January 1, 2000

Off the Coast of Kerala

India.

It was a warm morning, with the sun beating down on the fish trawler, as the clock board struck six. Murgan, shielding his eyes with his hands from the sudden flash of sunlight, stepped onto the deck.

It smelt of seawater, fish and sweat, as four other men, all dark-skinned like him, and ages varying from twenty to forty-five. The older men were still sleeping off the alcohol from the new year’s feast.

“Anna!”

Murgun turned towards the source of the voice. Standing there was his younger brother, though still a child, was brought along for work as their parents decided he should work when school was off.

“What is it, Suriya?” Murgan was already helping one of the men as they were laying nets into the water, preparing to catch the day’s fish.

“Do we even have to do this today? Like we could have just taken a few day’s rest instead, plus the harbourmaster said we aren’t supposed to be out at sea because of yesterday’s storm!” Suriya whined, a habit which was cute at first, but had started to become annoying as the boy grew.

“The same thing you want to do later is what puts food on our table. You better get used to it, as the last thing I want is for you to be a lazy bum.” Murgan scoffed at his kid brother, trying to discipline him.

“Bu-but the storm warning is still up! What if something were to happen to us! Will anyone come to save us?” Suriya kept on nagging, while he helped his elder brother at the same time.

“Don’t you know? The early bird gets the worm.” Murgan enigmatically replied, walking to the back of the boat to check the engines.

“What do you mean worms anna? We are on water, not on land.” Suriya was completely confused as what Murgan said flew right over his head.

“Ayyo, I think I would have been better off going to school instead of you, numbnut. I already gave you all the clues, so figure it out.” Murgan rubbed his forehead as if he was going to take some time to teach his brother about life outside the text books.

“I still don’t get it?”

“Aiyoo, look, now that we are here and early before the others, we can go to the good spots, and quickly get the best catch before the others.” Murgan explained.

Nonetheless, Suriya had a point with his sulking. Last night, the coast had been struck by a storm that was massive, sudden and bizarre, and the port authorities, Coast Guard and the local police’s Marine units had raised a storm alert, forbidding anyone from venturing out to the sea. 

But in Murugan's defence, the sea had already calmed down by the time they were all up today morning. And considering the port authorities were all still probably asleep, and the Coast Guard and Police Marine units were probably resting their sea legs on land as well, fishing would be far easier in the morning with little to no competition and they all could earn a tidy profit by selling them off. It seemed like a very good decision. 

But what nagged Suriya the most was the government radio broadcast he heard from the radio at home before he went to sleep last night. It clearly stated that similar kinds of storms had struck all across the coastal regions of India, with heavy thunderstorm rain occurring in the border regions while the rest of the country showed no sign of even a single drop of rain. 

It was as if the gods had formed a storm barrier around his country for some reason.

While the two were busy talking, one of the men began to hoist one of the fishing nets from the water, to inspect the catch.

A round of cheers erupted as the two brothers turned to see what was going on. A massive eight feet long fish they had never seen before, was struggling in the net as it was being hoisted up. Right before it could start trashing about on the deck, Murgan grabbed his aruval and stabbed the fish through the gills, ending its life.

“Ugh… Now the blood’s gonna go everywhere!” One of the older fishermen exclaimed and true to his word, the blood already started pouring out of the stab in huge quantities. After giving out a sigh, the same fisherman turned to Murgan and Suriya. “Murgan. Suriya. Take this sucker and hold his head over the sea.”

“It’ll be in the way. And it’s around eight feet. It’s heavy.” Suriya pointed out and ignored Murgan’s cry of “Lazy shit!”

“I know. Just hold it out for ten minutes or so to allow it to bleed out fully.” The older fisherman said. “Otherwise we’ll also have to answer some serious questions to the Coast Guard if they see the boat full of blood. We’ll handle the cleaning.”

“Okay.” Suriya said as he and Murgan started to drag the fish. All the while swearing as the blood got on them.

“Make sure the wound is facing the sea!” The older veteran fisherman reminded them.

“Yes yes!” The boys called back.

As the boys got to work, the veteran fisherman, Rajni, took a cigarette and lit it. He had decided to take a smoke break while there was a short lull of activity as the boat once again began moving to look for a new quarry.

Once again, Rajni looked down to the fish they had just hauled, and he would easily admit that in the forty years he’s been in the fishing industry, he has never seen a fish this large or so… strange. Of course, he was happy along with the rest of his crew but still something about the fish was bugging the fisherman. That’s when he remembered something else.

‘The size of the fish is all well and good, but is it even safe to eat?’ The last thing anyone would want is a major food poisoning incident and the police coming to arrest the entire lot of them on various charges. They’re already technically fishing illegally as it is by going against the weather warning.

