The Virgin Trip

 

                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                          T.Wignesan

                                                      

    - I don't particularly care how much the trip costs. What I want to know is if you have the right - I mean the latest model of the QX 525Vièrge Robotico Scanner and most of all if it works under all sorts of climatic conditions.

   

     - What d'ya wan' me to say? That it ain't so?

  

     - Look, Mister Miedowicz, the last time your company took charge of the Karotid Affair, you know what happened. This time, this is personal. I'm paying from out of my pocket. You aren't going to do like some twentieth-century lawyer: win or lose, more lose than win? And then prolong the affair till the undertaker looms in sight and fleeces the near-ones of their depleted heritage after the State has gobbled up over fifty per cent?

 

    - Quite frankly, Mister Foucault, that's an insult, comparing me to some twentieth-century lawyer. I thought we'd have done with all that race apart and put a century or two between them and us. You ain't realising our lawyers are on salary now, and only as tehnicians in the Mother Law-Lab.

 

     - Okay, okay, don't get all het up, just pulling your leg, man. Have to be careful, you know. I don't want a repetition of the Karotid...

 

     - Mister Foucault, that Karotid Affair was different. That I did for your conglomerate. This I do for ya, see.  One an' one ain't make two, see? Ain't no good talkin' to me like that, Mister. Just doing this for ya on account of past favours. See?

 

     Foucault checked himself in his stride and straightened himself from his age-bent stoop. First he caught a look of his hands squeezing the air in a frenzy. Then he looked up at the man and felt some apology was necessary to placate the shortcircuiting electricity in the air. - I see alright. I see what you mean. It’s not that I don’t understand, just that these deals have so often backfired…Alright, when can you have your man over with that QX…er…er..wonder stuff?

 

     - Right away. I'll send it along with my most experienced man. He's been to the North-East Ringdom a couple of times on secret missions. I know, I know you'd think he's a greater risk because of that. No, I tell ya. Experience is what counts. He knows the ropes. We've fed him with the right juices: Sanskrit, caste system ethics, inter-ethnic customs and al' those genes. He can smell out the virgins, even if his detector ain't working right.    

 

     - How long would it take for him to come over?

 

     - He can take the Atlantic Tunnel Shute to London-Brighton Port an' branch off from there. Would take - lemme see - forty, forty-five minutes, give or take...

 

     - Okay, give or take five minutes? Tell him to report at the La Défense exit. There's a direct shute to my office tower.

 

     - O.K. then I'll click this contract in, right on the screen.

 

     - Oh, wait a minute. Is your agent there? Let me see him.

 

     - Click to your right, he's just next to me.

 

     - Hi! Be seeing you in a jiffy.

 

     - Hi! What about the QX 525V?

 

     - Oh! He's already packed an' ready to shute. Les’ I forget, just one more thin': before he leaves on the trip he'd need to make a Nuclear Resonance Genetic cast of your brain and eye system for his simulator. That's to make sure the appearance of the dame suits ya, you know what I mean. As for the insides, he will bring along the infra-red camera chips to fit into the brain-simulator and the whole damn thin' will be worked into a ring he'll carry on a finger.

 

     - That's ingenious! – Then he brought his right forefinger to his lips and ran it over his lower lip. – Ey one thing though, how will I know if your man is not going to substitute a cloned-baby compatible with my mind-cast?

 

     - No cloned stuff. That’s in our contract, black an’ white.

 

- What’s the guarantee? Some lab-grown babes are so real…

 

- We a’int in that sort of bizness. Our repute for farm-grown gals is worldwide, I say.

 

-  What…I mean…what I want to say is…what are his chances of success?

 

     - That I cain't say right now. If the virgins to your taste exist, there's every chance he'll bring back at least one. The question is: will you accept any other hidden defects?

 

     - That depends. The firstnight feeling must be genuine. That you don’t get with the cloned-babes. – He hesitated, looked out of the panoramic vista-windows which at that moment were tuned to the South Seas and turned to face Miedowicz. - Anyway, if everything's right outwardly and then she has the damned herpes types 11 and 13 or hepatitis E and F – I, then what?

 

     - That's your problem, Mister Foucault. You clinched the contract with us. If the simulator tallies with your initial requests, we cain't go back on the contract. We always deliver our goods intact. The rest is up to ya.

 

     - You know what this contract is costing me. Out of my pocket too?

 

     - Well, that's the way the chips fall. You wanna pure specimen, a babe like they raised before the twentieth cent' in Europe, well, that's what you gonna get. You know what the fine print on the contract says: you bear all the risks on the CD plate, we bear th'm all on the ground! In between, there's the virgin and the Almighty knows what she has to bear!

 

                                                                  ***

    

