Five of 5ppm

Ujjain

First century BC

Two thousand years ago , in the first century BC India was ruled by King Gandhrav Sena fabled to be the son of Indra, the king of gods.

He ruled from Ujjain. He was a just ruler and a kind one as well. One day a sadhu dressed in black came to his court placed a jackfruit before the king and went away. The same thing happened the following day and the day after that and so on. Until the next week when as the hermit turned the jackfruit dropped and broke into pieces. Revealing a jewel inside it. At this the king requested the hermit to stop and asked for the other jackfruits to be brought which he had kept intact."

They had all rotted revealing jewels inside them. The king and his entire court were amazed and asked the hermit about it.

"This is a token of my appreciation my lord. In return of which I ask a small favour from your highness."

"I shall be more than happy to help you your holiness ask for anything that you desire." The king replied.

"Do I have your word for it your majesty. Or shall my neck be severed when I tell what I desire."

"Go ahead you have my word for it. I shall fulfil your desire to the best of my powers."

"I seek protection my lord."

"Who dares threaten a yogi in Ujjain your holiness tell me his name and I shall see to it that he is brought to justice. I will order the kotwaal of your area to arrest him right now."

"your armies are useless aginst him my lord. For its no human that I fear it's a vetal who makes my life miserable."

"A what?" The king asked puzzeled.

"A vetal, a demonic spirit that possesses a human corpse and feeds upon other's blood for survival. He has polluted my area of pence in the cremation ground by dwelling there and throwing the corpses of animals that he hunts upon me. And he now threatens to kill me by drinking my blood thus dooming my soul to the lowest level of Narak in the place of another demon who shall thereafter make a vetal out of my body as well. "

A shiver ran through the court upon the description of such a formidable foe.

"Then tell me your holiness how can we fight and win such an enemy"

"I can banish him back to narak once he is my captive but for that he needs to be at my ashram which is at the other side of dandak van"

" And how can I help you in making him your captive. Becsue as you say if he bites any of my soldiers he also will join that demons ranks."

"I have a way my king and a simple one. The only thing required for which is courage."

"What is it then your holiness" the king asked unable to contain his amazement.

"There are people otherwise of normal parentage but of extraordinary capabilities who are immune to a vetal's bites and the wilful whose blood will cause the vetal to perish instantly. I know of one such person and have come to ask your permission to take him with me to free the earth of that vermin." The hermit answered his eyes growing harder by the instant.

"Who is such a blessed person among us? Tell me his name your-holiness and I shall immidiatly despatch him at your service."

"It is your son your majesty prince vikramaditya." The sage paused after uttering this one sentence.

"Vikram .." The king started "but he's just a boy of 15"

"Trust me my lord no one else is capable of doing what he can and he shall be absolutely safe. You can have my word for it.

"But…"

As a reply to this but the hermit went on to tell the story of raja Dashrath who had given his son's to sage Vishwamitra to fight the demons Tarka ,Mareech and subahu upon which the king reluctantly agreed to let his son go with the hermit.

***

Achyut paused.

"After this everyone knows the story about how the prince tried to carry the corpse for 25 nights and how it tricked him into a vow of silence which was broken every time. Should I say more?"

"No" shrey replied as he had also heard the story beyond this multiple times.

"That would have answered your query about what vampires are and who we are and if you want me to .."

He was stopped in mid sentence by the sound of the doorbell.

"oh they are here." Achyut said and got up to exit the room.

 

 

Five of 5ppm

Ujjain

First century BC

Two thousand years ago , in the first century BC India was ruled by King Gandhrav Sena fabled to be the son of Indra, the king of gods.

He ruled from Ujjain. He was a just ruler and a kind one as well. One day a sadhu dressed in black came to his court placed a jackfruit before the king and went away. The same thing happened the following day and the day after that and so on. Until the next week when as the hermit turned the jackfruit dropped and broke into pieces. Revealing a jewel inside it. At this the king requested the hermit to stop and asked for the other jackfruits to be brought which he had kept intact."

They had all rotted revealing jewels inside them. The king and his entire court were amazed and asked the hermit about it.

"This is a token of my appreciation my lord. In return of which I ask a small favour from your highness."

"I shall be more than happy to help you your holiness ask for anything that you desire." The king replied.

"Do I have your word for it your majesty. Or shall my neck be severed when I tell what I desire."

"Go ahead you have my word for it. I shall fulfil your desire to the best of my powers."

"I seek protection my lord."

"Who dares threaten a yogi in Ujjain your holiness tell me his name and I shall see to it that he is brought to justice. I will order the kotwaal of your area to arrest him right now."

"your armies are useless aginst him my lord. For its no human that I fear it's a vetal who makes my life miserable."

