‘That the Somras has been the greatest Good of our age is pretty obvious,’ said Brahaspati. ‘It has shaped our age. Hence, it is equally obvious that someday, it will become the greatest Evil. The key question is when would the transformation occur.’
Shiva, Sati, Kali and Ganesh were still in Brahaspati’s classroom in Panchavati. Brahaspati had declared a holiday for the rest of the day so that their conversation could continue uninterrupted. The legendary ‘five banyan trees’, after which Panchavati had been named, were clearly visible from the classroom window.
‘As far as I am concerned, the Somras was evil the moment it was invented!’ spat out Kali.
Shiva frowned at Kali and turned to Brahaspati. ‘Go on...’
‘Any great invention has both positive and negative effects. As long as the positive outweighs the negative, one can safely continue to use it. The Somras created our way of life and has allowed us to live longer in healthy bodies. It has enabled great men to keep contributing towards the welfare of society, longer than was ever possible in the past. At first, the Somras was restricted to the Brahmins, who were expected to use the longer, healthier life – almost a second life – for the benefit of society at large.’
Shiva nodded. He had heard this story from Daksha many years ago.
‘Later Lord Ram decreed that the benefits of the Somras should be available to all. Why should Brahmins have special privileges? Thereafter, the Somras was administered to the entire populace, resulting in huge progress in society as a whole.’
‘I know all about this,’ said Shiva. ‘But when did the negative effects start becoming obvious?’
‘The first sign was the Nagas,’ said Brahaspati. ‘There have always been Nagas in India. But they were usually Brahmins. For example, Ravan, Lord Ram’s greatest foe, was a Naga and a Brahmin.’
‘Ravan was a Brahmin?!’ asked a shocked Sati.
‘Yes, he was,’ answered Kali, for every Naga knew his story. ‘The son of the great sage Vishrava, he was a benevolent ruler, a brilliant scholar, a fierce warrior and a staunch devotee of Lord Rudra. He had some faults no doubt, but he wasn’t Evil personified, as the people of the Sapt Sindhu would have us believe.’
‘In that case, do you people think less of Lord Ram?’ asked Sati.
‘Of course not. Lord Ram was one of the greatest emperors ever. We worship him as the seventh Vishnu. His ideas, philosophies and laws are the foundation of the Naga way of life. His reign,
Ram Rajya
, will always be celebrated across India as the perfect way to run an empire. But you should know that it is believed by some that even Lord Ram did not see Ravan as pure evil. He respected his enemy. Sometimes there can be good people on both sides of a war.’
Shiva raised his hand to silence them, and turned his attention back towards the Meluhan chief scientist. ‘Brahaspati...’
‘So the Nagas, though small in number initially, were usually Brahmins,’ Brahaspati continued. ‘But then, the Somras was used only by the Brahmins until then. Today, the connection seems obvious, but it didn’t seem so at the time.’
‘The Somras created the Nagas?’ asked Shiva.
‘Yes. This was discovered only a few centuries ago by the Nagas. I learnt it from them.’
‘We didn’t discover it,’ said Kali. ‘The Vayuputra council told us.’
‘The Vayuputra council?’ asked Shiva.
‘Yes,’ continued Kali. ‘The previous Mahadev, Lord Rudra, left behind a tribe called the Vayuputras. They live beyond the western borders, in a land called
Pariha
, the
land of fairies
.’
‘I know that,’ said Shiva, recalling one of his conversations with a Vasudev Pandit. ‘But I hadn’t heard of the council.’
‘Well, somebody needs to administer the tribe. And the Vayuputras are ruled by their council, which is headed by their chief, who is respected as a god. He is called Mithra. He is advised by the council of six wise people collectively called the Amartya Shpand. The council controls the twin mission of the Vayuputras. Firstly, to help the next Vishnu, whenever he appears. And secondly, have one of the Vayuputras trained and ready to become the next Mahadev, when the time comes.’
Shiva raised his eyebrows.
‘You obviously broke that rule, Shiva,’ said Kali. ‘I’m sure the Vayuputra council must have been quite shocked when you appeared out of the blue. Because, quite clearly, they did not create you.’
‘You mean this is a controlled process?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kali. ‘But your friends will know a lot more.’
‘The Vasudevs?’
‘Yes.’
