Read Turbulence for Free Online

want vada-pav, mutton kolhapuri and pizza. With lots of jalapenos. That’s what I want.”
    There’s a huge muffled boom from upstairs.
    “The Scientist at work,” Bob says.
    “Aman told me the soundproofing was finished,” Tia says.
    “It is,” Bob says, and sniggers.
    “Can I meet him?” Uzma asks. “Sorry, I’ve been up really late the last few nights and I’m terribly awake. Can we go up?”
    “You should definitely meet him,” Bob says.
    “I’d rather not,” Tia says, covering a forced yawn with a delicate hand. “He hates being disturbed when he’s working. I think we should all go to sleep.”
    Uzma recognises refusals when she sees them, and doesn’t push the matter.
    An hour later, Uzma is nowhere near sleep; her body has become accustomed to heading out for the second party at around this hour. The coolness that enveloped the house has vanished: it’s a hot and muggy night, and aspiring queens of Bollywood do not enjoy sweating under creaky fans. The only sounds to be heard in the house are dull clangs from the third floor. Uzma decides it is time to be social again.
    After swiftly and silently climbing the stairs, Uzma finds the third floor’s layout is the same as hers. The door of the room directly above hers is open. She sees Bob stretched out on his bed, asleep, his hands clasping his considerable belly. He appears to be in some discomfort; his face is clenched and he’s sweating profusely. Not finding anything in this sight to engage her extensively, Uzma turns and walks down the narrow corridor by the stairs to the door behind which lie the Scientist and his Vulcan-like clangs. She knocks, quietly at first, and then loudly, and then, unused to rejection, starts banging on the door, even before she remembers the room has been soundproofed.
    After a few minutes, the door opens and Tia comes out, adjusting her clothes.
    “What’s wrong?” Tia asks.
    “Nothing. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come up and hang out with the guys if they were awake. Am I — sorry, I think I’ll just go back to bed. Good night.”
    The door to the Scientist’s room is ajar behind Tia, and a bright green light comes out of the room, making Tia’s head glow a vaguely sinister green. Uzma flinches a bit when Tia beams at her and her teeth shine fluorescent.
    “No, you’re not interrupting anything,” Tia says with a giggle. “I just like being here and watching him work sometimes. Come in. Make as much noise as you like, you won’t disturb him.”
    Uzma wants to point out that Tia had said, just a while ago, that the Scientist hated being disturbed. Instead, she tiptoes in and observes the Scientist’s room with a mixture of awe and incredulity.
    The wall between two bedrooms has been knocked down, forming one large hall. The sizeable windows have been shut and covered; a gigantic split air-conditioner hums away on a wall. To Uzma’s left is a ceiling-high pile of assorted objects and apparatus: metal sheets, wooden planks, boxes full of screws and bolts and other little thingummies that Uzma cannot name, naked computer motherboards, containers of an incredible variety of shapes, materials and sizes, dozens of tools for cutting, welding and shaping, miscellaneous toys and gadgets, vehicle spare parts, gas cylinders, evil-looking liquids bubbling in flasks that sit on stands, rising out of the debris like lighthouses. A lot of these have been wired, soldered or otherwise melded into nameless machines, each of which is performing its own assigned mysterious task.
    The sheer variety of objects is stunning. It would not besurprising if the entire mass rose and formed a bizarre sentient golem-like creature, the love-child of a laboratory, a witch’s cauldron and the bedroom of Leonardo da Vinci as a child. From this mountain of scrap, hundreds of wires trail out across the room, at first in amorously intertwined clusters, but then forming independent streams and tributaries, flowing across an