THE HARBINGER OF NOR'WESTER

Prologue

1971, Lalbazar Police Headquarters
Kolkata

The country was burning, many people knew that. People themselves were burning, very few realised that. Dr. Vaibhav Roy sat quietly in the chair, right in the middle of the room. He looked down and kept fidgeting, thinking about all the ways things could go more wrong than it already is.

The chairman hit the hammer on the desk just for the sake of it, acknowledging the six more people sitting beside him. Then he looked at the man sitting in the centre of the room. Dr. Vaibhav Roy was to stand before the panel today.

"So Dr. Roy" the chairman said loudly, "You have been briefed about your assignment. This panel stands to confer about the delicate nature of your work!"

Vaibhav licked his lips and hung his head down, breathing rapidly.

"Vaibhav!" said another panelist hitting her hand on the desk, "you have a job in Naxalbari. If you don't have any questions, you must provide us assurance that you're up for the job!"

"You still want this trial!" Vaibhav said exasperatedly, "you are sending me to fight a revolution!?"

"Who knows" answered another panelist, "May be you just have to fight a person....seek the same answers as they're..."

1971, The Terai foothills of Bengal

The woman jumped in joy as she crossed the final hurdle of a three meter wide crevasse in her journey to the permafrost pockets of the himalayan foothills of Terai region. It was a cruel and beautiful scenery of green patches, acres of snow and huge boulders outcropped in  between. A lot of missed real estate opportunities lay in these borderlands of Nepal and India. Anyway the area was too serene to be defiled by mortal presence. Perhaps that was the reason most caves here were occupied by Giri Maharishis. These hindu mystics were beyond socialisation, most of their time was spent meditating and partaking on the local flora for survival.

The woman stopped for a moment to catch her breath. She could see her destination. A leaf shaped cave opening with it's resident hermit meditating before a pool of water in the front. He sat in a padmasana position chanting an ode to Lord Parjanya, the Vedic god of rains,
"Acha vada tavasam girbhir abhi stuhi parjanyam..." she could hear the mild voice of the hermit.
She coughed and said loudly, "I have come to repeat my question."

She stood at the hermit's back, he did not turn around to answer her. His mild chanting resonated so deep with the atmosphere that it turned the trekker's loud voice into a lost echo.
"I have come to repeat my question" she said again.

"Foolish child!" the hermit thundered, "You elude yourself as a seeker of truth when you pride yourself on knowing what truth appears like?"

"The ultimate truth doesn't exist" the woman said in a baritone voice, "there is just the known and the unknown. The unknown can only be known through the context of what is known."

The hermit turned around and stood up. He was a towering man, his physique and view preaching divinity.
"That is a belief you will change in the coming days" the hermit said, "but for now your faith is strong enough, so why do you seek my counsel?"

"Assurance, O great saint! My destiny is primordial, it can neither be obtained by being obstinate, nor by intellect, it will only reveal itself to the deserving one. I need someone older and wiser to bless my faith."

"I cannot assure anyone's faith, it is more powerful than either one of us. But something sought-after with dedication such as yours, you are bound to succeed."

"Thankyou" said the woman.

"May the skies bleed at your command." the hermit smiled at the woman.

Sparks flashed into the woman's eyes. Her hands began to glow within the folds of her clothes, in one swift motion she plunged something bright into the hermit's heart. The hermit kneeled on one knee, his body loosing balance in lieu of lost blood circulation. He saw the lightning bolt crackling, still alive within the trekker's grasp. There was no fear in his eyes, death was just another cold wind for him.

"Acha vada tavasam..." the hermit chanted on until he could no more. The woman knelt down to his level, twisting the knife in his chest spilling more blood. She looked into the hermit's eyes and chanted on, "...with reverence seek to entice Parjanya here...."

The woman stood up, the bright bolt receded within her hands. The sun rose behind her, the shadow of Mount Kachenjunga made her appear divine.

"I can't have those questions answered to anyone else...." the woman said in a haze as the hermit softly smiled at her.

"You think the answers stop with me.....?" the hermit said looking directly at the woman, "you sought them, others will too! rest assured that person will not be less driven than you.....!" then he stopped moving.

A revving noise snapped the woman out of her trance. She ran towards the cliff and scanned the horizon, immediately noticing a truck racing downhill. With flaring nostrils, She raised her hands to the sky, which instantly turned murky over her, a thunderstorm formed out if nowhere.

A lightning bolt ferociously rained down on the mountain, narrowly missing the truck. It seemed that the summer monsoon of Kalbaishakhi was early this year.