The Celestial Hunt

By Devikumar Ramalingam

Millions of galaxies, countless stars, numerous planets and infinite asteroids and comets constitute this universe. Its formation is clueless and so is life. Earth, our dear world, which is one among the trillions of the celestial objects in this universe (we are not sure if we have another / many universes), is the only celestial object that can support life. We? Who are we?
We are just one among the innumerable species that live on Earth. When we compare the species of human beings to the hugeness of the Universe and the multitude of species, we seem very small. Is it not? This does not stop there. There are 7 billion humans in the world. You, I or anyone is just one among the 7 billion humans which is among 1.5 million species on Earth which is one of the trillions of celestial objects in the Universe.
Questions arise often when we start thinking about this mystery. So who has created this entire set up? And what are we expected to play in this short life? Are all the happenings and events pre-defined? Why some people alone reach greater heights in life and make their life a never fading saga?
Some term the super natural power above us as God and some try to explore it through science. Both God and Science have their own demerits. Yes, may be because both are created / altered by us. The ‘No God Concept’ seems to lack discernment and ‘Multi God Concept’ lacks sanity. Science, a repository of wonders, has also taken part in killing a large number of humans, the most intelligent species.
God (or) the Creator could be only ONE. All His messengers and their preachings iterate the same. The different versions of the result of the decoding process of God are these different religions. God Himself helped people in this process by sending Messengers at various times. The only identity for us is we are ‘humans’, very tiny living units of this gigantic universe created by our Creator. The discriminations originating on the basis of God has made us to lose our identity. Addicted to religion we have started moving away from God, our Creator.
Our only possessions are love & kindness – these attributes differentiate us from other species. The puzzling part is they increase when we give them to others. Do we all possess them? Not really! If we do, why are so many destitute and suffering people? Are we done with all our love & kindness that we don’t have any to assist these poor people? Poor? What is this new term?
Yes. Money is another term which is behind this term ‘Poor’. People with no/less money are poor and underprivileged people in this world. They are neglected of all the basic needs. Money is the transactional material ruling many greedy minds to live a rich life at the cost of hundreds of miserable lives. Greed of money drives one to pursue power and in the race many are killed in the stampede. Addicted to power & money, we are moving away from life. Triggered by communal differences and greed for power, and fuelled by science, violence has started reaching a new height and we are losing our face as humans.
The messengers of Our Creator have appeared several times and restored the love and humanity through their divine principles and everlasting life. We all carry a message from Our Creator and unfortunately many of us fail to follow and convey the doctrines to the next generation, thanks to addiction to religion, power and violence. We all hope a messenger appears again and turns this world which is full of nemesis into a garden of bliss. Every day, every one among the seven billion humans knowingly or unknowingly hope for a savior to save this tiniest of His celestial objects and one of His million species from self extinction.
“The Celestial Hunt” starts with Koushik, one among the seven billion humans taking a mysterious book from his father’s mini-library.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Devikumar Ramalingam
• Release date: Jan 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311350411

Devikumar Ramalingam

Devikumar Ramalingam is a short story author and novelist from Tamil Nadu, India. “The Celestial Hunt” is his debut novel. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics & Communication Engineering and has been working as a Software Engineer for six years. His short stories are mainly focused on building an egalitarian society. His works portray his strong attempts to convey powerful messages that can weed out the social evils which are threatening mankind.

Book preview

The Celestial Hunt

By

Devikumar Ramalingam

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY

Bookode Publishing

The Celestial Hunt

Copyright 2014 by Devikumar Ramalingam

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Table of Contents

Nothing Controlling Everything

Luscinia

The Ascension

Enigma Intensifies

The Last Day At College

The Wonder Vehicle

The Horrific Carnage

The Battlefield

Providential Psyches

The Celestial Hunt Begins

~~~~

Characters

Hyderabad

Jaidev –School Teacher

Koushik – High School Student

Chandrasekhar – Spiritual healer

Sankara Narayanan – Author, Columnist – Koushik’s father

Vidhyalakshmi – Doctor – Koushik’s mother

Indrajit – Student, Post graduate in Atomic Physics – Jaidev’s close friend

Shivani – Graduate in English literature

Viraaj – Wicked politician

Harsith – Powerful religious fanatic

Claudius – Terrorist

Philippines

Edwin – Employee of an electrical company, Famous artist

Rebecca – Economics student, Researches ancient novels, Shivani’s friend

Chrislann – Nanotechnology specialist

Jefferson – Skilled archer

~~~~

NOTHING CONTROLLING EVERYTHING

February 2007

Hyderabad, India

Heavy rains have stopped. The unseasonal rain has made everyone happy as it gave respite from the scorching sun. Street vendors have got back to normalcy. The busiest streets were calm for a while and have started to regain its momentum. Children are rushing back from school. The office goers are enjoying their evening break with a hot cup of tea and Panipuri, one of the famous recipes of Hyderabad. Commonly called as The City of Pearls, Hyderabad is one of the historic cities in India with countless monuments like Charminar, Golconda Fort and Hussain Sagar Lake. People from various castes and religions live here demonstrating India’s unity in diversity.

Gloomy weather in the cloudy evening has given all reasons for Koushik to cheer. Koushik is on the way to home from school in his school bus. Seeing his friends play cricket, he gets down half the way and starts walking to the park near his apartment. The street has a multitude of small shops on its left and two huge apartments on the other side. Koushik is slim with curly hair, looking more like Mowgli from The Jungle Book. He is a high school student and a great fan of cricket. After trying his best to get a chance to bat and not successful as usual, he sits in a bench satisfied with the role of a spectator. Slowly losing interest in the ongoing match, Koushik starts recollecting about a rather unusual event that happened in his class that day.

