eyes had that same look that Dad’s have when he’s dealing with a crisis: strong but also hard. “She’ll be home within a week, but yes, the cuts will take a few more weeks to heal completely.”
Mrs Mudgal had her hand to her chest, and a hankie clutched in the other hand looked damp. She looked up at me and moaned, “Vaibhav-bete, you should thank God she’s all right. When your bai called me, she was so frantic, I knew something terrible had happened, and when I came into your house and saw Sarla-ji lying there, I thought she was…”
She covered her mouth as if trying to block her own words, then continued, “So much blood. And those cuts! Hey Ram.”
I glanced at Mikey. He was quiet.
“You okay?” I asked him.
He shrugged as if to say: As okay as can be expected under the circumstances, big brother. The gesture was so Mikey-like, I almost thought for a moment that it was him, my kid brother.
But I knew better.
Anant-tau excused himself for a moment to go speak to someone.
I asked Mikey if he’d go get Mrs Mudgal some coffee from the vending machine down the hallway. The old Mikey, the real Mikey, would have looked at me like I was nuts and turned the volume on his Discman even higher. But this Mikey nodded and went without a word of protest. Proof.
I checked to make sure nobody else was within earshot, then turned to Mrs Mudgal.
“Aunty,” I said gently. “Aunty, did you see what happened?”
She shook her head, sniffling a bit into the hankie. I felt sorry for her. She was, like, an old chicken, this was like a shock for her. Major. Watching her struggle to control herself actually made me feel more determined to keep my emotions in check.
“Nahi, bete. Your servant rang my bell. I was on the telephone. I couldn’t follow her babbling, so I came to see. I saw your mother lying there on the floor in the passage, next to the telephone. She was concious still, and she said she had already called an ambulance, and she was to be taken to Hinduja Hospital because your tau is a surgeon here. Bas, that’s all I know.”
I wanted to shake her, to scream at her, ‘what do you mean that’s all, you must have seen something else? Come on, tell me every last detail!’ Like Russell Crowe interrogating a suspect in LA Confidential.
Instead, I said gently, “When I reached home, the other neighbours said that they saw my sister, Viveka, running down the stairs some time before the ambulance came. Did you see her too?”
“Na hi, bete, I didn’t even know who had attacked your mother till the servant told me. I thought it was these gangs who go around to houses in the afternoon and stab the housewife and rob the house. But when I asked your mother, she wouldn’t say who hurt her. And then she lost consciousness.”
“Did you see Viveka, my sister?” I paused after I said it, not wanting to say too much. Although I had already heard the whole story from the maid when I came home from college.
Mrs Mudgal shook her head at first. Then she paused and looked at me through her old-fashioned horn-rimmed glass spectacles.
“Pata nahin, bete, who that person was. But just before the maid rang the bell, in fact just as the bell started ringing, I was sitting in my hall and looking out the window. You know my window faces the downslope of Pali Hill, that empty plot behind our building which is under court dispute for some FSI problem?”
I nodded, willing her to get to the point quickly. I didn’t want the duplicate Mikey to return and hear this conversation. I didn’t know how much I could trust the guy.
Mrs Mudgal went on:
“So I was talking to one journalist—you know how they are always calling to ask me to comment on Ravi’s success, no? I was talking to her on the phone and I was looking out of the window at the empty plot. And I saw someone, I think it was a woman, jump over our building wall into that plot, then run like a madperson across the plot and jump over the other wall on that side. After that, I couldn’t see where she went, and the doorbell was ringing.”
She looked at me, a strange expression in her eyes. I could see that Mrs Mudgal was trying just as hard as I was to make sense of this bizarre incident.
“That could not have been Viveka, no, bete? Why would she be running away like that? And those walls! How could she jump those walls?! They must be at least eight-ten feet high!”
I was about to say something when Mikey returned.
“Coffee, ma’am,” he said maha-politely, offering her the steaming plastic cup. She took it thankfully. Mikey offered one to me too.
I hesitated, then took it. I could always dump it in a trashcan after pretending to take a sip or two. I didn’t want him to suspect that I suspected him.