     It was five o'clock and the daylong inmates of La Défense trotted out in droves onto the esplanade, littered with statues and weird sculptural ornaments. Most wore mouth masks; others goggles or helmets and insulated gloves. The level of ozone in the atmosphere was constantly broadcast. Most heard the news in the built-in miniaturised systems they carried in their ears, either as ear-lobes or button-clasps in the outer ears. The skyshooter complex had grown beyond its twentieth-century intents and yet was one of the few havens left in the Parisian sky. The rest of Paris, except for the eighteenth-century palaces: the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Elysée, the Opera, and a few other historic buildings: Montmartre, Notre-Dame, the Palais de Justice, the Panthéon, the Senate and some churches, which were all turned into museums, mainly for their architecture, had become a hive of Babel-like towers connected by fiber-glass tube passages through which Parisians commuted on fast-moving escalators, with special lanes for individual or multiple-capacity "hollows" that drifted on pressurized air-cushions: it was like travelling in bubbles or pockets of air: you just stepped into an air-current going in all directions. Streets and passages had disappeared; only some boulevards were kept open for ceremonial purposes. Pomp and splendour was still a part of official life. Power had to be manifested in some way or other. All shopping - simply for the sake of shopping - was concentrated in the Les Halles centre, which had become in the first half of the twenty-first century a city by itself in the heart of town: an incredibly jammed and stratified glass dome rising some seven-hundred meters up and a hundred meters under the earth. The Seine had long ago disappeared under choc-a-bloc tenement buildings and served as the principal sewer of the capital. One or two bridges, like the Pont Neuf, were left standing as curiosities for tourists to have their pics taken. The island in the city over which rose a conical structure of a about a mile high à la Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, and made like the other skyshooters of indestructible fibre-metal of an undisclosed alloy, served as Admin-Post for N° 9 Zone of the North-Western Ringdom, the world being divided into rings of influence-manufacture stations. The question of the supply of food and water and energy having been resolved by the year 2189, and the desire for longevity made accessible to all (though seldom was it claimed beyond a century and a half due mainly to incontinence of waste matter), and so euthanasia was legalised a little after that. Even if in certain zones of the globe agriculture, fishing and husbandry still flourished the daily needs of megapolis dwellers were satisfied by synthetic-chemical products. There was hardly anything one couldn't come by in the Great Emporiums of former cities. Everybody was given credit whether one worked or not, and everybody wanted to work in order to avoid being bored. Entertainment had become redundant. One had seen everything there was to see on earth: films, books and even jokes were predictable to the masses that easily developed their brains, memory, knowledge of all sorts and their imaginations by appropriate doses of chemically-constituted genetic re-construction pills, or as in some cases by genetic intervention. Diplomas of all sorts were abhorred. To become a specialist in any subject became a matter for right “neurone” prescriptions obtainable free at General Info-Diffusion Centres. People seldom travelled since anything anywhere could be seen or heard by merely pressing buttons, or as for some by training their telepathic gear. The postal services as a result had gone out of operation by the beginning of the second-half of the twenty-first century, except in some former countries like India, otherwise known as N° 14 Zone of the North-Eastern Ringdom, where the backlog of letters and parcels had mounted to such astronomic heights, they were still delivering mail some twenty years after the global disbanding of the services. Communication was general, instantaneous and telepathic. In all megapolises the rule of universal-law reigned supreme; they were enforced by humans - police, lawyers, judges and the secret servicemen -who have had to undergo genetic operation to conform to computerised systems directed by memory-banks: all law was unified and codified and punishment or compensation was only a matter of seconds or minutes. It became known as the Godified Legal System, for in actual fact justice was meted out from the computer chips of memory-banks. Politics had become a matter for the populations in each ringdom to decide through computerised monitoring of legislative decisions, that is, any party in power which did not keep its word or conform to the general interest of the people which it represented could be summarily voted out, despite the period for which they had been originally elected. As such, corrupt leaders stayed away from politics for it didn’t pay as a profession of faith or career.

    

     Sex had lost its mystery. The word “seduction” had gone out of use. Even incest had long by then become a tolerated offence. Virgins were virtually inexistent long before the age of puberty. Everyone had to carry in a prominent place - the forehead, the breast or the neck - a round badge-like electronically controlled Biodisk: it showed by beeps, alternating colours, numbers and geometric designs the psycho-sexual state of every individual. Those who were in need of sex, or who didn't have their share the previous day or days - for it was considered bad taste not to – had no need to ask for it, or look or ogle longingly, as they did in the previous centuries: their personal Biodisks flashed the information to everyone concerned. Around the circumference of the disk would run the words, like in the old Parisian area: En panne de femmes or En panne d'hommes. Those who wished to copulate merely signalled to one another, and they could adjourn into any of the hundreds of thousands of F-Booths in the conveniently placed entrances or exits, on every floor or patio, or in the commuting pressurized air-roads. No one was known to have been prosecuted for a sexual offence since 2068. Contraception was generalized, and those wanting to raise children inseminated themselves in special In-Vitrio Birth-Labos after the necessary genetic intervention they required in the pre-fertilization stage. Couples and single parents merely chose the kind of babies they wanted from catalogues and the rest was managed in test-tubes. Approval nevertheless had to be obtained from the Census and Population Control Office which depended on the Housing and Estates Department of the Ministry of Wo-Man-Power.  

 

                                                                       ***

 

     Arrivals at the air-current stations from all directions at N°14 Zone of the North-Eastern Ringdom were put through tight screening processes. Clearance had first to be obtained from the World-Interstellar Satellite Identity Bank orbiting some thousands of miles in space. When Siddata arrived in Mega-Delhipolis, he had his usual undirty-able suit on: zip-strap loose hanging, insulated from heat or cold, fiber-glass attire into which he merely stepped, without hat or shoes; a sweat and waste matter absorption system was incorporated. His luggage consisted of a light-weight attaché case stocked with a miniaturized computer and printer, and emitter and receptor with a screen. He was self-contained; he could communicate to receiving stations anywhere in the world or space and receive any call from anyone knowing his private code name. He could tune into any emitting radio or television station and read any paper or magazine – with instantaneous translations provided - to which he had already subscribed. Images were simply flashed on a scroll-screen, the size of an art book, rolled up in his case. He passed through security check with his ring intact: the Indians had yet to develop the kind of material to detect the miniature screen-proof equipment he carried hidden in his ring. His identity was cleared automatically as a "media-agent" in search of statistics for N°13 Zone of the North-Western Ringdom’s "anthropo-poïetic" field-statistics department. If he was to return empty-handed, then there would be no problem. He could merely pass through similar checking procedure, and that was that. The thorny question would arise only if he were to acquire what he came out to do, since the Indians had clamped down heavily on illicit virgin-drain from their sector. Death by stoning was the punishment reserved for offenders.

