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  He pointed her to the display that was in the armrest of her seat and said, “Tap on the display.”

  As soon as she tapped on the display, it came to life, showing various numbers indicating cruising speed, altitude, time, distance to destination, outside temperature, pressure, oxygen level, and a map with a tracker showing their current location. She could not believe her eyes. The spaceship was cruising at sixty-three thousand feet, yet she did not feel any pressure change in her ears.

  Even before anyone realized, thirty minutes had passed, and the spaceship landed in the northeast corner of the Rajarajesvaram temple, near the Nataraja shrine. It was 11:30 a.m. in US eastern standard time and 9 p.m. Indian standard time. The temple had closed at 8:30 p.m. local time, and everyone had left the premises, locking the temple from the outside.

  Agasthiyar came down to the first floor. He informed Rajaraja that everything was clear outside.

  Rajaraja drew a pattern in his palm, and the door of the spaceship opened, lowering the ladder. He asked everyone to follow him out of the spaceship.

  As soon as everyone got out, Rajaraja drew another pattern in his palm. Immediately the ladder pulled up, closing the door, and the spaceship vanished.

  The entire temple was well lit with bright floodlights. Everyone looked at the magnificent temple structure in awe, built over one thousand years ago, and still standing tall.

  Rajaraja asked everyone to follow him as he started walking around the temple structure in the well laid out lawn and started explaining about the temple. “The foundation stone of Kumari was the construction of this Rajarajesvaram temple. This is the holy place where Shiva appeared before me, told me about the Apocalypse, and sent Agasthiyar to help me with the construction of Rajarajesvaram and Kumari.

  “We’ll have a lot of time with us at a later point during our journey when I will walk you through the story in detail. This entire temple is built using granite stones. We’re now in the Northern facade of the temple.”

  He pointed to the inscriptions carved to the right side of the Northern entrance and said, “These inscriptions will give you a brief history about me and detailed accounts of all those who contributed to the building of this temple in various ways. The names of everyone involved in the construction of this temple are carved in these stones. It includes all those who contributed in kind and the ones who gave their sweat.

  “The structure you see here in the shape of a square is called the Vimana. It holds the Shiva Linga inside its sanctum sanctorum, the innermost part of the temple where the deity is placed.

  “The Tamil language is incorporated into the heart of the temple architecture in a special way. The height of the Shiva Linga is twelve feet. The number of vowels in the Tamil language is also twelve. The base of the Shiva Linga is eighteen feet. The number of consonants in Tamil is also eighteen.

  “The total height of this Vimana is two hundred and sixteen feet. The number of combined letters in Tamil is also two hundred and sixteen.

  “The distance from the Shiva Linga to the Nandi statue that you see in the front of the temple is two hundred and forty-seven feet. This denotes the total letters in the Tamil language, including the twelve vowels, eighteen consonants, and two hundred and sixteen combined letters that are made up by mixing the vowels and consonants and also a special character made up of three dots like the three vertices of an equilateral triangle.

  “Tamil is imbibed in every cell of our body. It finds expression in every aspect of our life.”

  Andrea pointed to the top of the temple and asked, “What is that metal structure right at the top?”

  Rajaraja replied, “That is known as the Kalasam, an inverted pot made of copper and plated with sheets of gold, weighing eight hundred and eighty-two pounds and measuring 14.4 feet in height. It is filled with a millet called Varagu. The reason for using copper is to act as a lightning arrester that prevents any damage to the structure during times of bad weather.

  “The reason for storing the varagu millet inside the Kalasam is to have a seed storage facility to be used in times of calamities like massive floods. The varagu millet has the germinating capability for up to twelve years. In case of any calamities where we lose all our seeds, we can use this varagu as seeds to grow and yield food.

  “Every twelve years, we have a special festival in the temple called kumbhabhishekham during which time this varagu is replaced with new varagu millets harvested in that year, which will be alive for the next twelve years inside the Kalasam.”

  Andrea could notice the pride in Rajaraja’s eyes while he elaborately explained the details about the temple. Every person should be proud of his or her history and culture, she said to herself.

  Harsh Shah, the Prime Minister of India, felt glad that he decided to join the tour. He’d lived all his life in India but never seen this magnificent piece of architecture. He thought to himself, No person is more fit to give a tour of this marvel than the maker himself.

  By this time, Rajaraja had taken everyone around the Vimana, and they were back, facing the North entrance from where they had started.

  Rajaraja said, “We will be entering the temple now,” and asked them to follow him.

  He started climbing the stairs through the North entrance. There were statues of two dwarapalakas or gatekeepers on either side of the entrance. The dwarapalakas looked like giants, with four hands, wearing a crown and with one leg lifted and placed facing the door.

  Rajaraja waited for everyone to get into the temple. They were now facing the main door of the sanctum sanctorum inside which the Shiva Linga was located. The therapeutic and invigorating smell of camphor filler the air. They could not see the Linga as the main door was locked.

  Rajaraja pointed to the door and said, “The Shiva Linga is located behind that door, but as we are past the time to offer prayers, you will not be able to see the Linga today.”

