It was pitch dark
at 4.30am, when 18-year-old Nakshatra stepped out of her medical college hostel
in Pondicherry. Within a few minutes, she boarded a bus to Chennai. She was on
her way to visit her grandparents, who stayed in a beach-house on East Coast
Road, just outside Chennai.
Nakshatra
always got excited at the thought of spending time with her grandparents.
Though she loved both of them, she was closer to her grandfather, Mugilan, than
to her grandmother, Lakshmi. Till she
joined college, Nakshatra stayed with her mom, Daamini, in T.Nagar. Living with a single mom meant she got some
fatherly love only during weekends, when they visited her grandparents.
Nakshatra
had special love for the beach house too. Mugilan, who was an avid Douglas
Adams fan, had named the house ‘The Bhateu’, which stood for ‘Beach House At
The End of the Universe'. Though she had no clue who Douglas Adams was,
Mugilan’s wife had accepted the name only because it sounded like the Batu
caves in Malaysia, which houses the world famous Murugan temple!
The
Bhateu was just a small villa, but it stood on a huge 6-acre ground.
Nakshatra’s great-grandfather had bought 10 acres of land for a throwaway
price, several decades back. Mugilan had sold off four of those ten acres, to
manage the expenses of constructing his dream house, 22 years back and
for Daamini’s wedding, the next year.
Mugilan
had designed it to be the perfect place for them to stay after his retirement,
making sure it suited well for his interests (astronomy, reading and birding)
and his wife’s (gardening, reading and spirituality). The terrace housed his
homemade 10-inch reflector telescope. A mini library inside the house had a
computer and more than a thousand books. There was a cosy prayer cum meditation
hall for his wife. A small kitchen garden, a flower garden and a lotus pond
covered a small portion of the open land, while the beach and a scrub forest
(home to many birds and small animals), formed the rest of the area.
Sitting
alone on the bus, Nakshatra’s thoughts wandered off to the times she spent with
her grandfather at The Bhateu. Mugilan was knowledgeable in several fields of
science. If Nakshatra wasn’t staring at the stars in Mugilan’s company, she
would be listening to his lectures on science – if it were electronics one day,
it would be quantum physics or life sciences or evolution the next. It was
because of Mugilan that Nakshatra developed such a deep interest in science.
Though she lived with her CA mom, Nakshatra was “allergic” to anything related
to accounts and finance.
Her
train of thoughts wandered around several childhood memories and she started
reliving one particular evening, when she had upset her grandfather immensely.
She could remember it so vividly. It was a rainy day in 2003. She was munching
hot bajji and listening to Mugilan talk about NASA’s Voyager space missions and
the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence program. The interesting
discussion came to an abrupt end, as Mugilan stopped speaking suddenly. She saw
his face lose colour. Daamini, who was in the drawing room too, rushed towards
them. Mugilan got up and slowly walked towards the easy chair in his room.
Daamini
looked really angry, and told her off. Nakshatra had no clue of what just
happened. Nakshatra, just 9 years old at that time, could not understand why
her innocuous little question had created such an impact. She had just asked
him, “There’s a boy in my class believes aliens and UFOs are real. Complete
nonsense, I told him. What do you think, thatha?”
She
didn’t dare to ask her mom for explanations that day. Or, for the next few
years. She didn’t even want to ask her grandfather, who encouraged her to ask
questions and answered all of them. Not until her 18th birthday, did
Daamini talk about it. However, she didn’t get into details. She kept it quite
short.
“Nakshatra,
listen. I know you have been curious about thatha’s UFO connection. Yes, there
was a UFO sighting in Chennai. It was more than 20 years back. Several
people saw it. Newspapers reported it too. However, the police and the
government convinced everyone that it was not any alien ship. Everyone, except
thatha. He stood firm. He pushed it too far, ended up in jail and lost his job.
Now don’t ask anything more about this. All of us have forgotten about it.”
This
part-knowledge made had her even more curious. She’d gone off to college and hadn’t met her grandfather after that. Should she ask him directly?
Her grandfather answered all her questions and cleared all her doubts. Will it
become uncomfortable like the last time, when she talked to him about UFOs?
With these confused thoughts in her mind, she got down from the bus and walked
towards The Bhateu.
It
was about 7.30 AM when she entered The Bhateu. She felt restless. She didn’t
know what, but she knew something’s wrong. She walked in to find her mom and
grandmom in tears. They’d just discovered that Mugilan had passed away in his
sleep. Nakshatra broke down like she had never done. Mugilan was the closest
person to her in her 18 years. She couldn’t believe he wasn’t with her anymore.
Within
no time, Nakshatra’s aunts, uncles, cousins and several other relatives started
coming in. Nakshatra wanted some peace and quiet. She just wanted to be alone.
She went into the library room, not to read, but just to be alone. She just
wanted to sit there and not do anything. But, one thought kept haunting her -
her grandfather, a man of science, couldn’t have stood firm on his theory if he
didn’t have proof. What did he know?
The
more she wanted to keep her mind blank, the deeper her thoughts wandered. “If
he was indeed right about the UFO, he had died carrying a lot of burden in his
heart. For a man who breathed science, it would have really hurt him to be
discredited by a bunch of morons who understood nothing of it. Just like how
Copernicus or Galileo or Giordano Bruno would have felt when the Church
discredited their work. Centuries later, as other scientists showed concrete
proofs, Church had to admit that these great scientists were right. But, who
will find proof to clear up my grandfather’s name, if he was right? It has to
be me. I was the closest to him”, she thought.
