The Prime Minister
a serial novel
by Rattan Mann
Fran Yeoh -- Alchemy
Go to Part 1, Episode 1
Hindi Terms
Lulu: is a useless nut who
can never get anything straight. It is not a name in the usual sense.
Chachi Jaan: is a more respectful
term for aunty. Chacha and chachi mean uncle and aunty and Jaan, meaning
life, adds more honour to the term. It means "aunty, my life". It is not
a name in the usual sense.
Jhuggis: are shanties in
a shanty-town, and jhuggi-wallas are those who dwell in the jhuggis.
Previous Episode
Balwinder lay motionless on the
giant’s shoulders. He had no idea what was going on. There were no signs
of life in him. The giant shook him to wake him up. He embraced the frozen
body tightly to give it extra warmth. But all seemed to be in vain. Balwinder
showed no reactions.
”Perhaps talking will help,” the
giant thought. So while running, he also started talking to Balwinder.
"Say something, Balwinder, say something.
The nightmare is over. You are free now. I will take you to a safe place.
Nobody will be able to touch you there. Just open your eyes and look at
me. I am your buddy, Layak Ram. Just nod if you can hear me. That is all."
The angry giant was running very
fast because he had a responsibility on his shoulders - he had a life to
save. He had not run this fast since he had been a champion athlete. He
couldn't allow himself to be caught. He was committing treason. He was
no longer a soldier but a deserter. If he was caught, both of them would
be shot. So all he wanted was to see some signs of life in the man for
whom he was doing all this. Otherwise everything would be in vain.
Slowly Balwinder's lips moved. He
was trying to say something.
"Yes, Ballu, yes. What are you saying?
I can't hear you. A little louder. Just a little louder!" the giant was
screaming as he pressed his ears against Balwinder's lips.
"Run for the hills, Kali, run for
the hills!" Balwinder was muttering, even though he did not have the strength
to open his eyes and see that the Empress of the Heart was indeed trailing
far behind and was in trouble. But in trouble or out of it, she was still
there. Nobody had chased her away. How could they? She was an Empress after
all - an Empress guarding her lover like a Goddess.
End of Part One of the Prime Minister
The Prime Minister
Part 2
Fran Yeoh -- Dimensional Distortion
Newton's Third Law - The Reaction
The Joint-HQ of Internal Security
and Department of Psychological Warfare, alias the Medical Institute of
Advanced Study in Mental Sciences and the Human Condition, was in a state
of turmoil and its founding fathers in a state of utter shock.
Something had happened in their
citadel of power which had never happened before, and the shock-waves were
rocking the citadel to its very foundation. Professor Gupta and inspector-general
Kumar were suddenly overtaken by events beyond their control and cast aside
like ship-wrecked sailors in a stormy sea.
What had happened was beyond human
imagination because such things are not supposed to happen in a civilized
society, period. A very docile and obedient sepoy with a perfect discipline
record had beaten a very senior officer, a future emperor, then set fire
to the holy Joint-HQ and escaped with a notorious prisoner. What did it
mean? How could such things happen in a modern society? And finally the
mother-of-all-questions: What would the almighty High Command say when
it came to know about these events?
Infinite time was needed to answer
these questions which were the trickiest questions man had ever asked.
But time was the one thing Gupta and Kumar did not have. Time too had deserted
them and run away with Layak Ram and Balwinder. So, something had to be
done with lightning speed to contain the damage and prevent it from spilling
into the cut-throat world of the High Command.
Therefore, for the first time in
their lives professor Gupta and inspector-general Kumar were willing to
cooperate and collaborate in solving their urgent problem simply because
their lives were at stake.
From the very beginning one thing
was clear to both of them - whatever had happened had happened to the disadvantage
of Gupta, and therefore, by definition, to the advantage of Kumar. And
Kumar was the last person to let such a golden opportunity slip through
his hands. So, he began by taking stock of the situation and preparing
a course of action.
The first step was to prepare a
summary of the events and their possible consequences. Kumar sat down on
the table and started taking notes.
Professor Gupta was to be blamed
for everything. He had axed his own feet. He turned his mother-of-all-experiments
upside-down and changed it from a stunning success to a failure. What was
infinitely worse was that he was thrashed by a sepoy in front of his colleague.
This meant that if something was not done quickly, rumours would spread
like wildfire. What pleased Kumar the most was that finally he was in a
commanding position. He was in a position to light as well as extinguish
the prairie fire. The choice was his. He was in a win-win situation. But
he had to play his cards very wisely.