 

    Oh, yea, lest I forget, for sports fans, football became known as Füssan’ball; offside was scrapped, so was the scrum in rugby or Roughby, as it came to be known. Apparently, the league managers didn’t want to give a chance to those who loved socialising in scrums.  American football and baseball just evaporated into thin air. When the other former football-playing nations saw these “sports” on the tele, they just threw their sets out of the windows and cluttered up the streets. To avoid traffic jams, the games were scrapped for good, but by unanimous decision of the Supreme Ethical Council of High Priests of the Inter-Zonal Ringdoms, these games of yore were reserved for those condemned for sexual offences with sentences running over ten years without parole. The “let” or “net” rule in tennis disappeared; you served once and you could place the ball anywhere you liked. Women played in men’s teams, and men in women’s. Equality of the sexes became an open and accepted widespread rule by mid- twenty-second century. Some said Simone de Beauvoir would have thrown-up then, for want of something better to do. Umpires and referees went out of circulation…one didn’t even know when. Everything was computer-sensitized. The greatest attractions on the fields remained for a century you-know-what-prowess competitions. Women always won these meets. As a result, men generally suffered from inferiority complexes, until the successful cloning of bi-sexual wo-he-men and wo-she-men. The greatest fear was whether this new race would take over power. For the moment, they were primarily interested in taking over the night-and-dayclubs and gambling consortiums. Inter-Zonal Games occupied the populations almost all the time. Every morning streams of statistics rolled down the screens in every home and homostels (where all children were conveniently placed)  on you-know-what-prowess meets, so that women could brace themselves up for the day. They prefered watching these numbers to plastering make-up on their faces or even shaving.

 

     There’s one hilarious event though I cannot miss out. At the turn of the century, a great disturbance took place on the Mundotele-networks. A French medialist hit on a bright idea and broke all prime-viewing-time records. He simply juxtaposed the French Telethon programmes in which money for medical research was raised with running commentary reports of the Paris-Dakar races, together with the America Cup reels. Record number of viewers all over the world, including some “earth-watchers” from outer space, simply spent evening after evening roaring with laughter while this medialist gave thumbnail sketches of those taking part, especially of some pop singers turned speed-merchants in their spare time which was nearly all the time, with detailed accounts of the material costs of their vehicles and gear. Everywhere people were stunned at their French brethren of the warring century. These programmes remained the most popular viewers’ choices, and all over the world other medialists used similar techniques by juxtaposing Formula 1 racing with charity-fairs and other fund-raising stunts to keep people happy. Yet others juxtaposed actual scenes of wars like the Vietnam War of the sixties and seventies in the twentieth century with publicity gimmicks from charitable organisations to obtain similar laughs, guffaws, and throwups.  

 

      For your information, this same French medialist was awarded the Rabelais-Swift-Cervantes Prize for satire by unanimous decision of the jury at the beginning of the twenty-third century, but he politely turned it down, saying he was merely doing his duty. – Besides, I got such a kick out of it, and judging from the statistics, everybody else did as well, and so I thought, tant pis, it was quite indecent to accept any kind of recognition for my efforts.

 

                                                                       ***

 

    - It's now been five days since I've arrived. This is my first report. Right from the start, all I can and must say is that people are both friendly and suspicious over here. As for the rest, it's like taking a trip back into time. It depends on where you are at any given moment. In town centre, you may be in mixed twenty-first-mid-twentieth cent; in other places, you could move forwards and backwards some thousands of years without having even covered a couple of miles. I find the food delicious, especially the breakfast, but hot. I tried to get them to see that I was not used to such spicy stuff and they simply substituted my meals with bread, toast, butter and jam, or hamburgers and hot-dogs with chillies instead of mustard. Occasionally they provided French fries; so I've gone on a synthetic diet: pills and powdered juices and fizzes. You can get anything you want here, but they are pretty sharp about currency changes, etc. Everybody moves around on Vélektriks...

 

     - What's that?

 

     - So, you're listening. Vélektriks are bicycles run on solar energy-powered batteries which turn an electric motor, all of which happens while you pedal, and then when it's charged, the two-wheeler moves by itself.

 

     - That's end of twentieth cent stuff.

 

     - You remember, that was popular in France and the Medit. countries some time in the middle of twenty-first cent. Anyway, since you're there, let me rerun some of the tapes I filmed. The QX 525V confirmed your wishes. Are you watching?

 

     - Yes, go ahead.

 

     - I've got only about seven to show. I'll run them through, you could record them and I'll wait for your instructions; or else you could comment on them right away. So, here goes: don't worry, I've cleared a private unencroachable channel for ourselves. The duskys down here, even if they have the know-how, don't have the industry and technology to break into our code system. Okay?

 

     The images flashed through his computer screen which he trained on his sleek, platinum-plated inside-suitcase top. He chewed on some "weed" while he waited for Foucault to react. His stomach pains had lately got the better of him, and he was hoping to make this trip his last assignment before settling down himself. He was also curiously toying with the idea of a "virgin", a synthetic lab-grown virgin, the originals of which he was getting eyefuls of right then. He'd rather pass on his inveterate germs to a genetically-instituted "virgin", otherwise euphemistically known as virobogins. He still had had some qualms left about seeing a home-grown virgin going to waste with incurable diseases, mostly venereal diseases. That was also one of the reasons he didn't much care if he succeeded in his mission. Of course, the commission he was going to get - a thirty percent cut out of the massive millions (minus expenses, that is, including even an eventual dowry payment to the parents of the girl) - was an incentive, but he hadn't much feeling for the job, especially after seeing Foucault in person and recognising the biological-skin mask he had on to hide his herpes or other venereal telltale signs.

 

     - But, what's that? queried Foucault. - I saw nothing that looked like the images in the video-album you brought over to Paris. Where are the girls? the pure Brahmin or Vellala girls?

 

     - You must have seen the infra-red plates as well.

 

     - Of course I have. I know they are girls, but...but what the hec is that sort of attire? What's happened to the saris, their long, sleek plaited hair-dos, their caste marks on foreheads and the midriff exposure of silky satin skin?

 

     - Oh, that. I thought you might have guessed. Since the wholesale buying up of these girls, you know, the fad in the fifties when everybody back in the Western Ringdom Zones who could afford them contributed to the virgin-drain, they have gone into hiding. If they are forced to leave their homes or hermetically closed-in quartiers or agraharams, they disguise themselves. In those days, the Dravido-Brahmin animosity was at its peak; the so-called lower castes were only too willing to inform on them and, for a fee of course, more than willing to lead you to them, themselves. Now, the so-called upper castes have all ganged up to defend themselves, especially since the Brahmins and Vellalas have decided since the massive virgin-drain of the fifties to chuck in their lot to defend their “race” which in these parts comes under the generic name of Dravidians. As you know, Eelam and Sri Lanka, too, with their sizeable Tamil minority, has come under the N°14th Zone.

