Pokhran - A Novel

By Uday Singh

The success of the ‘Smiling Buddha’ nuclear test marked the rise
of India as a nuclear power in 1974. But what went unreported in
the media was the nuclear fallout that had lasting impact on the
inhabitants of Pokhran, especially Chaitanya.
It quickly becomes clear that the conspiracy surrounding this
radioactive fallout runs pretty deep in the establishment. Those who
have had a hand in covering it up are willing to go to great lengths
to ensure that the secrets stay buried.
Chaitanya sets on a journey to expose the truth. With Zara by his
side, he is sure to bring justice to his people. But when fate snatches
Zara away from him, he is consumed by revenge. Undeterred by
threats, he embarks on a mission that takes him from the deserts of
Pokhran to those of Syria, and into the halls of MIT.
A heady page turner, at its very core, Pokhran is an exceptional journey of revenge, courage, love
and the unbeatable human spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Srishti Publishers
• Release date: Jul 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9789387022874

Book preview

UDAY SINGH

Srishti PublisherS & Distributors

A unit of AJR Publishing LLP

212A, Peacock Lane

Shahpur Jat, New Delhi – 110 049

[e-mail]

First published by

Srishti Publishers & Distributors in 2020

Copyright © Uday Singh, 2020

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. The characters, places, organisations and events described in this book are either a work of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to people, living or dead, places, events, communities or organizations is purely coincidental.

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publishers.

Printed and bound in India

Dedicated to,

and in memory of my dear friend,

Niraj Dhondi.

Inspired by real events and people.

Names of people, events, locations, and dates have been modified for

dramatic effect and bear no resemblance to reality. Any resemblance to

real people, events, locations, and/or dates is purely coincidental.

Contents

Acknowledgement

Top Secret Smiling Buddha

Chapter 1: My Childhood in Pokhran

Chapter 2: Hanging Out with Charvakas

Chapter 3: The Friendly Dacoits

Chapter 4: Deeper into the Pokhran Nuclear Blast

Chapter 5: Chaitanya Gets to MIT

Chapter 6: Meeting Zara

Chapter 7: Marrying Zara

Chapter 8: Zara Visits Syria

Chapter 9: Ends Justify the Means

Chapter 10: Rebuilding Pokhran

Chapter 11: Chaitanya’s Letter from Beyond

A note from the author

Acknowledgement

Every time I have come across a novel idea, heard of an interesting concept, or read a book, I have felt super thankful to those that came before me. Grateful that so many before me have contributed in such varied ways to make life comfortable and more interesting, at the same time propelling humanity for- ward. While I enjoyed all that they had to offer, I always felt it my responsibility to pay it forward and contribute to our col- lective human consciousness. This book is an opportunity for me to do so. I am extremely thankful to my family, friends and mentors, who have helped refine my thinking. They have guided me to develop an appreciation for novel ideas and concepts that aid humanity in our pursuit to realize our full potential.

While it has been a labour of love to get this book into its final form, it would not have been possible to do so without the diligence, hard work, and support provided by my editor, Stuti. For that, I shall forever be grateful to her. My supporter at Srishti Publishers, Arup Bose, deserves equal credit, and my gratitude for believing in me as a writer and for helping get this book published.

I would also like to extend special and heartfelt thanks to my dear friend, Sam, for being a constant source of encouragement in this endeavour. I wouldn’t have made it through this far without the support of Niraj and Sam. And to Naresh, for inspiring me and for showing me courage through adversity.

Top Secret Smiling Buddha

(1970-1975)

What took you so long, Ranvir? Chaitanya asked calmly, with a hint of a smile, as the door swung open.

Ranvir, a tall, dishevelled and weather-beaten man in his early thirties, stood there with a revolver in his hand. As Ranvir burst into the room, trembling, with anger welling up from every pore in his body, Chaitanya leaned back in his comfortable black leather chair with the expression of a chess grandmaster who was quite content that the game had played out precisely as he had planned.

