Vish Puri 02; The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

by Tarquin Hall

  For a man who preaches the nobility of poverty, Maharaj Swami certainly has a taste for the kitsch, Facecream thought to herself as she waited. Velvet cushions; hand-painted images of Krishna on the walls; a tinted pink chandelier…

  The atmosphere, though, was strangely forbidding. No one spoke above a whisper, as if to do so would violate some sacred tenet. The senior devotees who crisscrossed the shiny marble floor as they went about the business of court wore solemn yet self-satisfied expressions. The two thuggish priests who guarded the door to Maharaj Swami’s audience chamber observed Facecream and the two other young devotees who had been chosen to meet Swami-ji with probing stares which seemed to doubt their worthiness.

  It had often struck Facecream how cults, whether of a political or religious nature, always preached equality and happiness while fostering fear. It had been the same with the Maoists, who relied so heavily on women and children to fill their ranks. Party propaganda spoke endlessly about the Communist ideal of equality, while the hierarchy maintained strict discipline and unquestioning allegiance.

  Sitting there, she thought back to the time she had been summoned to meet The Leader. The setting had been very different, of course: a simple peasant’s house in a village in the rugged foothills of the Himalayas. But the sycophancy of his hangers-on and the sense of devotion they had promoted were mirrored here in the Abode of Eternal Love.

  She remembered being both elated and petrified as she and her fellow cadres had filed in to meet The Leader. His presence had been overwhelming. They had hung on his every word. Yet when he had spoken to them individually, it had been as a caring father. Despite herself, Facecream had blushed.

  She had gone through a lot since then, done a lot of growing up. Still, Puri’s operative was not immune to fear. The tight knot in her stomach was testament enough to that. Indeed, now that she was only minutes away from meeting Maharaj Swami face-to-face, she wondered if she wasn’t in over her head. One female devotee had already died in mysterious circumstances in the ashram and others were being drugged.

  With half the politicians of India in his back pocket and the local police only too willing to play ball, he could do more or less what he wanted. Facecream focused her breath, as she often did before a potentially dangerous task.

  ♦

  Half an hour later, the door to the audience chamber opened and a suave, middle-aged man wearing a collarless black sher-wani emerged. It was not Maharaj Swami, but neither did he carry himself like a minion – it struck Facecream that he would be better placed amongst a gathering of businessmen and politicians. He was no visitor either: he carried a key for the door on the other side of the reception hall, which he opened before stepping into the room beyond.

  Soon one of the two other devotees was summoned into Maharaj Swami’s personal chamber. He spent ten minutes inside and emerged wearing a rapturous smile and tightly clutching a silk scarf. The second one’s audience lasted only five minutes and he emerged with nothing. Facecream could read the confusion on his face. Am I not worthy? Am I being tested?

  Finally, at around nine thirty, her name – Mukti – was called.

  A senior devotee with a shaven head and a ponytail led her across the grand entrance hall, stressing that she was ‘blessed’ to have been granted a private audience.

  “I bet if I turned up with a few crores in cash, I’d have as many private meetings as I wanted,” she felt like saying.

  What had Professor Pandey’s fifty thousand bought him? she wondered.

  The priests pushed open the tall oak doors and she found herself entering a dimly lit chamber with a desk and computer on one side and a long, ornate divan on the other. Behind the divan stood another door, half hidden behind some curtains. It was heavy, made of cast iron, and had two warded locks, she noted. Bookcases stretched along the walls.

  In the middle of the room, Maharaj Swami sat in the lotus position with eyes closed, hands resting on his knees and the tips of his index fingers touching his thumb. The Godman was naked from the waist up. He had a rugged physique: hairy chest, powerfully built arms with a long scar on his right forearm. He was not especially handsome – the bushy black beard only half covered pitted cheeks, and his nose was large and crooked – but somehow this added to his powerful presence – a raw sexual energy.

  Facecream stepped into the room with her hands clasped. The doors closed behind her and she stood still, not sure what to do next. The soft sigh of the air-conditioning was the only sound. There was no one else in the room.