Nakshatra,
being an UFO-skeptic, didn’t want to believe anything till she found proofs.
She tried to summarise what she already knew. She hardly knew anything, other
than the fact that it had happened more than 20 years ago. Though not very
hopeful that she’d get anything useful from the Internet, she walked to the
computer table, moved the mouse and brought the monitor to life.
She
searched for half an hour, with no luck.
Then she found this entry in a long list of “UFO sightings”.
Date
|
City/State
|
Country
|
Description
|
1990/06/15
|
Chennai, Tamilnadu
|
India
|
Mass sighting of large, silent, low-flying black
triangles. Similar to the Belgian UFO wave. Dismissed as sightings of Planet
Venus/Shooting Stars. Mystery still unresolved.
|
This
could this be it. The time-period and location matched. She couldn’t find any other
entry pertaining to Chennai, during that time period. After searching for
several more minutes, she gave up hope of finding anything else on the web.
Where
else could she find more info? Asking her family at this time would be
inappropriate. She knew Mugilan was not in the habit of writing diaries. She
started going through draws in the library. There were several old books, a few
files and lots of old documents, all covered a thick layer of dust, accumulated
over many years. She browsed through the old pile without finding anything. She
almost gave up, when an old envelope with “Confidential” written on it, caught
her attention. She immediately checked the date – 23/06/1990 – just a week
after the sighting. Her heart started beating faster. Could this be it?
She
suddenly felt the room to be stuffy. Long time spent in the small room and the
excitement of the letter made her suffocate. She needed fresh air. She stormed
out of the house clutching the envelope tightly in her hands. She felt better
with the cool evening sea breeze gently brushing against her face. As she came
out, she saw a group of workers digging up a grave, for the funeral that was to
take place that evening. As Mugilan loved the beach house, the family decided
to bury him in The Bhateu premises.
She
opened the envelope. It was from the sub-editor of a popular weekly, and a good
friend of Mugilan.
Dear Mugilan,
My apologies, first. Your UFO interview isn’t
getting published. I tried my best, but the editor doesn’t want to clear it, as
there is pressure from the Government and the Police. All this is between you
and me.
My sincere advice, as your friend – Forget
about the UFO. You have no idea of who you are up against.
PS: I’ve attached the final edit of your
interview. Just as a keepsake. Do not publish it anywhere.
Yours,
A.
She hastily opened
the attached sheets and skimmed through to the part she was looking for.
Mugilan: I was returning home after spending a night
overseeing the construction work of my beach house, near the VGP resorts. It
was around 4.50am. I had barely reached the main road, when I saw a huge
triangular object with lots of lights, in the Eastern sky.
Nakshatra’s
concentration was disrupted by a sudden ruckus the workers were
creating. She just couldn’t focus. She walked away from that noise and
continued reading.
It
was losing height quite rapidly. It looked otherworldly. According to me, it’s
a UFO, which crash landed. I couldn’t see where it crashed, but judging by the
distance, I think it fell into the Bay of Bengal. I wish the government commissions a search operation.
Interviewer: The official take on this is that, the public
saw planet Venus and mistook it for a UFO. What do you have to say?
Mugilan: It’s a common explanation used all over the
world, to rubbish of UFO sightings. That’s
nonsense. I’m an amateur astronomer. I observe Venus everyday. There’s no way
that was Venus. It was as big as a bus. I know it was a UFO. I will try to find
proof to substantiate my claim.
As
she finished reading, she wasn’t sure how she was feeling. The interview had answered a
few questions, but had raised a lot more. She was surprised and excited to know
that the UFO had crash-landed somewhere close to ‘The Bhateu’. If it did crash
into the sea, how did Mugilan think he could find proof? Did he find anything?
Was he arrested before that, and he gave up?
As
she was pondering over these questions, her mom asked her to join in for a few
rituals, which were to be performed before the funeral. Later, Nakshatra joined
the other male members for the burial, despite strong opposition from her
mother and grandmother. As people started leaving the grave after the burial,
she just stood there, in tears.
Barely
anyone heard her farewell to her grandfather, in front of the grave. “Thatha,
there was so much knowledge you gave me. But, there’s so much I do not yet
know, I wish I’d asked you. I really want to solve this mystery and clear up
your name. I don’t know where I’d find more clues, but I will do it for you,
Thatha.”
Little
did she realize how close she was to the secret. She was also not aware that
she had just walked away from the truth, while she was reading the interview, earlier that evening. Had
she stood there, she’d have learnt what the workers were excited about.
“There’s
some metallic object, poking from the side. I haven’t seen anything like this.
Don’t know what it is”, a worker had shouted. This had caused lots of
excitement among the workers and they’d gathered around to have a look at the
strange object that was jutting out through the mud. But, their boss had chided
them for wasting time, asking them to cover that up that trash and finish the
work quickly.
The
UFO, or at least a part of it, had fallen right in their land, and had been covered up all these years. The secret was
still lying there. Mugilan had carried the secret with him, to the grave. Literally.
PS: Today being World UFO Day, I dedicate this story to all those people who have gone through great miseries, due to governments rubbishing UFO sightings. These people have lived their entire lives with a 'liar' label on them, unable to prove their claim.
It is not beyond us to bring back the sparrows. Blaming mobile phone radiation for missing sparrows and not doing anything is the biggest blow we can deal to a friendly species which depends solely on us for survival.
