Chapter 1: three men, three Missions

Inspector Sethu Raviraman had many regrets. Foremost, he regretted being a police officer.

He had already drained three cups of plain tea, and smoked as many cigarettes, in his bid to make sense of the evidence that was in front of him. The process of assembling evidence had taken his finest men more than three weeks. All those days had to count for something, Sethu told himself.

Sethu realised that he had two problems. One, there wasn’t much evidence to work with. Two, more importantly, his brain was acting weird. The problem he did not notice, of course, was that his brain had always acted weird.

He stared at his messy desk. His eyes caught a piece paper titled ‘The Authoritative List of Suspects’. And he was not surprised to find that the list contained only one name.

The only name belonged to Mr.Thiruppathy Thangathurai.

Now, Mr Thiruppathy Thangathurai had a criminal history. In fact, he was the only person the Department had arrested in the last thirty years.

The officer who made the arrest had been promptly promoted to national service. Sargent Selvadurai was a good man, thought Sethu as he recalled the day of the arrest. It was easily the most glorious day for the Department in a very long time.

In a place like Nallur, having a criminal history (strictly meaning ‘getting arrested’) meant that you were the prime – and only – suspect of any recorded offense. Bizarrely, a few months back, Thiruppathy Thangathurai was arrested for three different incidents of theft that took place round about the same time, at three different locations.

Surely, the Department needed a crash course on the concept of omnipresence.

For Sethu narrowing down on the suspect was an alien idea: instead, he always narrowed down on the evidence – the stuff with which he could obtain an arrest warrant for Thiruppathy. Sadly even ‘narrowing down on the evidence’ was not easy; it was something Sethu had never managed in his entire service period.

How Sethu became the Inspector General of the City of Nallur was still a mystery to many, most of all to him. He put it better than anyone when he conceded in his ‘acceptance’ speech; borrowing from scientist Einstein, the Inspector proclaimed, ‘those of you who are shocked at my sudden rise may take heart in the fact that my shock is greater’. His rise had taken a few deaths (of senior officials) and Sargent Selvadurai’s call-up to national duty.

Everyone in Nallur knew that Inspector General Sethu was yet to catch a single criminal. There was talk of a possible demotion. The Great King Sangilly was certainly not happy with the Department’s recent track record.

Sethu told himself that things were going to be different this time. He told himself that he was going to catch Thiruppathy . . . very soon.

For that he first needed to fix his imaginary brain disorder (since Sethu’s brain was, by definition, disorderly, any notion of a particular brain disorder had to be imaginary. There, simply, was no other way around it). Inspector Sethu picked up his office phone, and dialled the number of Nallur’s one and only Psychiatrist, Doctor Brains.

Inspector Sethu was desperate to make his first arrest.

*

Dr. Brains Welcome held a PhD (Permanent Head Damage) in Mental Disorders, from the University of Lunatics and Mentalness, Colombo. Yet, when the infamous Inspector informed that he was coming in for psychiatric treatment, Brains was not pleased.

He had stopped treating brain disorders a long time back.

Some twenty years back, some of Nallur’s wisest scholars, upon the request of the Great King Sangilly, gathered to discuss brain disorders. The sole purpose of the conference was to establish, beyond any reasonable scientific doubt, that the people of Nallur were not susceptible to any brain malfunctions. The scholars, of whom Dr. Brains was not one, after a few minutes of deliberating the matter, simply established the proposition . . . just like that.

The story was that King Sangilly was un-pleased to see Dr. Brains making too much money. In addition to establishing a new scientific law, anticipating that Brains would appeal to the Supreme Court to review the proposition, King Sangilly went ahead and impeached the Chief Justice and never bothered appointing a new one.

That was when Dr. Brains’ world began decomposing. Within five years Dr. Brains’ was struggling keep the rain from sneaking through the roof of his old house.

Dr. Brains would have rather had Sethu attending his clinic with a broken bone.

But that was the least of his worries.

When his daughter came of age, three years ago, Dr. Brains found himself in a spot. He needed money, and he needed it quick. With the City Bank unwilling to lend money to an old doctor, whose field of expertise was no longer mentioned in the medical lexicon of the City, whose only property was a once-upon-a-time mansion fast becoming a shack, Dr Brains turned to the one man ATM machine of Nallur, Thiruppathy Thangathurai.

In his quest to marry off his daughter to an engineer from the City of Canada, Dr. Brains ended up borrowing money from the wrong man.

