VICTORIAN ROCK - SNEHA KESHAV

VICTORIAN ROCK
By Sneha Keshav

Ra-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat...
*Whooooooooooooosshhhh*

What startled him was not just the sound or its proximity: just below his scapula but the fact that he could feel the steam gushing out of him.

Standing at the massive wrought iron gates of the Kohinoor mills, facing the grey, rusted streets of Mumbai, Sepoy P5’s eyes keep darting towards the sky more than the civilians he was supposed to check upon. Parallely he was computing a list of situations he wouldn’t find himself 2 weeks earlier, where he would:
 Ask instead of answering the question “Kahan se aaye ho, kahan jaana hai?”
 Not wince at the sight of an aimless unambitious Status 3 or below civilian.
 Actually eagerly wait to meet a Status 3 mechanic named Tinker Babu
 Enjoy his mechanical arm assistant despite of being technophobic
 Be a Para-Sepoy
At the same time he was sending a telegraph to the Babbage Headquarters reporting the normalcy of the VI (Violence Index ) of the civilians filing in to work at the largest textile mills under the British Raj in Mumbai. Slightest deviation from the Accepted Levels would be attended to personally by one of the 25 Sepoys deployed at the mills.
“VI ACCEPTABLE. SEPOY P5” he stopped short of signing off as Amar as he would have two weeks ago. Two weeks ago he too would have seen the Sepoys like the other civilians did right now; as Her Highness’ servants in Metal and Steam and the Para Sepoys like him with an addition of flesh and bone doing their job like everyone else. Even the jobless ones of Status 1 and 2 had no particular animosity against these civil servants. Unless one speaks of rare incidents like the Jallianwala Baug massacre which are hushed up before anyone can hold a grudge.
Massacre.
The word increased his heartbeat which was now fuelled by the rotary engine embedded under the very skin of his back and the sudden activity lead to steam gushing out of his new gills above his scapula. 3 Sepoys stopped on their tracks. High stress levels are expected during Ceaseless Firing, when the resulting mist could be cut with a knife; not during VI checks. Not wanting to attract unwanted attention Amar, faked a cough and resumed checking the power function of the Mega Engine at the mill with added sincerity.

