Kandahar 1999: Revenge Served Cold

New Delhi, 2021

Hunched over a desk in a third-floor office of the CGO Complex in New Delhi sits a bespectacled man, scanning the official-looking documents scattered before him. He signs page after page with a withered, unsteady hand, absent-mindedly twirling his moustache with the other. A groan of decaying wood, and someone else enters the room, yet he does not so much as glance towards the door.

“Mr Doval?” The newly-appointed secretary’s voice is low, hesitant. He barely grunts in response, eyes now roving over the minutes of a meeting he’d missed last month. “A Ms. Kaur is here to see you.”

“Tell her to come back next week.” He waves a wrinkled hand in dismissal, but his secretary stands her ground.

“She says it’s urgent, sir. She says there’s been a breakthrough in Case 418.”

At this, the distracted man finally looks up, a thousand emotions flitting across the creases of his face: shock, then disbelief, followed by a disbelieving hope, and ending with guarded curiosity. “Case 418?” He croaks. “You’re absolutely sure she said 418?”

“Yes, sir.”

He rises with a speed that belies his age and crosses the room in two swift strides. “Where can I find her?”

His assistant leads him downstairs, through a dimly lit corridor, past locked doors and narrow aisles and into a spacious hall where a woman waits alone, impatience written across her visage. As soon as she catches sight of him, she announces breathlessly, “We’ve just received a new lead on Case 418. A man: we think he’s one of the terrorists from the IC 814 hijacking. Would you like to work the case with us?”

And as National Security Advisor Ajit Doval answers in the affirmative, congratulates her profusely and pleads with her to brief him immediately, he recalls the very first time he heard of the hijacking of Flight IC 814.

*

New Delhi, 1999

They called him the “Indian James Bond” for his crafty spy work during Operation Blue Star, his daring counter-insurgency enterprise in Kashmir, his successful resolution of multiple Indian Airlines hijackings. The first police officer to be awarded the prestigious Kirti Chakra, he was bitterly envied by his peers and lavished with praise by his superiors. Only 54 years old and already the central service’s most valuable member, Ajit Doval was riding high.

That was before the hijacking.

When information that Flight IC 814 from Kathmandu was straying suspiciously from its route to Delhi first reached the Bureau, Doval was content not to be involved. It was probably just a minor mistake on the pilot’s end. Besides, on the off chance that it was a hijacking, the Crisis Management Group could handle it just fine. All they had to do was ensure that the plane stayed in Amritsar, where the quick-witted Captain Devi Sharan had landed under the guise of refuelling. But a miscommunication here, a mishap there, and suddenly, the plane had left Amritsar, left India altogether, and was off to Lahore, Pakistan.

What followed was a deluge of panic that Doval would never forget. The Intelligence Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing, the nation itself descended into chaos. Doval began to understand the saying “no news is good news”: the more they heard of the hijacking, the more disastrous it seemed. 176 passengers and 15 crew members, held hostage in the aircraft. The terrorists’ refusal to let a single one disembark, not even when the pilot begged them to spare at least the women and children. 3 of them, or maybe 5, or perhaps even 10, with black masks and scruffy beards, threatening innocent Indians at gunpoint as they flew them all the way to Dubai.

India finally drew breath upon the release of 27 passengers at the Al Minhad Air Base, but even this momentary relief was overshadowed by far graver information: a hostage had been killed. 25-year-old Rupin Katyal, newlywed and returning from a honeymoon with his wife, stabbed brutally to death for no reason other than being in the worst possible place, at the worst possible time. How many more would die such disgraceful deaths before the government stepped in? The pressure from the hostages’ families, the media and the general public of India reached a resounding high. The time had passed for quiet data collection, for the formulation of cautious plans that would never come to fruition. The Indian government, backed into a corner by a hijacking on one end and its own population on the other, decided that negotiation was the best course of action. And they knew just the man for the job.

*

Jaisalmer, 2021

In the deserts of Jaisalmer, a long way from its golden fortified city, stands a ramshackle rest stop. Whitewashed, yet greying with dust and grime, its second floor perches precariously on the roof of the first. Its windows are nothing more than holes curtained by tarp, the wood of its door rotten and crumbling. A traveler would have to be in the pits of despair to seek shelter here.

And so the sight of India’s National Security Advisor and his equally debonair colleague entering the tumbledown structure would be a marvel - if there were anyone to see it. Thankfully, that has been taken care of by a security scan an hour prior to their arrival.

The ground floor of the building reflects its dilapidated exterior: the walls are stained a murky green, the blackened floor home to a host of creepy-crawlies and the little remaining furniture covered in a thick layer of dirt. But up the rickety staircase, the upper storey looks like it belongs to a whole other structure, a state-of-the-art campus of a multi-million-dollar corporation. These walls are whiter than a crocodile’s teeth, the seats plush, and the desks pristine. Wide screens line every wall, some displaying numbers and graphs, others live footage from the furthest corners of the country. And in the centre of the room, a group of the Indian intelligence’s best thinkers are crowded around a single computer.

As soon as Doval enters the room, their heads turn towards him like moths to a flame. After a long drawn-out pause, a young man steps forward from among them, curly-haired and shifty-eyed, chewing nervously on his lower lip. “Mr Doval, sir, we are employees of the Research and Analysis Wing. For the past 22 years, we have spent every waking moment tracking-”

“But you’ve only made real progress in the past month,” Mr Doval interrupts gruffly, “am I correct?”

“Well, it might seem that way, but really, sir, it’s the seeds sown over the last two decades that we are now reaping-”

“Alright, alright, spare me the parable.” 22 years of waiting takes its toll on a man’s patience. “How did you find him?”