 

     - I know all that, all the geopolitico-poïetic courses we had in schools covered all that. You have however answered my question on the disguise.

 

     - Good. In that case, which do you prefer; just give the number in the order the reel was run.

 

     - N° 7.

 

     - I thought as much. Even the QX 525V simulator picked that one out from the lot, giving it,  from the viewpoint of your own eyes, the maximum number of likeable points.

 

     - But I'd like to have a bio-poïetic-data scan of her, you know, family background, caste, health rundown, and the educational and emotional low-down on her, etc.

 

     - That's no problem, but I'd prefer that you constitute a three-dimensional image probe on her from all angles. You have the material on her; just rework it to make absolutely certain first. No point in my going through all the stages of approaching her prospective touts, her parents, her friends, the marriage agencies, the astrologers, the horoscopes, the medical history, etc., etc.. If you find her form and flesh not to your liking, then what? You are the one who's going to be down by quite a few millions.

 

     - Okay, I 'll call you back to confirm. It'll be in code.   

 

     In the meantime, he decided to take a walk in order to review things a bit in his mind. Half-way down Anna-Salai, his attention was attracted by a poster the height of twenty stories, affixed to a scaffolding that looked precariously attached to a water-tower. The southern quarter of N°14 Zone was still to provide itself with potable water for every household. Synthetic water was available to all but at a price; and not everyone could pay for the luxury. Hepatitis B and C was still rampant, like in the twentieth century. The poster in bright red, yellow and black featured a period film of two former chief ministers of the provincial state: M.G.R. and Jayalalitha. They were “real life” husband and wife, and the latter succeeded the former after his death. A cool breeze ruffled his cuffs and locks. In the late afternoon however the heat still lingered on in the tar roads. It felt sticky. The self-regulating air-conditioner of his suit for some reason did not work. He passed the Marina beach esplanade and there at the theatre decided to enter to cool off for a moment, but the queue was long and chatty: the youngsters went through all the motions of recalling with their hands and fingers the varied escapades of M.G.R. From the corner of his eyes, he espied a small thin dark figure in tight brown longs and tighter mauve shirt shadowing him. When he stopped at the queue, the man too stopped and got into a conversation with some people standing and drinking tea around a wayside stall, across the road. From time to time, the wind blew in gusts and swirled the settled dust brought by the winds the previous night.

 

     A little ahead in the queue his eyes rested on a lithesome girl in a red and gold-bordered sari, with a round of white mallikai buds worked into her chignon. He couldn't see her face. She was standing next to a young man of an olive pale complexion, a handsome man in his late twenties, with a slightly bulging tummy. Now and then, he caught glimpses of the girl's face, though he could judge by her exposed midriff that she was a particularly appetising specimen of the higher castes in these parts. Everything about her was sleek and curvaceous, not an ounce of flesh out of place. Her limbs were strongly made but seemed dainty to the touch; her fingers delicate and fine and yet judging by the size of her knuckles and phalanges, she must have been highly adept with them. Perhaps a Bharatha Natyam or vina training to go with her household and cooking chores. He caught her face in profile as she turned to listen to her man: those  exquisite features stunned him. A spotless olive satin face: a medium-high domed forehead caressed by curls, a carefully curved folded back petal of a left ear, and as she turned her head to look at the queue behind her, he saw a slightly upwards tilted nose whose nostrils remained discreet. Her mouth remained pursed under fully arched lips, the colour of pomegranate seeds. Her chin determined but withheld under her demure will, and her eyes, her eyes flashed just an instant to reveal faked anger, the white of her eyes a torrent of torridly cascading milk while her honey-brown cavernous pupils were rounds of coquettish fire, for an instant magnetic gems that dazzled, fixed your image in hers and then rejected it with equal vehemence and repulsion, leaving you in the lurch of unrequitable want.

 

     He did not know for how long he looked at her, nor what quite transpired afterwards. The dark man in sunglasses and leather sandals who had been trailing him was now at his side railing at him in a language he did not understand. A crowd had formed around him. The louder the dark wiry man yelled, his tinny effeminate voice rising in crescendo every few seconds or so, the closer the crowd pressed on him.

 

     - I'm sorry, gentlemen, I'm sorry, (he heard himself saying, as he tried to extricate himself from the gathering mass around him. His head whirled in the stifling stench swirling around him from open mouths and sweating bodies.) - Really, I didn't mean to, I swear I didn't mean to, he repeated apologetically.

 

     When he crossed the road in the direction of Mylapore, he was aware of nothing but eyes - millions of eyes - watching him. This was the first time he had ever slipped up on a job, his meticulous sense of utter professional detachment undermined in a fraction of a second. As he moved quietly, he avoided the rushing crowds on the sidewalks. Now and then he felt the tug of hands, little frail dirty hands. Automatically he placed a coin or two in the upturned purple-lined palms. For the first time something in him stirred: he wanted that girl. She was probably on her honeymoon, but he was himself walking on air from then on. He was ashamed of himself. "Love" was a feeling that had become obsolescent in the Western Ringdoms. Even the most highly packed Dictionary-discs didn't list the word any more, except as an archaism. He walked enveloped in a daze of self-indulgent generosity, the image of the girl clad in a sari the only object of his thoughts. The rest didn't seem to matter any more. His ears buzzed in a constant soothing balm of a clarion made up of her voice alone, the few words he heard her whisper before she turned to look at him in the queue. Before he turned away from where she was standing, he switched his scanner ring on in her direction, while he pretended to stop and consult a televised street map at a bus-stop.