Neither did I want to continue the conversation in front of the duplicate Mikey. So I just said, “Mrs Mudgal, aunty, I don’t know how to thank you for taking so much trouble to help my mummy at a time like that. I really appreciate it, aunty.”
She flapped a hand at me admonishingly, embarrassed but pleased. “Arrey, don’t say that. It was my duty, bete. What sort of neighbour doesn’t help at a time like this?”
Silently, I thought to himself: And what sort of daughter attacks her own mother and injures her enough to put her in hospital, then leaps over ten-foot walls to escape like a runaway criminal?
Definitely not my sister, Viveka.

4.4 Viveka
I was still holding Mikey’s shoe in my hand when a sound startled me. I realized I’d been hearing it for several seconds but had assumed it was from the battlefield below. Now, I recognized it for what it was.
It was the sound of a horse’s hooves, cantering. It grew louder, the rider approaching in my direction. The smoky air and the distant sounds from the battlefield below made it difficult to tell from which direction the person was coming.
I looked around frantically for a place to hide. I couldn’t be sure that the person would be friendly. After all, I was in the middle of some bizarre war zone that only resembled the world I knew in its geographical details. I had no way of knowing who this rider might be.
The broken wall by which I’d found the shoe was around three feet high. There was a pit in the ground beside it, probably caused by the same thing that had destroyed the house itself. I jumped down into this pit and crouched low. Now, I was almost completely concealed by the wall on one side. But if anyone came around the other side and looked down, they would definitely see me. I couldn’t help it; there wasn’t enough time to search for a better hiding place. Hopefully, the rider was just passing by.
The sound of the horse grew louder and finally the rider came into view. The same wall which protected me from the rider’s sight also blocked my view, so I had to rely on my ears for information. To my dismay, I realized the horse was slowing down, not riding on.
The sound of hooves slowed to a trot, the horse snickering lightly as the rider reined it in. When I was around 10, for about a year or so, I had taken riding lessons. Mikey wasn’t born then, but Vhy had insisted on doing everything I did back then–my ‘tail’ I used to call him teasingly. I still remembered the two of us riding together at Mahalaxmi Racecourse at dawn, the rich smell of dew-wettened grass in the air, and the sound of the ocean across the Hajiali Causeway clearly audible in the absence of traffic. For some reason, the sound of the horse approaching now reminded me of those mornings that summer eleven years ago. It made me long to be back at home, in my own world again.
The horse snickered again, and now it was so close I could smell it. Then the sound of its hooves stopped completely. I thought I heard a voice pitched low, as if the rider was speaking to himself or herself, or perhaps to the horse. My brother Vhy, a movie maniac, would have commented wryly that it was probably Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer!
Just the reminder of Vhy’s obsession with movies made me miss him. I wished I had listened to him when he had tried to tell me about Mikey disappearing. He had tried to warn me that something wierd was going on–and he was right. But I hadn’t listened or believed him. Was that just this morning? I could still taste the flapjacks I had cooked for breakfast.
Then the sound of the horse moving came to me again, growing louder as it picked up speed. It was cantering again, and this time the sound was definitely moving away, growing softer. As it faded completely, I heaved a huge sigh of relief.
Climbing out of the pit, I grabbed the broken wall for support. As I pulled myself back up to level ground again, a voice spoke behind me:
“Keep your hands out where I can see them. Reach for a weapon and I will put this arrow through your heart before you can blink. I can put three arrows through a bird before it hits the ground, from three hundred yards, so don’t think you can move faster than me.”
The voice was a man’s. And it spoke in Hindi, but not the shudh Hindi of North India like my parents spoke. This was a strange mixture of Hindi, English, Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi and whatnot. It was like the Bambaiya Hindi that street-wise characters speak in Bollywood movies. The gutter-bhaasha we call tapori.
I understood it well enough to obey. I raised my hands, just like I had seen people do in the movies.
“Good. Now turn around. Slowly, very slowly. Sudden moves are bad for your health.”
Trembling from a sudden wave of heart-stopping fear, I turned slowly to face my captor. Turning seemed to take forever.