“Aside from investigating the hijackers, we have been monitoring the Akhtar Colony of Karachi since 2017, when a suspected member of the JeM passed through. Turns out he was just an ordinary civilian, but by then our supervisor couldn’t be bothered to dismantle the surveillance network in the colony. We’ve had a dormant spy there, disguised as a chai vendor, for nearly four years now. We never reestablished contact with him until a few months ago, when our boss decided to move him to a nearby colony where he could prove useful. It was then that he informed us of his suspicion of Zahid Akhund, owner of Karachi’s Crescent Furniture business. He was simply too prosperous, too powerful among the colony’s residents, for a man who owned a loss-making company. And he often hosted suspicious visitors, from a squad of off-duty police officers to a trio of men in black outfits covering everything but their eyes, carrying equally dubious black briefcases. We suspected a money-laundering scheme at first, perhaps a bit of bribery, extortion. But when our spy finally procured a picture of the man… well, we realised we had someone far more valuable on our hands.”

With that, he gestures towards the computer, his crowd of colleagues spreading apart to allow Doval a glance. And upon the screen is a face Doval could recognise in disguise, in the dark, could remember were his every other memory lost. A face that brings back in full force the disappointment, the humiliation, the rage he had felt 22 years prior. A face that has haunted his every nightmare since that fateful day in 1999…

*

Kandahar, 1999

Afghanistan, the land of the Taliban. They arrived in the dead of night, a team of India’s finest: Vivek Katju, silver-tongued diplomat with eyes sharp as an eagle’s, his mind even sharper. Nehchal Sandhu, whose unflappable demeanour made him the prefect person to solve a crisis. And of course, Ajit Doval, apple of the Indian patriot’s eye.

They had left in a blaze of glory, off to rescue their stranded brothers and sisters. But their bravado evaporated like drops of dew beneath the midday sun at the sight that met them in Kandahar. Flight IC 814, surrounded by Taliban gunmen armed with tanks and anti-aircraft weaponry. More than a hundred imperilled Indians within, sitting in pools of their own urine and faeces, some weeping relentlessly while others simply stared blankly ahead. A man with an angry red lash down his arm after he had lifted it to comfort his terror-stricken wife. A child with a dupatta over her mouth, tied by her own mother to muffle her cries. And looming above it all, the five hijackers, led by the dark, brooding, deadly Zahoor Mistry.

The negotiators had three objectives: to protect the Indian civilians, gain intelligence pertinent to their rescue, and buy the government time to carry out a rescue. Their hopes plummeted further upon realising that they were at a disadvantage in all three aspects. The hijackers were in no mind to yield to a group of impotent officers whose powers began and ended with talk and empty threats. They had a regular stream of supplies, from fresh food to even fresher information straight from ISI headquarters. They moved freely in and out of the aircraft, unhampered by any fear of Indian military involvement.

In a desperate attempt to turn the tables, Doval and Katju approached the Taliban for help. Beggars can’t be choosers, Katju had reasoned when Doval protested against accepting aid from militants. They need not have disputed it, because the Taliban authorities were immovable. Not only were they unwilling to act against the hijackers, but they refused to allow India to carry out a military operation on their soil.

Doval could no longer deny it: if they wanted to deliver their countrypeople home in any fit shape, the team would have to meet the terrorists midway. And thus, a real negotiation began.

“The release of all 36 men, the disinterment of Sajjad Afghani’s corpse and a grant of USD 200 million, and your people will walk free.”

From the beginning, Doval could tell that this negotiation would not be a day’s work. But the longer they delayed, the longer helpless citizens of India would be at the mercy of these madmen. Three sleepless nights of discussions, wheedling and persuading the terrorists over the wireless and frantically ideating and planning around a table with his colleagues. Finally, they managed to dramatically reduce the terrorists’ demands to the release of only three terrorists: Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.

One incident stood out clearly from that terrifying abyss of a week, a moment that Doval would always recall as vividly as though it had been yesterday, as much as he wished to forget it entirely. It was the eve of December 31st, right after the Indian government and the hijackers had come to a compromise. Their enemies, satisfied with the promise of their comrades’ return, allowed him to enter the plane and speak freely to the hostages.

“You are free,” he informed them, “the Indian government has ensured your recovery. We will take you home safely and reunite you with your families.”

He had expected applause, cries of relief, even a few smiles. But it was as if the sea of faces before him did not comprehend him. They continued to look towards the terrorists behind him, too petrified to display any other emotion.

“Have faith!” He tried again. “You are safe now, upon the honour of our great nation. Bharat Mata Ki Jai!”

It was the first time he heard those words receive no response. As he left the flight, cheeks flushed in mortification but head still resolutely held high, he was obliged to pass by their leader, Zahoor Mistry himself. The smirk Mistry gave him would forever be imprinted upon his mind.

*

Jaisalmer, 2021

“We will catch Mistry, sir,” Ms. Kaur assures him earnestly, “it’s just a matter of cautious planning and fearless execution.”

If only it were that simple.

Doval gathers the best and brightest from every corner of the Research and Analysis Wing, from developers of technology decades ahead of its time to assassins trained from youth in the art of murder. They spend weeks setting up surveillance systems across Akhtar, and months after observing “Zahid Akhund’s” every waking moment, looking for chinks in his armour: daily instances when he is without security and vulnerable to attack.

