The Cursed Shell

15

Mr Todd Lamb dusted the manuscript covered with a brown cloth. Brute leaned a little closer to have a better look at it. It seemed that the title of the book was scratched with a pointed rock on a hard leafy surface.

"Bhavishya-Rekha", Brute read the title. It was again written in the Devanagari text.

"It means Future–Line", Dhawan stated.

"Actually," Brute said, "its proper translation would be 'The Line of Future'."

"Can I touch the manuscript?" Brute asked Lamb.

"Sure", Lamb nodded.

Brute hesitated for a second, but forwarded his fingers towards the manuscript in slow–motion. Dhawan rolled his eyes as Brute was forwarding his hand in a very slow speed. Dhawan immediately opened the first page of the manuscript himself.

"Hey," Brute turned to him, whining. "You should be a little careful. This manuscript is thousands of years old!"

Brute paused and wondered for a few seconds. Then he turned towards Mr Lamb. "Mr Lamb, you said that the conch–shell was cursed by Lord Vishnu, right?"

"Yeah", Lamb nodded.

"Hindi was derived from Sanskrit around the seventh century AD," Brute said. "If the shell is created by Lord Vishnu, then it must be thousands of years old. But the words scratched on it are Hindi. How's this possible if Hindi wasn't even discovered till that time?"

"It is possible that these words were scratched by a person after Hindi was derived," Lamb told him. "Many people have kept this shell with themselves before Guru Bhaskar."

Brute nodded. 'It is possible', he thought.

He read the words written on the page carefully. "Namaskaarah. Mum naam, twam naam, ekah asti."

"Can you please translate that?" Dhawan demanded. Sanskrit is taught from sixth to eighth grades in schools in India. After he ran away from his orphanage, he was taught by a teacher appointed by RAW. There he learned English, Hindi, Science, Social Studies and Mathematics only, and did not know Sanskrit.

"The writer is saying, 'Hi, my name and your name is one'", Brute translated.

"What does the writer mean?" Dhawan narrowed his eyes.

"The writer is talking about soul," Lamb said. "It's one of the oldest ideologies that there's only one soul but millions of bodies. Therefore, everyone has the same identity, and that is, soul."

Brute continued reading. "Prithviam trini ratnani - Jalam, Annam, Subhashitam. Mudhaehi pashankhandeshu ratnasangya vidhiyate."

"Meaning?" Dhawan demanded.

"It's a popular Sanskrit shloka. It means, 'there are only three gems on Earth - Water, Food, and Good talks or thoughts. But a few brainless people find gems in pieces of rocks." Brute explained.

'What about oxygen?' Dhawan thought. 'It is necessary for life too.'

"There are many other shlokas like this. There's written about the cursed shell in further pages", Lamb said and turned more than hundred pages.

Brute looked at the heading of the page.

"Vinashkari Shankha", Brute read it.

"I think I know its meaning", Dhawan declared.

"It means Destructive Shell", Brute translated it.

Brute started reading it silently. It took almost a few seconds for him to read it. After reading it, he turned to Dhawan.

"What've you read?" Dhawan asked.

"It's written that after the Devas killed Virochan, Lord Vishnu cursed a shell and named it Devaant. Devaant means 'the end of the Devas'. If anyone does a ritual stated in the further pages of this manuscript and blows the conch–shell, the Amrit inside the Devas would get converted into the Kalkoot poison", Brute translated.

Dhawan nodded as he understood. The same content was explained by Mr Lamb almost an hour ago.

"What else is written there?" Dhawan asked.

"I can't read further", Brute declared.

"Why?" Dhawan crossed his eye–brows.

"As I've read the whole page, and it is the last page in this part of the manuscript!" Brute exclaimed.