But they can’t even throw away the fish now, it’s already dead. If they just dumped it in the sea now they would probably be contravening Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 or Environment (Protection) Act 1986. Rajni kept his eyes on the two young boys who had joined them as they finally pulled the fish's head back into the boat, satisfied that there was no more blood gushing out of the wound like a bloody broken pipe. Rajni decided that he would later on educate the two boys that stabbing at the fish only causes unnecessary problems and extra work. ‘Plus, if they will stab, they should have gone for the head. Stabbing the gills is inhumane.’

“Anna!” Another member of the crew called out to Rajni. He had gone to help Surya and Murgan to hoist the fish’s head and to prevent it from being scraped across the desk. “Do you think we can put this bad boy up for a while?”

“I already have a feeling as to why, but I’ll still ask. Why?” Rajni asked, already expecting the response.

“We’ll show those Sri Lankan clowns who've got the big fish this time!” The crewmember said with a laugh and the other crew members, along with Surya and Murgan, cheered at the prospect of showing off the Sri Lankans.

“How many times do I have to tell you all to stop behaving like children!” Rajni scolded as he rehashed the same rebuke again. ‘It’s like beating a dead horse!’

“Now, now, it’s all okay.” A new voice said. This was the captain and owner of the boat, Rameshwar, who had just come out to the deck from the Cabin with a cup of tea. “Let the boys have a little fun. It’s not everyday we catch something this big.”

“The last time we behaved like this, we almost got arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy!” Rajni protested.

“I’ll deal with it.” Rameshwar assured as he gestured to the rest of the crew that they had the leave to proudly display the fish. Something the crew was very happy about.

“You’re too lenient with them.” Rajni said as he came to stand next to the Captain.

“You can be as strict as you want when I retire.” Rameshwar said as he took another sip of the warm tea. “And if I’m not mistaken, you used to be quite similar back when you started, weren’t you?”

“You? Retire? Yeah right.” Rajni snorted while completely ignoring the other thing the Captain said. And the knowing grin on the older man’s face who knew what he just did. “And I am the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India.”

“Hawww!” The Captain exclaimed with fake shock. “Maybe I should call the Police. I’ve got a Communist on my boat!”

“Please, do so!” Rajni exclaimed back. “At least the rest of these brats won’t behave like monkeys!” Both men started laughing after that. With that, the impromptu break got over as the crew returned to their stations.

---[-]---

It was eight in the morning now and the sun was clearly up in the blue sky as more haul was recovered. If nothing else, the crew was aware that they had worked for a good pay day today. Once again, the crew took a break. This time for breakfast. Thus, everyone was eating on the deck.

“Once we finish our breakfast, we’ll fish for an hour or two more.” Captain Rameshwar told his crew as they all ate up.

“Don’t we fish for longer?” Murgan asked.

“The Storm Warning may have been lifted by now. But it still stands that we went out to sea when we weren’t supposed to. The Harbour Master will be furious when we come back.” The Captain explained, much to the crew’s agreement.

“You know. Something has been bothering me for a while.” Rajni suddenly said as everyone turned to him.

“What’s wrong?” Another crewmate asked.

“As the Captain said, the Storm Warning was probably lifted.” Rajni started. “We’ve been here since the earliest of mornings. Why haven’t we seen anyone else?”

It was as if a bulb was switched on in everyone’s mind as they all realised that Rajni was onto something. The Captain quickly got up and left his food as he made his way to the cabin and took out his binoculars before returning to deck. The crew watched him spend ten minutes looking through the binoculars from every feasible direction. Finally, he put down the binoculars, sat down on the edge of the boat and said, “I think… We may have a problem.”

“What is it, Captain?”  Murgan asked, worried by the looks on his captain’s face. 

“We are the only ones out in the sea.”

“What?!” Rajini exclaimed, he took the binoculars from Rameshwar and began his own observation before putting it down. 

“We are screwed aren’t we?” Rajini asked with a nervous chuckle.

Captain nodded. “I can’t see a single boat from our side, neither a fishing trawler or a Coast guard vessel. This is odd and I don’t like this at all.”

“What are we going to do now?” Murugan inquired. His quivering voice betrayed his nervousness.

“I think we should utilise this opportunity to the fullest.” Rajini proposed.

Captain looked up “You think?” 

“Yes, like this is the first time in my entire life as a fisherman that we will be having the entire sea for ourselves. Not to forget that fist as per my veteran calculations came from the Sri Lankan side so we should really give them a visit.” 

“B-B-B-But the Harbour master will be angry..and and the Sri Lankan Navy, they will be mad as well.” Suriya said.