 

      At his hotel, the coded message arrived safe and sound. It was number 7 that Foucault wanted. He was not surprised. His appetite deserted him. He drank some buttermilk and absent-mindedly chewed on some cashew nuts and thought things over. He connected his computer into the local telecommunications system and soon found a list of marriage broker agencies, an old practice that still lingered on despite the strict laws against dowries and parent-arranged matches. He took down the address of one in Mylapore, the old Brahmin quarter, and made his way on foot. It was still the rush hour. As a contrast to the old days, there were multiple lanes for Vélektriks. Only the central lane was for automobiles which were still in fashion in these parts, though they were powered by solar-energy batteries. The tireless sun seemed at last of some benefit to the region. Dust and grit nevertheless piled up during the night, and the gusty winds from the ocean front played havoc with them. They got onto all your exposed perspiring skin and the open orifices. And the humidity did the rest. Our man had repaired the internal air-conditioning circuit of his suit and the long walk to Mylapore made his fact-finding outing, in a reflective mood, less arduous than the earlier one.

 

     At the Pallava Tower Complex buildings, he was shown to an air-shute that took him up some fifty flights of stairs. The puffy air-seats wobbled and caressed his body giving him the sensation of being massaged. What he liked most of all about the ride was the ample panoramic view of the miles-long beach, the posh villa hotels with swimming pools which cordoned off the better part of the broad sandy strip. The city thrived on its tourist trade and the locals were barred from frequenting the esplanades where they used to stray from the roads off-shore. Even before the doors parted on the plush, red-carpeted floor, two winsome, fair-skinned girls in jungle saris holding silver trays filled with rose petals and a silver ornate kettle-like container of scented water sprinkled his vest. They didn't say so, but it was obvious the sprinkled water was deemed, by them, to contain the power to keep outside smells away. Even though he was slightly taken aback by the gesture, especially after his experience at the cinema queue, he quickly recovered his composure and felt he was drifting again in the company of the bright-eyed, smiling, sweet-smelling damsels. He made a mental note that to smile they needed only their eyes, and when they spoke, their chiselled, pearly teeth flashed their – what seemed to him – apparent innocence. Just the natural fragrance of flowers and leaves which was quite a new sensation to him. The corridors and waiting room were garnished in flowering foliage of all sorts: frangipani, rose, chrysanthemum, begonia, tulip, lily, geranium, orchid and the flowering banana plant set against a corner and silhouetted by the tinted wide, wall-length panes - overtook his usual sense of calculating calm and replaced it with a sense of surrender, a feeling that was to stay and gnaw at him for the rest of the sojourn in this land of old-world charm. Once again the girls smiled with their eyes and joined their palms in a prayer-salute, tilting them upright and backed away, leaving him seated in a plush red leather settee. There were a few other customers in the large waiting room, but he could only hear them indistinctly. In a minute, a tall bald dusky, pot-bellied bespectacled gentleman came through automatic sliding-doors sticking a gnawed and twisted hand which he let clasp and drop just as quickly as his betel-stained toothy smile erased itself.

 

     - So you come dairect from New Yalk?

 

     - Yeah, but my client is in Zone 7.

 

     - Thaat is, lemme see, thaat is Gay Pari?

 

     - You're right.

 

     - I suppose you van' look through ourrr upper-caste catalogues. - Siddata nodded. - Follow me, kind Saar, I show you to ourr video catalogue room. Every marriageable girl and boy in town catalogued there. That, I assure you, Saar. Take yourr time.

 

     He took his time alright. He just gazed at the sari-ed damsels for hours, and the more he took in their graces, doing all sorts of things: talking, walking, singing, playing an instrument, that is, either the flute, violin, or the vina, some even performing in theatre or dancing in the classical styles, such as, the Bharatha Natyam, Kathak, Kathakali or Manipuri, which he didn't appreciate much for he was incapable of deciphering their gestual language, or even taking part in some kind of sports - swimming and gymnastics mainly, the more his head swam. He could only think of the girl he saw in the queue. Her graces were real, something he had seen and appreciated in person. The videos only had the effect of reminding him of her, and although he had seen her, heard her, and most of all, she had seen him, he wasn't quite sure if she existed. The photographic stills he made of her and that of number 7 in his hotel room troubled him. They seemed in many respects to coincide. He was afraid to confront the broker with his stills of them. Instead, he asked for more CDs, ranging round the zonal area. He had, he knew, absolutely no hope of locating them himself, but then he thought he would give it a try and maybe just by chance... That was not to be. Three hours had gone by and it was well past closing time. The managers and girls held on in the hope that he would come with an order worthy of the wait. Finally, when he emerged from the video-catalogue room, he had made up his mind to confront the broker.

 

     - Arre you satisfied, Saar. Ve guarantee hundred percent satisfaction. Otherwise ve take back ourr goods.

 

     - No thanks, that will not be necessary. Just scan these stills and tell me your price.

 

     The broker-manager called his assistant in. A woman in her forties, a burnt brown complexion revealing solid meat all under her bodice. She didn't seem to have a pronounced belly. Perhaps it was due to the way she moved: sturdy steps thrusting her heavy turgid bosom forwards. She flashed her teeth at our man, compared the stills, looked darkly at our man and edged round the large C-shaped table to whisper something under her breath to her boss. The boss looked at him, a startled look suppressing his hospitable front.                                                                                                                

 

     - Ve'll have to process stills. Could you come back morning?

    

     Siddata felt that something had gone wrong.

 

     - My client wants that girl. My starting price is a million. Think it over.

 

     -  Dollars or Yuan, Saar?

 

 

     - I see, you too are particular. I'll see that you get it in Yuan.

 

     - That, Saar, is verry verry kind of you.

 

     Siddata noted that they were still courteous, but the obsequious smiles and fawning attitudes had disappeared from their gestures. Instead, when they smiled, there was a tinge of sadness in their eyes, even regret. He was not bothered. He knew he had struck some gold vein. Something rare. He had to find out. He told himself he had all the time in the world. He was not going to leave this place without either one of the girls in the stills.

