Chapter 5

                                    

                                          
Jasnoor felt awkward for being have set this task. It was too tough for her, mostly because she wasn’t a great cook. Even if she managed to cook something good at all, it would take supposedly a few days for her to master that technique. She was not good at sewing, too, and not to mention her clumsiness in knitting two strings of yarn in an hour.
                          
She could simply not finish searching for a treasure; that too underground. She felt her memory ebbing away from her already. What was she supposed to do?
                          
She could just do what she was supposed to. She checked her ingredients on the table:  a few loaves of bread, some butter, cheese slices and a small tava. This was all she could muster of making: a simple sandwich. This sandwich would have to be simple. Really hard it would be. She fumbled with the knives for a moment, and finally she was able to cut a few pieces of cheese.
                          
She had to do ten more in around ten more minutes. How much time could she waste? Suddenly, her friend, Madhumita appeared behind her, apparently dropping from a trapdoor above them on the ceiling. She whispered, ‘Jasnoor, I can make things appear out of thin air, you know! What do you want? Tell me, fast! I have to reappear onstage after two minutes!’
                          
Jasnoor thought rapidly. What would she need to make her task easier? A knife which could cut automatically? No, that would be impossible. Perhaps a bottle opener? That would be waste of her time. She kept on eliminating choices till she got it: a bread toaster!
                          
‘Quick, give me a toaster. Fast!’
                          
Madhumita looked like she was concentrating really hard (like once she had during a history test), and suddenly a toaster appeared out of thin air in front of Jasnoor.
                          
‘I caught it!’ she exclaimed.
                          
‘Good luck!’ Madhumita said and disappeared.
                          
Jasnoor had no time left, she had to do it. She assembled the contents in place and made a passable toast.
                          
She rushed on to the knitting loom. Two pink sets of yarn lay waiting for her. She picked them up and started sewing them. She found these very soft and smooth. Not silk, but something as valuable as that.
                          
She continued knitting, till she got a nymph sized sweater. She had somehow done this in a short while. Five past eight: twenty five minutes to go!
                          
She rushed along the corridor to the outside ground, where there was a hole. As she came nearer, this divided into two more holes. Then, she found out that one of these holes had to be correct. The others were fake.
                          
She somehow sensed that the third path, the one to her left, had some kind of unearthly metal inside. She knew that would be precious. She went in. 
                          
The tunnel seemed long, dark and endless. She whispered, and it echoed down the low ceilinged tunnel.
                          
She kept on walking till she found a small block of pure pink metal, lustrous and beautiful, yet it did not feel like part of the Earth. It felt almost heavenly.
                          
She saw the sign next to it, Lakshmi Kamal Stone the most precious stone of the heavens, only next in value to the Kailashanath Diamond.
                          
She had no real idea what Kailashanath Diamond was, but she found a staircase.  She ran up the staircase.
                          
It emerged right in the heart of the Sabha, and she heard loud cheering coming from her left. It was Swati: she looked really calmer now, and much, much less talkative. She radiated a sense of power Nandita and Ashwin did last night.
                          
It meant only one thing: Swati was claimed; she had a beautiful serpent hovering over her head. She was the daughter of Vishnu: the maintainer, the operator. She was in Altar Five.
                          
Behind, Madhumita was searching for Jasnoor. She spotted her, and she ran forwards.
                          
‘Jasnoor! You made it! I thought you wouldn’t be able to finish within the time limit! You were simply excellent!’ she said.
                          
Jasnoor didn’t know how Madhumita came to know of this but that was explained. There was a TV screen in the front.
                          
‘My dear friends, Jasnoor, also, will not be insulted mentally, and behold...’ Jasnoor’s face illuminated with pink light. A lotus appeared over her head. ‘...Jasnoor, the Almighty Daughter of Lakshmi, the bringer of wealth, valour, and gentleness! Jasnoor may join Altar Six, if you please,’ boomed Narada.
                          
‘Madhumita, I realized in the cookery area, you create things, right? So, you are the daughter of Brahma!’ said Ashwin.
                          
‘Of course, so I am in Altar Three! Lucky me... anyway, I have to learn this art. It is not so easy, you know.’ Madhumita said so and marched away to congratulate Swati.
                          
Of course, Gaurav was still missing, but no one noticed that.