OBITUARY OF THE BLACK TULIP QUEST

This paper uses modified Ahalpara Matrices to generate Hartree-Fock (yes, HARTREE-FOCK) approximations to account for Eigenvalues of upper f-p-g shell nuclei. Ground state occupancies in such cases can be calculated…"

The rod jerked in my hands. The line went out screaming. I struck hard hoping that I had made him hooked firmly. Adjusted the drag, and by the pull he was exerting. I figured he must be a couple of Kilos. In about ten minutes, he was flopping about on the beach. Later, around the camp fire as I bit into my roti and pickle, I could almost predict the conversation; dull, stale conversation mocked by the sparkle and glow of the fire. I wandered off down the shore — I missed her. The contest was unequal — the sand kept diving under the water to seek refuge and the sea kept lifting it up and battering it on the shore. Another lot of sand dived in — do those bastards never learn?

Phosphorescent algae washed ashore, if you do not locate it fast enough to put it back into water, it stopped glowing. Flopped down on the sand, face down, if you dug yourself in a little deeper it was a lot warmer. Made a pillow of sand under my chin. Still missed her. Played out a demonstration of Green´s theorem. I´d punch the sand as if hitting a button and sure enough somewhere on the shore at the very exact moment my finger hit the sand, a phosphorescent glow would light up. A couple of times it didn´t happen and the grave danger in store for the universe if Green´s theorem refused experimental verification weighed on my mind. Going mad, stark raving mad. How long do I miss her? Wire her name on the shore, the waves flog her.

The trouble was that I had never met her. That´s why I call her Swapnika. Of my dreams, by my dreams and God forbid — for my dreams. Born of longing, desire and a desire for companionship — a composite creature, part Aphrodite, part Minerva, friend, lover, guise, mentor, personal philosopher, soothsayer—my Swapnika. Maybe I´d meet her in the next second, maybe never. Green´s theorem failed again. I´ll bait my largest sea hook with my harmonica and cast as far as I can. Maybe I can hook a mermaid — yes definitely going mad. I jumped up; the keen wind at Okha can really chill you. Tripping over a dozen mermaids, decrepit Green´s theorems and faded signboards that said "Swapnika —>" I stumbled back to camp. Radhan was just finishing an eyewitness account of Suleiman killing a dory owner for fouling his nets. "Navlakhi is a bad place," he warns. Clavell springs to my mind. "Dew ne loh moh" on nets, Suleiman and Navlakhi. In that order—in any fornicating order. Hamari galli bhi phoren hai dekho!

Sleep is impossible. Swapnika, Swapnika, where are you? Long for you. What hook, what bait what rod, what line —just what do I do now? Back on the beach it is too cold. Inside the tent it is too claustrophobic. Smoke a couple of cigarettes, count stars, sheep, sleep.

"Remember, in funds flow calculations, the rate of the flow is as important, sometimes more, than the volume of the flows. Japanese managers are adept at increasing flow rales to levels where the operating cycle becomes fifteen or twenty days giving them twenty rotations per year. Compare this with the two or three rotations possible in India…," — thirty minutes to go for lunch. Exams are from the day after. Long for the great, wide, open spaces.

The climb is lung wrenching. One step forward, heave, another step forward. Wish I had given up smoking. 12,000 feet and still climbing. But the great-big ice-cream cones are reward enough. Bhagirathi 1 & 2, Shivling -— the sky seems to lick their tops with gossamer cloud tongues. Simla baba makes us coffee with Swiss milk powder and offers to deliver instant bliss — smoke it, sniff it or inject it — we claim that the coffee is strong enough. Halfway to Bhojwasa, the snow starts falling. Too cold to even eat. Gulp down some soup and snuggle in under some dozen sheets. No one told me about cold seeping in through the floor, so I am now faced with a frustrating decision problem: from a total of 14 blankets, how many should I have on the ground and how many over me? No one at management school can help. Would love to have Swapnika inside, but she is not here at Gangotri either. Where is she then? Write her name, mine and Naganath´s on a discarded cigarette packet; he wanted to bathe in the Ganga at Gaumukh to seek blessing for his investment banking company and slip it into the rushing torrent.