 

     That night, he did a lot of thinking, a lot of planning, a lot of secondary - or even tertiary measures - to be adopted in case the mission backfired. He ran the images he had of the girl in the queue several times; the more he looked at them, the more he seemed to be in a muddle of sorts. He wasn't quite able to work out his feelings for himself and see why he wanted her. He gazed at the image of her again and again and spent the better part of the night trying to flash the shots of her on the hotel walls, each time bigger than the previous attempt. Unfortunately, there were far too many "obstacles" on the walls. Pictures of Lord Krishna and dainty damsels with long flowing  up to the knees-hair gamboling in blue-water rivers; docile cows in their milk-white coats and mascara-ed eyes looking dolefully at the bathing girls. The paint on the walls too had spots like  grains. In the end, he wasn't quite sure why he wanted to get a closer picture of her when he had seen her in person only a few hours earlier. He was just indulging himself. He liked the idea of occupying himself at her expense. Only the results seemed futile. He felt the way some heroes he thought would feel in some nineteenth or twentieth century novels he had to read for general knowledge for first or second-hand experience. The entire task exhausted him and when he woke the next morning around eleven, he woke thinking she was in his bed. He had to shake himself out of his make-belief sensations with determination by telling himself even loudly that he might have been dreaming, a habit the human race - those who could afford it - had chucked up through genetic cleansing by the end of the twenty-first century. It was deemed then that dreams sapped one's strength, one's inner strength, undermining one from the inside, the primal debilitating influence coming from the fears they infused, all Freudian sub-conscious purging apart. He was wondering if he shouldn't make an appointment, then and there, with the Dream-Dusting Institute at his administrative sector, before returning, the residual oneiric behaviour that morning troubled him. He didn't wear his bio-disc. In this zone, except in some northern megapolises, they resisted the F-Booths, though brothels were common, a hand-down from older centuries. He was warned before coming to keep well away from these potentially dangerous places, not least for the lack of hygienic conditions that prevailed in them. Besides the girls were often under age, victims either of incest or blatant kidnapping from remote villages or megapolises. He stuck his bio disc on his carotid artery and found the levels of emotional "pentupness" rather high. He had to find a solution soon then and there, or else fly off to North Far-Eastern Ringdom for a long weekend. That might only give the brokers he was dealing with a chance to dilly-dally, he thought, and had decided to stick it out whatever the risk of becoming contorted inwardly. His perceptions were still clear, his thoughts yet tranquil. There was yet no real need to panic. First, he had to fullfil the contract for which he came out.

 

     At the brokers' the next day, he was quickly ushered into the director's office. Apart from the woman he had seen the previous day, there was also a younger man, in his early thirties, rather well-built, of medium height and well groomed. He had an air of self-assurance about him. He surveyed the proceedings in silence. Siddata sat upright and uptight, fending off the intent looks of those present. The broker and the woman fidgeted and kneaded their fingers and, from time to time, shook their knees and thighs in a frenzy of nervousness.

 

     - Saar, I don' know vat to say. This very difficult problem. No simple answer, I say.

 

     - What problem?

 

     They looked at each other and then at one another.

 

     - Is it a question of the price? I can go higher, if you like...

 

     - No, no, no, no, noooh! I assure you, NO. Not question abou’ money.

 

     - Then what? What's the problem?

 

     - The problem is...the problem is... much morre bigger. Too big for us. I can not discuss it to anybody jes like thaat.

 

     - What do you mean? Not anybody? I'm a client and my client is also your client by proxy. There's nothing underhanded about this deal. We are willing to pay handsomely if the goods are the genuine stuff...

 

     - I vish it verre like you say "staff". Then very easy, I tell you. No problem.

 

     - I'm sorry for my language. That's the way we talk back from where I come from.

 

     - He comes from your place, too. - He pointed to the younger man and they nodded to each other.

 

     - I wish you'd come clear. Put the chips on the table, as they say. -The brokers had a word with each other in their own lingo.

 

     - Dearr Saar, lemme tell you how much ve are pleased to do business vith you. Ve vill do anything to satisfy you. Jes, if you vant another look, my assistant here vill show you another set from catalogues.

 

     - I've told you already what I want and what my client wants. Is there something wrong?

 

     - No, noooh, jes don' want this girl, Saar. She taboo...she...she engaged. Finished. Nothing can be done. Ask anything. Ve give you top caste girls. Brahmin, the best. Home-grown. Everything you vant but not this girl.

 

     - What about the other girl for my client, er...er, that still …er..er..marked number 7.

 

     There was a deathly silence. The brokers' faces deadened and dropped.

 

     - What's wrong? Why don't you tell me, what's wrong? - Siddata became slightly perturbed, his voice rose a timbre or two in strength. In the brokers' eyes, he was a precious client, not to be ruffled in any way whatsoever. But their difficulty became apparent.

 

     - That's because she's one and the same girl - said the young man in clear, cold language that Siddata understood without fail. They looked at each other. Their eyes registered familiarity, not least for the accent and tone in which the young man spoke.

 

     - Well, why didn't you tell me that in the first place? - he said looking rather perplexed at the broker-manager.

 

     The broker and his assistant hung their heads. They were in a state. They had to cling on to a client whose starting price was a million. How many millions more he would go to, they wondered. If he went away empty- handed, they'd be sorry for the rest of their lives.

 

     - Saar, Most Honoured Saarr, please don' think ve trying to do this to you ourselves. This jes the vay it is. There is nothing ve can do. - The broker looked at Siddata dejectedly and scratched his armpit with his right hand. When he had finished, he scratched his sideburns on the right cheek. - My cousin brother here, Sundaresan, vill talk to you. Please be so kind talk to him. He vill explain. - He looked in the direction of his brother. They didn't look like brothers. Perhaps they were step-brothers, thought our man. The broker held his scratching hand out. Our man shook hands. Sundaresan came up to him, and they walked together to the air-shute, while they were sprinkled with scented water by the sari-ed girls.

 

     They sat around a transparent table on transparent chairs, at the edge of a swimming-pool which was also made of the same transparent material. The water in it seemed fathomless and light reflected through every sharp angle and converged in a fountain in the middle of the pool. Electronic music of the Jean-Michel Jarre type spiralled through various apertures in the walls and coconut palms of the Coconut Grove Bar in the Tower building. They sipped young-coconut juice, a delicacy that was getting rarer by the year, if not by the month. Its synthetic variety did not sell well.