Their hard work pays off, as hard work is bound to do. They notice early on that when Mistry attends Friday prayer, he goes unaccompanied by a single guard. But is it really religious duty that takes him unfailingly to the mosque every week? Or is it perhaps a far unholier pursuit? They soon realise that Mistry lingers longer in the house of worship than any other patron, hours past the duration of the Ṣalāt al-Jumuʿah. A camera positioned at the building’s backdoor confirms their suspicions: Mistry is preying on the Imam’s twenty-year-old daughter.

“An unsavoury affair,” Doval remarks disdainfully, “but that shouldn’t stop us from using it to our benefit.”

At noon every Friday, Mistry enters the mosque among hordes of other worshippers. Then, without the slightest regard for the sanctity of the ceremony within, he sneaks out through the back with the Imam’s daughter on his motorbike, returning alone three hours later to leave the mosque with the few remaining stragglers.

Doval’s team has no idea where he goes, where he leaves the poor girl, if any of his security detail suspects the relationship, but none of that matters to them. All that matters is that what he considers a mere bad habit is the very mistake that will lead to Mistry’s ultimate downfall.

*

Karachi, 2022

She arrives in the Akhtar Colony in a nondescript auto rickshaw, a nondescript burqa covering her from head to toe as she enters a nondescript apartment building.

But there is nothing nondescript about Kirpana Khanna herself. Born to a brilliant IAS officer and an eminent intelligence leader, she was raised a patriot since birth. Full of courage, ambition and a desire to live up to her parents’ legacies, she began training with RAW shortly after. Now, five years since her first mission, she’s the most lethal assassin the Wing has, a favourite of India’s National Security Advisor.

At noon, she heads downstairs and into a tea stall across the road. She has, as it seems to the only other customers there, a most ordinary conversation with the vendor. When she inquires as to the available beverages, he replies by prattling off a menu. When he asks whether she takes milk with her tea, she responds in the affirmative.

If only those unsuspecting locals could see what happens once they leave. The shop’s entrance is locked, a mask donned, a gun grabbed from beneath the false bottom of a drawer of teabags. The chai seller and his customer exit through a side door, onto one of the few alleyways without a government-commissioned CCTV. They set off towards the town centre on his motorbike, to all appearances a couple on their way to the Jamia Madina Masjid for their weekly prayer. Well, anyone to assume so wouldn’t be wrong about their destination, but the two special agents have already said their prayers. If they mangle this mission now, even god can’t save them.

They have just passed the post office when they spot him turning onto a side street, a young woman half his size seated behind him. “Tail him,” Khanna whispers, and her partner obeys, careful to keep the terrorist in sight while staying just far enough not to attract his attention.

When he drops his companion off at a secluded bungalow, Khanna can practically see the target outlined against his back. But the Imam’s daughter doesn’t go indoors immediately; she waits at the verandah, waving the scoundrel goodbye. They cannot risk making a move against him while she remains. They cannot risk waiting for her to leave and being noticed.

They turn into the closest alley and circle back to find her thankfully gone, Mistry riding towards the mosque once more. But their luck doesn’t last long: it is impossible for him not to spot them on the narrow path he takes back. His eyes narrow and he reaches into his shirt, pulling out a walkie-talkie. But he doesn’t get far.

“Go!” Khanna hollers, and their bike jerks forward into his, throwing Mistry off his balance and the device from his hands. The fall isn’t nearly enough to kill him, though. He scrabbles helplessly for a moment before his hands enclose a shiny black object lying in the dirt. His walkie-talkie, she assumes, before the terrible realisation strikes her. The gun.

She lunges for her partner, ducking and rolling both of them out of its way a fraction of a second before he shoots. But though their lives are temporarily safe, she knows the boom of the gunshot has reached far enough that crowds may swarm the place at any moment. And the fate that would meet them were authorities alerted- well, she would pick death over it any day.

She does pick death over it. Before Mistry can take another shot, she pounces straight toward the end of the gun’s barrel, paralysing him in shock for a single precious moment; and in that moment, her hands tighten around his throat, squeezing relentlessly until he suffocates to his demise. She throws in a gunshot for good measure: she can't risk coming all this way only to accidentally leave him alive.

As Mistry chokes, his fingers scratching at her arms, feet flailing helplessly, she calls to her partner, “Go! Take the motorbike and leave before anyone gets here!”

“But-”

“That’s a direct order. Leave, now!”

Before her partner’s motorbike even turns the corner, Khanna’s work is done. The body of Zahid Akhund, wealthiest man in town, lies lifeless in a patch of grass. His motorbike lies beside it, its dashboard damaged as though it has crashed into the nearby lamppost, which is conveniently dented. When the hordes of townspeople arrive to gawk and question and speculate, they will conclude that it was a common hit-and-run case, or in all likelihood, that the man had brought about his own death through rash driving. If they discover the bullet wound, they'll imagine his death the product of a common clash between Akhtar's rival gangs. No one will suspect the slightest correlation between the morbid happening and the resident chai wala’s closing shop days later. And no one will notice the little burqa-clad woman making her inconspicuous way back to the city, gun tucked safely in the folds of her robes, to give Ajit Doval what will undoubtedly be the best news he has received since 1999.

*

New Delhi, 2022

Doval smiles as he surveys the RAW, IB and military members in the throes of celebration around him, feeling pride seep through his tired bones. He raises his glass and the room falls silent. “One scumbag down,” he announces. “Four more to go.”