Rajini ruffled the boy’s head. “Don’t worry my boy, I will handle the old man at the harbour and as for the Sri Lankan Navy.” He gives a thumbs to their Captain. “Our Jarhead captain will handle them.” 

Rameshwar smiled and stood up before clapping twice.

“Okay boys, back to your posts, we have some more fish to catch.”

They started their boat engines and sailed towards the border. As their trawler cut through the calm ocean, they heard a plane passing over their heads though most of them ignoring it except their captain, a veteran from the Somali wars who recognized it to be a military plane but also decided to ignore it himself considering it to be Air Force’s routine patrols in the ocean and kept moving on.

---[+]---

Situation Room,

Secretariat Building, Rajpath,

New Delhi.

It had been five hours since first contact between the Indian Canberra and the Qua Toyne landmass. Ever since the massive unnatural storm around India’s borders, news of strange happenings were flooding the room. As time went on, staff kept attending the near constant ringing telephones to receive information about the situation.

“We have lost contact with SEATO and NATO headquarters! The lines are dead!”

“Embassies are reporting that they have lost contact with their home countries, they are demanding to know what is going on! Pakistan’s High Commission is locking itself down, they believe we are about to attack them!”

“Police at Chanakyapuri are reporting that the Soviet Embassy has deployed GRU Spetsnaz snipers!”

“Sir, Naval Headquarters are reporting that they have lost contact with our African Naval Base and our other allied headquarters.”

“Army commands are calling in! Western and Northern Command wants to know why they are seeing clear oceans and cliff faces where they were supposed to see Pakistan!”

“Sir! The Embassy of the United States is demanding to know why they can't contact Washington! Similar calls are coming in from the British High Commission and all the other Embassies and High Commissions from our allied nations!”

Vajpayee observed, as more information kept flooding in. More telephones were brought in to keep up with the pace of all calls coming in. More confusing reports kept coming in, and the chaos began to spread. The sheer amount of noise bothered him, as he could not even keep up with what was being said. 

“Enough! Enough! Quiet! Inform me one at a time!” 

He slammed the table with his hands, stopping everyone in their tracks and what they were doing. This was the first time anyone ever witnessed the calmest Prime Minister since Lal Bahadur Shastri losing his temper and appearing agitated. Seeing that he got their attention, he continued.

“Thank you.” PM Vajpayee said with a sigh before he took a deep breath. “Now first, prepare a draft for declaring a state of emergency, we have an actual legitimate reason this time. And if everything you all just reported is true, then we are going to make history, probably already have. Which no other nation has ever faced before.”

PM Vajpayee then turned to the External Affairs Minister.

“What is going on with our contact with our allies and other countries?”

“All gone. We have zero contact with any nation, ally or not. Even the hotlines are all dead. Nothing is going through, and we cannot contact anyone even with the wireless system.”

“What about the military?” PM Vajpayee asked again.

This time it was the Defence Minister who answered. “Same case. No contact with anyone outside of the mainland, none of our emergency frequencies are being answered.”

“Hai Bhagwan…” PM Vajpayee groaned as he tiredly rubbed his face.

At that moment, the chief of R&AW, India’s Foreign Intelligence Service, A.S. Dulat walked into the room. In his hands were manila folders which had been labelled as ‘Classified’. It was these files that were laid on the table in front of Vajpayee.

“Prime Minister, sir, I believe we may have something that can help us in figuring out what is going on.” 

“Go on.” Vajpayee looked from the table towards Dulat, interested in knowing what he had to say.

“Inside those folders, our Aviation Research Centre (ARC) has provided us with photo intelligence which is time sensitive.”

Vajpayee opened the folder, to discover the photos which were taken by Pande and Hussain from their mission hours ago. Colour and Black and White images of what were fields, settlements, a castle and even a dragon like creature with a human riding it.

With a look of disbelief, an agitated Vajpayee briefly wondered whether he should throw the folder before he decided to furiously bang the table again and point his finger at Dulat, “Is this a bloody joke?! Do you realise what an unprecedented situation we are in?! And you’re fooling around!” 

Noticing the blood pressure of the Prime Minister increasing rapidly, Dulat was quick to calm the Prime Minister down.

“Sir, this information was corroborated with our US Air Force friends attached to the CIA.” Dulat informed calmly. He then decided. “To put it simply, and I cannot believe I’m saying this after spending so long in this career, as far our surroundings are concerned, they are not our friends or enemies.”

“Do me a favour and try translating that from bullshit to English. Or Hindi.” PM Vajpayee ordered before he finished sarcastically. “Truly, your choice.”

