by Salil Desai
“Feeling better, Motkar?” Saralkar asked, joining him at the police canteen half an hour later. “First time I have seen you react like that.”
“Sorry about that, sir. Couldn’t take his disturbing bullshit anymore,” Motkar replied. “How don’t you ever get affected?”
“Who says I don’t get affected, Motkar?” Saralkar grunted. “How do you think I got this hypertension and all?”
They sat silently for a few seconds, each weighed down by their own thoughts. Motkar fidgeted with his empty tea cup.
“You know what he, I mean she, said to me?” Saralkar spoke again.
“What sir?”
“That the same God who’d blessed us with common sense, had cursed him with this self-destructive kink,” Saralkar replied. “It got me thinking . . . Poor bastard.”
“You feel sorry for him, no her, sir?” Motkar asked, not a little incredulously.
Saralkar was quiet for a disconcertingly long second. “No. Feeling sorry for a murderer is betraying the victims. But she’s got a point. I wonder how many of us would commit murder if we carried fatal kinks in our beings or lacked good sense.”
“But she knew exactly what she was doing, sir. Both as Rahul Fernandes and as Anushka Doshi.”
“Exactly, Motkar. Which begs the question, why was he unable to stop himself then? Answer: the kink in his system coupled with the absence of good sense,” Saralkar said, then shook his head. “It seems nearly forty per cent of those who undergo sex change regret it, want to go back to being their original selves.”
Motkar shrugged. “That’s still no justification for murder, sir. I think Rahul Fernandes ought to hang.”
“Well, you are on the same wavelength as Anushka Doshi, then. Says it’ll be a relief to die—an escape from hell. But I doubt she’ll even have that pleasure any time soon, given the pace of law,” Saralkar replied. “Anyway, our job’s done for the moment, Motkar. Let’s order some more tea.”
“Sure, sir. How about mixed bhajjis, to go with the tea?”
Saralkar’s face lit up briefly but then a shadow settled over it. “No, I can’t have bhajjis. I have been advised to cut down on fried and salty foods. But you go ahead.”
He retreated into a moody silence and Motkar excused himself awkwardly to fetch the tea. Just as he reached the canteen counter, Saralkar bellowed out to him. “Motkar, get a plate of bhajjis for me too. Who bloody wants to live forever anyway?”
Minutes later, he attacked the hot, sizzling bhajjis with gusto and slurped his tea contentedly. Motkar, on the other hand, chose to sip and nibble his.
Salil Desai is an author, columnist, and film-maker. Three and a Half Murders is his fifth book and the third one in the Inspector Saralkar Mystery Series. He has written three more crime novels—Killing Ashish Karve (2014), The Murder of Sonia Raikkonen (2015), and Murder on a Side Street (2011) as well as a collection of short stories, Lost Libido and Other Gulp Fiction (2012).
An alumnus of Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), his dramatized management training videos are much appreciated in the corporate world. Salil also conducts workshops in creative writing and film-making. As a columnist, over 400 articles, op-ed pieces, features, and travelogues written by him have appeared in The Times of India, Indian Express, DNA, The Tribune, Reader’s Digest, Deccan Herald, The Hindu, etc.
He was also one of the four international authors selected worldwide for the HALD International Writers’ Residency in Denmark, hosted by the Danish Centre for Writers & Translators in June 2016.
Salil lives with his wife and two sons in Pune.