  And then his voice – a deep baritone, commanding yet somehow welcoming – broke the silence.

  “Join me, Mukti,” he said without opening his eyes.

  She bent down to touch his feet and then knelt on the mat in front of him.

  She waited. Seconds passed. And then, without warning, he opened his eyes and Facecream found herself held in his gaze. She flinched ever so slightly, then looked down. She could feel his eyes appraising her.

  He said, “I know how deeply you’ve been hurt.”

  Facecream knew immediately that he was referring to her scars – that he had been told about them by the lady doctor who had examined her yesterday.

  “Men never understand how deeply they are capable of hurting women,” he continued. “Often it is the people closest to us who betray us. The ones in which we place our greatest trust. Tell me, my child, who did this to you?”

  Facecream held her silence. She never, ever spoke of her scars – not to herself, not to anyone. And certainly not to a man who would exploit her pain for his own advantage.

  She felt cornered. But this sense of vulnerability quickly gave way to anger – mostly at herself for not having seen this coming.

  Nonetheless, she managed to stay calm and maintain her composure. She was there to get a look inside his inner sanctum, she reminded herself. And no matter how hard this guru, this fraud, tried to get inside her head, he would never succeed because, unlike the others, she didn’t believe in him.

  “Don’t be afraid. I will keep your secret… but if you want to be free of the sadness and fear, you must tell me who did this to you.”

  Facecream looked up at him with sad, mournful eyes and told him that she was scared.

  “Come, my child,” said Maharaj Swami. He reached for her hands, and when he took them into his own, she made a mock attempt to pull them away. “Let me soothe your pain.”

  Girding herself, she shuffled forward, mumbling, “I’m sorry, Swami-ji.”

  “It is I who am sorry for you, my child, for you are starved of trust and love. You are strong yet carry so much pain inside you. It’s going to destroy you one day. Your silence has bought you more time, but eventually you must allow yourself to reveal this pain to me so that I can heal it once and for all.”

  She met his gaze again for a moment, wondering if he had really understood something about her or if they were just words, and said, “Yes, Swami-ji.”

  “In the meantime you should wear this.” He made a fist with his right hand and then opened it to reveal a smooth purple crystal.

  Facecream gawped in astonishment. “That’s amazing!” she exclaimed.

  “Keep it on your person at all times. After waking up, press it to your forehead. It will help cleanse your ajna chakra. Return to me when you are ready.”

  “Thank you, Swami-ji! But how will I know when to return?”

  “You will know,” he said. “You must learn to listen to your intuition and not your mind.”

  Maharaj Swami closed his eyes again. The audience was over.

  Facecream backed out of the chamber with her hands pressed together. In the hall, she found Damayanti waiting with her parents. The mother and father both wanted to hear about her audience. What wisdom had Swami-ji imparted? Did he perform any miracles?

  But their daughter was sullen. And when the senior devotee informed them that Swami-ji had asked to see her on her own, she avoided eye contact with Facecream.

  “Yo
u’re not joining her?” Puri’s operative asked the parents.

  “If Swami-ji calls us, then we will go to him with open hearts. Today Damayanti has been blessed with a private audience.”

  Blankly the young woman walked toward the open doors.

  ∨ The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing ∧

  Sixteen

  Puri arrived early at the Gymkhana Club – on Sunday mornings there was less traffic on the road – and sat in the bar waiting for his old friend, Dr. Subhrojit Ghosh. Sometimes it was important to get away from work for purely social pleasure. And the weekend all-you-can-eat brunch buffet, a bargain at 295 rupees, was always a welcome respite.

  But the Jha case was impossible to avoid. The TV was showing one of India’s Oprah-style talk shows. Dr. Jha’s murder had been grist to such programs for four days now. Debate over belief and superstition, a topic that stoked nothing short of hysteria in some quarters, was rife.