BOOM!

A shot rang out of the gun, piercing the soft atrophied muscles of Chaitanya. The impact toppled his body off the wheelchair and onto the white tiled floor. The blood slowly started flowing out of the gunshot wound and began to form a bright crimson cloud on the floor. Ranvir repositioned the gun to fire his second shot close to Chaitanya’s heart, while Chaitanya smiled with satisfaction.

There were too many emotions and too much adrenaline coursing through Ranvir’s veins to notice what was going on. He was focused on sweet revenge that would finally bring peace to his troubled mind. How long he had fantasized about this moment, about finding out who was behind all this, and how he would torture and dismember the person responsible for the pain and the anguish to Komal, his family, and his friends. Even in his wildest imaginations, he had never expected the villain to be a frail quadriplegic with such limited physical abilities, who had wreaked so much havoc. As these thoughts ran through his head, Ranvir found that his fingers and his body were beyond his own control as they squeezed hard against the trigger one more time.

BOOM!

Another shot rang out, and this time the bullet passed smoothly through my ribs and heart, and exited through the other side. I could feel the heat of the bullet as it passed through me and then I began to see myself rise out of that frail dead body and drift upwards.

Before you start to feel pity for me as the good guy trapped in that frail disabled body, or condemn me as the bad guy, you will have to know more. Things are never as black and white as they may seem at first glance. I could see myself floating up over my immobile body, and it was with a tinge of sadness that I looked back at the physical form that used to be me for the past forty-five years. As images of Zara, Devyani, papa and didi flashed past, I wondered whether I’d receive a similar comforting welcome that those dearly departed souls would have received in their afterlife or be relegated to something much darker which is reserved for the worst of human souls like myself.

To be certain, the seeds for my situation were sown long before I was born, when Dalai Lama fled Tibet, in the late 50s, to avoid capture by the Chinese government, and received refuge in India. For India, it was a very natural act of generosity and openness. It has provided asylum and a safe haven to many who were persecuted unfairly elsewhere – be it the Buddhist monks from Tibet, the Zoroastrians from Persia, the Khojas, the Ismailis from Persia and the Middle East, or the Egyptians. Even Cleopatra sent her seventeen-year-old son Caesarion to the Red Sea port of Berenice for safety, as part of his escape to India when Octavian invaded Egypt. Mao, the Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, was irked at the support and reception Dalai Lama received, and it was Mao’s bruised ego among other things that led to the Sino-Indian war in the early 60s.

Soviet Union, the supposed friend of India, was too distracted with the Cuban missile crisis to be of any help to India in her time of need during the Sino-Indian war. That was the beginning of the end of the Soviet friendship, and also an end to any notions that Nehru tried to promote about the use of nuclear power only for peaceful purposes. While the Indian nuclear program had its start right after the Sino-Indian war, the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971 provided the right impetus for the Indian nuclear program to be revitalized. Approval from the Indian Parliament led to the launch of the Smiling Buddha project, to build our nuclear capability for weapons use.

Maybe it was Mao’s hurt ego. Maybe it was the Cuban missile crisis. Or, maybe a confluence of all those events that led India on this path and brought about the nuclear test of Pokhran, inextricably involving my life with that fateful 1974 Smiling Buddha nuclear test. Given such violent world events, maybe it is only fitting that my life has been violently entangled with Pokhran and refugees till the very end.

18 May 1974, Pokhran: It was a usual morning in the dry Rajasthani desert, slightly chillier than expected for that time. Not a single cloud could be seen for as far as the eye could see, and the humidity in the air was close to zero as it hadn’t rained in these parts for over a decade. The turbaned men of the village had already started out of their homes with lunches tied to the end of a stick slung over their shoulders, headed to work. The women headed out on their five mile trek to fill up their pots with drinking water.