 

     - How could they be the one and the same, interjected our man. - The young man who accompanied him obviously to explain the dilemma looked at him with evident sympathy.

 

     - I agree, it's quite bizarre, he said. - But don't let that discourage you.

 

     - I mean, talking of co-incidences, this is the most bizarre co-incidence.

 

     - Perhaps, not as strange as you think. You saw and recorded her working version, that is, the career woman on her way to her laboratory, dressed in her overalls and cap, in a deliberate attempt not to attract attention. The woman you saw in the queue was the courting and courted girl destined to be wedded. In between, having recognized the worth of this girl, her image stuck onto your neurons. You have no other experience of our women. Because she was meant for your client, you did not bother to work your own feelings out. As a matter of fact, you must have seen, or at least hundreds of similar-looking girls (mind you, I don't say, equally good-looking or better-looking) must have graced your vision, but you, as the words of a twentieth century song goes, had eyes only for her. So, you saw her and wanted her, or rather you recognized from that moment onwards, since she was not to your knowledge the same person you recorded earlier on, your initial urges. All this boils down to just one thing: you're in love. A strange thing really, since this feeling is no more in your genes from what I could gather when I was out there, myself.

 

     - Siddata watched Sundaresan in silence. He wasn’t cast in the same mould as his “brother”. He felt drawn to the man. The soft, detached, intimate tones spun webs round his isolated strands of feelings.

 

     - You know, I’ve been wondering while you were talking how close we come to resembling each other, I mean, I click right into your circuit. – Sundaresan’s eyes brightened for a moment, and then they receded back into their sockets. – How right your are! At least I think there can’t be another explanation for this sudden resurgence in my genes. A throwback, you might say. The question is, is it here to stay? I must admit, the feeling comes and goes, with more or less equal vehemence. Have you been “in love”, yourself?

 

     - Well, yes and no. You know, we haven't accepted tampering with the genes to the extent your people have. The truth is, I fell “in love” when I was out there, for a honing course.

 

     - Where was that?

 

     - At the hallowed I.M.I.T., of course. Did a stint in admin-poïetics and then slouched around watching how it was administered in practice. But then, I couldn't really find out much about my feelings in this direction since, as you know, the girl I fell for out there didn't or rather could not reciprocate. She couldn't for the life of her understand what I meant when I told her what I felt. So the matter ended then and there, though I still have flashback pangs that seize me in the middle of the night, and I wake and can't quite understand what transpired before that instant.

 

     - Like what I am going through now.

 

     - Exactly, like what you're going through now.

 

     Siddata took a look around. He noticed for the first time the brown bodies basking in the shade, towels hanging loose on their swim-suited bodies. Now and then some lad plunged or dragged some damsel into the pool, gamboling and crying out in mock pain. Sundaresan watched him looking at the girls.

 

     - They are Anglo-Indian stock. If you're looking to see if any of our upper-caste girls are around, forget it. The taboo still holds.

 

     - If I offered a hefty sum. Doubled or tripled the initial offer, then what?

 

     - Nothing doing.

 

     - Why? What's so special about this girl? She's only engaged.

 

     - Okay, let's say the engagement is not a problem. But...but let me tell you once and for all, not this girl. If you tried, you'd get into trouble.

 

     - Why?

 

     - There's no simple answer to this issue. I'd have to give you a lot of history and all that to even make the explanation partially comprehensible.

 

     - Is she or he the offspring of the Chief Zonal Administrator?

 

     - Something like that, but not quite. Let me put it like this. We, the Tamils -- you'll notice I'm calling myself a Tamil as well even in these days of ethnic cleansing -- were the first civilized occupants of this sub-continent.

 

     - What about the Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa civilizations and others that followed in their wake thousands of years before Christ?

 

     - You're absolutely right, but, you know, that controversy has never been resolved, that is, whether the Tamils were descended from them or not. There’s always the remnant evidence of Brahui in Baluchistan, a linguistic shoot of Tamil, which complicates the issues yet a mite further. – Sundaresan searched Siddata’s face and, finding no query there, presumed, it seemed, he knew about the Babylonian-Assyrian-Sumerian connection thesis. – Anyway, let's take it from the times of the Aryan invasions. And let's not also dispute the presence of Veddah tribal settlements and the aboriginal off-shoots. That has been relegated to the less consequential moments in Indian history. It was the Dravidians and of whom the Tamils were the first to "civilize" themselves, if we can still use the term in its limited sense, for we have seen that past civilizations were based on competitive warring economies, the very people who first populated the northern plains, the very region now occupied by the Aryans. Everything a nation or people did to enhance themselves from a previous state of want ended miserably in conquest, victory and then defeat and chaos, then return to a barbarous state, and so forth and so on. You know all that. Forced to settle in the inhospitable terrain of the Deccan and the Western and Eastern Ghats, they became a hardy people. Great kingdoms raised their heads and spread their fame and riches as far wide as Rome and Athens, Egypt and Mesapotamia, and the South-East Asian Peninsula and Archipelago. To be precise, there were the Pallavas, and the trio-dynasties: Cera, Cola and Pandya, and then finally, the Vijayanagar Empire of the fifteenth century which until late century times was in Andhra territory. With the passing of that under the Muslim-Mogul and later European colonialists' administrative reigns, the Dravidians were reduced to a kind of slavedom they have never been able to free themselves from. That's their case even in Sri Lanka and Malaysia of the twentieth century. But you must have noticed we are a proud people, even if we are a bit backward in many respects especially when it comes to technology, commerce, and modernity in the arts, etc.

 

     - But you, yourself, you're Brahmin, aren't you?

 

     - Yes, indeed, I am. But these distinctions have long gone out of their original social and religious contexts.

 

     - Why is that?