When I saw the face of the man who was pointing a crossbow at me, I cried out in shock and disbelief.

5
IN WHICH VHY TRIES TO TELL VIR ABOUT MIKEY AND THE VORTAL, VIVEKA IS MISTAKEN FOR THE ENEMY, VHY IS CONFRONTED BY THE DUPLICATE MIKEY, & VIVEKA BECOMES A PRISONER OF WAR

5.1 Vir
When I came out of Sarla’s hospital room, Vhy was waiting for me. I put my arm around him and hugged him tightly. I could smell Pantene shampoo on his hair, the same brand I used, and Chiclets on his breath. When I released him, I saw his eyes were wet and shiny. He was only 17 after all and he had never experienced a death or major illness in our immediate family—thank God. This was probably very hard for him.
“Bete,” I said gently. “Don’t worry, she’s going to be fine.”
“Papa,” he said. He was the only one who preferred to call me Papa, not Dad. Somehow, I liked it. I had always called my father Papa till the day he died, and he had called his father the same.
“Papa,” he said again, and I could see him swallowing hard, as if making a major effort to speak. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
“Bete, it’s late now. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep. I’m going to be here until your Jogi-mama and Sundri-mami arrive. They’re already on the flight from Delhi. You can come in the morning on your way to college, your mother should be conscious by then. We can talk after you see her.”
“No, Papa, it’s important. We have to talk right now.”
I looked at him curiously. Vhy was the dreamer, the most carefree and happy-go-lucky of my three kids. Viveka was the sensible, motivated one. Mikey was the eccentric, rebellious one. Vhy usually became passionate only about movies. He was a junior Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and Wachowski Brothers, all rolled into one. He had seen The Matrix 17 times on its first release, god knows how many times on DVD since then. It was his Bible.
With a tinge of concern, I said, “Bete, what is it? Some problem?”
He looked around. Then, without pointing directly at them, he indicated Mikey and Mrs Mudgal, still seated in the waiting area by the nurse’s desk. His voice was low and urgent as if he didn’t want his voice to carry down the dead-silent hospital corridor.
“Papa, it’s Mikey.”
“What about Mikey, bete?”
He hesitated for a moment. “He’s changed.”
I frowned. “What do you mean, changed?”
“I mean, it’s like…” he stopped, then started up again, “it’s like he’s not Mikey anymore. Not our Mikey. Like he’s someone else.”
My cellphone vibrated in my pocket. I’d put it on silent to avoid being disturbed while in the hospital, but Anant had told me he would be calling me after he spoke to another couple of specialists about another minor operation Sarla might need.
I was reaching for it, when Vaibhav caught my hand and looked at me with an expression of sheer desperation. “Papa, listen to me. I’m telling you, Mikey, our Mikey, he’s gone. That guy sitting over there, he’s someone else. Our Mikey’s been Switched.”
“Switched,” I repeated tonelessly, not sure how to react to this extraordinary accusation. “You mean…”
“I mean, he’s been replaced. And a duplicate put in his place. That duplicate.”
I looked at Mikey, talking quietly, soberly with Mrs Mudgal. I had seen him calm her down earlier, when she had started to get upset again. He had handled phone calls for me, helped pass on messages to and from the doctors and nurses, got us all snacks and coffee when we needed it…he was behaving so well, I had meant to take him aside later and give him a little hug, to show him how proud I was of how well he was standing up to this crisis.
“Vaibhav, bete, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
He looked frustrated. “It’s the computer.”
I stared at him blankly. “The computer?” What did a computer have to do with anything?
He went on, growing more agitated as he continued talking in a hoarse whisper, still desperate not to be heard by his own brother. “Yes, Mikey’s comp. The other night, I was with—“
He stopped and rubbed his forehead, pinching the skin tightly the way he did when he got upset sometimes. “He was in his room, logged on to some kind of weird internet site. Then he disappeared. Vanished from his chair.”
I blinked. “You were sitting in Mikey’s room and you were both browsing some internet site, and then he disappeared?”