  He went on to explain that there was a circumambulatory passage around the inner shrine. He pointed to the doors to their left and right, which were placed close to the main door of the sanctum sanctorum. Both doors were locked from the outside.

  Rajaraja looked at Agasthiyar and nodded his head. Agasthiyar stepped in the front and went close to the door to their left. He took the lock in his hand, opened his right palm, and a key appeared in it. He inserted the key into the lock and turned it anti-clockwise three times. The lock opened with a click sound. He removed the lock and then opened the latch. Then he pushed the doors to the side, stepped inside, and hung the lock in the open state on the door itself.

  Rajaraja followed Agasthiyar into the circumambulatory passage and asked everyone to follow them. The passage was seven feet wide and dimly lit. There were stunning fresco paintings done on either side of the wall. Each one of the paintings was fifteen feet tall and ten feet wide. One of the panels depicted Shiva under a banyan tree with his disciples around him and lots of animals and birds around them.

  Rajaraja and Agasthiyar stopped in front of a painting that had their portraits in the scene. In the painting, Rajaraja was standing behind Agasthiyar in reverence. Rajaraja asked everyone to occupy the northern side of the passage and leave the western side empty. Then Rajaraja put his right-hand thumb finger on the fresco painting, positioning his thumb in his forehead on the painting. It looked as though he was providing his thumb impression to the wall.

  Agasthiyar followed Rajaraja, stepping close to the painting. He took his right-hand thumb and put it onto his forehead in the painting. Immediately, both the foreheads in the painting started to glow green, revealing a fingerprint sensor at the place where they had put their fingers. Agasthiyar then started to chant a mantra that began echoing throughout the circumambulatory passage.

  In a few minutes, the sound of metal creaking was heard. It sounded like a heavy door being opened. Slowly the whole passage started to become lit with bright light coming from the western side.

  Once the creaking sound stopped, Rajaraja and Agasthiyar to
ok their thumbs away from the painting. Immediately, the painting stopped glowing, and the fingerprint sensor disappeared on the wall.

  Everyone could now see steps going down the western side of the passage. It looked like the steps taking you down to the subway station.

  Rajaraja started walking down the steps and asked everyone to follow him. The passage got brighter as they got down the steps. After eighteen steps, the passage turned right and continued for another thirty-six steps. At the end of the steps, they came to a huge rectangular hall.

  The hall was made using granite stones and had intricate carvings from the life of Shiva and Parvathi. Their wedding scene was beautifully depicted on all four walls.

  The ceiling had an exquisite fresco painting that depicted the cosmos. One particular galaxy was drawn significantly bigger than the others, and three stars in that galaxy stood out in its brightness with an arrow made to point towards it.

  There were benches made using granite stones for seating purposes, the polish on the surface was done to such a degree that it reflected light better than a mirror, even though the stone was black in color. There was a massive metal door that was as tall as the ceiling.

  There were two dwarapalakas standing on either side of the door. All the carvings in this hall looked different and more exquisite because they had not suffered any erosion and were pristine in the way they were made.

  Rajaraja turned towards Andrea and said, “We will now be getting into an elevator, which will take us down three miles; from there, we will be taking a train to Kumari.”

  He lifted his left palm and drew on it. Immediately, the metal door started opening, it was thicker than most bank safes with seven feet of dense metal.

  Rajaraja got into the elevator, and everyone followed him. There were mirrors on all three sides without any buttons anywhere. The ceiling was decorated with floral designs made using thin glass sheets that glowed brightly, giving light to the room. The elevator door closed itself once everyone got in, and it started slowly moving down, gradually picking up speed.

  Sergei Ivanov slowly whispered, using his accented voice, in Vincent Cartier’s ears, “Technology used by people who lived over one thousand years ago, not bad!"

  Both of them smiled, looking at each other.

  Agasthiyar saw them smiling, then looked at Sergei directly in his eyes and slightly nodded his head up and down as though he was asking Sergei, “What did you just say?" Sergei looked at the copper pot in Agasthiyar’s hands, knew that he could get in trouble, and slowly nodded his head to the left and right, sheepishly looking at Agasthiyar, indicating that it was nothing.

  Rajaraja saw all that happened and smiled.

  In less than three minutes, the elevator door opened. Rajaraja walked outside and asked everyone else to follow him. The elevator opened into a railway station.

  Chapter 5

  An arch was carved in granite stone using Tamil letters that translated as “Welcome to Kumari.” There were two tracks on either side of a platform. One of them was empty, and the other one had a train waiting for them. The train was floating fifteen inches above the tracks using magnetic levitation technology. As there were no wheels for the train, the platform was almost the same height as the track itself, just twenty inches higher, so the train entrance and platform were on the same level.

  The bottom half of each compartment was made of carbon fiber, and the top half was made with toughened glass, including the ceilings. Quotes in the Tamil language were painted in the carbon fiber area along with the Kumari symbol of a leaping tiger. One of the quotes translated as, “What you have learned is like a drop, what you are yet to learn is like the mighty ocean.”

  The inner part of the compartment was clearly visible from the outside. The seats and hand-rests were made of teakwood that was dark brown in color, showing off its age. There were nine passenger compartments that could seat forty-five people in each.