The village was used to seeing periods of hectic traffic and activity every five years, when politicians dropped by for their customary visits to their vote banks. But this traffic was very quiet and made up mostly of military trucks and jeeps which bore no similarity to that of the politicians and their hordes of cronies and political supporters with their party flags belting out party slogans and speeches over blaring loud speakers. This new and rather strange traffic was reticent, purposeful, and headed straight to the Pokhran Fort, Balagarh, that had not been in use since 1952. That was when Bhawani Singh, the last of the Cham- pawat Rathores, handed over the ownership of the fort to the Indian government as part of the nationalization of land and property.

One day earlier, about a dozen or so trucks had arrived at the fort, carrying decorated military officers in uniform and some scientists in white coats who all milled about the place setting up things and getting ready for what seemed to be a big event. The cooks, the chambermaids and the servers had arrived a day before that to get the fort ready, in order to receive this retinue of officers and scientists. The dinner was set in the dining hall on the third and topmost floor of the fort, with a clear view of the vast Thar desert.

By 6 p.m., as the sun was on its way down, warm orange sunlight streaked through the westward facing windows of the fort. As the waiters moved about, fine dust particles rose and danced about in the sunlight. Slowly, the officers and scientists started making their way to the dining hall and began settling into their designated seats. Most of them had worked with each other over the past three years and had bonded more closely with this group than with their own families.

As the group reached a quorum, Narendra Pant, seated at the head of the dining table, stood up to address the room. He was over six feet tall, in his early fifties, clean shaven, slightly greying hair that made him look refined and distinguished. He had this constant smile, almost a grin, that exuded seniority, while at the same time made him personable and approachable. His white shirt and grey hair stood in stark contrast to the dark painting that adorned the wall behind him – capturing the Battle of Jhelum where the Macedonian king Alexander incurred significant military losses in defeating the relatively small-time Indian king, Porus.

Thank you for clapping like you are really glad to see me. Although, I believe you all are more glad that you don’t have to deal with me starting tomorrow, assuming everything goes according to plan, his eyes scanned the entire room as he spoke and paused for effect.

Gentle laughter rippled through the audience. Narendra was loved and respected. As the room became quiet again, he put out his cigarette and took a sip of his Scotch and began to speak again in his gruff slow voice.

Let me start by saying ‘Thank you’ again. The best battles I have been involved in are those that I didn’t have to fight. On this occasion, more than ever, the two thousand-year-old story of King Porus and Alexander is highly relevant. Brute force rarely wins wars; rather it is the right combination of bravery, cunning and propaganda that does, he said as he pushed his chair back and started walking towards the painting behind him.

Narendra spoke with his gaze locked at the painting, Porus used bravery in his battle. Despite the small size of his army, he managed to inflict the greatest casualties that Alexander’s Macedonian army had seen so far. Chanakya deployed cunning to infiltrate the ranks of Alexander’s army and got Chandragupta inserted there. He was slow and deliberate as he continued to speak. It was obvious that he took great pride in the military strategy that was executed by Chanakya.

Once inside, Chandragupta engaged in propaganda to spread rumours about the size and might of the Nanda empire’s army, which was already ten times in size to that of Porus’ army. It was ultimately the rumours that made Alexander back away from attacking India (the then Nanda empire) any further, as there was a mutiny within the Macedonian army. Alexander’s army officers rebelled against going on such a suicide mission. He paused and surveyed the room.

That is an excellent example of effective deterrence, when wars are not fought at all, when you scare the living daylights out of your enemy just by your existence, his voice rose in pitch as his face lit up with enthusiasm.

There was utter silence and even the waiters stopped to listen to his speech. He slowly walked to the edge of the table and looked across the room, We are gathered here today, on this historic occasion, to create a similar deterrence against the threats we face today. So that we may not have to fight anymore battles.

To Indian deterrence! He raised his glass to make a toast, and the whole room erupted with applause. Everyone stood up to join in the toast.