*

This story is a work of fiction based on real events. It is the author’s attempt to connect the dots between the IC 814 hijacking in December 1999 and the mysterious circumstances of a hijacker’s death in March this year, reported here by the Times of India: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/ic-814-hijacker-mistry-zahoor-ibrahim-shot-dead-in-karachi-report/articleshow/90072246.cms

Make Caste Count

In the year 2022 comes the sixteenth edition of the largest administrative and statistical exercise in the world: The 2021 Census of India. (Yup, you read that right: the enumeration was supposed to take place in 2021, but the pandemic threw a wrench in the works, postponing it by a year. We’re still calling it the 2021 Census, though!) Like multiple past Indian censuses, this survey is preceded by widespread demand for a caste census to be conducted as part of it. But what exactly would a caste census entail? Has one ever been conducted before? Wouldn’t a caste census threaten the possibility of a caste-blind society? Why, then, should we conduct one today?

Let’s begin by travelling back in time to the British Raj, when Census Commissioner W.C. Plowden conducted India’s first synchronous, nearly nationwide census in 1881. This census consisted of questions regarding everything from the mother tongue to marital status of an individual. Additionally, Hindus were asked to disclose their caste, and people of other religions, their sect. Data on caste was included in every following enumeration until 1941, when this information was gathered but not published. M.W.M Yeats, the then Census Commissioner, cited the impracticality of drawing up a graph of every caste in the country.

Even in subsequent surveys, the only caste-based classification was of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), the socioeconomically disadvantaged groups listed in Articles 341 and 342 of the Indian Constitution. Since independence, these backward classes have been granted reservation status, which guarantees them representation in higher education institutes, jobs and even our legislative bodies.

But SCs and STs aren’t the only backward classes in need of affirmative action! In 1980, the Mandal Commission, established by the Janata Party government to “identify the socially or educationally backward classes,” reported another oppressed class of society: Other Backward Classes, or OBCs, identified using eleven social, economic, and educational indicators that determined backwardness. The Commission estimated that OBCs comprised 52% of the nation’s population. It went on to recommend that they be granted reservation in 27% of jobs in the public sector, a demand which the government soon met for all OBCs with the exception of the “creamy layer” (OBCs who are financially secure enough to no longer require reservation).

While this was a significant stride towards equality, there was one remaining problem. The Mandal Commission’s estimate of 52% was just that: an estimate. After all, the last set of raw data that the Commission had to go by was from 1931, with no information on caste having been collected since. Many believed that the number of OBCs in the nation was far higher, which would render the new reservation system pointless.

Finally, in 2011, the central government orchestrated the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC). This census inquired into a person’s caste and monetary status to evaluate which castes were already thriving economically and which required assistance to grow. The intelligence it gained would have been the ideal tool to identify beneficiaries of state support… if it had been published. But the central government didn’t share the results of the SECC under the defence that the data was “fraught with mistakes and inaccuracies”. A government official further stated in 2020 that the SECC’s calculations would “be futile with us being on the verge of the next Census”.

Will the 2021 Census of India bridge this gap in information, then? Likely not, as the centre has already rejected the Maharashtra state government’s writ petition requesting an enumeration of the Backward Class of Citizens in the 2021 Census. The centre also refused Maharashtra’s plea for the SECC’s raw data to be disclosed. In an affidavit, it reiterated its stance that the SECC data was too flawed to be of use and that conducting a caste census across India was unfeasible.

Despite the alleged impossibility of carrying out a complete and accurate caste census of India, is it worth at least an attempt? Why do we need a caste census? As Satish Deshpande (author and Professor of Sociology at Delhi School of Economics) so eloquently put it in his essay on the importance of a caste census, “today, power is information, not the other way around; and the absence of information, too, is an effect of power.”

Information on the caste and corresponding socioeconomic status of every citizen of the country would empower us to reform the reservation system and other compensation schemes so that affirmative action could reach those who truly need it. It would also enable us to weed out any economically secure lower castes taking unfair advantage of the reservation system. While the reservation for SCs and STs is proportionate to their actual population, the OBCs’ 27% quota is based on a mere approximation. Can we really allow such a far-reaching system to hinge on conjecture? Even those against reservation should welcome the caste census as means to measure when centuries of caste discrimination will finally be counterbalanced so affirmative action can end.

Assertions that a caste census would contradict our forefathers’ vision of a casteless India, too, are easily disproved: a caste census would only force us to acknowledge the oppression of lower castes. We could then make amends by treating people of lower castes not equally to, but better than, those of upper castes. It is through equity, not equality, that we can even the playing field for people of all castes. It is through a caste census today that we can someday fulfil our dream of a casteless society.

Hyenas Have the Last Laugh

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I recall the trio of hyenas from childhood viewings of The Lion King, three squawking, slobbering brutes, greedily desiring an endless supply of prey from Pride Lands, foolishly believing Scar would actually grant it to them. When, if ever, you envision hyenas, the image in your mind probably isn’t much prettier; you’re more likely to imagine them as cunning, avaricious or outright evil.

More than just skulls and bones

It may surprise you to know that real hyenas are nothing like their modern media counterparts. In fact, these mammals aren’t even dyed-in-the-wool scavengers! Spotted hyenas, the most common of the four major hyena species (the others being striped, brown and aardwolf), are known to scavenge for food. But what most of us don’t realise is that they are also prolific hunters, with a higher success rate than the mighty lion. Perhaps the most shocking revelation of all is that lions are known to steal more kills from hyenas than vice-versa! As packs, hyenas hunt antelopes, wildebeests and zebras, killing the majority of their prey themselves.

This proficiency may be attributed in part to their intelligence, which is just one of their natural advantages. Evidence of this intellect lies in their remarkable teamwork. An experiment conducted at Duke University showed that hyenas work better together than the brainy chimpanzees themselves, outperforming these primates on a cooperative problem-solving test.