The High Command was the main problem.
If that could be tackled, everything else would fall into place. The High
Command wouldn’t like what had happened. In fact they would hate it completely
because of the dangerous example this incident would set for others. But
the question was how would they come to know about it? Somebody would have
to tell them first. But who?
Layak Ram was not going to come
back and tell everybody that he had become a deserter. Balwinder was not
going to come back and say Layak Ram had saved him. Well, that left Kumar
himself. Therein lay his power. All the cards were in his hands. But he
to be careful. Once upon a time he messed up his life by being too hasty.
Kumar stopped taking notes. He couldn't
write any further. Tears came into his eyes. Kumar had a secret he hadn't
told anybody. He wore a scarlet letter of shame under his vest. Suddenly
he remembered his fall from grace twenty years before.
Kumar was not a police officer.
He was an army officer. He had joined the National Defence Academy at Pune
as a cadet and specialized in military strategy. He was the best and the
brightest of all cadets at NDA. So the very day he graduated as a cadet,
he was absorbed into the Think Tank Division of the Academy as a second
lieutenant. Even as a cadet, Kumar had been very dissatisfied with the
Indian Army's strategy to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Now he was in a position to do something.
So second lieutenant Kumar wrote
a letter to Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw.
To
Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw,
Army HQ,
New Delhi
Dear sir,
I am a second lieutenant in the
Think Tank Division of the National Defence Academy at Pune. Therefore
it is my duty to think about the status of the Indian Army in the twenty-first
century, and warn powerful men like you about the shortcomings of our army.
My heart breaks down and tears come
into my eyes when I say that, very unfortunately, the might of the Indian
Army is a myth exactly like the might of Saddam Hussain's army in Iraq.
I shudder, my hands shiver, and my spinal-cord grows cold when I say that
the Indian Army would collapse within a week against a powerful enemy exactly
like Saddam's army did. Our equipment is outdated, senior officers are
too busy enriching themselves, and the soldiers are headless and demoralized.
Moreover, our military strategy
for the 21st century is based on the principles of the 19th century. Even
you committed a grave military blunder when invading East Pakistan in 1971.
It was purely by chance that you won the war and became a field marshal.
You could equally well have lost because the military principles on which
you based your attack were not sound.
To meet the military challenges
of the 21st century, I have formulated my first law of modern warfare.
The First Law of Modern Warfare:
The line of attack should never be the same as the line of defence.
I can think of the following possible
applications in the twenty-first century.
1) To attack Pakistan, invade Afghanistan.
2) To attack Bangledesh, annex Burma.
3) To conquer China, occupy Tibet.
4) To defeat Russia, strengthen
the Muslim Belt.
5) To weaken Europe, strengthen
Africa.
6) To attack America, bomb Europe.
I hope that as a patriot, you will
include my First Law of Modern Warfare in the basic fabric of our military
thinking.
Yours,
Second Lieutenant Kumar
Kumar got the answer sooner
than he expected, but not from the field marshal. The next Sunday, while
everyone slept, he was woken up from bed, and dragged to the gates of the
National Defence Academy in his pyjamas. There he was told to get as far
away from the Academy as possible before dawn if he wished to remain alive.
There was no court-marshal, no official dismissal, just an verbal order
to get lost forever.
Kumar was in a state of shock. But
that is what military training is all about - to tackle shock and surprise.
So he pretended that he was in full command of the situation, looked the
guards in their eyes, and shouted as if he was their commander,
"To hell with Field Marshal Sam
Manekshaw. I am the greatest military strategist since Napoleon Bonaparte."
Then he looked at the sky to see
if Napoleon was listening. Indeed he was. So Kumar continued,
"Napoleon, you said ten Englishmen
would always defeat ten Frenchmen. But ten thousand Frenchmen would always
defeat ten thousand Englishmen. But Napoleon, who could defeat one billion
India-men and two billion China-men?"
It was Napoleon's turn to be caught
unaware. Second Lieutenant Kumar had checkmated Emperor Napoleon with his
first move. The emperor had no answer and nowhere to move his army. He
admitted defeat. So he saluted the second lieutenant and retreated the
clouds. It was his second Waterloo.
Thus ended the military career of
the greatest military strategist of twenty-first century - with a victory
in the clouds.
to
be continued...
Copyright 2005 Rattan Mann
Oslo, Norway
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