PI Traveller

Where does that smell come from? Yuck...

I woke up with a thud. It was all the wonders made by my alarm clock.

Surprised?

A wonderful so called gift from my darling love.

Alarm clocks are the greatest monsters I have ever come across.

No. That falls second. The greatest of all is the one who presented this - Ms. Diya Venkat.

Can you imagine how horrible this clock is? Knowing I would never wake up for any kind of sound, my love had presented me with a specially made olfactory alarm clock, which smells horrible which would guide me to awakening. Worst nightmare.

I never used it all these days until now. We both have come to Pondicherry, India for a big day. This is supposed to be our last trip as lovers. Yes. We are getting married soon.

I feel very excited. But then, this smell. Ahhhh.!

'Diyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. It smells yuck. Please get this shit out of here.!', I shouted.

She came closer to me, smiling. 'Wake up. We have not come here to sit inside this room. We got to get ready for the photo-shoot we had planned. Come on. Soon', she whispered and moved out of the room.

Thank god. The rotten smell vanished with the sweet scent of my Diya. I looked at the Calendar, which read March 14th, 2114. Counting the days for the biggest event of my life. Just a fortnight to go.

With this excitement, I was ready in no less than half an hour. Diya was still dressing herself. Ha! These gals will never get tired of admiring them. And of course, this happens to be our pre-wedding photo shoot. So some additional effort would be made definitely. The photographer would call me in sometime.

'Diya! Ready? Shall we make a move',I walked towards the lawn checking my mobile for messages.

What am I looking at? I had received a message from a private number by 1:59 AM, which had some puzzle and also said that I would get the greatest treasure if I crack the puzzle.

Crap! These kind of junk messages are common these days. I just thought of ignoring it.

But the puzzle seems to be interesting. I thought why not to solve it while waiting for Diya.

This was the puzzle. "One greater than a square and one less than a cube. Get into this rhombicuboctahedron as the first step of your great find".

I had little idea what a rhombicuboctahedron means. Some botanical name of a plant? Name of a street or building? But Pondicherry has most of their streets named after French.

Let’s leave that tongue twister for now. One greater than a square and one less than a cube? This must be some number. My hands went on to enable data in my mobile to seek google's help. No, I controlled myself. Let me give a try. With 5 minutes of hard work, I found out the answer. It is 26. Yippee.! I still find my brain to be working and is not completely dead. Technology has ruined mankind to greater extent.

But What am I to do with this 26? What is a rhombicuboctahedron? For this, I definitely needed google's help.

Gotcha.! It has 26 sides. Must be a building. The Place where myself and Diya are about to leave now. It is the largest building constructed in India recently with 26 faces and 70 storeys. And it has been named after the 26th Alphabet, Zee. This Place has attraced many tourists in the recent past. And this is the first time we are going to visit.

So the treasure lies in the Zee building? But the puzzle said that it would be the first step of my great find.

'Am ready', Diya came running with her standard smile. She looks gorgeous as ever. This time, I don’t have words to describe her.

'How am I looking? This makeup suits me? I don’t feel comfortable with these shoes. Why didn’t you dress up with the suit we had already decided? But this suits you as well. Blue and white, my all-time favorite......', and this went on, as we got into our car. She never waits for my reply and keeps on talking. And I loved this chatterbox.

We were heading towards the Zee building. As she paused for a moment, I found that to be my only chance to talk to her about the message which I received. Surprisingly, she opened her inbox and showed me the same message which was delivered to her on the same time.

By then I definitely decided the message to be a crap. But then I had a slightest thought to explore as we were already heading towards the same building. It is just happening and I’m not going to spend time to explicitly search for the treasure. But Diya wanted to find what awaits us in the Zee building. She always gets excited about solving puzzles. And this more or less seems to be a treasure hunt. And she wanted to try her hunt. I tried to explain her that it is crap. Though she knew it, she wanted to give a try. As always, she succeeded the argument.

We reached the place by 9:45 AM. Our photographer would arrive by 10:30 AM. The Building was full of awesomeness. It would definitely take a week to explore this place thoroughly. Each floor had its own speciality and significance.

'This place is real excellence’, Diya was happy. She jumped out of joy and started to check the building map placed at the very entrance. Each floor has a separate entrance fee.

By then my mobile beeped. So did Diya's at the same time. We both opened our inbox and surprised to see the next puzzle. "I am a decimal number. My hexadecimal value is just my reverse". We both looked at each other for a moment. The next moment Diya started to look for that number and succeeded in her try. "Fifty-three", she shouted. But what to do with just 53? We were puzzled. She then continued to look at the building Map to get the details of the 53rd floor. It was named after Einstein.

'Looks like a museum. What is so special about that? I’m not interested', I said.

'Looks like there must be some significance. We shall try our luck', Pleaded Diya.

I had so much hatred towards Mr.Newton and Mr.Einstein. These people spoiled my school days. I didn’t have slightest interest to check for this guy's museum. I followed Diya just for her sake.

Before I had time to think more about it, we both got another beep. It read, "Last minute in a given hour". This time we didn’t have any clue. Could be something related to time.

The museum explained about time travel, theory of relativity. I was totally out of this context. Suddenly, something caught my eyes. It saw a pair of antique watches. The design and look was astounding. I wanted to get them but it is not for sale. We stole it and left that place as we got a call from our photographer.

'The watch is not running', said Diya with a childish face. I smiled and looked at my new antique watch. The watch was stuck at 1:59 AM. To our surprise, both the watches showed the same time.

As we were walking to the place where our photographer was waiting, I just had this sequence in my mind. What would be it? Why are the watches showing 1:59? There must be definitely something behind this.

I just sat in a recreation area. 'I want to sort this out Diya', I said.

She sat by me with a smile.

"Just tell me. It is march 14th. We got a message at 1:59 AM. The answer for the first puzzle was 26. It drove us to this building. The answer for the second puzzle is 53. It drove us to this floor. And we still have not found the answer to the third puzzle. What does this drive us to?” I yelled.

"3,14,1,59,26,53.. These numbers are dancing in my brain", I said.

Diya, immediately shouted."It is Pi. The Value of Pi is 3.14159265359. And 14th of March is celebrated as the Pi day".

I then realized, “And the answer for the last puzzle must be 59. And yes, it is the last minute of a given hour as an hour has only 60 minutes. Diya, We are in Pondicherry, India. That adds on to another perspective of PI". I got relieved.

"But what is the treasure? Where is the treasure? Is there really one, for us to explore more", questioned Diya.

As she was flooding me with her questions, I looked at the watch we got and tried to set the time. I was not able to change the time. I was only able to change the year. I moved it to the right and it ended up in 2014.

Our watch started ringing alarm with white light flashing all over I was blind. My whole vision flushed and I couldn’t open my eyes. Everything was white, pleasant then I rub my eyes to open them wide. There was a sudden silence. Where am I? Where is Diya? I didn’t find her beside me. I was found to be in a place totally new to me. I was seated in a cubicle with an old aged computer before me. The monitor read, march 2014 1:59 PM. I had the watch in my hand.

What is happening? I don’t understand anything? Have I travelled back in time? Is the watch a time machine? Is this the treasure? Where is Diya? Have I left her in 2114? What am I supposed to do here without her?

Suddenly I heard someone disturbing my thought. 'Shall we go for lunch?'

A familiar voice. I turned back. And it is Diya.