To gain further insight into their minds, I spoke to Lakshmi Natarajan, who has been volunteering at the Zoo Zurich for the last 15 years and working with hyenas for two. “I feel like a hyena ambassador sometimes,” she jokes as she introduces herself. “Of all the animals we have in the zoo, hyenas are the most misunderstood.” She shares how hyenas are “challenging species to have in zoos” as they “get bored quite easily”. To keep animals active and mentally healthy, the Zoo Zurich uses behavioural enrichment exercises. With hyenas, this involves concealing meat in jute sacks and hanging them up on trees for the clever creatures to sniff out.

Are hyenas the OG feminists?

Another sign of their smarts is the hyenas’ complex social behaviour. Hyenas are one of the few species that live in matriarchal societies. A group of hyenas, also known as a cackle, can consist of any number from six to 100 members. “The hierarchy is extremely strict,” Lakshmi tells me, with a dominant matriarch who decides everything from feeding timings to defence strategies; and every other female in a rigid order below her. When born, a female takes her place in society based on her mother’s ranking. “What about the males?” I wonder. “They don’t play a permanent role in the hierarchy,” Lakshmi replies. They live “on the periphery of the group” and often move to another clan at about two years of age. Therefore, the highest-ranking male in a cackle is often subordinate to its lowest-ranking female.

Female spotted hyenas are also physically larger than, and possess as much testosterone as their male counterparts. Some zoologists believe that their high levels of this hormone is what leads to an astonishing biological phenomenon: a female hyena’s pseudophallus. Yup, you read that right! Female hyenas have genitalia that is so elongated that it looks - and in some cases behaves - like a phallus. The urogenital canal running through this appendage allows it to perform urination, copulation and even be used as a birth canal. Additionally, it “prevents any forcible copulation,” Lakshmi shares, so the female chooses whether and when to mate.

But hyenas aren’t just cool creatures for us to gawk at. They are, according to Lakshmi, “absolutely essential for the ecosystem”. Hyenas consume their kills (and occasionally those of other animals) bones and all, recycling the carrion and keeping the environment clean. If not for them, several ecosystems would be filthy, rancid and rich with disease.

Busting myths

So why is it that we view hyenas as unnecessary at best, and as base, cowardly nuisances at worst? This disdain may originate from the uniquely human fear of the unknown, or xenophobia. Hyenas, with their awkwardly proportioned limbs covered in scruffy greyish-brown fur, do not appeal to us visually. Add to that their propensity to chew and digest bones directly and the females’ extraordinary pseudophalli, and they’re pretty much monsters in our eyes.

Widely considered hybrids, hyenas were excluded from the Noah’s Ark in The History of the World by Sir Walter Raleigh, who explained his belief that god would only save the “purely bred”. Ernest Hemingway, in his novel The Green Hills of Africa, described the animal as a “hermaphroditic self-eating devourer of the dead, trailer of calving cows, ham-stringer, potential biter-off of your face at night while you slept, sad yowler, camp-follower, stinking, foul, with jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves”. This notion continues unto today, when proverbs like “hyenas come with merry smiles” warning people against hypocrites are a part of our vernacular.

Why should we care?

As CNN host Brianna Keilar once said, “misinformation is a virus unto itself”. And as this virus spreads, it is hurting hyenas. People of many cultures despise hyenas, and this hatred has manifested as persecution. The striped hyena, found in Africa and Asia, is classified as Near Threatened by International Union for Conservation of Nature. The spotted hyena, brown hyena and aardwolf, meanwhile, occur naturally only in Africa. Even in this continent, Lakshmi states, violence against hyenas is common. For example, meat laced with poison is laid out to trap hyenas that venture near human territory. They are “not animals that people want to conserve,” she explains, and so even as their space is encroached upon, even as they lose their habitats, even as they are poisoned to death, there is scarcely any effort taken to save them.

It’s time to spread the word: hyenas aren’t the cruel cackling crooks you think they are. Because, to paraphrase and, in the process, absolutely butcher an old proverb: until the hyenas have their historians, tales of wildlife shall always glorify the lions.

The Beginning of the End: Part 2

This post is a continuation of my story, The Beginning of the End. To read Part 1, click here.

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“Me? Babe, I’m a twenty-two year old with no money, no home, and until last week, no job. How exactly do you expect me to get rid of this pandemic for you?”

“Scientists have traced the origins of the virus to Wuhan, to a certain virology institute in the city. Can you guess which one I’m talking about?”

“No, no, no,” I shook my head resolutely as soon as it dawned on me. “Tomorrow’s just my first day there; I can’t do something stupid to jeopardise my career immediately. And what if this is all some scam to ruin the institue? It was fine when you were just telling this elaborate tale, but now you want me to put my job at risk-”

“On the street perpendicular to this one is a bungalow with a shingled blue roof. Inside it sleeps my past self, myself from your timeline. I can take you there right away, or you can visit tomorrow before work, and see her for yourself. Furthermore, I’m willing to wait here for you until tomorrow evening; you can even tie me up to ensure that I don’t leave. Is that proof enough that this isn’t a scam?”

“I suppose,” I grumbled, “but I’m still not agreeing to anything until you clarify what you want me to do and how it’ll ‘change the course of destiny’ or whatever. Oh, and how I can carry it out without, you know, losing the one lifeline I’ve been granted through this job.”