Mathematics is his first class on Thursdays. But to everyone’s surprise, it was his Physics teacher who entered the classroom. Jaidev, a post graduate in Atomic Physics, is handling Physics for the final two years of high schooling since 2004. He is famous among the students for being enthusiastic towards his subject and for addressing students’ issues individually. Even the other teachers respect him for his immense knowledge and discipline. But everyone wonder why a man with such a high qualification should be working in a high school. After attendance, Jaidev conveyed that a personal emergency had forced the Mathematics teacher to reschedule his class. He also added that he didn’t have a clear agenda for the session and started addressing queries on the chapters that he had taught earlier. Jaidev gradually digressed from the subject while answering a question. It was unusual to see Jaidev, usually a calm and cool person, getting very excited.

Providential Psyches by Sangford… Sangford was an evolutionary writer of eleventh century. His works have bridged centuries and places. Though he belonged to eleventh century, the contents were relevant to the incidents happened in 18th century. He had compiled all his works under the name ‘Providential Psyches’ One cannot easily decipher the theme of his stories. I heard that his stories would be exciting and at the same time very confusing. Last night, I heard from my close friend that the book had the secret of universe, life and death and key to unlock the mystery behind our creation. His books were found only in 1710 and initially believed to be available only in Spain… Jaidev gave a long lecture on Sangford’s book. One of the students asked whether Jaidev was referring to Nostradamus. No, this man is neither very popular nor are his works. Only a very few know him and his works. The only authentic information about him was that he was missing at the age of 52. The same was mentioned by those who had compiled his works. Some years back during my college days, I came to know about him through a librarian. I got all the information about Sangford and his works through that librarian. Unfortunately he died in an accident. After that I heard about Sangford yesterday when I called my close friend who lives in Oklahoma. He said his friends have formed a small library and they are aggregating old books from several other repositories. One of the books was written by Sangford. The person who read the book was completely disturbed and the book was missing. He was admitted after suffering from amnesia. I will be thankful to anyone who can get me Providential Psyches... replied Jaidev. The bell rang symbolizing the end of the first hour and the students were completely baffled. Why did he talk about all these to us? He was not prepared for the class He doesn’t know the answer for the question that this guy asked. students murmured.

Koushik is not proficient in Physics and always struggles to perform well in exams. To him, getting the book that Jaidev wants is like winning a jackpot. As he sits thinking about the book, a cover drive from a stout guy hits him straight onto his face. Koushik falls collapsed and his friends take him to his house after providing first aid.

Koushik lives with his parents in an old apartment which is located around twelve miles from his school. Sankara Narayanan, Koushik’s father is a well-known writer, columnist in a leading newspaper and also a researcher of old novels. He is stout, well-built and has a commanding personality. Sankara Narayanan hails from a small village near Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. Having lost his parents at his early age, he completed his schooling and graduation with the help of a charity organization. He used to read novels from his childhood days to kill time. Gradually he became a calm, smart and stress-free person, thanks to his passionate reading. He worked as a lecturer in a leading college in Hyderabad for four years. He gave up his lecturer job to spend more time on writing and researching novels. His short novels and articles made him very popular. His wife, Vidhyalakshmi is a psychiatrist. She owns a health care facility in a nearby village where cashless treatments are given to poor people. She also arranges weekly camps along with her friends in the medical field to create health awareness. She is treated with great respect by the people in the village and her dream is to provide good quality medicine to each of them. Koushik, being their only child, was brought up with so much affection. Koushik had everything he wanted till he joined high school. From then, he has been struggling to score marks, especially in Physics. Eventually he started getting loads of advice from his father which he hates the most and often ends up in a quarrel.

Shocked on seeing their son injured, Sankara Narayanan and Vidhyalakshmi take him to a nearby hospital to check if everything is okay. They return back by 8 P.M and after dinner, Sankara Narayanan calls Koushik to his room. He gently soothes his son’s bruised parts and asks why he got down from school bus half way. Before he can ask anything else, Koushik says that he has found solution to his academic problems and he doesn’t need advice anymore. Saying this, he leaves to his room. Tired of day’s work, Sankara Narayanan and Vidhyalakshmi are fast asleep while Koushik is thinking about Providential Psyches. Koushik usually forgets the text books mentioned by his teachers, but this peculiar book mentioned by Jaidev stuck in his memory. Being not able to sleep, Koushik goes to his father’s mini-library on the first floor. Koushik doesn’t like the place which is filled with books. He has never gone to the room for several months. He enters into the world of immeasurable knowledge where a semicircular rack, spanning the entire room, holds thousands of books. There are many books lying randomly on the front desk which is in the center. He sees his father’s favorite easy-chair before the front desk. The semicircular rack is painted with shades of light blue and the place is filled with the lignin smell from the old books. Age appears to be best in four things—old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. Koushik reads out the words of Francis Bacon inscribed on the wall. A wild brown snake at the corner of the room startles Koushik. There is a pin drop silence inside the room. He sees dark clouds through the window. The sudden change in climate surprises him and unusual power cut plunges the room in darkness. It starts raining heavily and he slowly walks to the corner and the snake remains stationary. With overwhelming fear and anxiety, he goes near the snake. The snake looks small but its eyes terrify Koushik. The snake remains unmoved. Gathering all his courage, he touches the snake with his right index finger and jumps back. He realizes that it is not a snake and it is a book with the snake picture on its cover. The picture of the snake is very realistic and secretive.