Shiva frowned, reached for Sati’s hand, and then asked Kali, ‘So how did you find out about the Somras creating the Nagas? Did the Vayuputras approach you or did you find them?’
‘I did not find them. The Naga King Vasuki was approached by them a few centuries ago. They suddenly appeared out of nowhere, lugging huge hordes of gold, and offered to pay us an annual compensation. King Vasuki, very rightly, refused to accept the compensation without an explanation.’
‘And?’
‘And he was told that the Nagas were born with deformities as a result of the Somras. The Somras randomly has this impact on a few babies when in the womb, if the parents have been consuming it for a long period.’
‘Not all babies?’
‘No. A vast majority of babies are born without deformities. But a few unfortunate ones, like me, are born Naga.’
‘Why?’
‘I call it dumb luck,’ said Kali. ‘But King Vasuki believed that the deformities caused by the Somras were the Almighty’s way of punishing those souls who had committed sins in their previous births. Therefore, he accepted the pathetic explanation of the Vayuputra council along with their compensation.’
‘
Mausi
rejected the terms of the agreement with the Vayuputras the moment she ascended the throne,’ said Ganesh, referring to his
aunt
, Kali.
‘Why? I’m sure the gold could have been put to good use by your people,’ exclaimed Shiva.
Kali laughed coldly. ‘That gold was a mere palliative. Not for us, but for the Vayuputras. Its only purpose was to make them feel less guilty for the carnage being wrought upon us by the “great invention” that they protected.’
Shiva nodded, understanding her anger. He turned to Brahaspati. ‘But how exactly is the Somras responsible for this?’
Brahaspati explained, ‘We used to believe the Somras blessed one with a long life by removing poisonous oxidants from one’s body. But that is not the only way it works.’
Shiva and Sati leaned closer.
‘It also operates at a more fundamental level. Our body is made up of millions of tiny living units called cells. These are the building blocks of life.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard of this from one of your scientists in Meluha,’ said Shiva.
‘Then you’d know that these cells are the tiniest living beings. They combine to form organs, limbs, and in fact, the entire body.’
‘Right.’
‘These cells have the ability to divide and grow. And each division is like a fresh birth; one old unhealthy cell magically transforms into two new healthy cells. As long as they keep dividing, they remain healthy. So your journey begins in your mother’s womb as a single cell. That cell keeps dividing and growing till it eventually forms your entire body.’
‘Yes,’ said Sati, who had learnt all of this in the Meluha
gurukul
.
‘Obviously,’ said Brahaspati, ‘this division and growth has to end sometime. Otherwise one’s body would keep growing continuously with pretty disastrous consequences. So the Almighty put a limit on the number of times a cell can divide. After that, the cell simply stops dividing further and thus, in effect, becomes old and unhealthy.’
‘And do these old cells make one’s body age and thus eventually die?’ asked Shiva.
‘Yes, every cell reaches its limit on the number of divisions at some point or the other. As more and more cells in the body hit that limit, one grows old, and finally dies.’
‘Does the Somras remove this limit on division?’
‘Yes. Therefore, your cells keep dividing while remaining healthy. In most people, this continued division is regulated. But in a few, some cells lose control over their division process and keep growing at an exponential pace.’
‘This is cancer, isn’t it?’ asked Sati.
‘Yes,’ said Brahaspati. ‘This cancer can sometimes lead to a painful death. But there are times when these cells continue to grow and appear as deformities – like extra arms or a very long nose.’
‘How polite and scientific!’ said a livid Kali. ‘But one cannot even begin to imagine the physical pain and torture that we undergo as children when these “outgrowths” occur.’
Sati stretched out and held her sister’s hand.
‘Nagas are born with small outgrowths, which don’t seem like much initially, but are actually harbingers of years of torture,’ continued Kali. ‘It almost feels like a demon has taken over your body. And he’s bursting out from within, slowly, over many years, causing soul-crushing pain that becomes your constant companion. Our bodies get twisted beyond recognition so that by adolescence, when further growth finally stops, we are stuck with what Brahaspati politely calls “deformities”. I call it the wages of sins that we didn’t even commit. We pay for the sins others commit by consuming the Somras.’
Shiva looked at the Naga queen with a sad smile. Kali’s anger was justified.