Dr. Brains was tired of his life. There simply was no way he was going to be able to pay back the debt. In his seventies there was little else for him to do. Getting killed, according to The City Belief System, granted a direct pathway into the Good Sky.

The doctor wanted to get killed.

That way he would have the last laugh1.

*

Mr. Thiruppathy Thangathurai liked playing bad-ass. It always felt good. Getting arrested by Sargent Selvadurai was the best thing that had ever happened to Thiruppathy; it shot him to fame. In fact, it shot him so high that he was on state television every day; if he was not a/the guest at the Morning Show, there were always the TV ads.

Over the last few years, however, Thiruppathy’s fame had been on the wane. The public was somewhere midway in their journey of forgetting Thiruppathy’s criminal history.

Thiruppathy cussed the Department for obvious reasons. The men of the department were so incompetent in their field that they could not even remember what clues looked like, let alone where to look for them. As a result, the entire criminal industry was doing rather badly. Crime rates were rapidly diminishing in the city.

The prime motivation for committing a crime – as with doing anything, bar the daily routine activities of eating, sleeping and drinking, in Nallur – was, is, and always will be, the ‘fame’ factor. Unless you get arrested, there was no way you can get yourself on the front page of The Press Daily, however heinous your crime may be. In the last thirty years that had happened only once2.

Thiruppathy was an ATM machine alright; only an ATM machine with a gun and the capacity to hunt down people who did not return the money with the agreed-upon3 interest. Thiruppathy had his own way of dealing with those who did not return his money.

With the doctor, apart from visiting the old man for weekly reminders4, Thiruppathy had been very lenient.

After three long years of being very lenient, Thiruppathy felt the need to be extremely lenient.

Let’s kill Dr. Brains for a higher cause.

By killing Dr. Brains, and getting arrested, Thiruppathy would put both himself and the doctor on the front page of The Press Daily. He was going to send the doctor to the skies above in a blaze of glory. If not for Thiruppathy, Dr. Brains would die a quiet death. And the City won’t even notice.

Thiruppathy picked up his cell-phone, dialled the number of the senior reporter of The Press Daily, and informed her ladyship the space-time of ‘The Murder of Doctor Brains’.

In Nallur, one did not simply commit a crime without notifying The Press Daily.

The notorious criminal was desperate to get arrested . . . properly.

Chapter 2: the preparation

The evidence assembled by Sethu’s men, instead of serving to explain the crime, lead to more confusion. The Inspector was not angry about it. If he were to be angry at the incompetence of his men, he would be angry twenty-four-seven-three-hundred-and-sixty-five-till-his-retirement. Thus, not being angry was Sethu’s default option. He understood this better than anyone else.

He had taught himself to expect nothing more than incompetence from his men. And that worked for everyone’s good.

After almost three hours of staring at the evidence, it dawned on Inspector Sethu that there was no way he could obtain an arrest warrant for Thiruppathy for the kidnapping of Minister Marvin’s daughter. There were just too many ministers and far too many ministerial offspring for Sethu’s liking. He wasn’t too concerned for Minister Marvin or for his ninth child, who had gone missing two days back.

He decided to spend the next hour being lazy.

Constable Vendikkai had promised much when he first joined the department. But, after six months of faithful service, Vendikkai suddenly decided to obey the flip side of the old saying ‘new brooms sweep well’ – that is, ‘old brooms sweep bad’. Now, after six years, he was hardly even being a broom.

There was a tone of urgency in the Inspector’s voice as he called Vendikkai’s name. ‘Bring another cup of tea plus three ulunthu vadais’5, Sethu issued orders in a manner fitting for an Inspector.

A bit of ulunthu vadai always put things in perspective. And Raja Cafe’s sambol, Sethu would unashamedly swear anytime, came straight from heaven’s kitchen.

When the order arrived, Inspector Sethu picked up one of the deep-fried delights and stared at the world through the small hole.

Through the tiny puncture in the ulunthu vadai things looked a hell lot more cheerful.

Just then, the phone rang.

‘Hello!’ Sethu barked in annoyance. Surely, the caller had seen Vendikkai buying ulunthu vadai.

‘Hello Inspector Sethu. This is a City well-wisher. I have information for you’, the voice at the other end was very matter-of-fact in its tone and approach.

‘A City well-wisher? Oh yeah? Well that is something I have never heard of! Do you guys even exist? Who are you?’ Sethu was convinced that it was one those regular prank calls he received everyday round about the same time. Surely, these nut-heads were jealous. Just go get your own vadai and eat.

‘Who I am matters little, sir. I just saw Thiruppathy going in the direction of Dr. Brains’ house . . .’ after a slight pause, the voice continued, ‘. . . with a gun’.

