Nala and Hanuman are on their way to meet Nala’s brother, Nila. Nala shares stories from their childhood.
Hanuman: Nila sounds extremely skilled.
Nala: This is nothing! Do you want to see something even more amazing?
Hanuman: Of course!
Nala takes a stone and throws it into the water. Hanuman’s eyes widen in surprise, as the stone floats in the water instead of sinking!
Hanuman: How did you do that?
Nala: When my brother and I were toddlers, we lived close to the hermitage of sage Sutikshna who worshipped God in the form of a stone called “shaligram” (a special type of black stone collected from the riverbed of the river Gandaki in Nepal).
Nala draws the stone, which looks like a spiral. Technically, the stones are fossils of ammonite shells of cephalopods that existed about 66 million years ago.
Nala: To us, the stone looked like a toy. So we picked it up and threw it in the water. The sage got angry and cursed us that any solid object we throw into the water will never sink.
Hanuman: That sounds more like a superpower than a curse.
They laugh.
Nala: Nila and I used to wonder if there was a scientific explanation behind the stone floating. So we experimented with various models.
Hanuman: That is not at all surprising, considering that you are the sons of Vishwakarma, the great architect. So did you manage to figure it out?
Nala: Yes. We managed to build a model that could float. It’s called a Hovercraft.
Hanuman: Can you show me how to build one too?
Nala: Sure! (Scroll down for instructions to build the hovercraft model.)
While Nala talks about his “curse”, Hanuman does not realise that it will play an important role in the future: in the building of the floating bridge that will lead Rama and his army to Lanka to defeat Ravana.
The writer is the founder and CEO of Vaayusastra Aerospace, an IIT-Madras incubated ed-tech startup that offers Air Science workshops for children between five and 14 years.
How to build a hovercraft | Photo Credit: Satheesh Vellinezhi