‘And the Nagas have suffered this for centuries?’ asked Shiva.
‘Yes,’ said Brahaspati. ‘As the number of people consuming the Somras grew, so did the number of Nagas. One will find that most of the Nagas are from Meluha. For that is where the Somras is used most extensively.’
‘And what is the Vayuputra council’s view on this?’
‘I’m not sure. But from whatever little I know, the Vayuputra council apparently believes that the Somras continues to create good in most areas where it is used. The suffering of the Nagas is collateral damage and has to be tolerated for the larger good.’
‘Bullshit!’ snorted Kali.
Shiva could appreciate Kali’s rage but he was also aware of the enormous benefits of Somras over several millennia.
On balance, was it still Good?
He turned to Brahaspati. ‘Are there any other reasons for believing that Somras is Evil?’
‘Consider this: we Meluhans choose to believe that the Saraswati is dying because of some devious Chandravanshi conspiracy. This is not true. We are actually killing our mother river all by ourselves. We use massive amounts of Saraswati waters to manufacture the Somras. It helps stabilise the mixture during processing. It is also used to churn the crushed branches of the Sanjeevani tree. I have conducted many experiments to see if water from any other source can be used. But it just doesn’t do the trick.’
‘Does it really require that much water?’
‘Yes, Shiva. When Somras was being made for just a few thousand, the amount of Saraswati water used didn’t matter. But when we started mass producing Somras for eight million people, the dynamics changed. The waters started getting depleted slowly by the giant manufacturing facility at Mount Mandar. The Saraswati has already stopped reaching the Western Sea. It now ends its journey in an inland delta, south of Rajasthan. The desertification of the land to the south of this delta is already complete. It’s a matter of time before the entire river is completely destroyed. Can you imagine the impact on Meluha? On India?’
‘Saraswati is the mother of our entire
Sapt Sindhu
civilisation,’ said Sati, speaking of
the land of the seven rivers
.
‘Yes. Even our preeminent scripture, the Rig Veda, sings paeans to the Saraswati. It is not only the cradle, but also the lifeblood of our civilisation. What will happen to our future generations without this great river? The Vedic way of life itself is at risk. What we are doing is taking away the lifeblood of our future progeny so that our present generation can revel in the luxury of living for two hundred years or more. Would it be so terrible if we lived for only a hundred years instead?’
Shiva nodded. He could see the terrible side-effects and the ecological destruction caused by the Somras. But he still couldn’t see it as Evil. An Evil which left only one option: a
Dharmayudh
, a
holy war,
to destroy it.
‘What else?’ asked Shiva.
‘The destruction of the Saraswati seems a small price to pay when compared to another, even more insidious impact of the Somras.’
‘Which is?’
‘The plague of Branga.’
‘The plague of Branga?’ asked a surprised Shiva. ‘What does that have to do with the Somras?’
Branga had been suffering continuous plagues for many years, which had killed innumerable people, especially children. The primary relief thus far had been the medicine procured from the Nagas. Or else exotic medicines extracted after killing the sacred peacock, leading to the Brangas being ostracised even in peace-loving cities like Kashi.
‘Everything!’ said Brahaspati. ‘The Somras is not only difficult to manufacture, but it also generates large amounts of toxic waste. A problem we have never truly tackled. It cannot be disposed of on land, because it can poison entire districts through ground water contamination. It cannot be discharged into the sea. The Somras waste reacts with salt water to disintegrate in a dangerously rapid and explosive manner.’
A thought entered Shiva’s mind.
Did Brahaspati accompany me to Karachapa the first time to pick up sea water? Was that used to destroy Mount Mandar?
Brahaspati continued. ‘What seemed to work was fresh river water. When used to wash the Somras waste, over a period of several years, fresh water appeared to reduce its toxic strength. This was proven with some experiments at Mount Mandar. It seemed to work especially well with cold water. Ice was even better. Obviously, we could not use the rivers of India to wash the Somras waste in large quantities. We could have ended up poisoning our own people. Therefore, many decades ago, a plan was hatched to use the high mountain rivers in Tibet. They flow through uninhabited lands and their waters are almost ice-cold. They would therefore work perfectly to clean out the Somras waste. There is a river high up in the Himalayas, called Tsangpo, where Meluha decided to set up a giant waste treatment facility.’