  “Our poll says eighty-five percent of us do believe in miracles. Are we being fooled? That’s the question we’re asking on today’s show,” announced Kiran, the host of Kiran! “We’ll be talking to one woman who says her baby daughter died and was brought back to life by this Godman, known as Engineer Baba.” A guru with the obligatory beard and saffron robes appeared on-screen. “He’s best known for his prophecies and for staying buried underground for weeks on end. He’ll be taking your questions after this short break. Don’t go away!”

  Puri asked the barman to ‘reduce’ the volume as his thoughts turned to the latest developments in the case.

  After Pandey’s liaison with Mrs. Jha last night, Puri had ordered their telephones to be bugged. A couple of Tube-light’s boys had taken up position outside the Jha residence as well.

  Puri had also called his researchers into the office to start picking through the two suspects’ financial records.

  The next step was to search Pandey’s house.

  Puri had ruled out doing this legally. Calling Inspector Singh and asking him to get a warrant could jeopardize the case: inevitably the chief would come to know and start demanding arrests be made. Once the lawyers and the media were involved, Puri would never see justice served.

  He had decided to break in tomorrow afternoon when the professor would be teaching at the university. And if he came across any incriminating evidence… well, he would call in Singh when the time was right.

  What else?

  He opened his notebook and read through his witness interview notes.

  Now that there was no doubt in his mind that Pandey was, at the very least, an accomplice to the murder, two details that had seemed unimportant during the preliminary stages of the investigation struck him as significant.

  1. Pandey had told the knock-knock joke that had caused everyone to laugh hysterically before Dr. Jha had been killed.

  2. Pandey had been the first to declare his inability to move his feet.

  As for the professor’s statement that he had seen the murder weapon turn to ash… Puri had doubted its veracity from the start. Pandey might well have removed the sword himself and then deposited the ground charcoal next to the body.

  Something else also occurred to the detective while he was ruminating over the clues.

  In the past couple of days, he had watched three magicians perform: Akbar the Great, Manish the Magnificent and, of course, Maharaj Swami. All three had performed in environments where they could make use of concealed props. Prior to putting on their acts, they could set the stage, so to speak. In Puri’s book, it was called cheating, but that was an argument for another time.

  What had made Dr. Jha’s murder seem so baffling was that it had been done out in the open.

  What if the setting for the murder, the spot where the Laughing Club always met, had been rigged long beforehand? Perhaps in a way that had not been obvious to him when he had inspected the crime scene? Had he overlooked something? Something hidden?

  Puri decided to return to Rajpath and take another look.

  Just as soon as his long-standing brunch date with Shubho was over.

  ♦

  Dr. Subhrojit Ghosh had returned from his annual two-week walking holiday in Shimla.

  “What news of Shorn?” asked Puri. Shorn was the eldest Ghosh son, studying in Chicago.

  “World-class. He’s loving his internship. Getting all As. Dali thinks there’s a girl, but who knows?”

  “What kind of girl?” asked Puri with a disapproving frown.

  “Presumably of the female variety.” Dr. Ghosh laughed.

  They sat down together in the dining room where the brunch buffet was laid out – upma, poha, French toast, the works.

  “How is Mummy-ji?” asked Dr. Ghosh.

  “Up to her usual tricks. Such a handful, I tell you. Seems she’s doing investigation again.”

  “Investigating what?”

  “Who knows, Shubho-dada? I’ve not got time nor inclination to find out.”

  ‘Dada’ meant older brother in Ghosh’s native Bengali.

  “And Rumpi?”

  “Very fine. Jaiya’s having twins, did I tell you?”

  “Wonderful! Many congratulations, Chubby.”

  They made a first pass of the buffet. Puri returned to the table with an unlikely selection of poha and baked beans. From his pocket he produced a red chili carefully selected earlier from one of his plants on the roof. It was a Naga Jolokia, better known as the Ghost Chili, the hottest in the world.

  The detective dipped the end in salt, bit into it and began to chew.

  “These ones are not for fainthearted,” he said, looking satisfied. He offered Dr. Ghosh a bite.

