The Reverter

A Valley of Flowers

“Come along now,” Mr Ramanujan said with a shy smile. I was in complete awe. This was unbelievable yet here he was walking before me.

After walking along for a while we came across two bikes leaning by the flower bush to the left of the path. He picked up the bikes and rolled one towards me.

“Our destination is a little far from here,” he explained.
As I pedalled along the dirt road I looked at the scenery around.  The landscape was awash with vibrant shades of yellow, courtesy of the countless flowers that adorned the plain as far as you could see. The air was crisp and invigorating, carrying with it the unmistakable fragrance of petrichor.
I couldn't help but be enchanted by the delicate cherry blossom trees that were scattered along the path, their soft pink petals gently fluttering in the cool breeze. The entire landscape seemed to be alive with colour and motion, as the petals swirled and danced around me, carried along by the playful wind.
The sky above was a pure, brilliant white, casting a soft, diffused light over the entire scene. It was a peaceful, serene moment, and one that filled me with a deep sense of contentment and joy. As I gazed out at the breathtaking landscape, I knew that I was experiencing something truly special - a moment of perfect beauty and harmony that would stay with me forever.
I had forgotten how good cycling felt. It was very relaxing. I didn’t where Mr Ramanujan was taking me, but I was sure it was going to be even more mesmerizing.

“Do you see that?” He said pointing ahead.

I could see a thatched house in the distance. As we got closer, I could examine the house clearly - it had wooden walls with lush green bushes surrounding it. Wooden pillars supported a beautifully braided straw roof that created a shade for a wooden platform in front of the house. The house looked modest, but it had a heart the size of the Pacific Ocean.

And the wooden was a woman whose face lit up on seeing Mr Ramanujan.

We parked our bikes in front of the house and went towards it.  The woman came to us, with a thali in her hand.

Mr Ramanujan bowed with his hand in a prayer position. A smile stretched ear to ear on his face as the woman put a tilaka on his head.

He lifted his head as she was done.

“Welcome back,” She said to him, looking into his eyes with pure unrequited love.

“We have a guest today my dear Jankai,” he said.

“Yes! I have prepared an extra meal!” she said, “But first,” she looked at me and approached me with the thali, “I must welcome him.”

She then put tilaka on my head as well.

“Welcome to our humble abode,” she bowed.

I smiled with delight.

“Come in! Have some food with us!” Said Mr Ramanujan.

Janaki then proceeded to open the door. An enchanting smell of food gifted my nose with a welcoming present.

And as we entered the house, I couldn’t help but notice…How big it was!

I felt like I had entered a palace! How was this possible?