Narendra was a master of timing, had perfect diction, and most importantly, he knew people. He had the rare ability to readily connect with people at all levels, from the waiter to the commander, and when he was talking to you, he would hold your gaze and make you feel that what you have to say is the most important thing for him. On top of that, he had a fantastic memory. As the applause quieted down, he glanced around the room and waited for people to settle down again.

Please convey a debt of gratitude from the entire country and myself to your families for putting up with the long hours, moving to Trombay to work on this project and for keeping it a secret from your family and friends.

He pointed to Suresh, one of the quantum physicists on the project, who was seated ten seats away on the right. Suresh, you’ve been in the doghouse with your wife because she thinks you are having an affair. Tomorrow, you will finally be able to tell the truth and get your wife and also your life back. He smiled while the entire audience burst out laughing.

Suresh smiled and shot back at Narendra, I will demolish you on the hockey field tomorrow, for that!

Please take your seats. Enough of me taking up this air time. I would like to invite Subramaniyam Iyengar, the real brain behind this project, to say a few words. Narendra sat down and returned to his Scotch as the room erupted in whistles and applause once more.

The fluorescent lights came on inside the dining hall, as it had become dark outside. The warm desert breeze became chilly as the temperature dipped along with the sun. The open areas of the fort were still dark and lighting was kept to a bare minimum so as to not attract any attention, with the overhead US and Soviet surveillance satellites. Although everybody around the table was tense in anticipation of tomorrow’s event, they were slowly beginning to enjoy themselves. As the waiters replaced the plates and refilled the glasses across the table, Subramaniyam got up to speak.

In his white lab coat and heavy black-rimmed glasses, Subramaniyam looked like he would be more comfortable and a better fit in his surroundings if he were in a university cafeteria debating scientific theories with other faculty members rather than rubbing shoulders with macho military heads. This was the opportunity of a lifetime for him to push his own limits and to take India to the next level, joining the ranks of the other five nuclear nations. He had lucrative job offers waiting for him in the US – right after he completed his Ph.D. from MIT in Cambridge in his twenty-fourth year – when he was recruited into this program.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Narendra for recruiting me right out of college into this program and for believing in me enough to work on my dream project, Subramaniyam spoke in a low tone, as if unsure of himself.

This has been a complex undertaking involving multiple disciplines, including metallurgy, chemical explosives, quantum physics, radioactivity and manufacturing weaponry, among other things. Huge thanks go to Suresh Rao, Rajesh Garg, Ankit Ratnakar and others from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre who have been an integral part of bringing this program to this point. He looked at each one of them around the table as he expressed thanks.

His voice took on a more confident tone and his posture changed as he began speaking again. A lot could go wrong tomorrow! he paused. Although we have tested and retested our processes and systems, a lot can go wrong as this is an implosion-bomb and its mechanism is not simple. About twenty chemical bombs have to explode at the same time for the nuclear bomb to go off. He was in his element now, these were his students and he was their professor.

Imagine, where I am standing right now, to be the core or the centre of the bomb, where all the fissile plutonium is placed. And now imagine twenty train tracks, each coming in from a different direction, leading to me at the centre.

For the first time since he started speaking, the room became totally quiet, as if everyone present was holding their breath. Now imagine for a moment that the twenty locomotive engines, one on each of those twenty tracks barrelling down at tremendous speed, have to meet at this very point where I am standing, all of them at precisely the same time.

Given his risk-averse nature, he had to throw in a word of caution. If the timing or the speed or the weight of one of the engines is off, it would throw the whole thing in disarray and we will have to start all over again. All this preparation would go waste and it could potentially take us a year or more to get back together again. At these sobering words, the whole room fell silent as if the positive energy and spirit of merriment was sucked away from the audience, replaced by a dread of failure.

At that point, Narendra got up. That is a fantastic explanation, Subramaniyam. And that is why we have you and the best brains in India working on this. You know, my wife tells me that I sound smarter on days that I have interacted with you, he