***

The final gush of defeated steam and soot rose above the mills while Amar trudged along the back alley. Two weeks ago the sludge and waste carpeting the streets would have bothered him, though with hard alloy boot coatings, he couldn’t care less now. Instead he worried more about his attachment with his life two weeks earlier; it reminded him of his son who kept clinging to his mother on the first day of school. A quick vision of the pristine charm school and his family, another gush of pent of emotion vaporising from his back and he reached Tinker Babu’s shed.
No.
Dinkar Baburao More’s laboratory.
He would not succumb to the value associations of the Status Code. He had been blinded by them all his life and it had taken him nowhere. A knock on the door and he was comforted by the familiar clunk of the grandpa gear turning in its groove, the long spike falling into the notch after 6 seconds and thus setting in motion a whole set of gears finally widening the crack of the door enough for Amar to enter. Dinkar More was not called Tinker Babu for nothing, his shed was a priceless laboratory which the Raj ignored for the sole reason it belonged to a civilian of Status 3. The steam engine, the smallest one fitting his palm used for sharpening a pencil to the largest about the size of 3 elephants to mine coal with a tall chimney compressing the amount of vapour that gushes out, addressing the clogging of mines, were all neatly tucked away in this shed in the underbelly of the city. A husky ageing voice with youthful mirth chimed,
“ Kahan se aae ho? Kahan jaana hai?”
Had this been posed back to any other Sepoy, the inquirer would get a quick taste of the AutoBaton; one reason the Raj encouraged civilians to reach Status 6 where a select few could go through Transmorphiguration to become a Para sepoy: A Sepoy with a heart. That is how they had marketed the proposition of having metal gear shoved under one’s skin, replacing bodily metabolism with external fuel to run the body. All this, just to impart a sense of involvement and appreciation for the civilians; in short, to get them to behave. It’s funny how two weeks ago he would have actually seen this proposition in a positive light. Two weeks ago.
He had now come a long way from that life.
“Dur se aaya hoon, ghar jaana hai.” answered Amar in an equal voice. A chuckle sealed the invitation into the shed. Amar walked carefully not to step on any cogs lying on the floor towards the man leaning over a blue print of what looked like yet another crazy invention.
“Yes. This time it is for the farmers”
“They won’t ever take it up, you know that.” added Amar bitterly.
“They won’t be around forever. And anyways our water deserves to be put to better use than their despicable designs.” concluded Tinker Babu as simply as if he was talking about the weather.
“Does the Babbage Engine have no idea of your skills? I don’t get it why it hasn’t upgraded you.”
A laugh that shook his pot belly and beard alike, Tinker Babu’s eyes creased with the pain
“Whoever said the Raj was fair lied. Now tell me, what happened today that your heart is so stressed.”
When all he got in reply was a surprised look, he continued “I have tinkered around thousands like you. Nothing escapes my eye. Out with it” not waiting for the reply he started moving towards Amar with a screwdriver in hand. Memories surged like bile, making Amar want to throw up. Still possible for an Automaton, he wondered. Images flashed across his mind, examining each for 1/15th of a second but taking in full measure of it. Being scanned the day his wife and son were dressed for Baisakhi, the frantic pleas with his ID card “I am a Status 6... you have to let us go...6, 6...” bullets holes, dust, spit, blood, Baug, Jallianwala, Jallianwala, Jallianwala.
There were more details to it, but he couldn’t remember them. The fact that he had already started losing out chunks of his memory worried him little less today; these weren’t incidents he wanted to re run. Not now.


Ra-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat...the hand wound crank gear brought him back to his senses.
“You really need to get a grip over yourself. At this rate there seems no chance they will post you up there.”
Amar knew this. It took him months to be able to prepare himself for the Trasmorphiguration. Tinker Babu was instrumental in calming him down and helping him wash his anger. Motive for Transmorphiguration is something the High Order looks very seriously into. It hadn’t been an easy task to fool them.
“I know. I am sorry.”
“Dont be. It is a good sign that you still remember. Cherish it till you can. And hop along now, torture Civilains, maintain law and order. Be a Sepoy good enough for them to put you on the...in the clouds.”
“What if ...what if I cross over completely before we reach the end?” Panic clutched his machine run heart “what if I can’t remember the reason I am a Para Sepoy today and not a tax paying civilian?”
Tinker Babu’s eyes bore into Amar’s shielded ones.
“Promise me Tinker Babu...that you will take this till the end. Whether I remember or not. Whether I stand besides you or against you.”
A nod of unsaid understanding, and Amar was back to being Sepoy P5.