“When you arrive at the institue tomorrow, you will be shown to a desk in a hall of shared cubicles on the second floor. At the end of the hall is an elevator. At 1 o’clock, most of the staff on your floor will begin eating their lunch, some using the elevator to visit friends on other levels. This is when you can go up to the fifth floor. Upon exiting the elevator, you will see ahead of you a long, narrow corridor. Put on a pair of gloves. The second door on the right leads to a room containing the earliest form of the SARS-CoV-2 in a glass dome. The panel beneath this dome has a series of buttons. All you have to do is press the one labelled “contain”. When it asks you to enter a password, type in the code 1-3-a-c. This will seal the container and make it impenetrable. Anyone who tries to open it won’t succeed without damaging its contents in the process. Basically, it’ll be impossible for the virus to escape into the outside world. Once you’ve guaranteed this, get back to work and keep your head down. You can report to me at the end of the workday.”

“I need some time to think about it,” I murmured. “This is all just… too much handle.”

“Perhaps this will give you some incentive to save the entire human race.” She replied contemptuously, plucking a fat wad of bills from her pocket. “300, 000 dollars. You won’t have to worry about finances for a while.”

I contemplated the money, nearly convinced. “I have one last question.”

“Go on,” she exhaled.

“In the future, where am I? Do you know me? Am I happy?”

“You’re in Beijing. You’ve got a stable career, a golden retriever, a broad circle of friends. But, no, I wouldn’t say you’re happy. You see, your mother passed away during the second COVID wave, and you haven’t been truly happy since.”

...

“Good morning!” I called to my new neighbour, Mrs Zhang, as I skipped out onto the street, cup of coffee in hand, for a breath of crisp, wintry air.

It had been a week since Diya’s visit, and my life had taken a dramatic turn for the better. 300, 000 USD was more than triple my total debt, which I had already begun to pay off; in small increments, so as to not raise suspicion. I’d moved out of the cramped one-bedroom and into a nicer place uptown with a lounge and an open kitchen and a balcony chockfull of flowers and herbs. My personality had transformed, too, after completing my mission. Once consumed with self-doubt and regret, I’d learnt to be proud, to love myself wholly and deeply. I mean, which other person could boast that they had, almost single-handedly, saved the world? I looked with excitement towards the future I had safeguarded.

I lifted the coffee to my lips, ready to taste the rich bitterness of the bean blended with the creamy sweetness of the milk. As the liquid flowed into my mouth and down my throat, though, it was flavourless. I frowned, sniffing at the rim of the cup; I could hardly detect a scent, either. Hardly had I swallowed a second sip when the first fit of coughs began.

Oh, Diya, I thought to myself, as a ripple of dread washed over me, you didn’t think to take a COVID test before meeting me, did you?

The heroes who had arrived from the future, in a blaze of glory, to deliver the human race from the pandemic, had only brought it to us sooner. They say you meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it. They’re right.

The Beginning of the End

“Remember: if you need anything, I’m just a phone call away!”

With that, the decrepit old landlady shuffled away, leaving me alone in the austere apartment I would call home for the foreseeable future. I collapsed onto a rickety, three-legged stool - the only piece of furniture in the vicinity - only for it to promptly give way, sending me toppling to the ground in a jumble of gangly limbs and cacophonous swearing. God, did I miss London.

I’d spent the four happiest years of my life studying virology at the Imperial College of London, expecting to stay and teach the same to fellow microbiology enthusiasts someday. Unfortunately, beating hundreds of my exam-acing, interview-nailing peers to a teaching post was easier said than done. Two weeks after my Visa expired, in September 2019, I arrived in Wuhan, homeless, unemployed and mourning for a version of me that had never existed, and now, never would.

But they say that when one door closes, another opens, and it wasn’t long before I came across an advertisement for an entry-level position at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Sure, it was a far cry from a professorial career in a prestigious foreign university, but as long as it paid the bills and kept me from starvation, it’d have to do for now. With that in mind, I rose, intending to head straight to bed; I didn’t want to sleepwalk through my very first day of work.

Apparently some supreme being had it out for me and had decided to add a lack of sleep to my already lengthy list of vexations, though, because soon as I began to drift off, I was roused again by the ear-splitting shriek of a decades-old doorbell.

Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I opened the door to a petite figure wrapped in an ankle-length overcoat, a nondescript baseball cap tilted over their eyes.

“Uh… who are you?” I asked, too perplexed to bother with politeness. Their reply came in the form of an identity card, extended towards me in a gloved hand. Scanning through it, I had barely discerned their name and address when something strange caught my eye: a minuscule inscription in the top right corner of the card, claiming that it had been printed in 2025, or six years from today.

“Well, this is clearly fake,” I said, tossing it back to the intruder. I turned, and made to shut the door, when they finally spoke.

“Please let me in.” Their voice was soft yet steady. “I’ll explain everything as soon as you do so.”

“And I’ll do so as soon as you tell me whom you really are.”

The stranger sighed frustratedly, then plunged their hand back into the depths of their coat, only this time, drawing out a syringe. Before I could dodge, or snatch the instrument from them, or even holler for help, I felt a sharp sting on my upper arm. A moment of realisation, a bleat of alarm, a wave of numbness, and everything went black.

...

I came to in my living room, my hands and legs tied together with thick, unyielding ropes of twine. I tried to scream, but my exclamation was muffled into a mere whisper by the surgical mask covering my mouth.

“Relax.” I lifted my eyes to my captor, who was now pacing back and forth before me. “I’m not going to harm you in any way. I would release you, if I wasn’t sure you would try to escape or attack me immediately.”

“What do you want?” I groaned, though it came out sounding more like “waf joo oo wam?”

Somehow, they seemed to comprehend my words, because they responded simply, “to speak to you.”

