will appear on earth when humanity no longer understands right from wrong. It is a kind of doomsday prophecy. How this arrived?”
“It was hand-delivered – put through the letterbox the day before yesterday. That was Monday.”
“Dr. Jha’s reaction was what exactly?”
“He didn’t take death threats seriously, Mr. Puri – he’s had quite a few over the years, as you can imagine.”
“Ms. Ruchi, be good enough to give me one copy of this thing and keep the original safe here with you.”
“Absolutely, sir. There’s a photocopy wallah under the pilu tree in the street.”
“I would also be most grateful for one copy of Dr. Jha’s file on Maharaj Swami, also. That is at all possible?”
“Of course, sir. I’ll go and fetch it.”
She went to find the file while the detective stood up, still feeling unsteady, and made his way back into the kitchen.
Getting the lock dusted for fingerprints would be a waste of time, he reasoned. But Puri wanted to see if there were any other clues: perhaps a boot mark on the floor or a thread caught on a nail.
He was examining the door when Ms. Ruchi came to find him, clutching the bulging file.
“To tell you the truth, that lock was easy to open,” she said. “One time I forgot my keys and I managed to get in using a screwdriver I keep in the car. I’ve been meaning to get it fixed for ages. Later this morning I’ll get the lock wallah to come.”
“Anyone else knew it was broken?”
“Not that I’m aware. The only other people who use it are the cleaners.”
Puri had seen enough and accompanied the secretary out into the street to make use of the photocopy wallah’s services.
“Tell me, Ms. Ruchi,” he said, “why you came into the office today? You should be taking rest, no?”
“Someone has to be here to look after the office and…” Her eyes started to well up again. “I suppose I wanted to be here… to be, well, near him. Does that sound strange?”
“Not at all. It is quite understandable.”
Tears started to flood down her face.
“I just can’t believe he’s gone,” she said, straining to keep her voice steady. “Dr. Jha was like a father to me – so calm and kind. It’s like there’s a big hole in my heart. What am I to do without him?”
Seven
As Puri headed off to interview the surviving members of the Laughing Club, his wife was sitting down in Lily Arora’s five-bedroom house in Greater Kailash Part Two, a posh South Delhi colony.
This month’s venue for Rumpi’s kitty party club, the living room had been appointed with furnishings ‘inspired’ by the ancient world. The mahogany coffee table in the middle of the room was built like a Grecian altar. The Italian sofas, with their gold arms fashioned like great curling leaves, were suggestive of Roman licentiousness. Black and gold pharaoh heads and sphinxes purchased in the gift shop of a Las Vegas hotel adorned both the side tables and the marble mantelpiece with its decorative Zoroastrian winged lions. Bunches of plastic sunflowers in replica Phoenician vases were dotted around the place – along with Chinese dragon napkin holders filled with pink paper serviettes.
The sofas’ hard, slippery upholstery and curvy backs did not make them conducive to reclining or lounging. Rumpi and the fourteen other kitty party members – all housewives, most of whom she had known for years – had to sit on the edge of their seats. This suited Mrs. Nanda, who, with a straight back, a level chin and a sprinkling of gold jewelry, was a model of poise and elegance. Petite, bespectacled Mrs. Shankar, who practiced yoga and meditation and always dressed in long, loose capris and block-printed achkans, perched gracefully as well. But for the likes of Mrs. Devi, who by her own admittance had a ‘sweet tooth and a salty one, also’ and took up a much greater portion of seating space than the aforementioned ladies, Lily Arora’s furnishings were both an uncomfortable and unflattering proposition.
“What I wouldn’t do for a beanbag right now,” Mrs. Devi murmured to Rumpi.
Still, as the servants circulated with platters of ‘ready-made’ chai, spicy chiwda, peanut chili salad and veg samo-sas, the room was thick with conversation – not to mention Lily Arora’s heady perfume. On one side of the room, the recent plunge in the Mumbai stock market was being discussed. In the middle, the talk was of the upcoming end-of-year school exams. And a clutch of ladies nearest the mock fireplace were making plans to attend a concert by Anoushka Shankar in Nehru Park.
Soon, though, news spread through the room that Mrs. Bina Bakshi’s daughter-in-law had ‘fled the coop’ – in other words, her in-laws’ house.
Mrs. Nanda, whose husband was a high-powered accountant, had heard that ‘the boy’ drank a lot. “Apparently he reverts tully each and every night,” she reported. “Mrs. Bakshi’s daughter-in-law was under depression.”
Mrs. Devi, the wife of a top bureaucrat, eagerly grasped the gossip baton, passing on that she had been told by an undisclosed source that Mrs. Bakshi and ‘the girl’ had ‘not hit it off from the moment she came home’.
Mrs. Bansal, the only woman present to have attended the fabled Bakshi wedding at the Hyatt, spoke up next.
Mrs. Bakshi’s daughter-in-law, she said disapprovingly, had ‘modern ideas’. Not being a ‘domesticated person’, she was trying to put off having children in order to further her career in marketing ‘or some such nonsense’.
“Her parents must feel
“Has she no respect?” another voice chimed in.
It was then that Puri’s gray-haired mother, who at Rum-pi’s invitation had joined the kitty party for the first time, spoke up. “So much change in society is going on, I tell you,” she said. “Relationships are getting all in a twist, na? Boys are mostly to blame. One minute wanting educated girls, next demanding stay-at-home wives. So much confusion is there, actually.”
As she was the eldest in the room by some fifteen years, her words engendered a chorus of approval.
“Very true, Auntie-ji.”
“Quite right.”
“I totally agree.”
But by the end of the discussion, the majority view still held.
“Men are not perfect, that is for sure,” concluded Lily Arora, whose hot pink kurta, churidar and high heels with glittery silver straps were set off by more makeup than all the other women wore put together. “But it’s a wife’s role to manage. Look at what I’ve had to put up with. Sanjeev is a rascal, quite frankly. But running away was unthinkable. It would have brought so much pain to both families, mine and his. In these situations one has to think of others.
“As for husbands,” she continued, “my dog trainer, Arti, always says to reward your pooch when he does what you ask and give appropriate correction when he doesn’t. Same has worked with Sanjeev.”
After the laughter had died down, Mrs. Deepak announced the birth of a fifth grandson. Amar, weight nine pounds, had been born at the Happy Go Lucky Maternity Home.
“By cesarean,” she added, beaming proudly.
Mrs. Azmat then shared her news. Since the ladies had last got together a month ago, she and her husband had gone on a cruise around the Great Lakes.
“They are really
The conversation drifted on – the events on Rajpath were discussed, the astronomical price of gold and news of a fresh dengue outbreak in the city.
“Even the president’s son got it.”
