westland ltd
BANQUET ON THE DEAD
Sharath Komarraju is an IT specialist based in Bangalore. On a typical day he spends eight hours testing software and two writing fiction. (He hopes to some day flip that balance.) Banquet on the Dead is his second novel.
BANQUET ON THE DEAD
SHARATH KOMARRAJU
westland ltd
Venkat Towers, 165, P.H. Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600 095
No. 38/10 (New No.5), Raghava Nagar, New Timber Yard Layout, Bangalore 560 026
23/181, Anand Nagar, Nehru Road, Santacruz East, Mumbai 400 055
4322/3, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002
First published by westland ltd 2012
Copyright © Sharath Komarraju 2012
All rights reserved
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 978-93-81626-98-6
Typeset by FourWords Inc.
Printed at Thomson Press (India) Ltd.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the production of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no reproduction in any form, in whole or in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) may be made without written permission of the publishers.
To Lakshmibai,
my father’s maternal grandmother,
on whom this story is (very loosely) based.
They little knew, who loved him so,
The fearful death he met,
When shouting o’er the desert snow,
Unarmed, and hard beset;
Nor how, when round the frosty pole
The northern dawn was red,
The mountain wolf and wild-cat stole
To banquet on the dead
—WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
The Murdered Traveller
Prologue
KAUVERAMMA LOVED LIFE.
Nagesh wiped away a layer of sweat from his forehead with his muddy hands and surveyed the patch of land around him. The main part of his job was done. He had pulled out the weeds and turned the soil inside out. Now all that remained was to water it thoroughly, mix it with some fresh manure, and then plant the bean sprouts.
He took a moment to glance up at the gate. Yes, he thought again, Kauveramma did love life. It showed in the food she left everyday outside the front gate for stray cats and dogs. It showed in the care with which she tended to her vegetable patch and her flower garden. It showed in the gentle authority of her manner towards her servants. It showed in the surety of her step; in the rich whiteness of her hair; in the yellow glow of her skin; in the sparkle of her eyes. It showed in every part of her being.
He tore open the manure packet and walked up and down the patch of land, taking out fistfuls of it at a time and dropping it along straight lines. None of Kauveramma’s sons inherited her quality to live life. He paused for a moment in thought. Then he went on. No, not even Swami saab. They all must have taken after their father. Nagesh had only seen photographs of the man. He smiled in none of them. And for Nagesh if a man did not smile in a picture, he never smiled at all.
Nagesh’s father had not liked his coming over today. It had been only two months ago that Kauveramma had suggested, in her gently curious tone, that he had maybe taken the two hundred rupees that had been lying on the table? It had just been a suggestion—no more. But his father was a proud man. He had left the house in a huff, and neither party had attempted to patch things up since.
That was until today. Nagesh got word from Swami saab that Kauveramma wanted bean sprouts to be planted outside the side gate. His father had looked askance at him as if to say, ‘So you are going?’ and he had nodded to say yes.
He finished spreading the manure. He turned his wrist and looked at his watch. It was five minutes to one.
‘Swami!’
Then a second later—he watched the second hand tick over to the next slot—he heard a splash.
There was no doubt as to whom that voice belonged. It was just hard to gauge what the context was. Was she just calling out to her son? Did he jump into the open water well for a swim? Or did someone else jump in and did she happen to call Swami saab at the same time? Or—
He ambled over uncertainly to the gate and peered through the grille. The well was completely concealed from view, of course. The path leading up to it was empty. Everything within the compound looked perfectly normal. He looked down at the padlock on the gate and considered. Should he jump over and investigate?
But then he remembered his father. If he jumped over the gate and found that things were just normal—as was likely—and if he was found inside the compound, what would they say, all of them? What would Kauveramma say? What would his father say when he returned home?
He tried to listen for something else. Anything else. Nothing came.
Everything was probably all right, he thought, and went back to work.
Ashok’s hands only went through the motions. His mind was already at Ashoka Talkies, where his soul and body would be too in an hour. Swami saab had promised him a front-row ticket to the first show of the new Chiranjeevi starrer. Just the thought gave him a thrill. He would be among the first three hundred people in the city to see the megastar in action. What privilege!
A tune played on his lips as he opened the lime, cement and sand packets one after the other. Next to him, in a dirty iron bowl, six bricks were laid out in two rows, on top of one another. His job was simple, if a little beneath him—the son of a contractor that he was. Ordinarily he would have scoffed at the prospect of laying bricks himself, and he would have commanded his father to deploy one of their workers for the job, but apparently Swami saab had asked for him in particular, and while he did not care much for the man, the reward he had offered was a good one. There was no shame, he reflected, in lowering oneself for a worthy cause.
He mixed the three ingredients in the correct portions and considered the wall. The damage was not that big. It was the sort of chip that you saw on walls everywhere. But this was a wall that belonged to a big house, and like people who lived in big houses, walls that belonged to big houses also had images to protect. They could not afford to stand around with chips on their bases.
