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In the dimly lit corner of his room, Arjun was ruffling through the pages of an old and worn out leather- bound book. It was a book gifted to him by his father before he passed. “Take this.”, he said, “This is your legacy; handed down to me by my father, and his father before him. There is much out there that you need to learn and I wish I had more time to explain. I know it doesn’t seem like much but I hope this book can fill in the gaps; may it show you the path of our ancestors and guide you when the time comes.”. These were his father’s final words before he disappeared with no news for many a week; until one fine day came a knock on the door bearing grim tidings of his father’s demise. As Arjun thus reminisced, he realised that most of his father’s life had been a mystery to him, and the old man’s passing was more of the same; a mystery. All that he left behind for Arjun was the strange book with a cryptic message that said;

The end is nigh for certain deeds,

Terrible deeds of crime.

Of all those sins, there’s none indeed,

To match the death of time.

A while now passed and Arjun was still coming to terms with the loss. His father wasn’t the most transparent of individuals and often Arjun felt that he was fighting an unseen war. He would be gone for days without any news and would arrive one fine day; haggard and bruised with a few cuts here and there; and any questions that Arjun asked would be swiftly and expertly brushed aside. “Don’t worry son. There will come a day when all will be clear. You will get your answers. All in good time.”, was the most of an answer that Arjun ever got out of his old man; and Arjun was too terrified to pursue that line of conversation; for his father had a fiery temper when roused. Arjun’s mother died soon after he was born, and so, he was raised by his father, who, he knew, did the best he could. But as far as childhoods go, Arjun’s wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. He moved around a lot; for his father’s work, whatever it was, involved a lot of travel; and as a result made few friends. The one thing that he inherited from his father though was the obsession with keeping time and order. He, like his father, would be livid with rage if there was any lapse from others. He never quite understood this obsession; for he noticed that it was unique to him and his old man. There were other strange quirks too, or at least he thought they were; for instance, he could’ve sworn that the clock stopped for the tiniest of fractions when he had a strong urge to focus on it. Then, there were the nightmares. He’d wake up in the middle of the night drenched in cold sweat from strange nightmares where he was battling a fearsome and threatening shadow. Ordinarily, it shouldn’t have upset him so much, except for the fact that it was recurring and had the eerie quality of a premonition to it. A strange childhood with an absentee father for the most part; constant moving around; recurring and disturbing nightmares; not a very pleasant picture indeed. And so understandably, from the moment he inherited the book, he couldn’t wait to peruse it and look for answers. He never knew what his father did or where he went; or why they had to move around so much. But the excitement and anxiety was to turn into bitter disappointment; for he found that the old leather-bound book was full of blank and worn out pages. There was not a drop of ink to suggest that it had ever been written on. Disappointed and angry, he threw the book away to the corner of his room where it lay forgotten and spent his time in isolation.

A few weeks had passed, and after he had gotten over some of his bitterness, he decided to open the book and browse through it’s blank pages. He did this for quite some time, absently, like a ritual. His daily routine hadn’t changed much since his father’s passing; he would wake up in the morning, brood over his current predicament; finish his ablutions and have a meal; go through the blank pages of the book, if he were so inclined, and resume brooding again. He stopped going to school altogether and was soon holed up at home in the comfort of his dimly lit room. He may have lost a certain spark in him; or the zest for life, but he retained his obsession with maintaining order in things and keeping time. He woke up at the same time everyday, and brooded for the same duration; did his ablutions at the same time; went through the blank pages of the book, if he did, and brooded some more for the same duration. His nightmares were also a constantly recurring theme and were becoming increasingly vivid. Most of them involved him in a tussle with a strange shadow. And so we see that nothing changed with regard to his orderliness; an odd order it was, but an order nonetheless. Such a state of affairs continued for six months until his thirteenth birthday; when the clock struck 1:03 pm to be precise; the time he was born; and during his blank-page-reading ritual, the book shuddered in his hands, jumped out, and appeared to come to life. Arjun stared wide eyed in shock and froze, as the inanimate book sprung to life. A strange white light emanated from the centre of the binding in the open book, which slowly expanded to form a window, and continued expanding until it enveloped the book itself. The expanse was accompanied by the sounds of ticking clocks; loud and annoying tic tocs that kept getting louder. Once it covered the book, the window stopped growing and a disembodied sweet female voice, from deep within the book, asked “Pass verse dear?”. Arjun , paralysed with fear, tried to ask who this voice was and where she came from; and as he moved his lips to mouth some words, no sound was forthcoming. He then pinched himself and closed his eyes forcefully, hoping it was all a passing dream. “Passverse dear, I haven’t got all day.” the lady continued, now, impatiently. Arjun opened his eyes, wondering if he had gone insane and then as if impelled by something, he instinctively took out the sheet of paper where he scribbled the message his father had left him and read out in a trembling voice, 

The end is nigh for certain deeds,

Terrible deeds of crime.

Of all those sins, there’s none indeed,

To match the death of time.

“That’s correct. Please hold”, the voice said, the sounds of the ticking clocks now grew louder, and moments later, the constantly growing expanse dragged Arjun into it; he tried to resist, terrified as he was, but there was nothing he could do; he was sucked in and everything went dark. 