  Two armed guards were standing in front of each compartment. They were wearing a uniform with tight-fitting pants and rugged shoes, both in black color, a full sleeve V-neck T-shirt with red color through the chest area, and black color for the shoulders, neck, and hands. The Kumari symbol with a leaping tiger was imprinted on the left side. They carried a laser gun, the size of a shotgun but a lot thicker, made of a shiny metal alloy.

  The bright glow of the laser light could be seen through a transparent glass casing placed on both sides of the gun. The trigger was designed in such a way that all four fingers would be needed to pull it. There was a control in the shape of a cylinder towards the front of the gun, which could be rotated using the left hand. The control had five settings numbered one to five that allowed excellent command of the intensity of the laser light. Number one was the weakest intensity used to stun a person and incapacitate them for a few minutes. Number five was the highest intensity, which could vaporize a person.

  Rajaraja got into the first compartment and asked everyone to follow him. An earthy smell of the aged teakwood filled the compartment. There were four chairs in each row with a walkway in the middle, and the last row alone had five chairs. Rajaraja and Agasthiyar sat in the left two chairs of the front row. Andrea and Harsh sat in the two chairs on the right side. The chair was surprisingly comfortable given the fact that it was made of wood.

  After all the dignitaries were seated, the two guards standing outside the compartment got in and stood near the doors.

  After a minute of them getting into the compartment, the doors started closing. As soon as the doors were tightly shut, the train started moving. In less than a minute, the train was out of the station and was running on an elevated platform that was thirty feet above the ground. The platform was laid in the middle of a highway with six-lane roads on either side.

  The moonlight beautifully lit the lush green paddy fields on either side of the highway. After a few minutes, the paddy fields gave way to residential buildings and skyscrapers that had seventy-two floors in each building. Each level had a house of twenty-seven hundred square feet in size. Each building was different from one another in design, it looked like the architects at Kumari had lots of time at their disposal. All the buildings had a few things in common. They were all made of granite with large windows and balconies which had aesthetically designed gardens with different varieties of flowers.

  Andrea noticed a huge statue coming up in the distance. It was well lit with focus lights and shined in all its glory. Andrea was curious to know about the figure and asked Rajaraja, “That’s the tallest statue I have ever seen, can you tell me about it?”

  Rajaraja replied, “Sure, let me describe that to everyone present here.”

  He got up from his seat, walked to the middle of the rows so everyone could hear him and started explaining about the statue.

  Rajaraja said, “Standing at one thousand and eight feet, its the tallest statue in Kumari. This is the statue of Nataraja. The word Nataraja comes from two words, ‘Nata,’ meaning dance, and ‘Raja,’ meaning King. You can see a dancer standing on his right leg, stamping a dwarf man below his feet. His left leg is up in the air towards the right side of his body. He has four hands, the front two show a dance pose, the left hand at the back holds a flame, and the right hand holds a percussion instrument called Udukkai or Damru. The dancer Nataraja is Shiva himself. This is a very complex piece of art designed by Agasthiyar.

  “The Nataraja statue contains seven dimensions of truth within it. The first one is the physical dimension in which the five elements, namely Earth, Water, Fire, Sky, and Wind, make up this universe. I will tell you the highest dimension of truth that it portrays. It is called the cosmic dance or the cosmic cycle. Let me ask you a question. What happened before the big bang?”

  No one had an answer to that question as it was one of the mysteries that modern science had not solved.

  Rajaraja continued, “I don't think you have an answer to that question. Well, the Nataraja statue is the answer. We fondly refer to it in our
scientific community as the Theory of Nataraja. The fundamental concept in the Nataraja statue clearly explains that we live in a universe that is cyclic in nature. Every living and non-living thing on this planet or universe has a cycle.

  “The dancing pose of Shiva that you see is in the form of a hexagram. The right leg of Shiva standing on a dwarf man indicates the stage before the big bang. All the matter that exists in this universe is compressed into the size of an atom. It might be difficult for us to think about how that is even possible.

  “The answer to that lies in something that has united all of us today, it is the black hole, which we refer to in Kumari using the name Kalasuryan. It is formed by the compression of matter to multiple times smaller than its original size. It has a mass that is four million times that of our sun, yet its size is only seventeen times the size of our sun. This should give you a scale on how much compression is possible.

  “When you move clockwise from there, the next stage is the left leg of Nataraja that is suspended in the air. This is the stage where Shiva decides to create the entire universe with all its atoms, stars, planets, space, and time. Life and death are all determined in that instance.

  “The third stage that you see is the Udukkai or Damru, in the right hand of Shiva that looks like an hourglass. This stage represents the big bang. During the big bang, the compressed energy that is at the feet of Shiva explodes, sending out all the matter that is needed to create the universe, and thus the universe comes into existence.

  “The fourth stage that you see is the head of Shiva, where you can see the moon, human skull, hair locks, plant, and animal life. All the life in the universe comes into existence in this period, where the hot universe cools down and becomes suitable for life.

  “The fifth stage that you see is the stage of fire, the flame that Shiva holds in his left hand. Human awareness at a global scale reaches a point where the line between good and evil vanishes. It is time for the destruction to begin.