With a scoop and a splat he covered the chip with concrete. Then he smoothed it with the base of his spade. He laid out the first row of bricks, taking care to leave enough space between each one and the next so that he could fill it up with his mixture. He glanced at his watch. Almost one. He had just under an hour to finish the job, collect his ticket from Swami saab and—
‘Swami!’
Ashok hobbled back on his knees. It wasn’t a full-blooded scream, but there had been something in it—a distinct tone of pain combined with shock. That kept him rooted to the spot for he didn’t know how long. Then he heard a splash that shook him into action.
He sprang to his feet and jogged along the wall to the main gate. It was locked. He tried to crane his neck so that he could see what was going on near the well. But the trees hid everything from view. He considered jumping the gate and investigating. But by now good sense had returned. The old lady was in a habit of calling out to everyone in the house. Maybe it was just that. Maybe it was just his imagination (too many movies for you, Ashok) that heard pain and shock in a normal call. As for the splash, well, it was a humid day. Someone must have decided to take a swim...
He glanced up at the gate again, frowning, tapping his spade against his thigh. He had jumped the gate once before and gott
en into no end of trouble for it. If he did so now, he was sure Swami saab would tear up the ticket in front of his very eyes. That he could not let happen.
He waited for a minute more, listening. Everything within the compound looked quiet and normal. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
He went back to work.
1
VALMIKI NAGARAJAN, Inspector at Hanamkonda Police Station, looked at the seated figure in the opposite chair and sighed in resignation. As a man and as a policeman, Inspector Nagarajan had yet to learn the knack of saying no. Just the other day one of his constables had brought back a motorbike that belonged to the local MLA, and just as it was being wheeled into the station the phone had rung. He had said ‘Yes, sir’ to everything the man on the other end had said. And at the end of the call he had admonished the constable and sent him away to return the bike.
This was not the same, of course. But different men had different methods by which they get others to do their bidding. If some wielded the whip of authority, others played the card of loyalty—demanding gratitude.
Doctor Koteshwar Rao was—in his humble, understated manner—doing exactly that right now.
Doctor Koteshwar Rao ran his practice from that single-storeyed building opposite Vijaya Talkies. Inspector Nagarajan knew the place well. In a street filled with polyclinics and nursing homes, Koteshwar Rao was the only independent consulting physician. When Inspector Nagarajan’s mother had a sharp attack of bronchitis the previous month, it was Koteshwar Rao who treated her. When his wife had a fall in the bathroom last year, it was Koteshwar Rao who set her knee right and assured her that all would be fine. When his daughter had an attack of malaria, when his son had to be treated for mumps, when his brother’s wife had a fever, when his sister had to have her appendix taken out—in short, Koteshwar Rao was the one-stop medical man for Inspector Nagarajan’s family, both immediate and extended.
It was because of this history of service—which was without blemish, one might add—that Inspector Nagarajan was finding himself unable to say no.
‘Doctor,’ he said, and sat forward in his seat. ‘What you ask me to do is quite irregular. We’ve already closed the case.’
‘I know.’
Inspector Nagarajan waited for the doctor to say more, but Koteshwar Rao just sat there, carefully avoiding eye-contact, looking quite uncomfortable. He would be embarrassed, thought the inspector, because he was not used to asking for favours—only doing them. If the doctor had barged into his station and demanded a favour, maybe then he would have had more of a heart to say no. As it was—
‘Even if you don’t officially open the case, Inspector,’ said the doctor, ‘maybe if you could just extend the investigation a few more days—’
‘But what is the purpose, Doctor? We’ve found all that we need to find.’
‘Yes, yes.’
Inspector Nagarajan waited again.
‘But there is the issue I told you about. There was no water in the lungs—’
‘Doctor, I told you it’s perfectly natural when somebody of that age has a fall of that kind. You ought to know. You’re a doctor.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Koteshwar Rao examined the table top uncertainly for a minute. Then he said, ‘But don’t you feel there is something more to it, sir? The whole thing—a lady of her intelligence, and of reasonable health, accidentally falling into a well?’
Nagarajan grimaced and looked away. The air-conditioning in his office had not been working for the whole afternoon. He slammed down on the bell and barked at the constable to get a couple of cold drinks. Then he focused his mind, reluctantly, back on what the doctor had said. There was no escaping the truth in the matter; if one were to look at it purely as a problem to be solved, it did present some remote, outlandish possibilities. But then it was also true that almost every case did. He had a ledger to keep. Cases had to be booked and cases had to be closed. He did not have the time to follow up every single clue in every single case.
‘So if you could,’ the doctor was saying, ‘at least take a second opinion?’
Nagarajan sighed and ran a hand along his scalp.
Sensing a softening of stance, Koteshwar Rao persisted: ‘If not an official fellow, maybe someone unofficial?’
‘Unofficial?’
‘Yes.’ The doctor’s voice became uncertain again. ‘You know, that mullah friend of yours? Very smart man.’
‘Really?’ asked Nagarajan, a touch coldly. He didn’t ask the doctor how he knew of his friend’s smarts. He had a feeling he was going to be told anyway.
