THE STERADIAN TRAIL: BOOK #0 OF THE INFINITY CYCLE Read Free Page A

milk vending on a rented bicycle, he grew into a bigwig who sat at the head of a conglomerate that oversaw hundreds of companies around the world. His economic empire cut a broad swath across a multitude of industries, including dairy, textiles, IT, finance, retail, energy, media and entertainment, and contributed – or controlled, take your pick – the single biggest slice of the Indian GDP pie. Suffice to say, if Pomonia heaved a sigh, all market indices on Dalal Street would tremble in tune, like aspen in high wind.
    Smitten by Pomonia’s phenomenal success, an American university had recently decided to invite him as their commencement speaker and award him a medallion of honour during a ceremony the following summer. The domestic media, always on alert to celebrate or shame anyone and everyone with the slightest soupçon of melanin in their skin, lost no time blowing the thing out of proportion. The deafening buzz threw all Pomonia loyalists in the government into a tizzy. There was of course the little matter of ten million dollars Pomonia had pledged to the university for the establishment of a Chair in his name, but somehow it never managed to get much attention. There was only one question echoing everywhere: How could Indian universities sit tight in the sidelines when a foreign university was paying such rich tributes to an enterprising son of Mother India?
    Pomonia’s lapdogs in the government got into action before long and decided to launch pre-emptive strike on America. Their strategy: Get a premier Indian institution to deck up Pomonia in royal regalia and dole out an honorary degree at a glittering function before he flew off to graciously accept his medallion in the US. The minister for human resources, a true son of the Madras soil who lorded over institutions of higher learning in the country, passed an unwritten decree that his hometown would be the one to do the honours to Pomonia and it would do so by the end of January. By the time Lakshman was done sipping his masala milk in the director’s garden, the project had become his primary responsibility.
    Lakshman couldn’t digest the fact that the Institute was stooping so low, choosing a businessman who revelled in operating on the margins of the legal and the illegal, moral and the immoral. Being made the ringmaster of the whole charade rubbed it in even further, bringing him down from the high with a thud and leaving him not just sleepless but in a state of ferment. Exiled from the bedroom by Urmila, his T-shirt and veshti drenched in sweat, he continued to pace the reading room furiously, cursing himself: Why did I even get promoted?
    The masala milk had joined the beer now and they swirled around each other like yin and yang, the ensuing vortex sending the tikkas on a spin. Individually, each of them was an epitome of gastronomic delight, but together, they were a recipe for gastrological disaster. All that frenetic walking up and down only made matters worse.
    Lakshman stopped pacing and took a deep breath, but the churning in his belly only got wilder like a simmering volcano. He could feel the hot bile bubbling up to his throat. Figuring it was only a matter of time before it erupted, he decided to pre-empt the process. He ducked into the toilet and started retching. As quietly as he possibly could. Urmila had fallen sleep with much difficulty and he couldn’t afford to wake her up with his theatrics.
    He was just about done washing up when the phone rang, breaking the stillness of the night. Thinking of Urmila yet again, he hauled up his veshti and dashed out of the bathroom wondering who on earth was calling at this ungodly hour.
     

 
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    J oshua had been in good form earlier that evening. But he hadn’t reckoned that he was going to meet his match soon, least of all in the shape and form of the petite girl seated inconspicuously in the back rows.
    If the reigning movie star could be taken as a touchstone of progress in any place,