An image of zues

Some confessions should be made. Some mistakes should be admitted, or they change the course of history. 

And so I sit here before you.

Before the time I started my weekly paper, I had done many odd jobs( tell you some other time). At one time I was working as an junior journalist at a daily paper in poona, after I had completed my collage. For every inch I sent to them, they paid me 10 rupees. I managed to sent about 10 inches of news every week. Life was going along fine at that time. I worked with that paper for five years.

In my fifth year with the  newspaper, a man by the name of barren warren had come to natrangpur. He claimed that he was archaeologist from Australia, and that the area around natrangpur was full of archeaological  items from the old ages and stone ages, all worth a lot of money. The very idea that natrangpur was full of historical artifacts, or that it had history older than 200 years was bewildering. As I was a local of natrangpur, I was sent to interview  professor barren warren.

It was a hot summer afternoon when I arrived at his door(he had immediately bought a house after arriving). He invited me inside.  We drank lemon juice and talked for a long time. this routine went on for three days. He told me all about his research and theories.  I gathered enough material for twenty by twenty inches. In those three days, we developed a good bond. We had become good friends.

I sent a very long article to the newspaper. They were very happy with. The article had been a hit one. The newspaper editor ordered me to go with barren where ever he went to research and keep interviewing him. Barren agreed this arrangement.  

For three months I went wherever he went, slept where he did and wrote articles endlessly. One day he said to me, “ why don’t you became my assistant ? you can be very useful to me. Anyways, you travel with me. I will even give you  salary. You can keep writing your articles.”

It was very good proposition. I sent a letter to the newspaper, and they let me leave my job and promised to keep me paying for my articles.

So, I became professor barren warren faithful assistant. For another three months, I toured the areas around natrangpur . I dug up earth, cleaned odd articles and listened to the professor’s daily lectures and wrote articles at night. My eyes had became extremely sharp and my brain deductive. I could distinguish between waste and treasure just by glance. I always knew what to look for. I scanned every detailThus went  three months flying past.

                                                                                      ***

One day we were in a small, nameless village near the tapi river. The village was a collection of 74 odd huts and mud houses. All day me and the professor were roaming around the river, with no aim in mind of the professor. As we roamed around, the professor suddenly the professor dropped himself at the shore of the stream and began digging with his bare hands. A watched him digging.

In a few minutes he had dug out a piece of stained glass.  It was blue in colour with red and green design all over it. It was about three inches big, and it looked ancient.

“ it is a roman stained glass, must be 5500 thousand year old my theories are correct, and maybe  the greeks  arrived even earlier.” He muttered under his breath.

The professor sat down on a rock besides the stream and began examining the thing. He was absorbed in deep thought. It had been a long day, so I decided to take a dip in the stream(it was big enough to take a dive in).

I went a little way upstream. I quickly took out my clothes and jumped into the cool water. I swimmed underwater with the current carrying me downstream( I had been a champion swimmer in school). I went up to take in a breath, and I noticed something underwater(apparently, the eyes were just as effective underwater). I took a deep breath and plunged in the water again.

And there it was. It was smooth stone, I didn’t know which kind, but it looked like any other river stone. It was as big as my fist. It could have passed as any other river stone at first glance, but I could see chisel marks and lines all over it. I brought it to the surface and examined it. It had an image of a man in a strange dress and an upraised arm. I gave it to the professor.

“well, what do we have here? Hmm…., yes, seems like it,. Looks even older than the glass.Yes,yes, must be him….must send for dating” he muttured to himself.

“ well, seems like you have found treasure,my young assistant.” 

                                                                                ***

We spent one week more in that area. The professor restricted me from writing an article to the paper,he kept saying “ let it return from the testing. If my estimations are correct, then the stone you found will be the greatest discovery of the decade. Have patience, my friend.”

When the result came, I don’t know, but after a about a month the professor called me and gave me a newspaper. On the first page was the photo of my stone, and besides it was a report of the findings. I read the title of the paper. It was a national daily , and had my name on it.

Afterwards me and the professor went to England to publish our studies.  The professor belived that the image was of the greek god zues( he had sufficient proof for it. And believe me, there was a lot of proving it. Its an epic for another time.)

Soon, we were in newspapers all over the world. The professor declared that I, his assistant and he would be writing a new book based on the finding of the stone and some other things and that it would change many wrong facts of history.( in reality, I wrote the whole novel and the professor did nothing but check progress once in a while. And my salary was raised).

Now I spent hours in the library, researching and making notes, seldom sleeping before midnight. The book made good progress. In four months, the book was ¾ complete. And it would have been completed except for the trip I took. 