Something about the tone forced the Inspector to reconsider his line of thinking. Perhaps, this ought to be treated with some level of seriousness.

‘Who are you?’ Sethu repeated.

There was a click and the line went dead.

Inspector Sethu did two things. First, he finished all three of the uluthu vadais and drained the cup of tea. Second, he began scaling his office floor. He had been taught during his training that good police Inspectors ‘walked here and there’ inside the office when thinking.

After walking here and there for a while, the Inspector concluded that the matter was something worth looking into. After all, what harm can dragging oneself out of the Office for half-an-hour do? After all, he had an appointment with the doctor. On top of all that the sun was shining.

Inspector Sethu and Constable Vendikkai left the office and slowly made their way towards No 21. Balls Street, Nallur, where Dr. Brains lived. In walking slowly, the two officers were consciously obeying The First Law of dealing with a crime: an officer must arrive at the crime scene moments later.

*

For a man who was about to die in the next thirty-minutes, Doctor Brains was unusually calm.

Direct passage to the Good Skies . . . the prospect of appearing on The Press Daily front page . . . it was going to be the perfect death.

On top of that, he was going to get killed by, of all people, Thiruppathy Thangathurai. No one in the town would look down upon him (that is, his corpse) and think ‘the dude did not even put up a fight’. With Thangathurai there was no such thing as putting up a fight. When he decides to kill you, you just die.

He had already mailed his CV and his graduation picture to The Press Daily. The Doctor took a long shower and dressed up in black and white for the occasion. Now, there was only the waiting part left to do. He made himself a cup of coffee for company.

He began plotting what he should do once he crossed over to the Good Skies. May be the Master of the Good Skies would allow me to open up a brain clinic for the angels. The stories he heard about the Good Skies in his childhood had fascinated him. He remembered the Master of the Good Skies to be decent chap. The Doctor was hopeful of his future.

Inside his dark room, Thiruppathy Thangathurai knelt down and prayed. It took him about three minutes to finish reading The Killer’s Prayer, from The Book of Special Prayers.

The City Belief System held that so long as one recited The Killer’s Prayer, before murdering someone, the doors of the Good Skies would remain open. The logic was that if you are going to kill someone, you might as well pray about it and do it well.

Once done he grabbed his kit of weapons and started jogging towards No 21. Balls Street.

He knew that he had done enough, by way of placing an anonymous call, to convince the Inspector that a crime was about to happen. However, as a veteran of many failed attempts to get arrested, Thiruppathy was well aware of the need to commit the crime in front of the Inspector’s eyes, in addition to leaving behind substantial evidence to prove in courts that he was, indeed, the perpetrator. (Aside from featuring on the front page of tomorrow’s The Press Daily, Thiurppathy had grand plans of making it to the papers for at least two weeks non-stop with a nice little trial). The challenge, Thiruppathy reasoned in his head, is to get Inspector Sethu and Constable Vendikkai to arrive at the scene of crime, moments before.

Upon reaching Doctor Brains’ shack of a mansion, Thiruppathy set-off a bundle of fire crackers by the road side.

‘Hello Doctor!’ he greeted Brains.

‘Thanks for coming on time, Thiruppathy. I hope everything goes well and according to plan’, the doctor smiled back.

Hiding behind a curtain was Miss Lisa Penholder, the senior journalist for The Press Daily. She took out her DSLR camera and began clicking high quality shots for tomorrow’s lead story.

Chapter 3: the crime

Inspector Sethu and Constable Vendikkai started rushing in the direction of Doctor Brains’ house when they heard the explosion. The crime had been committed and it was time to arrive at the scene.

Sethu was unhappy to find the house still standing strong; he had envisioned the house getting blown up into smithereens when he first heard the noise. For a moment, both officers stood a good three-hundred metres away from the hose, half hoping that the house would go up in flames, so that they could conjure up heroic rescue stories for The Press Daily.

When it did not, they stared at each other, nodded their heads and made their way towards the door, just like in the movies. The Inspector took out his walkie-talkie and screamed, ‘send reinforcements . . . over and out!’

Inside the house, Thiruppathy Thangathurai was busy setting up the crime scene.

He placed a chair at the very end of the living room – right opposite the main door, for the benefit of the inspector – and tied Brains to it. After ensuring that the doctor was fully secured, Thiruppathy drew up the curtains and turned the fluorescent lights on. This was an instruction from Miss Lisa; she had insisted that backlight would ruin the shots.