‘Yes, yes. I’ve been treating him off and on for about a year now. It’s always so interesting to talk to him. He’s always telling me of great criminals of the past and how they dodged the police and lived lives of great adventure. I’ve always wondered. Is he an ex-colleague of yours?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Ah, I thought so. A person who is just a mullah can never have such great stories to tell. Mullahs tend to be such dull people, don’t they? I knew he must have lived the dangerous life at some point. You know, he also once found my stethoscope.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Oh, it was just brilliant,’ Koteshwar Rao said, warming to the topic. ‘I’d misplaced my stethoscope, you see, and I was grumbling about it when I was with him. He asked me what the matter was, and then asked me a few questions—just simple ones, mind you, like ‘Where were you this morning?’, ‘What time did you come in?’, that sort of thing. Of course, he would ask one or two really weird questions—like ‘What was on TV this morning?’— I am not saying he asked me that, but that sort of thing, you know?’
Nagarajan nodded. He knew.
‘And suddenly,’ the doctor continued, ‘out of nowhere, he says, “Doctor saab, your stethoscope is in your wife’s jewellery box.” I asked him how he could guess that it was there, and he said to me, “Doctor saab, I am not guessing that it is there. I know it is there.” And then he told me everything that had happened that day and how the stethoscope ended up in my wife’s box. And when he explained it all, it was so very simple, wasn’t it? I tell you, Inspector, it was very much like being in a detective novel myself. Amazing!’
It was not the first time that Nagarajan had heard the adjective in relation to the man being discussed, and the meaning in the doctor’s speech was clear. So he asked, ‘You want me to take his advice on the matter of your grandmother’s death?’
Koteshwar Rao immediately returned to his subdued self. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes, if it is not too much trouble for him—and to you.’
‘It’s no trouble, Doctor. But let me tell you something about him. If I am going to enlist his help on your request, I think you ought to know the truth.’
A concerned look came over the doctor’s face. ‘Yes?’
Nagarajan smiled. ‘Think about all the stories he has told you. Has he ever told you a story of a cop?’
The doctor thought for a while, then shook his head.
‘He must have told you a lot of stories of pickpockets, burglars, druglords, kidnappers, and all other kinds of criminals—but he hasn’t told you even one story about a policeman.’ Nagarajan saw the doctor’s face change, and he smiled to himself. Out loud he said, ‘Now what does that tell you about him?’
‘So when you said he was “something like” a colleague—’
‘Precisely. But he is now clean. He has been clean for more than fifteen years now.’
‘So—so he won’t pose any danger—’
‘He shouldn’t. But there is always a risk. You know what they say. Once a criminal, always a criminal.’
The doctor asked slowly, ‘You say he’s been clean for fifteen years?’
‘Yes, we watch all such people quite closely. As far as we know he hasn’t done anything illegal in that time.’
‘And he seems to be such a nice person.’
‘He is a nice person. But I thought I ought to tell you the truth.’
‘That’s f
ine,’ said Koteshwar Rao. ‘It doesn’t bother me. I know the man. You know the man. If you think he can help—’
‘He can.’
‘Then shall we call him in?’
Inspector Nagarajan looked away at the glass pane again. The air-conditioning had still not come on. Neither had the cold drinks arrived. He rang the bell again. To the head of the constable that peered in through the door he said, ‘Get me Hamid bhai’s number.’
2
AS INSPECTOR NAGARAJAN EASED his old Rajdoot off the driveway and got on the main road—a jeep would invite stares where he was going—he became aware of a faint ache behind his right shoulder. He did not flinch or respond in any way; that would mean acknowledging its presence. He tried to ignore it. What had the doctor said? It was not really there. It was his mind playing tricks.
He focused on his bike. Handle. Clutch. Brake. Gear. Release.
The bike lurched into motion in the direction of the Chowrastha. He tried to remember where Hamid Pasha’s house exactly was. How long had it been since he had seen him last? About a year? Yes, last Bakri Id sounded about right. Then he had been living in one of those Muslim dwellings by the big sewer. He had not kept in touch with Hamid bhai, he knew. But he also knew Hamid bhai wouldn’t hold it against him. Neither of them was particularly good at social formalities. Even that previous visit on Bakri Id had been on business.
He crossed Podduturi Complex and approached Tailors’ Street. It got its name some time in the Eighties when, presumably, it teemed with tailor shops. But now you would have to hunt to find one. There were four grocers, two internet cafés, two clothes shops, three general stores, one hardware shop, and a litany of other bits and pieces— but no tailor shop.
However, one fact about Tailors’ Street remained unchanged from the time Nagarajan was a child. Then and now, Tailors’ Street was Hanamkonda’s ‘Old Hyderabad’. Less sensitive souls called it Pakistan. If Hanamkonda Main Road was the border, they said, Tailors’ Street was Pakistan and Vijaya Talkies Road, which branched off on the other side and sported a Devi temple at the very mouth, was India. It was a long-running joke in circles Nagarajan mingled in to tease any fashionably-dressed person with: ‘Did you get that from Pakistan?’ For the two clothes shops on Tailors’ Street stocked topnotch wares; much better in quality and much more reasonable in price than the more plush—and the more Indian— stores in Podduturi Complex.
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