                                                        ***

I had again gone to the stone village. I wanted to make some notes and do a little research. I spent all day roaming in the village, and in the evening  I had gone to take a dip in the stream( this time I found nothing). After the bath , I sat on the bank, basking in the evening sun.

Presently, an old man of about sixty came and sat besides me. He had silver hair and a very long beard. We chatted for a little time. Then I told him about the research and about the stone. He listened to me in silence. After he listened to my tale, he began to narrate his own story: 

“sir, you seem to be quite mistaken. The stone you found was no greek stone. You ask me, how do I know? Well, I shall be happy to tell you that I paid a blacksmith in the village at the other side of that hill to make me two stones of the description you gave, 40 years ago. I paid for them . The person on the stones is not zues, but he is one of the two servants of indra, the rain god. I made a temple for indra 70 years ago and planted those stones on the gates of the temple. We used to pray to them every day. They brought us good rain in the monsoon season. For years we had no trouble with the rains.

Then, 50 years ago, our old pandit died. We took pity  on his son and made him the new pandit. It was a fatal mistake.  

He was a drunkard. He drank every    night at the steps of the temple and went through the morning  pujas in the stupor of the liquor. We warned him many times not to do it, but he used to cry “I know what to do and what not to do. I have read all the scriptures and I know all the rules. Don’t try to teach me. You know nothing.” 

Little by little he was going mad. We didn’t realise that until the two stones came. When we placed them at the gates, that old bastard said nothing. Soon, he had started muttering to himself. He started to have mood swings. He usually stayed grumpy and if you tried to talk to him he would scream at you and curse you. Then he started to tell the visitors  that the stones were constantly watching him. “they watch me constantly!” he said to everyone. After sometime, he claimed that the images would poke him and hit him on his butt whenever he passed through the gate. He started carrying a stick whenever he had to go in or out of the temple. He constantly scoulded us and told us to remove the figurines. Still we tolerated him. One evening, he had drunk too much. After everybody had gone home after the evening puja, he quietly picked up one of the stones and carried to the river. He threw it as far as he could. I and few of my friends were returning late from the farms. As soon as we heard the splash, we came running to the stream. We beat that idiot. We banished him from the village. But when he went away, that bastard didn’t tell us where he had throwed the stone. We searched for many years, but we never found it. At last we gave up hope and managed with one gatekeeper of the temple.”

I was deeply fascinated, surprised and scared by the story. What if the person would go and tell the whole world about it? I needed to save my and the professor’s reputation.

“ you will surely tell nobody about this?” I asked him timidly.

“ no , no, I will not. But only if we could get that image back…..”

“don’t worry about that. I will get the gatekeeper. But you must swear upon your temple that you will not tell anobody about this.”

“I swear” said the old man with  a solid air of determination.

I got to natrangpur as fast as I could. I told barren warren everything that had happened.

“what are we to do now? What if that man tells someone?” the professor wailed. 

“don’t worry. He swore upon the image. If only we could get the stone back to him.”

“that is impossible? How is that to happen?”

“don’t worry about that.” I told him about my plan.

“so tonight, we execute it” I said with a solid air of command and finality.

                                                                                     ***

In the night, the professor was sleeping on his cot as peacefully as a baby. He had kept the window open, as it was the summer season, and his fan had broken down.

A curtain fluttered across the window. A man clad in black dhoti and black shirt stepped inside the room as quietly as a cat. He crept towards the professor stealthily. He had a napkin in his hand, and he dabbed chloroform on it. He placed it on the professor’s he hawk nose. Barren warren struggled for a second, but then he slipped back to a deep sleep.

The professor’s most priced possession, the image of zues, was placed inside the locker. The man found its key’s under the professor’s pillow.  He took it out quietly and quicky, and disappeared into the night through the window.

The man quickly went to the bus station. He stuffed the statue into his bag. He went behind a tree and changed his clothes. He sat in the bus which came in half an hour later. he reached his destination in the morning. He quickly went to an old man and gave him the stone.

“ I hope you will keep your part of the deal?” he said to the old man.

“ don’t worry. I swore” the old man remainded him.

The man went back to natrangpur by the morning bus and reached his destination by sunset. He immediately went to mr. barren warren’s home.

Meanwhile, the prof had woken up. He was shocked by what had happened. He had immediately called the police. They had carried out an investigation. Media-people frolicked around his home. His assistant was out of town when the robbery had happened. He had gone for research work, the professor had declared. the police searched for any lead desperately, but they couldn’t find any.  After six months, they closed the case and apologized from the professor. He forgave them.

Meanwhile, the robber arrived at professor barren warren home.

“ did you deliver  the image of zues  safely?” asked the professor.

“ yes, it was delivered safe and sound.” The man smiled.

“ well then, my assistant, lets talk about the progress of the book…..”