He woke up in a strange place, filled with clocks; but these were not the usual clocks he’d seen before. They were clocks that had strange labels attached to them, and were, for the most part, unreadable. Standing in the centre of a busy room with hardly any windows, it appeared he had stumbled into an office reception of sorts. There were people in different kinds of uniforms walking about clutching their cloaks as they swiftly made their way across to wherever it was they were headed. “Move aside boy.”, growled a tall, thin old, and balding bespectacled man impatiently, as Arjun hastened to step aside. He was pushed hitherto and hitherto as he tried to get the attention of the people around him; but it seemed they were too busy with purpose and couldn’t be bothered with a lost boy in unusual clothes, two sizes too large. Some of them rushed to the front desk with notes in their hand, some walked straight down the end of the room past some doors that seemed to just manifest when they made it there. The room itself was a rather large lobby of sorts; it had a large squishy sofa in one corner, with strange plants, plants that Arjun hadn’t seen before, placed around. There was a nice warm glow of light that seemed to pervade the room; the source of which he couldn’t quite identify. He waited thus, looking around and drinking in whatever he could see, hoping for someone or something to help him out. He looked left then right and finally up to find far above, a large circular dome shaped ceiling that showed stars that lit up the night sky.  

It appeared that he wasn’t the only one who dropped in, in this timely fashion, so to speak. A few moments later, he heard a soft pop, and next to him appeared a young girl, who like him, took some time to get to her feet; although she seemed to know exactly what she was doing, where she was; and began walking with purpose towards the front desk, where a lady holding a writing pad, appeared to be waiting for her. Arjun hastened to intercept her, “Erm.. H-Hi. I’m.. I’m  Arjun..” he stammered, “I-I couldn’t help b-but notice your arrival was as abrupt as mine. Do you know where we are?” he managed a question. Being forced to a halt, she eyed Arjun with deep mistrust and said, “Urm. What is your agency number?”. “A-agency number? What’s that?” asked Arjun. “I’m not really sure what I’m doing here. What is this place? Where am I?” he continued in earnest. She gave him a piercing gaze for what seemed like an eternity to Arjun, till finally her expression softened, “You must be one of the Anamikas.” she said. “I’m Katyayani.” she continued and extended her slender hand towards the thoroughly lost Arjun. Confused and frightened, Arjun shook her hand and said, “Urm. Thanks. What’s an Anamika? And more importantly where am I?” he asked. “Oh, I’m sorry, you wouldn’t know that now would you?” , she continued, now more amused than suspicious.  “What’s the last thing you remember?”, she asked him. Arjun replied, with a frown as he was trying to recall; “I was on my bed about a few minutes past 1 am. And… There was a book !” he exclaimed, “It came to life… Some kind of a window, a female voice… I chanted a verse that I seem to remember…” He paused and then looked at her and said, ”You must think I’m mental.” He didn’t believe it himself. Katyayani just about started to form a reply when,. “What are you kids doing there?” barked a slightly elderly lady, who reminded Arjun of his school principal back at home. He wasn’t particularly fond of his principal; for she was a strict lady and Arjun had rubbed her on the wrong side many a time; ah well.. stories for another time, another place. This elderly lady was peering at them with a disapproving look through the top of half moon reading spectacles. He noticed now, but didn’t quite pay attention earlier, there were a few more pops as he and Katyayani were talking. There were a number of boys and girls who appeared in much the same way as they did, and they all made their way to the front desk, where the matronly lady was now standing. Katyayani seemed to recognize her straightaway and hurried to offer her salutations. “Namaste Mata”. Arjun noticed a number of the other boys and girls rushed to offer their salutations as well. Mata, which is what she is, thought Arjun, seemed to round all these newcomers and bring some order to the room. 

 and saw strange people with halos around them. The place itself was odd. There was no room, table, chairs or windows; just a vast pink expanse filling the entire place; with undulations here and there and strange spherical red globules floating about like boats on the river of the pink expanse. Through all this there were unusual pipes; some green and some red; that crisscrossed the entire space around him. And then, there were these strange people or beings that were busy, issuing instructions to the different objects around; that led Arjun to believe that these halo people were in charge over here. He looked around him and saw that there were others who were seated with him in what appeared to be a waiting area. Some of them seemed to know why they were here and looked excited; some were just as clueless as he was; while some couldn’t care less. He looked down at his hands, and what he saw came as a shock to him. He too had a halo around him, and felt oddly floaty; if such a term could be used. 

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The war between order and chaos within the same individual

• Chaos - Procrastination, disorderliness, tendency to slack etc.
  • Antithesis of order
  • Living beings Individual
  • Celestial Chaos

• Order - 
• Different levels of order
  • Living beings Order
    • Each person’s ability to wake up and organize themselves on an atomic level
  • Celestial Order
    • Seasons on Earth, rising and setting of the Sun, etc.
    • Celestial activities that keep on happening
    •  
• Father’s legacy
  • Turned double agent to spy on the lords of chaos.

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