Operation Liquidus

Operation Liquidus is a novel that starts with the Pope fainting in the Easter Mass in Vatican because he sees in the crowd a man who resembles an Islamic terrorist. The man is arrested by the Italian police and then unfolds a big story of the hero of the novel. His name is Kris. He is from Palestine but lands in Kashmir by a quirk of fate. He is helped by a Muslim family and ends up marrying the two daughters of Rasheed. They manage to get the release of Kris by meeting the pope when Kris is still in jail. After his release Kris has a private audience with the pope and confronts the pope on many things that take place in the Vatican. Though the pope is upset and sends him out he decides to reform the Church finance institutions. This upsets the applecart of powerful US Cardinals who conspire and poison the pope to death. They also begin to target Kris. He has an encounter with Rocky and Saul in the Colosseum. History and philosophy of the Church ensue in the discussions with the second coming of Jesus as the central point. Kris realizes that the two elderly gentlemen are Peter and Paul. They die in the Colosseum and Kris returns to India.

Back in India he encounters Karmachand, the freedom fighter of India. Karmachand had helped Rasheed to get Kris released earlier from the Italian police and therefore, Kris lands up in Sabarmati Ashram of Karmachand along with his two Muslim wives, Rhea and Fatima. They find the experiments with truth of Karmachand nauseating. Also the conflict between Karmachand and his wife ends in their separation and Kris decides to stay back with Karmachand's wife and develop the Ashram into a famous international center for the poor. International Media is attracted. One of them is Mueller from Germany. After the death of Mataji, who is the wife of Karmachand, Mueller invites them to Germany to stay and work with a very famous German philosopher Karl. In the plane they also meet Bhim, the Dalit philosopher from India. There is a confluence of three philosophers from East and West. Mueller brings the three of them together in the media event. Unfortunately an attempt is made on Kris. Karl who rushes to his rescue is shot down dead. Kris is critically wounded. He has to stay in Germany till investigations are over. The Secretary of State from the US visits Germany to meet the German Chancellor to hush up the involvement of the Cardinals in the murder of Karl. However, the media digs up the story and brings Sr. Alice who actually poisoned the pope. She did not know that she was poisoning. Passionate love for Cardinal Tiburtius blinds her. But she realizes the gravity of her mistake and together with Sr. Emilia plots to get to the roots of the truth. She comes on German TV with a gadget in which she recorded the entire plot as confessed by Cardinal Tiburtius. However, business connections of the Cardinals with the President of the US help them to bury the truth and the German courts sentence Alice to be sent to a lunatic asylum.

Mueller takes Kris, Rhea and Fatima to a tour of Germany. This is a poetic phase in the novel. They have an encounter with gay life in Mueller. He explains to them about his personal life as Gay. Kris and Bhim come in direct dialectics about Buddhism and Bhim regrets his conversion to Buddhism. However, he decides to part company with Kris and goes back to India. Muller receives an invitation to take along with him the Kris trinity to the first ever world parliament of Indigenous peoples. This is organized by Selvan, a Dalit from India. The World Parliament takes place in Porto Alegre in Brazil. Rhea and Fatima are flabbergasted at the revolutionary talks of Kris. On the second day of the World Parliament Kris is shot dead by hired goons of the US Cardinals. Mueller bids farewell to Rhea and Fatima who had already decided to return to India with Selvan. This was also the last desire of Kris. Ammaji, the wife of Selvan welcomes them and introduces them to Dalit culture. They recollect at night in the Dalit Ashram the confrontation Fatima had with Kris on his identity the night before his death. Fatima suspects that her husband cannot be a mere human being. She storms out of the room in anger at midnight and meets a Shaman woman from the Native Americans. After long meditation and prayer the Shaman woman reveals to Fatima that her husband indeed is Jesus. She rushes back to the room to reveal the secret to her sister. Kris maintains that he is not divine and that he is a normal human being risen from burning ashes. As they set out to the villages next morning with Ammaji she touches the stomach of Rhea and asks: “Has not your husband left a worm in your stomach”. But it was Fatima who jumped in with a reply, “Ammaji, he will come, Kris will come again and again.

“Krishna nee begane baro,
Come back as Jesus
Come back as Allah
Come back as anyone….

The song from Colonial Cousins reverberated. Selvan had turned the volume high.

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