After completing the more menial tasks, Thiruppathy turned his attention to Doctor Brains’ working desk. During the course of the last week’s reminding session, Brains had proposed lethal injection as his preferred way of dying. Knowing his limitations in the field of chemistry, Thiruppathy, in turn, had demanded that the doctor take the responsibility of preparing the solution. Brains had done a wonderful job of it.

With the aid of a huge syringe Thiruppathy drew fifteen millilitres of the purple liquid Doctor Brains had left in a bottle labelled ‘My Death Solution’.

Inspector Sethu and Constable Vendikkai crashed the front door open to find Thangathurai injecting the lethal liquid inside the veins of Doctor Brains. The moment he saw the officers, Thiruppathy let out one of those villain laughs, ‘he ha HAA ha’.

Brains turned purple within seconds . . .

Brains had explained the process of dying vividly to Thiruppathy. After turning purple I will start shaking in my chair . . . that will go on for a while . . . then I will go motionless. Then you will know I am dead.

It came as a surprise when the doctor skipped the shaking phase and suddenly went motionless.

‘Ok! That is not step two you idiot!’

A minute or so passed, and still there was no sign of Brains shaking. He lay perfectly still. Perhaps, the Master of the Good Sky decided that putting Brains’ feeble body through the pain was unnecessary, thought Thiruppathy as he leaned down for close inspection. Thiruppathy put his head to Brains’ chest and heard the doctor’s heart pound wildly. He kicked the chair in anger.

The doctor was alive.

The shock brought Brains back to consciousness. It took several minutes and a couple of wild stares before Brains realised that he was not at the Gate of the Good Skies. He was still tied to his bloody chair. The doctor swore under his breath.

Inspector Sethu, upon noticing that Brains’ was still purple, whispered to Constable Vendikkai, ‘Are there provisions to arrest someone for performing skin dyeing?’ Vendikkai made his I-don’t-know-sir face. It was Sethu’s turn to swear. He did so loudly, in the manner akin to men of the Department.

Thiruppathy Thangathurai banged his head on the concrete wall. One thing was certain, he had to go back, plan the whole thing and do it all over again. He was sure that Brains’ had not tricked him. Brains was desperate to die! Why would he do such a thing? Something else went wrong. Someone else screwed up.

Everyone was confused, except for Miss Lisa. Unperturbed by the sudden changes in the script, the journalist kept her shutter busy. She still had a story to tell, and that was all that mattered.

The inspector, the doctor and the criminal came to a mutual understanding without even uttering a word. They decided to forget everything that had happened in the last hour. That way at least the confusion would cease.

*

In the Town Centre, Chemist Krishnamoorthy’s frustration was growing with time. His last bottle of ‘Purpling Liquid’ was missing and he needed it badly. He racked his brain for information. He was certain that he had left the last bottle on the top shelf when he cleaned the store last Sunday. Now it was not there.

Where did it go?

A tube light came to life inside his head, after a long and harrowing thirty minutes of struggle.

Did I give Brains the wrong bottle, when he asked for the lethal solution?

*

Up in the Good Skies . . .

The Master of the Good Skies was grinning from ear to ear. He always enjoyed watching humans in confusion. He was glad that he gave the human race tiny brains. That made things more interesting. He was a tad bit disappointed at not being able to welcome Doctor Brains to his dwindling household. Over the last few years less and less people made their way to the Good Skies.

Down in the Dark Pit . . .

Unusually, the Master of Eternal Fire was happy too. The last thing he needed was Thiruppathy Thangathurai knocking on his gate. In his realm the population growth was fast getting out of hand.

- The End -

  1. According to The City Belief System, committing a murder got you so close to the Dark Pit you could almost feel the heat. Thiruppathy Thangathurai couldn’t have cared less. ↩

  2. The last time Thiruppathy had been arrested, the focus had been entirely on omnipresence and the Department. The Press Daily ran an opinion piece on the (entire) front page, by Prof Kumaravel from the Centre for Religious Research, on the concept of omnipresence, and why being omnipresent was impossible for mortals. The good professor had not even bothered mentioning Thiruppathy in his entire essay. And Thiruppathy had not liked it. (It goes without saying that not a single chap who served in the Department, except for Inspector Sethu, read the piece. Sethu, of course, did not understand a word of it. The need for a crash course on omnipresence stands to this day). ↩

  3. The interest rate specified by Thiruppathy. It depended entirely on Thiruppathy’s mood. ↩

  4. Weekly reminders included unspecified acts of violence. ↩

  5. Lentil fritters, Indian style. ↩