"A what?" The king asked puzzeled.

"A vetal, a demonic spirit that possesses a human corpse and feeds upon the blood for survival. He has polluted my area of pence in the cremation ground by dwelling there and throwing the corpses of animals that he hunts upon me. And he now threatens to kill me by drinking my blood thus dooming my soul to the lowest level of Narak in the place of another demon who shall thereafter make a vetal out of my body as well. "

A shiver ran through the court upon the description of such a formidable foe.

"Then tell me your holiness how can we fight and win such an enemy"

"I can banish him back to narak once he is my captive but for that he needs to be at my ashram which is at the other side of dandak van"

" And how can I help you in making him your captive. Becsue as you say if he bites any of my soldiers he also will join that demons ranks."

"I have a way my king and a simple one. The only thing required for which is courage."

"What is it then your holiness" the king asked unable to contain his amazement.

"There are people otherwise of normal parentage but of extraordinary capabilities who are immune to a vetal's bites and the wilful whose blood will cause the vetal to perish instantly. I know of one such person and have come to ask your permission to take him with me to free the earth of that vermin." The hermit answered his eyes growing harder by the instant.

"Who is such a blessed person among us? Tell me his name your-holiness and I shall immidiatly despatch him at your service."

"It is your son your majesty prince vikramaditya." The sage paused after uttering this one sentence.

"Vikram .." The king started "but he's just a boy of 15"

"Trust me my lord no one else is capable of doing what he can and he shall be absolutely safe. You can have my word for it.

"But…"

As a reply to this but the hermit went on to tell the story of raja Dashrath who had given his son's to sage Vishwamitra to fight the demons Tarka ,Mareech and subahu upon which the king reluctantly agreed to let his son go with the hermit.

***

Achyut paused.

"After this everyone knows the story about how the prince tried to carry the corpse for 25 nights and how it tricked him into a vow of silence which was broken every time. Should I say more?"

"No" shrey replied as he had also heard the story beyond this multiple times.

"That would have answered your query about what vampires are and who we are and if you want me to .."

He was stopped in mid sentence by the sound of the doorbell.

"oh they are here." Achyut said and got up to exit the room.

 

 

Four of 5ppm

Malgudi

Present

The black innova raced through malgudi. It was still early in the morning so they faced no traffic jams. Achyut stopped the car in front of a house whose nameplate read.

"Bharat Mehra Commissioner of Police" Shrey read out the nameplate loud. The lack of sleep was now taking a toll on him. "My father" Achyut said "don't worry you won't need to meet him the things we are dealing with are not regular police work." Each sentence Achyut said increased Shrey's fears by a quantum; he preferred to silently follow him up the staircase into a cool yet well lit room, filled with bookshelves.

"Tea or coffee" Achyut asked as they entered the room.

"No thanks" Shrey simply declined "how could he possibly think about such formalities when vampires were at large.

"Looks like I have scared you. Don't worry you will be safe and so will be Salil. I would have let Mr. Chauhan tell you the story but we need to hurry things up and also it wont be fair not to tell you what is going on ,so until the others come let me brief you about what is going on over here.First of all any questions?" Achyut beamed.

Shrey somehow managed to find his voice. "You said you are better equipped to fight those things by birth. What did you exactly mean?"

"I meant that due to some reasons that I might not be able to explain to you fully I was given certain powers at the time of my birth that makes me able to fight vampires."

"and what exactly are vampires?"

"I will come to that and that's the main story. But before that anything else that you might like to ask?"

"you said there are others so how many of you are there ?"

"we have a concentration of 5ppm among the humans. Yes that means 5 for our malgudi of 1 million. You will meet all of us soon.Say in about an hour or so. So shall I start about vampires?" He got up.

Shrey could not think of anything else to say so he mumbled

"yes sure."

Achyut went towards a bookshelf picking what looked like a story book and taking it to Shrey.

"Do you know this."

"Shrey had a brief look at the cover and said "yes it's a book of children's stories."

"And this also is the earliest written account of vampires in the world. Yes vampires existed much before Count Vlad Tepes III of Romania decided to go immortal."

"Who is Vlad Tepes III? "

"He is popularly known by many other names Vlad the impaler, Vald Drukul and most popular of them all, Dracula. But he's not in this book. This book is much darker, this is about a person who was forced to be a vampire. "

"What?" Shrey sounded as if Achyut was questioning his intelligence. You mean the stories of Vikram and Betal are about vampires.

"Not stories THE STORY , the story that binds them all" Achyut calmed him down and felt himself trying not to remember that fateful day in the December of 2001 when he had first heard that story from Chauhan himself.

***

Malgudi

Eight and a half years ago

"What?"