The ceilings were as high as a large cathedral, and the walls were adorned with beautiful artwork and photographs that depicted moments undeniably from Ramanujan’s life. Interestingly most of the photos looked like they were drone shots. The furniture was elegant and looked like it belonged in a museum.
“This was my mother’s idea, not mine,” Ramanujan said.
Janaki led us to the dining room where a feast was laid out on the table.
There were bowls of steaming hot curry, plates of crispy fried snacks, and a variety of desserts that looked too pretty to eat. My mouth watered as I took in the spread before me.
“Now it is not possible for you to feel hungry in this world, nor do you need to eat anything to survive at all, but good food is fuel for the soul,” Ramanujan said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because this body of yours is not real.”
What?
“Oh don’t worry about it! Eat!”
The food looked way too good. I couldn’t resist it.
It was the best meal I had ever had. It reminded me of my mother’s cooking. Only the taste was somehow amplified. It brought tears to my eyes.
They were tears of joy at first, the same joy I had felt when I ate my mother’s palak paneer on my first day back in 2019. But the joy soon became bittersweet. And I couldn’t help but feel awful.
The horrifying face of Chandra came to my mind, along with the Crying face of Akriti as she was being held at gunpoint. I imagined the faces of my parents being interrogated.
I tried to control my tears.
But then I felt warm hands wrap me in a hug - it was Ramanajun.
“It will be alright,” he said.
I burst into tears.
Ramanajun held me tightly as I cried. He didn't say anything else, but his comforting presence was enough to ease some of the pain I was feeling.
All of this had been too much. Seeing the black sky every day had broken me. I at least had Rohit to keep me sane, but in that desolate world that Ramanujan rescued me from, I had no one.
Eventually, I pulled away from him, wiping my tears with the back of my hand. I tried to compose myself, but my voice still came out choked. "I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know what to do."
“I know, and don’t worry! I will help you, we will figure it out! Right, Janaki?”
Janaki nodded her head.
“It will all be ok,” She said.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Alright, you should go get freshen up! We have lots of work to do!”
Ramanujan took me to a room on the first floor which had some new clothes on a freshly prepared bed.
“The bathroom is that way,” he said pointing to a wooden door at the corner of the room.
“Come downstairs when you are done. You can try lying down on the bed if you want to, but you won’t be able to sleep,”
“I’ll be down soon,” I told him, and he left the room.
I dropped on the bed. It was relaxing and soft. I felt good.
I tried to go to sleep but I just couldn’t so I just lay there with my eyes closed for a while. After feeling rested I went and freshened up and changed my clothes.
The clothes consisted of a royal blue kurta along with a dhoti.
Would changing clothes here also change my clothes in the real world? I wondered.
***
“Of course not,” replied Akriti.
“Lemme repeat the question for you once again,” Shekhar said.
“Are you a part of the terrorist organization known as ‘The Reverter’?”
“Of course not,” Akriti repeated with the straightest face possible.
“Alright…” he said, writing something down in his notepad, “Were you in Paris on the day of the fire in Notre Dame?
“This is ridiculous!”
“More ridiculous than Anirudh being a time traveller?”
“Oh, you know that I was in school! There are attendance records, you must have checked them!”
“Where is the equipment you used to communicate with?”
“Communicate with him?”
“The members of your organization?”
“The members of…will you listen to me?!”
“Please keep your voice down.”
“Take me back to the cell If you don’t want to listen.  I am tired of this bullshit.”
Shekhar tossed his notepad aside and leaned back in his chair. He smiled at Akriti.
“What?” she said, her tone indicating her annoyance.
“I was right,”
“About what Shekhar?”
“You are not lying.”
Akriti stared at him in confusion.
Shekhar got up from his chair and started pacing around the room.
“This means that you have gone crazy,” he said, “or Anirudh really is a time traveller…or so he believes. This could also mean that you simply ended up believing him and Anirudh is the crazy one.”
“But his predictions…”
“Could be very good bluffs. Moreover, his predictions have not always been right have they?”
Akriti was silent.
“You said he described having these weird dreams and also seeing that the sky was red and then black after a few days, which none of you saw.”
“...yes but, some of his predictions were very specific. Way too specific to just a guess.”
“Akriti you were also undercover at the hospital am I right?”
“Yes,”
“What did the reports say about him?”
“He shows exceptional mathematical and analytical cognition along with a terrifically good photographic memory.”
“Could he have made up everything after analysing a lot of things? And he is suffering from schizophrenia?”
“...maybe…but…his predictions were way too specific and way too… ”
“Or is he a time traveller?”
Akriti was silent.
Shekhar was also silently staring at Akrtit, trying to decipher her expressions.
But then he spoke.
“The correct answer is…”
Akriti looked at him with her eyebrows raised.
“That he is a time traveller.”
Akriti was completely confused by his comment.
“You see, the more I think about it the more nothing seems to make sense,”
“Except for the fact that Anirudh is a time traveller?”
“Yes!”
Akriti stared at him with an annoyed expression and then said, “Which is what I have been trying to tell you!”
“I know! But no one else is trying to understand! No one wants to believe that...I mean, even I don’t want to believe it still…but this is the reasoning everyone is giving, but I know there is something way more strange going on.”
Shekhar started pacing around the room faster.
“It’s 23rd November today and we have received intelligence about a viral pneumonia being spread in the Hubei province in China,”
Akriti’s eyes widened,” It’s just like Anirudh said!” she said.
“I mean it could still very well be a coincidence…but like you said…way too specific. But there is something else that nobody has absolutely any explanation about. Those emf outbursts.”
“What?”
“Oh right, you must not be aware, wait a second.”
Shekhar left the room in a hurry and came back with an open laptop in his hand.
He carefully put the laptop on the desk in front of Akriti.
“Every time you uploaded a video, these electromagnetic fluctuations were observed all across the world, and the number of them was increased in and around the areas of interest in the video including video.”
With Curious eyes, Akriti examined the graphics on the screen.
“Now, they only last for a few milliseconds but we used to believe that they were a form of communication between the members of the reverter. But we are still observing these bursts even after we have supposedly caught the ‘mastermind’...”
“So these fluctuations were observed in the near-infrared range?”
“Yes. The first one was the biggest and was observed only in Mumbai on the 5th of April this year.”
"That is the date Anirudh said he came to 2019!"
"Huh…"
Shekhar had stopped pacing and was now looking contemplatively at the screen.
"It will take a genius to figure it out," Akriti said.
"We need to wake Anirudh up…I mean he is in a coma…" Shekhar said.
"Do you know about Doctor Shishir?"
"Ah, that doctor of the hospital you were posted in?"
"Yes."
"Do you want me to bring him here?"
"Yes."
"You know Akriti, I have read his reports and I think the doctors here are more than capable of handling the situation following those reports."
"I know that."
Akriti and Shekhar were now locked in a staring competition.
An awkward silence ensued.
And soon Shekhar had lost.
"Fine, I'll see what I can do."
"Will you uncuff me now?"
"I wish I could."
He then left the room. Leaving Akriti dejected in her chair.
But he very well could remove the cuffs. He was now the head of this investigation after all.
Or so Akriti thought.