“Development in return of Resources” the British Raj’s motto screamed from the sides of the battered train cars cruising over the city. But one look at the rotting city below, grey like a clockwork mechanism and unquestioningly punctual, one would disagree. But people were happy. The Dystopian Utopia Tinker Babu had said once. Why else would no one retch at their own living conditions? Why else would the drying up of the rivers in Punjab bother no one? So many like him were forced to leave their fields to find alternate occupations, as the sweet water that was backbone of agriculture was disappearing. The stale air below stank of coma. Again eyes darting towards the sky, this time more purposefully finding that piece of rock that was tethered to the air; the reason most were in a stupor around him.
He had regretted not paying attention to his Geophysics class in school when Tinker Babu tried to explain to him the reason he experienced more anger than the others, especially ever since Baisakhi at Jallianwala Baug.
“Emotions are amazing. Extreme ones can produce some really startling results. Ever wondered why you never felt the anger before this?”
All Amar could do was shake, his anger leaving him tongue tied.
“The Raj rules not just your country, but your minds too. Get over your personal loss and look around. We are a pile of garbage. Over-worked, under-paid, walked over, taken for granted. Yet no one flinches.”
Amar did notice how the city seemed filthier ever since he came back accompanied by an inexplicable eerie feeling.
“Ever heard of Edmund Halley, son?”
“Hollow Earth?”
Tinker Babu smiled “You did pay attention somewhere. Did the enigmatic Madam Auffrey take your history classes?” he chuckled and continued without waiting for a reply. “Halley proposed with great accuracy that the Earth is in fact hollow except for two concentric rings or belts held at a distance from each other and the surface of the earth by conflicting Magnetic forces.”
He continued seeing Amar’s confused look “Similarity repels in magnets. These rings have magnetic fields of their own. So now the rings have aligned themselves in such a way that their similar poles fund the repulsive force between them to keep than at a distance from each other and the surface of the earth.”
“And you are implying this is all true?”
“Not only true but also in practice in your homeland. The North Pole of the second ring, the one closest to the earth surface faces up and outwards right over your Punjab. And this they have used to their advantage to create their secret laboratory of sorts that cannot be detected by the locals. Underground would be risky, as mining leaves hardly any area undercover.”
“So it is something above the ground and by monopolising Aviation, the Raj has made sure that whatever it is stays undiscovered.”
“Yes. An artificially magnetised rock was launched from Punjab with its North Pole facing downwards. The repulsion between the similar poles is enough to overrule the gravitational force and propel the rock into the atmosphere. But even the repulsion wanes after a point and that’s where the gravitational pull keeps it tethered; afloat.”
“But why such secrecy? What are they planning on the rock?”
“Whatever they are doing up there, it has to do something with the inevitable world war. Yes, a war is coming and the Raj will go lengths to have an upper hand in it.”
And that explains where all the water is going: to keep that rock afloat.
It took some time for Amar to digest this. Surely people can’t be that gullible. Surely someone must have noticed this humungous rock floating in the sky.
Sensing these questions Tinker Babu continued “The Victorian Rock, as they call it, holds more than just weaponry. It conducts the people of the colony like an orchestra.
Dream Twig, a hallucinogen of sorts is injected in the clouds from the altitude of the rock. It finds its way into your system through the rain and resides in you through the water you drink. Its composition still deludes me. But it is responsible for the unquestioning submissive and almost peaceful behaviour that the people display.”
Head spinning, Amar’s grief was replaced by a sense of paranoia, disconnect and anger. Was there no way out? Were they just to be dead pawns in a game too big for them to grapple?
Answers came with the glass of cool water “Only Sepoys are allowed to man this unit. They don’t even trust their own for this job. The Rock houses the Babbage Engine, it accounts for all of us and them. The Sepoys don’t care where you came from and where you go, they just ask to gauge your sense of awareness by your voice. And the usual Violence Index scans are to make sure there isn’t one toe out of line. Not one.”

But a few escaped. A handful paid the price of knowing too much, of waking up by being now recognised as status Zero; ones to be arrested/ eliminated at sight; whichever was quicker. Rebels and revolutionaries are common in every society, where the rest are in a state of flux, torn between supporting them to pure contempt. But in this case, the civilians even the jobless bums sided with the Raj in wanting these misfits exterminated. Hence the ‘awakening’ wasn’t easy for some, as once their eyes were truely open and mind cleared of the Dream Twig, they could never fit back and the society was just as harsh leaving them no choice but to go underground.
Every Sepoy had a list of the Wanted imprinted in their X-ray Vision. The Babbage Engine would be wired automatically, so a Sepoy spotting a status Zero and failing to arrest or annihilate would be tried.

It was funny how two weeks ago he had actually thought this automatic action was a splendid way of getting rid of the scum of the earth. Never had he entertained the thought that he would one day be in a position to punish these wrong-doers and actually choose not to do so.
Life might be twisted like the coil of electromagnetic motor twitching under his skin right now, but it sure comes a full circle!
(end)