"I said there is a vampire at large my dear." The bearded man said.

"Who are you and what are you saying? And how do you know me." He had been so outraged by the statement that he had even forgotten where he was.

The man smiled , " You will laugh if you hear my name , for when my parents were naming me they didn't know that somewhere near my 30^th birthday a Hindi film shall be released that will make my name a standing joke , and it is my duty to answer this question of yours as well tell you about yourself and about vampires. And I am afraid I cant tell you about yourself until Rhea here wakes up which I believe should take another hour or so I must start with vampires. And yes my name as I said it's a quiet funny one these days , I was named by my parents as Vijay Dianath Chauhan."

There was something in Chauhan's eyes, like prof singh's voice that made Achyut smile even at that time.

"Mr. Chauhan" he began, "you were saying something about vampires"

"ah yes , and as all of the people present in this room are in one way or the other involved in this mess so I better tell all of you. Tell me how many of you have heard about the Vetal pachchisi."

"You mean the stories of vikram and betal" prof singh said.

"No! Raman I mean the story of vetal pachchisi"

"All I know is that a king carries a ghost upon his back who tells him a story and asks a question and then runs away when the king answers as the ghost has the king under the vow of silence."

"Too much reading of Chandamama." Chauhan said and began

"The actual story goes like this .."

Three of 5ppm

Eight and a half years ago

Place: Convocation Hall , Malgudi University

Date : December 15 , 2001

Time 1700

"Finally we are graduates. " Rhea said beaming at him and removing her ceremonial hat. "And you know what dad didn't even flinch when I told him about you."

"What?... " he only got a chance to start the sentence but she didn't let him.

"He said that he will pick us up after the convocation and there he is. DADDY!!!" She cried.

Before Achyut could understand another word or even gather his senses about what was going on Prof. Raman Singh, popularly known as "Ravan singh" among the mathematics students was standing in front of him holding out a hand.

"Sir, Achyut. " He had said meekly grabbing the hand and shaking it. Prof Singh did have a tight grip he observed.

Singh smiled , " I have loads to talk to you dear and no time can be better than this for it but this I fear is not the place. So would you and your parents like coming over for dinner tomorrow. No wait this is not the right way to invite people" he laughed " I will call them in the evening to invite them. And don't worry if they don't know about Rhea. My colleagues say am good on convincing people." He laughed again. He was right about that thing he did actually have a convincing aura about him. Achyut could have never imagined that meeting his girlfriend's father could be such an easy affair. Especially a father who was dreaded as a teacher. This was one of the first lessons that Achyut had learnt about not mixing up the personal and professional profiles of people.

Moreover professor singh was right about his convincing powers as when Achyut reached home that father had simply asked him not to wear "that horrible college sweat shirt. " and gave him an understanding smile which he could swear he had never seen upon his father's face.

Sleeping was an unusually hard affair that day as you need one of the pre-requisites of sleep is that your mind must be free of all exciting thoughts and his Rhea's father actually convincing his parents about her was a thought that under no circumstances could be termed as non-exciting. He could not remember the time when he actually dozed off thinking about the near future.

***

Avtar Singh had always felt a certain amount of pride on the fact that he had not missed a single prabhat pheri in the past 40 years. Yet at 55 he was no way among the eldest members of the group. Twice every year for 15 days apiece they roamed the streets of malgudi singing the praise of lord and the guru. "what a great way to start a day!" he had always thought.

Every year for fifteen days that followed Diwali and preceed the birth anniversary of guru Nanak Dev and for fifteen days that preceeded the birth anniversary of Guru Gobind singh had he and his fellows had started at 4 in the morning, sang around in joy and returned with dawn-break.

That day as so many others they were going around singing their path illuminated by street lights and the candles that few of them carried. Avtar noticed something strange in the park right opposite to the faculty hosing of MU.

"someone is lying there" He said and immediately a few of his fellows rushed to the spot. It was a girl around twenty. She was unconscious.

"Who is she?" someone asked

"I know her." said a voice from among the group.

***

He did not remember being woken up by his father or by anyone. All he could remember that when he had come his senses he was sitting beside his father in the on the way to Rhea's house and as he could remeber from what he had heard something was terribly wrong with Rhea. He turned his wrist only to find out that he was not wearing a watch. He did not ask anything trying to recollect what had happened and he remembered that some 10 minutes ago Rhea's father had called and said that she had been attacked. His father had then woken him up and given him the details. But what could have happened. He practically ran out of the car into the open door of her house. There was a man sitting on the sofa with her father. A rather peculiar man with a rather long pitch black beard matching beetle like eyes. As soon as Achyut entered the room he looked up and said, "Achyut, what a surprise! We would have needed you in any case there is a vampire at large."