 

     - Quite simple really. Much of the change already took place in the twentieth century, after, what they called, the Second World War. I'm sure you know the history; so, I won't bore you with details. The Aryan-Dravidian political and social hierarchy in the old India was such as to relegate the southern Indian Brahmins -- after the anti-Brahmin political and semi-ideologically muddled movements led by Periyar and his followers from the so-called middle castes to the unenviable -- depending on the way you looked at it and whether you were Brahmin or non-Brahmin -- position of just being Tamils, and as Tamils, their only claim to ethnic distinction lay in the common Tamil past glory, going back to some centuries before Christ. In actual fact, the southern Brahmins by stock hail from the north, that is from Aryan country, and subtly through the ages they have undergone miscegenation with other races and castes, mainly the Kshatriyas and the Vellalas. One curious fact, the Brahmins considered whites a superior race while all foreigners by rights their equals for the simple reason none others subscribed to the caste hierarchy myth. So, to get back, even there, they were not to be confused with the northerners who ruled the confederation from Delhi. Little by little our own Brahmin exclusivity was eroded; our ancestors in the twenty-first century clung desperately to their rituals which their own later descendants would not or could not quite attach themselves to in the same spirit of devotion. In actual fact, it is by the rigmarole of ritualistic behaviour which the Brahmins managed to inculcate into the psyche of the other castes that they ensured their special status through the centuries. They placed themselves by these means as the intermediaries between man, that is, the inferior being in their eyes of course, on the one hand, and God, on the other. So, now, if you take our penchant for rituals away from us, we are left with nothing; we are like any other people or caste. Our centuries-old attachment to mental activity, couched in the sophistry of our Vedic and Brahmanic classical literature, soon made us less capable of competing with the so-called lower castes who -- unencumbered by our mantras and the myth of Sanskrit being the language of the gods from an early age - overtook us in every other field of academic research or commercial activity. It was then that the older generations of Brahmins realized that we had really no God-given monopoly on brains. Now, as you know, all that old-time muck: caste system, religion and classical glory and all that has been washed down the drain. In its place, something else lifted its head. And that's the reason why you are here. We, especially the Brahmins and Vellalas, found in the preservation of old-time conservative morals our own ethnic distinction, and we sport it with pride. But we needed to have a rallying point, and since we blamed Dravidian downfall over the ages to Muslim and European colonialist incursions into our sub-continent, we most naturally invoked our glorious classical past. Today, to be chaste and to marry as a virgin has become the only bulwark against the annihilation of our ethnic past. All castes participate in this collective pride. We are less concerned about modernistic advancement.  We are content if we can produce offspring who would not squander away our only claim to identity: the innocence of being and feeling chaste and loyal, values that all over the world everybody is now willing to pay millions for; besides our ancient forefathers gave this world one of the most original literatures with a most distinct moral substratum and a secular language that has remained more or less intact as long as Tamils have been on the face of this earth.

    

     Sundaresan looked straight at Siddata, a half-baked sense of accomplishment overcoming him. Siddata too appeared overwhelmed by his rhetoric. He was certainly not going to be the one who would gainsay him then and there. Besides the two strangers right from the start displayed a special disposition for confabulation and a curious knack for communion. Like as if they were the same person from wholly different times.

 

     - Has what you've been telling me got something to do with the taboo of discussing the girl I've proposed for my client? - He suspected that there must have been a connection. Sundaresan smiled, for the first time, his earnestness seemed to lag behind his intentions.

 

     - As a matter of fact, yes. I was coming to that. In the light of what I've been telling you, you should be able to understand why my people would be unwilling to divulge the facts to a foreigner. - He uncrossed his legs, straightened up in his transparent seat and faced our man squarely. Our man too stopped gazing around at the dames in and around the pool. - This girl is the direct descendant of the extinct Cola dynasty line and that young man you saw with her who is now engaged to be married to her is the direct descendant of the longlost Pandya dynasty. - He took a deep breath and surveyed the man in front of him. Siddata's eyes widened for a moment, his pupils dilated, and then, just as rapidly, his eyes narrowed and his nostrils and lips strained and quivered. He remained silent for a while. He looked down at his hands and found them locked one into the other, the blood gradually receding from the surface of the skin. - For us, Tamils, this is a symbolic coming together, a mating of the stars, as if we as Tamils - downtrodden as we have been since the medieval ages - saw in this union the salvation of our identity. Do you see what I mean? - Siddata strained much more, his torso caving in as though he had no desire to breathe. Then, he relaxed and his body gradually took its normal posture again.

 

     - I thought those dynasties petered out completely and there were none of them left after all these centuries.

 

     - That’s what everybody thought, but then no fear. Their descendants have survived one way or other. Their vassals continued to serve them, even when their ancestral monarchs weren't able to reward them. Then again the dynastic households had property of their own: land, temples, forests, cattle and what have you. They could merely live on from the produce of their lands with their traditional servers continuing to work the land for them. This was and is an unbreakable bond that has lasted throughout the ages.

 

     - What did these royal descendants do themselves? Did they work or something?

 

     - Of course, they administered their lands and property, but they were also gradually drawn into an esoteric way of life, secluded as they were from other castes. We, the Brahmins, were their servants as well. We were summoned to perform the rituals to which they became increasingly attached over the ages. Little by little they became a very pious lot; they took to vegetarianism and yoga. Invariably they spent their time meditating, and this mystic activity continued to separate them from others, and most importantly, preserved their identity. Of course, here and there, there were defections from the royal household, but mostly they married into the Brahmin or Vellala castes. In any case, it is a well-known fact that our kings of old always took to wife the daughters of the traditionally rich land-owning Vellala aristocracy of yore. This was because they had themselves no direct source of income and they largely depended on the Vellala nobles to succour them in both peaceful and warring times.

 

     Our man remained pensive for quite a moment. Then he said:

 

     - I think I understand at last what I've got into. I have to digest all this in the quiet of my hotel room, and perhaps we could meet again?

 

     - Of course, you may. Here's my code. Call me any time at all. Just one thing though. I'm not thinking of the money you're offering my brother, but, in the circumstances, you needn't return home empty-handed. There are lots of lovely girls I'm sure who would be glad to accompany you to where you came from. 

 

     - Let me think things over. I'll have to contact my client as well.

 

     - Alright then. Till we meet again.

 

[continued in Part Two]