CHAPTER 16

Vandana liked my allusion that we are dealing with things nonexistent. It gave her food for thought. After a little bit of thinking she said seriously.

"Might be nonexistent things, but Dad the results are very real."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean to say is although these things are just not there in reality but its results, the effect, that’s very real. Like Dad's toe getting hurt. You know one thing, you got tripped over the foundation stone of that pedestal the moment I had discovered the pedestal in the sketch. Once it was that unreal staircase that took me to the dining room. So I feel that we should take all these seriously. I guess these are the clues that the Old Man is giving you. He is trying to communicate with you, only we should be able to decipher it. Don't you think so, Dad?"

Looking from her point of view it sounds good. Not only these incidences, but through many such incidences the old man was trying to talk with me. One proof is the writing table box in the attic. Isn't there something in it that only I could open it? Vandana was looking at the sketch of the compound we had prepared. I took it from her. Just because the temple was mentioned in it, it could have been made by Ittirama Menon at a later date. Vandana is now looking intently at the chess board. Suddenly I had a revelation that both of us are looking at the same thing. It could be a coincidence. My brain woke up and started working vigorously. I said.

"Dear, do you think, or rather felt that...."

"What, Dad?"

"That this chess board is the map of our compound?"

Vandana's eyes brightened. She has never thought about such a possibility. Nor did I. She suddenly snatched the sketch from my hands and kept them side by side and started looking at them.

"I don't get anything, Dad."

"I'll tell you. Now, which are the four important pieces in the chess board that we take seriously?"

Vandana looked at the board and was lost in thought.

"The king was checkmated. It is a wrong move, since such a move cannot be. But we have to take into account these coins only. One is King, or what we used to say in our traditional chess or Chathurangam the Devan, or Lord. Second is castle or what we say in Chathurangam a chariot. The third one is Bishop, our elephant. The fourth one is Knight, our horse.

"Now look at the position of these pieces, you'll realize that it is the temple and elephant and horse on both sides. Right? That means Lord Ganapathy on one side and the horse on the pedestal on the other side. Usually where could one keep the treasure of a country?"

"In the palace, of course."

"That means near the King. Now there are two Kings in this. Now which of the Kings possess the treasure?"

"Could it be with either of the Kings?"

"That's the big question. We now have to find it out."

"This only means that your imagination is flying high." Vandana said with a hearty laugh.

In a way what Vandana has said is true. My imagination has gone awry. But in this matter what controls me is my inner knowledge, intuition. All other things keep company to it, that's all. I told Vandana that the treasure couldn't be in the temple on the basis of my dreaded dream going down the flight of stairs with Ittirama Menon. The Old Man had taken me to one of the numerous rooms. I don't even know whether it was on the first floor or on the ground floor. I should now find out ways and means of locating that room. Keeping the chess board and the sketch in front I went into a trance. Suddenly I realized this compound is also a square one just like the chess board. How come it didn't strike me earlier? However it is very difficult to locate the position of the building from this chess board. We will have to work hard for that.

As a boy I had an obsession with triangles. I drew triangles, not on paper but in mind. Looking at objects and stretching my eyes from one object to the other I drew innumerable imaginery triangles. When I am a bit frightened or cannot take a decision fast I used to do this. While I draw imaginary lines across objects even my thumbnail and index finger used to meet at every point. May be because of this trait that later years when I saw a Picasso painting I thought. Ha, here is another clown like me!

Anyway that habit of mine has come to my rescue. I started creating a triangle with the two pieces on the chess board, i.e. the bishop and the knight, or rather Lord Ganapathy and the horse on the pedestal. There was a reason why I choose these two pieces. Out of the three checks given to the King only the knight and the bishop are correct pieces and the castle wrong piece. That means by removing the knight in front of the bishop a forked check was generated. This is natural, but for the castle there is no reason why it should be there. There is absolutely no possibility. So in Boolean logic it is 'false' and the knight and bishop 'true'. Now let us take only the 'true' ones. There can be a triangle on two directions only, either towards the building or outwardly to the compound. We can eliminate that option, since the compound is littered with trees and coconut palms. The lines from these two pieces meet at a straight line drawn from the middle point.

The treasure must be hidden in one of the points in this straight line, most probably in any of the rooms, and that's where the Old Man had taken me along. When I explained my theory Vandana's cynicism disappeared. She saved what she was doing in the computer and turned to me.

"So we only have to find out which room, isn't it Dad?"

"Yes. For that we need a computer model. Tell me when you've finished with the sketch and then we will start work on it. By the time I'll go take exact measurements between Lord Ganapathy and the horse pedestal, and also the distance from the centerline to our house. Once we have this information we can start work on it."