With that, they shrugged off their coat to reveal an equally nondescript t-shirt and trousers, and crouched in front of me, resting their chin on their right palm. “First things first, let me introduce myself. I am, in fact, the Diya Khanna from the ID card I showed you. Another truth, though perhaps a less believable one, is that I live in the year 2025.”

I rolled my eyes and scoffed, no longer afraid of this stranger in my flat; after all, if she were planning to hurt me, wouldn’t she have done so by now? Besides, realising that she was a woman, a young, Asian one at that, provided some comfort to my disoriented mind.

“Look,” she exclaimed frustratedly, once again revealing the impatient nature beneath her otherwise detached demeanour, “I know that this is difficult to digest. I know that. But you have to open your mind and listen to me, because frankly, you don’t have any other option.”

Taking a deep breath, she continued, “time travel technology, an idea you’ve probably only been exposed to in works of fiction, has existed in the hands of the USA’s government since the early 2000s. While state scientists had run contained, risk-free tests with it, they agreed never to attempt to alter the past, fearing a major ripple effect that could turn the entire world on its head. In 2024, though, something happened that caused them to rethink this decision. Something so deadly that it ruined economies, overturned governments, annihilated entire populations. Something so terrible that any change in it, no matter how unexpected, could only be for the better. The seventh worldwide wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

...

“And that last vaccine, the one produced in 2022, that didn’t work either?”

“Technically, it worked, but only against the Omicron variant. The virus just mutated again and overcame it by the end of the year.”

As Diya narrated the horrors to come in the following six years, with sprinklings of statistics and spoonfuls of scientific evidence, I found myself trusting her against my own will. Eventually, she had loosened my mask, allowing me to voice my questions, which she answered as effortlessly as a practised virologist describing the basic structure of a cell.

She revealed how a virus had spread across China in December 2019, and reached every nook and cranny of the globe in mere months’ time. How it came in waves, tricking people into thinking it was gone during low tide and then returning during high tide to drown unsuspecting divers. How every precaution, every defence, every cure failed in the face of this mystifyingly murderous phenomenon. How the USA, after losing a tenth of its population, was forced to resort to means it had hoped never to even consider.

She showed me the letter she had received in mid-March in 2025, inviting her to a dinner party with a hand-picked collection of politicians, scholars and virologists, an NDA attached to the sheet. There, in a soundproof, windowless room in the White House’s West Wing, she had been covertly enlisted to join the force that would change the course of fate forever.

“But how does telling me all of this help?” I inquired, curious to finally hear how I’d gotten involved in this imbroglio.

“Well, before we arrived here, each of the nine travellers had a mission to fulfil. Mine was to find the person who could prevent this entire pandemic from occurring by a single action. And that person is you.”

Part 2 will be up on Friday, 7th January. Meanwhile, don't hesitate to leave a comment with your predictions on what happens next!

Squid Game: What Makes it Special?

Since its release on 17th September, Squid Game has quickly become Netflix’s most watched series of all time. The show revolves around 456 people, each deeply in debt, who enter a tournament that promises them an escape from their financial struggle in the form of a cash prize of billions of won (Korean currency). What they don’t realise until the first round, however, is that the contest’s losers must pay a deadly price.

The concept of the show is fairly simple - every episode, the characters play a game. The few who win this game progress to the next round, until by the end, only a handful remain to claim the final prize. So why exactly is their story so appealing to such a broad range of audiences? How is it that in less than a month, Squid Game has gained 111 million viewers, beating fan favourites like Bridgerton, The Witcher, and Stranger Things to the top spot?

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Squid Game.

First of all, there’s the rather obvious aspect of the show’s spot-on commentary on capitalism. Like in The Hunger Games, the impoverished, underprivileged, and mistreated are forced to fight to their deaths, each of them merely a pawn in a game that the ultra-rich watch for entertainment. What sets Squid Game apart, though, is this simple fact: every one of the participants in these games makes a conscious choice to play them.

In signing consent forms, in voting, in staying in the competition even when offered a chance to leave, the contestants repeatedly choose to place themselves in immediate danger of grisly, gruesome deaths. The idea that hundreds of people would go through such torture just for a fleeting chance (ironically, a chance offered to them by the very perpetuators of the system that oppresses them) at a life of freedom from starvation, from debt, from all the evils of the capitalist economy, punches the viewer in the gut, awakening them to the incredible agony caused by the laissez-faire system. As reasoned by Arirang Meari, "Squid Game gained popularity because it exposes the reality of South Korean capitalist culture." While a North Korean state-run site may not be the most credible source around, this is still a point worth reflecting on!

Another unique and unexpected concept the series explores is that of equality. The characters in Squid Game have all faced extreme forms of inequality before entering the tournament. There’s Ali, who faces racial inequality. He migrates from Pakistan to South Korea hoping to secure a stable job, is exploited ruthlessly by his employer, and finds himself unable to feed his family. Then there’s Sang-Woo, who faces socio-economic inequality. After growing up in poverty, he briefly benefits off the capitalist regime, only to find himself drowning beneath its treacherous tides all over again.

The game’s organiser realises this, and even explains, “everyone is equal while they play this game. Here, the players get to play a fair game under the same conditions. Those people suffered from inequality and discrimination out in the world, and we’re giving them the last chance to fight fair and win.”

On the surface, this policy seems to ensure that all the players are equal in every sense. What it fails to take into account, though, is the fact that some players are already at a disadvantage due to overlooked factors. Both Sae-Byok and Ji-Yeong, being women and therefore physically weaker than the others, are excluded from multiple alliances and obliged to find their own means of survival. Similarly, Player 001 has the lower hand throughout the tournament simply due to his age, which slows down his mind and body. For these contestants to be equal to the others, they must first be granted additional benefits to compensate for those they naturally lack.

