The Monsoon of the Covenant

The white Ambassador car crunched to a halt on the gravel road, its engine ticking in the humid night air. Ravi Menon adjusted his press credentials and watched as the motorcade's dust settled under the harsh glare of the floodlights. The former Prime Minister's campaign had already made three stops that evening, each one running later than scheduled. Now, at five minutes past ten, thousands of people pressed against the rope barriers in the small town of Sriperumbudur, their faces gleaming with sweat and anticipation. The car door opened. Rajiv Gandhi emerged, straightening his white kurta as his security detail formed a protective semicircle around him. At forty-six, he moved with the easy confidence of a man who had been greeting crowds since childhood, his father's political legacy written in every gesture. The crowd erupted. "Gandhi! Gandhi! Gandhi!" The chant rolled across the field like thunder. Hands thrust forward over the barriers. Camera bulbs flashed. Children waved small Congress flags while their mothers clutched jasmine garlands, hoping for the honor of garlanding the man who might soon lead India again. Gandhi raised his hand in acknowledgment, and the crowd's roar doubled in intensity. The former Prime Minister began his slow walk toward the dais fifty meters away. This was the moment everyone had been waiting for—when Gandhi would wade into the crowd, accepting garlands and touching hands with the common people who adored him. A group of schoolchildren rushed forward first, their teacher guiding them past the security cordon. Gandhi smiled and bent down as they draped tiny marigold garlands around his neck. He touched each child's head in blessing, his movements unhurried despite the late hour. Next came the Congress party workers, each carrying elaborate garlands of roses and jasmine. Gandhi accepted each one graciously, the flowers piling higher around his shoulders until he looked like a moving shrine. The photographer with the large camera was capturing it all, his flash popping every few seconds as he documented what would surely be front-page material for tomorrow's newspapers. Ravi found himself studying the sea of faces around him. Something felt electric tonight, charged with more than just political fervor. Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour, or the way the shadows fell between the floodlights, but he couldn't shake the feeling that unseen eyes were watching everything with unusual intensity. That's when he noticed her. A young woman in a simple olive-green salwar kameez, perhaps twenty years old, standing quietly at the edge of the crowd. Unlike everyone else, she wasn't pushing forward or calling out. She simply waited, a floral garland held loosely in her hands, her dark eyes fixed not on Gandhi but on something beyond him. There was something unsettling about her stillness in the midst of such chaos. Gandhi was closer now, twenty feet away, still accepting garlands from an endless line of well-wishers. The security men flanked him, their eyes constantly scanning the crowd, but they had seen nothing suspicious. Why would they? This was exactly what they expected—excited supporters offering traditional honors to their leader. Fifteen feet. The young woman began moving forward, not pushing through the crowd but flowing around the edges like water finding its course. Her movements were calm, purposeful, as if she had walked this exact path a hundred times before in her mind. Ten feet. Gandhi was directly in front of her now, still draped in layers of colorful garlands. He turned toward her with the same warm smile he had shown everyone else that evening. She stepped forward and offered her own garland. Five feet. Their eyes met for a brief moment. Gandhi nodded his acceptance and leaned forward slightly to make it easier for her to place the flowers around his neck. Instead, she bent low, as if to touch his feet in the traditional gesture of reverence. It was 10:10 PM exactly. The sound came first. Not the sharp crack Ravi had expected, but something deeper. A bass note that seemed to rise from the earth itself, a sound that he felt in his chest before his ears could process it. The ground beneath his feet trembled. Then came the light. A brilliant white flash that turned night into day for a split second, searing afterimages into Ravi's retinas. The floodlights seemed dim by comparison. Finally, the shockwave. The invisible fist that picked him up and threw him backward into the crowd, his notebook flying from his hands, his breath driven from his lungs. Around him, bodies tumbled like leaves in a hurricane. When the ringing in his ears subsided enough for him to hear again, there was only screaming. Ravi pulled himself to his knees, his head spinning. Where the former Prime Minister had been standing moments before, there was now only a smoking crater in the red earth. The photographer with the large camera lay motionless nearby, his equipment scattered but somehow still intact. The young woman in the olive-green salwar had vanished as if she had never existed. Bodies lay scattered in a rough circle around the blast site. Some moved weakly, calling for help in voices thin with shock. Others would never move again. The sweet scent of jasmine and roses had been replaced by something acrid and metallic that made Ravi's stomach churn. Emergency whistles shrieked in the distance. Security men shouted orders that no one could follow. The crowd that had been cheering moments before now surged in panic toward the exits, trampling anyone too slow to get out of the way. Ravi staggered to his feet, his legs unsteady. His press credentials hung in tatters from his shirt. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead. He knew he had to get into office immediately, the press would be screaming for his report. He looked once more at the crater where Rajiv Gandhi had been accepting garlands from supporters who loved him enough to wait hours in the heat just to touch his hand. Fifteen people had died in that crater. Fifteen people who had simply been in the wrong place when a young woman in olive-green decided to touch the feet of a former Prime Minister. As Ravi stumbled away from the carnage with the fleeing crowd, one image burned in his mind above all others: the absolute calm in her dark eyes as she had bent down in that final moment.