  “You must be joking,” he said. “Those things are lethal. I was reading recently they’re thinking of using them in crowd-control grenades!”

  A waiter filled up his chipped Gymkhana Club cup with strong, acidic black tea from a silver pot that leaked onto the tablecloth.

  “So, Chubby, tell me, I’m dying to know: How’s your investigation into Dr. Jha’s murder going? I keep reading such conflicting things in the papers. Seems the whole country’s talking about little else.”

  “Most certainly, it is one of the most extraordinary cases I’ve come across till date,” said Puri, outlining the case and his trip to Haridwar and how Maharaj Swami had conjured the rishi oracle onstage.

  “Most remarkable it was. Is it any wonder people are fooled by this fellow?”

  “It’s certainly a very realistic trick,” said Dr. Ghosh. “But by no means original.”

  “You’ve seen it before, is it?”

  “When I was fourteen or fifteen. Old Professor Biswas demonstrated it in our physics class. ‘Pepper’s Ghost’, he called it, after the Britisher who perfected it.”

  Puri’s enthusiastic nod was encouragement to go on.

  “All that’s required are a couple of silvered mirrors and a strong light source. Your subject stands hidden and his image is reflected off… I think it’s a couple of mirrors… and then through a pane of glass. The image appears behind it, translucent like a spirit.”

  Puri slapped his thigh with a festive cry.

  “Shubho-dada, you’re the real miracle worker!” he exclaimed. “Such a mine of information you are. You should be a detective, actually.”

  “But then I would miss all the free trips to international conferences on things like recent advances in inflammatory bowel disease!”

  They made a second pass of the buffet. Puri went for the French toast this time.

  “Time for a quick game?” asked Dr. Ghosh when their plates were clear again.

  “Actually, Shubho-dada, I had better make a move, huh.”

  “Come now, old pal, we see so little of each other. What’s an hour between friends?”

  “So much work is there, actually,” insisted Puri, looking at his watch.

  “You’re sure work is not just a convenient excuse?”

  “Certainly not…”

  “I’d understand if
it was. Especially after the thrashing I gave you last time.”

  “Listen,” said the detective good-humoredly, “you are ahead by one game, only.”

  “I didn’t know we were counting. But if you put it like that…”

  ♦

  Five minutes later, they sat facing one another across a low coffee table in the colonnaded ballroom where tea and cucumber sandwiches were served. Some of the other armchairs were occupied by elderly guests whose rheumy eyes perused the Sunday edition of the Times of India.

  Before Puri and Dr. Ghosh lay a chessboard. They arranged the pieces but ensured that the rajas, or kings, didn’t face one another – this being one of the rules of modern chess’s ancient Indian precursor, chaturanga, which they’d started playing for fun in the past year or so.

  The detective, whose pieces were white, opened by moving a sippoy, or pawn, and his opponent matched his move. Puri then put one of his kuthareis, or horses, into play.

  As Dr. Ghosh made his second move, they began to swap Gym gossip. There was a fierce battle underway for the club’s presidency. The air marshal of the Indian air force was up against the army chief.

  “It’s warfare of a different nature,” commented the detective, who joked that it probably wouldn’t be long before trenches were dug across the lawns by the opposing sides.

  Dr. Ghosh put his mantri, or counselor (the equivalent to a queen, but the piece can move only one square at a time and diagonally), into play. The move puzzled Puri; it was a hugely risky one and not in character with his opponent’s usually cautious tactics. But he decided to continue with his strategy nonetheless and positioned one of his yaaneis, or elephants, to strike.

  The conversation strayed back to the topic of the murder.

  “What saddens me is to see these Godmen types muddying the name of Hinduism,” said Puri.

  “The clergy is always crooked in any religion,” said Dr. Ghosh.

  “Hardly makes it right, Shubho-dada. They keep society hostage to superstition and nonsense. There’s nothing spiritual about them. Bloody goondas, the lot of them.”