Here, Squid Game accurately and realistically demonstrates the difference between equality and equity, while keeping the theme subtle enough not to dominate the plot of a single episode.

The series also touches on universal human qualities, which are relatable to viewers across the globe. Dan Brown once wrote that “when they face desperation… human beings become animals.” This is true of the world’s entire population, including you and me, and Squid Game proves it time and time again.

While several pieces of media romanticise human desperation, this serial’s portrayal of the emotion is dark, dolorous and real. Contestants who start out as optimistic, idealistic, and generally good at heart become self-serving, immoral and inhumane. People who usually wouldn’t hurt a fly commit atrocities in the blink of an eye just for a minute increase in their chances of survival. By the end of the show, the characters have descended so far into depravity that they are barely recognisable as their original selves. Squid Game forces viewers to confront the darkest parts of themselves when they realise that they would make the same perverted choices as the players were they thrown into the same perverted circumstances.

Finally, despite all this, Squid Game’s perspective on humanity is not entirely cynical. At the very end of the series (minor spoilers ahead), Gi-Hun makes a final bet, this one on the inherent goodness of people. Just as the audience begins to lose faith in Gi-Hun’s belief that there is still some virtue in humankind, a single good deed proves him right after all. However bluntly, almost aggressively, the programme showcases humankind’s flaws, it leaves us with a message of assurance. That however dire circumstances may seem, there is always a chance that things will get better. The idea of hope, represented in various charcaters’ small yet significant acts of kindness throughout the series, is summarised succintly in this one scene.

Squid Game fascinates every one of us because it represents our everyday struggle for survival, albeit in an exaggerated, dramatised manner. It is a must-watch for everyone, from a casual Netflix enthusiast to a serious Marxist reformer.

Prompt Writing: "The virus was born in Wuhan"

Disclaimer: The events of this story are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people, places or happenings is due to the author’s complete lack of originality.

The virus was born in Wuhan. There are theories about what caused it - a freak of nature, perhaps, or a virology experiment gone wrong - but no concrete proof has been found either way. Besides, we have far more pressing problems to deal with first. As I was saying, the virus was born in Wuhan, but it didn’t stay there forever. It spread, and it spread, and it spread, until it had reached every corner of China, from the beetle-frying, puppy-boiling kitchen of a popular restaurant in Beijing, to a store in Shanghai that sold fans and parasols made in Japan as exotic Chinese paraphernalia to unsuspecting tourists. Still, China’s government turned a blind eye to it, unhelpful and unsympathetic.

By the end of the year, the contagion had reached Spain, USA, India, more countries than I can venture to name. It was given the name COVID - CO for Corona, the virus’ family, VI for virus, and D for disease. Ignoring it was no longer an option. Instead, terms like “contact tracing” and “vaccine testing” began to jump out from every newspaper’s headline, the once-low demand for masks and sanitiser bottles shot through the roof, and a man in Uttar Pradesh made a fortune selling magical cow urine that, once swallowed, would supposedly grant its drinker immunity from the virus.

Despite thousands of statements to the contrary from brainy boffins across the globe, people persisted in believing that the threat was temporary, and would be gone in mere months’ time. They continued to live their lives as they pleased, sanitising their hands every now and then and wearing their masks below their chins and demanding of anyone who questioned them, “what’s the point in staying home when this virus will be gone in a couple of weeks anyway? Just chill out.”

Alas, those boffins were right. Before long, hospitals everywhere were filled to the brim with the infected, while the few and fortunate healthy stayed locked up at home, now too afraid to step out even to buy groceries. In Italy, deaths surpassed availability of graves by so much that rotting corpses lined the streets of every city. In the USA, President Trump announced 99% of COVID cases were “totally harmless” as people coughed to death three blocks away. And in North Korea, any civilian found infected with the virus, be they adult or child, was allegedly shot dead on the spot to prevent further diffusion. The entire world was in pandemonium.

When we had just about given up hope on our lives ever returning to normal, though, we discovered a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. A vaccine was released. 13 different vaccines, in fact, from the AstraZeneca’s sought-after Covishield to the Russian Federation’s Sputnik V, which might as well have been cow urine for the public’s lack of faith in it.

The rich were vaccinated first, of course. They carried out their own form of contact tracing, locating doctors and hospital owners and vaccine suppliers to beg of and borrow from and bribe. The middle class, too, were soon vaccinated by corporate, neighbourhood and government sponsored drives. Last came the poor, who gratefully accepted whichever cure was available to them, be it a sealed vial of Covishield or a random plastic box containing an unknown florescent liquid. Soon, there weren’t many who remained unvaccinated. There was the Texan Patrick Patriot, who refused to be injected with a serum that would supposedly make him autistic. There was the Tamilian Shailaja Swami, who had heard from her neighbour that the vaccines were made in China, “just like every other piece of kuppai in this world,” and would probably be the death of them all. There was the British Con Spirator, who declared to anybody who wanted to listen - and even those who didn’t - that Bill Gates had planted a chip in every dose of the vaccine, and could now monitor the activity of vaccinated individuals.

Despite this handful of fools, the majority of the global population was fully vaccinated by the beginning of 2023. We celebrated, believing we were safe, imagining we were finally, finally free of the menace that had plagued our lives since 2020. We had no means of knowing, then, of the decades of agony to come. Of the hundreds of mutations, the thousands of onslaughts, the millions of deaths. We had no means of knowing that this was only the beginning.