Vandana is enthusiastic now. She was in the last pace of work on the sketch; only the dimensions have to be added. I left her with that work and set off to the temple with a measuring tape and writing pad. The idol of Lord Ganapathy, the temple deity and the horse pedestal are all in one straight line, only Ganapathy and horse are pushed slightly forward. This is the condition even in the chess board, I figured.

The first property agent came in the evening.

"Sir, heard that this compound and nalukettu are kept for sale?"

I just mused myself. I should have told Devi about the treasure buried here! These people, they can't keep anything in their mind. I had warned her not to speak to anybody about our plans, and now it is already public.

I said. "We have entrusted it to our neighbors. We'll leave after couple of days."

"Who? Bhargavi Amma’s family?"

"Yes, you may ask them."

"By the way, Sir, what is the total area, I mean how many acres in this compound?"

"They know everything. You can enquire with them."

By evening Vandana has finished the sketch, pretty nice to look at. Since it is dimensioned everything is fine and clear. She has added the demolished part of the building in dotted lines by guessing. Similarly had it been demolished to the size of nalukettu what would be the shape of it. She has market it in a different color. There are two ponds in the compound. One was made by cutting down the red stone, probably used for building the house. There are steps on one side, but the other side is a steep fall. It is fearful. We used to take bath in the pond on the southern part of the house. Throughout the year there would be lotus blossoms. The stone cut tank and the bathing area must have been part of the old ettukettu. Those days such a pond existed as part of the building for women to take bath in privacy. She has made a line between Lord Ganapathy and the horse pedestal and made a triangle reaching up to the northern room of the house. And a straight 90 degree line from the middle of the first line, and made three triangles each reaching a room within that main triangle. It could be in any of these rooms that the treasure is hidden.

I slept well during night, may be because of the strenuous running around during day time. When I came down in the morning Devi brought tea for me. Her face didn't look pleasant at all. I asked her.

"How come the smile is missing from your face?"

"Nothing, Nandetta."

"Still...."

"Why did Nandettan tell that broker to come to us?"

"Oh, that? Shall I ask you just one question in return? Why did you spell out our plans for selling this house when I had warned you against it? I specifically told you that we don't have any intention to sell it off in another two or three years, and that too not through these brokers."

"I didn't think about it...."

"So you can do one thing. Whoever comes to you for details, tell them that we have changed our plans and that we are not selling it and are going to stay here after retirement. Otherwise botheration is yours, since we will be going in three days' time."

"Okay."

She quietly went to the kitchen, and I felt bad in hurting her. She used to be around us when as children we played in this compound. She is 4 years younger to Indira. Now we are staying in the town with the assurance that this daughter and her mother are here to look after the house and compound.

Today is a critical day. When Indira and Vandana came from temple we had breakfast. When I talked to Devi in friendly terms and with sweet words, her remorse has vanished. She is back to her normal self. Poor thing!

We started inspecting the rooms we had marked as terminals in the triangles one by one. Suddenly I remembered my dream with the Old Man, as he led me holding my arms down the staircase. I told Vandana.

"I feel that it should be a room which had a staircase in it. We couldn't find any opening for the staircase in our earlier search. That means it was removed after the death of Ittiraman Menon. What do you think?"

"There is a possibility. Dad, you had said that if the staircase is removed there will be a mark on the wooden ceiling where the opening for the staircase was, and that it will be different from other part of the ceiling? So let us once again check if we could find anything. We have anyway marked only three rooms."

"Let's see..."

We started to check one by one. There was nothing in the first room, i.e. the southernmost room. It was the Old Man's room, and we had checked up the hidden room before. As we were checking the second room the light went out. Current failure. I kept the electric lamp I was holding in my hand on the floor and came out of the room careful not to trip on the loose wires on the floor.

"Have you noticed one thing?" I told Vandana. "The room in the centre was the nadumittom, that is the rainwater sink with skylight above. That sink has been filled in and the roof extended to cover it."

"Yeah! Right you are" Vandana said looking at the sketch. This is the second rainwater sink in the ettukettu, isn't it? I didn't give a thought to it. So it must be there that the Old Man buried the treasure, underneath the filled sink, which could be reason why he didn't allow demolishing the ettukettu in that part. Right?"

"Good guess! I don't know when this blasted light will come. You need a lot of light to inspect those rooms. Since the room we are going to inspect is the middle one, it is absolutely dark there. It doesn't have a window to outside. The only thing available is a small hole in the wall. That's called soothrotta, and the corridor that leads to this room is darker still."

"What is 'soothrotta', Dad?"

According to the old architecture, thachusashtra, there should not be a window on that wall. But then they will make a small hole the size of 2 or 3 inches in diameter. That's called 'soothrotta'. Perhaps it is meant for through ventilation."

"I see...."

"This current interruption is a curse of our land. Once it is off it lasts for hours, or days."

"Have patience, Dad."