“No, I wasn’t there. He was alone in his room. And he just disappeared. Vanished. Poof. Like in a movie.”
“I don’t understand. If you weren’t with him, if he was alone in his room, how could you see him disappear? Did he tell you this? He must have been pulling your leg, bete.”
He looked down for a moment, exasperated. Even as a little boy, Vhy had never blown up or lost his temper right away, he tended to turn his anger inwards. He was doing that now, I could see, struggling with his frustration. I wanted to help him, but didn’t know how. The cellphone in my pocket stopped vibrating. Whoever it was, it must have been urgent, or they wouldn’t have let it ring that long. The crisis over the thrill ride animation had still been cresting when I’d left office. I hadn’t spoken to anyone there since.
Vhy looked up at me again. “The door was open. Someone looked in and saw him sitting there. Then I looked in and he wasn’t there, he was gone. Then I turned my back for a second, just a second, and poof, he was back in his chair again. I’m not making this up, papa. It really happened. Just last night! And today, all this is going on.”
I tried not to sigh visibly. I didn’t know how to deal with this…whatever it was. I tried to be as patient as possible. “Who someone?”
He stared at me incomprehendingly.
“Vhy, you said Someone looked in and saw him sitting there. I’m asking you, who someone?”
He looked away again, this time I thought I saw a flash of what looked like embarrassment cross his face. What was he embarrassed about? The fact that he was talking gibberish when his mother was in a serious condition in the ICU? I had never known Vaibhav to behave like this before, but he was definitely not himself!
“It doesn’t matter who, papa,” he said. “The point is, Mikey was Switched somehow. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. I saw it happen. He vanished, then ten minutes later, he was back. But like the way he is now, changed completely. Not the real Mikey. I told Viveka about it, but she didn’t believe me. Now, it’s happened to her too. The maid told me Viveka was in Mikey’s room when Maa went to speak to her, just before the attack took place. Viveka must have been using Mikey’s comp for some reason, and the same thing that happened to Mikey happened to her too. She’s not the real Viveka anymore. She’s been Switched too.”
I stared at him. Long and hard. I hadn’t seen Vhy so intense and anxious since the night he’d had a high fever before his ICSE Maths finals, a year and a half ago.
“Vaibhav,” I said, puzzled. “What are you talking about? What is this whole story for? Why are you telling me all these things? And now? This is the place, or the time? Come, on bete, get a hold of yourself. Your mother needs us to pull together, to stay in control. I’m depending on you, and you’re telling me all these stories!”
He sighed with typical adolescent exasperation. I wondered for a moment—just a fleeting moment—if he was on drugs or something. But I dismissed the thought instantly: I knew my children too well. Still, something was definitely wrong with Vaibhav, and the only other thing I could think of was that the sudden shock of what had happened had affected him somehow. Maybe…just maybe…I shouldn’t have given him so much freedom, allowed him to watch so many movies without restriction. Maybe, at this time of sudden stress, his movie-addicted mind was unable to cope, and was therefore trying to retreat into some fantastical movie-ish explanation for the very real things that had happened.
“Papa,” he said with a tone of desperation. “You’ve got to believe me. Both Mikey and Viveka have been Switched. They’re not our Mikey and Viveka anymore. That’s why Maa was attacked. By the other Viveka.”
I was trying to think of what to say in response to that when, to my relief, I saw the lift at the far end of the corridor open and Anant emerged. He was looking at his cellphone, and then he looked up as he came down the corridor and when he saw me, he shut his cellphone.
He was frowning when he came up.”Vir, I was calling you just now, but there was no answer.”
“Sorry, Anant, Vaibhav just needed to talk to me for a moment,” I said apologetically, trying not to sound irritated with Vhy.
Anant nodded at Vaibhav perfunctorily. “Hello, Vaibhav.” He looked at me, “Vir, I have to go home and get some sleep. Major surgery tomorrow and it can’t be postponed. I’ve checked with Dr Patel again. He’s keeping a constant watch on her, so there’s nothing to worry about. I need you to just chat with him for a moment to discuss the