“We’re looking at two options here sir.” Chief Dulat started as if he was explaining this to a child, not the elected Prime Minister of the World’s Largest Democracy. “Option one, all our neighbouring countries, be they ally or enemy, and other countries, have disappeared and replaced themselves with different landforms, which will obviously, probably, have their own countries and governments. The second option is, that it’s us, who have well… disappeared, from where we were supposed to be and are now somewhere new.”

“I’m sorry, is there supposed to be a difference?” PM Vajpayee bit back scathingly.

‘I see the PM is on a roll today. Two sarcastic quips within the span of 10 minutes? Truly a day of wonder.’ Chief Dulat privately thought.

“What exactly are you trying to say?” The Finance Minister asked.

“Oh it’s very simple, regardless of which option: Poof. Gone. Finished. Khatam. Tata. Bye bye. Goodbye.” Chief Dulat replied with a straight but deadpan expression. “Anyway. Regardless of what’s happened, I suggest we adapt to this… new reality as soon as possible.”

“Who’s included in the ‘We’ exactly?” This time it was the Fisheries Minister of State who asked, and Chief Dulat had to do a subtle double take when he wondered what was this guy doing here. With a shrug, he dismissed that thought and formulated his response in his mind.

“Every single 1.05 Billion Indian.” Chief Dulat replied. “Oh, and all the foreigners as well, of course.”

“Of course…” The entire Cabinet said as they nodded in agreement before the reply sunk in.

“WHAT?!” The entire Cabinet yelled in unison, much to Chief Dulat’s surprise.

‘Now the cabinet is in full agreement?! Will wonders ever cease today? It’s not even lunch time.’ Chief Dulat thought before he gave his reply to the entire Cabinet.

“I mean, good luck in hiding… this.” Chief Dulat said with a casual shrug. “Now, I get where you’re coming from, I truly do. The minute this is announced, hell will break loose. But gentlemen, here too, we have two options. First, the sensible approach. We tell the people what has happened. They will panic, but we can control any possible riots by deploying the army and all Reserve police forces.”

“Obviously, we ask the cooperation of all State Governments here as well. In fact, I say we inform the State Governments of this first to give them time to have everything prepared for the chaos that will follow. This is beyond party politics.”

“What’s Option Two?” The Defence Minister asked.

“Well. We sit on the information.” Chief Dulat said casually. “Wait for things to spiral out of control by, say, no international flights being able to depart. Well, even if they do depart, they will be aimlessly flying because their destination is no longer present. Let’s see, what else will happen.”

“Of course, maybe our fishermen on the coasts will be taken down by either some Kraken-like sea monster or run afoul of the local fishermen and their governments. Maybe a kraken will directly attack our coast and neither the Coast Guard or the Navy will see them coming. And finally, the banger.

“Have every single foreign embassy at Chanakyapuri constantly badgering the poor Foreign Office on why they can’t contact their home governments. Isn’t it the Soviet Embassy who has deployed GRU snipers on their Embassy as ‘protection’? We don’t say anything, it will be the US Marines in the US Embassy doing something similar. Take your pick.”

---[-]---

All over the country, every single man, woman and child in the Republic of India looked on in confusion, as they saw the deployment of what looked to be heavily armed police and soldiers on the streets of its cities, towns and highways.

On coastal cities such as Mumbai and Chennai, the people of these cities saw the Indian Navy Marine Infantry deployed in full force along with local and state police as they put up barricades and were set up in full combat gear. In cities all over India where there were military cantonments present, soldiers, who had just the previous night been celebrating the dawn of the new century with their families and comrades had now been deployed to the streets. 

The people wondered what the hell was going on that even had the soldiers, who had been deployed in all major areas of their jurisdictions, unsettled. Some brave souls and even journalists tried to ask the soldiers or police what was going on, they all only got one kind of reply, depending on who answered.

“We do not know. All we know is that this order came straight from Army/Air Force/Navy/Police Headquarters.”

Whatever was going on, had even these soldiers spooked. Even they knew this was not normal. So did the police and the people.

Rumours began swirling that a coup was imminent. But that was shot down almost immediately. The Government was very popular, and the Indian Armed Forces never compromised on their morals even when it could have been beneficial for them to intervene with the workings of the Civilian Government. 

They did not interfere during the most tumultuous years of Indian democracy under the now retired former Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi, why would they interfere now when everything was stable. It had not even been a full year after the victory in the Kargil War, and the Prime Minister had more than once lauded the achievements of the Armed Forces inside and outside Parliament, before, during and after the war.

Every question was answered, when the Prime Minister made an address to the nation via TV and radio. It was a speech that rocked the nation. However, was it for better or worse, no one could decide that.

“My fellow Countrymen. This New Year, nay, this New Century, we as a nation have found ourselves in a crossroads that will define us for generations to come…”