See the pines and miss her, see the rhododendron and miss her, see the lazy river in the far away valley and ache for her. Hate to see the beauty of nature so alone.

"Sahib, stockists ke paas se abhi bhi pandrah lakh baki hai to main kaise advance payment bharoon?" Market shares, price fluctuations, infiltration across state tax lines, territory poaching, sales meetings — the same litany every time. This month it is not too bad. Next month, oh god. The new budget will come in, more excise duties, more taxes and till the stock in the channel gets sold right down to the consumer — no sales. Sick and tired of convincing, pleading, cajoling, and threatening people to buy. To keep that stupid sales graph pointing its obscene finger al the sky. Wish I was off somewhere far away.

We find that salt is good but snuff´s better. Leeches, bloody leeches. Sophisticated scientific bloodsuckers. They first make an incision and inject anaesthetic, then an anticoagulant and for good measure a vasodilator to expand your blood vessels so they can gorge themselves. Doesn´t impress me. Salt the little buggers away. But the jungle is worth it. They tell me that it is one of the last remnants of the primeval rain forests in the Western Ghats. There is an incipient fear of meeting an elephant on the trail. Jump off the trail, the game warden said. Into the leeches? No way. Rather take a chance with the elephants. Santosh says that elephant´s trunks took like huge leeches. If leeches were that big, what would they suck? Whales? And how would whales move in the jungles? Very slowly, I suppose. Sick jokes, horrid leeches, lovely jungle. Someone is catching butterflies for research. We flip through his day´s collection. All "lepidoptera" and "ensis" and "ata". We nod dumbly. This criminal has just killed a fragment of a rainbow and has reduced it to a "lepidopiera somethingensis". Drop dead stranger, you don´t slot nature into "ensis" boxes. Burying his body would be a tedious chore so we spare him.

Off lo the valley for lunch sitting on the rocks in the middle of die stream. Then for a light snooze. Warm sun on my eyelids battling to darken my vision hand in the water, leeches creeping up on my forearm — paradise in the here and now, leeches and all. A familiar ache begins to develop in the pit of my stomach. I know what´s coming. But hark the river is saying something! "Gurgleburblemessage, Gurgleburblemessage." And an extraordinary understanding bursts inside me, deep inside where I have never been, I know who I´m missing. I KNOW WHO SWAPNIKA IS. I KNOW HER! What a chump I have been not to know all along. I jump up and slosh along the river to tell someone, anyone who´ll listen. Santosh, I´ll tell Santosh. I interrupt the idiot who is explaining the dangers of drinking unfiltered river water to Premanand. Doesn´t he know that there are better things than schistosomiasis, cholera, typhoid, or even a nuclear war? I shake him rudely and tell him all. He tries to calm me down as if he had the wisdom of a million years and tell me to check with this, what´s her name, Swapnika, first. "Does she feel the same way for you? Would she splash around the river and scare all the animals for miles around in Silent Valley if she thought of you? Is unfiltered water really safe?"

I wearily go back to my Bodhi tree-rock equivalent. Polar ice smothering molten lava. Snatch at the nearest leaf and write a message to Swapnika. Santosh is right, but so what if he is? There are hundreds of treks, thousands of miles of coastline to angle on and many, many unspoiled jungles to drown oneself in. Wish an elephant-trunk leech on Santosh.

Post Script:

I have recently angled at Okha, have been to Goa, trekked in Silent Valley again. In fact the last week I was in the little Rann of Kutch admiring the wild asses. Next week, I shall perhaps go to Gir. Lots more places to go. And by the way Santosh was wrong. Hopelessly wrong.

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