The Jasmine : Wild Fragrance

by Venkat Bathini

  Chapter 18

  We were (Myself and Pandi) were walking on the lush green fields. We noticed Bhoj was heading in a car on the highway towards Salem. I had no clue where he was heading towards.

  Richard: Pandi, do you know where Bhoj is heading to?

  Pandi: This is regular scene. He visits several Siddha Vaidya centres in Salem and learns ayurvedic treatments from them.

  Richard: Interesting! He is already doctor by profession, but still wants to learn Ayurveda.

  Come, let’s go!

  Pandi: Sorry sir, I am not interested in pursuing Medicine!

  #Sense of humour is in Pandi’s blood who had good timing and strikes at the right occasions

  Richard: I did not mean that. Let’s go and visit Bhoj house. I am sure we will find more than we knew about this personality.

  At Bhoj’s home:

  We enacted as if we were just passing by the village. Pandi wished Bhoj’s mother who sat on the verandah and was chewing beetle leaf provoking her to invite us.

  Bhoj’s mother: Pandi…please come. It’s been a long time you visited our home inspite of being in the same village.

  Pandi: I am little busy as usual. By the way this is Dr. Richard from London. He is a close friend of Bhoj. He came all the way to meet him. Presently, he resides at our Ayya’s house.

  #We entered the house. The house was designed finely and had rich interiors. Her mother went to kitchen to make coffee for us.

  Pandi: Where is Bhoj?

  Bhoj mother: He had left to Salem to meet his friends.

  #Pandi kept Bhoj’s mother engaging in verbal speech by series of questions. While I was searching the house for Bhoj’s belongings. I got the 1996 year diary from his room. While taking the diary, I messed up with the papers. I noticed the photos of Sarita. I left them untouched and hid the diary inside the Jacket. We both enjoyed the filter coffee provided to us. We were told to have lunch, but we firmly rejected. We have a made quick exit from that place.

  We ended up in Farmhouse. I was randomly going through the diary. Since Bhoj was doctor, most of the content was in English. I noticed at several places, he had written in Tamil using red ink. This has caught my attention. I picked up a particular page and asked Pandi to read it.

  Pandi read and was able to translate to an extent. After aligning these words; I arrived at the line ‘A Wet Cloth has taken out the heat from the burning ashes.’ This was thrown as a puzzle to me and was doing immense brainstorming to decode it.

  I took the diary to home and shared with Michelle.

  Richard: Can you interspect the line ‘A wet cloth has taken the heat from burning ashes?’

  Michelle: Seems little poetic or sounds like a dialogue from any Indian film.

  Richard: Look I am serious! A person need not use metaphors in his/her diary. Definitely bhoj was referring to something and was still keeping it secret due to his introvert nature.

  Michelle: I think you have to completely read the diary then; I mean whatever is written in English to anticipate/decode the one written in Tamil. Follow the sequence of events.

  Hmmm…one more thing, notice the date…Maybe it could be of some help.

  I had gone through the diary other than the ones written in Tamil and folded certain pages to understand the mood of Bhoj. I understood Bhoj had the desire to marry Sarita. He was impressing Muthappan and was getting closer to him. Sarita’s marriage has completely shattered his dreams. It also reflected his inferiority complex especially related to finances and wanted to get rich. I think he considered his financial status as curse because of which he could have been denied an opportunity to become Muthappan’s son in law.

  I noticed the date where the tamil content was written in Red. Well, How could I forget the unfortunate day in my life. It was the day when Jasmine died!

  I was trying to find a connection between that line and Jasmine’s death. In the entire line, the first two words ‘ Wet Cloth’ was very prominent, was recollecting the series of events that happened on 29th Jan 1996. Bhoj had come to the hospital along with Sarita. We went to coffe shop.

  Richard: Just to confirm; What was the condition that has caused Jasmine’s death?

  Michelle: HYPOTHERMIA, a state where temperature of the premature babies drop and they have irregular heart beat.

  It was raining outside. I picked up a towel cloth and covered myself with it. I reached Pandi’s house.

  Pandi: Doctor sir! what happened? At this Odd time at my place.

  Richard: I need to talk to you. It is very important.

  Pandi: Please come inside. #handed over the towel to me.

  Sir, how about having drinks. Brandy Local, but very good one. My relative who works in Army has given this to me.

  #We started having brandy.

  Richard: You must have been to lot of places in and around Madurai.

  Pandi: Yes sir, I travelled a lot of places with Karthi sir.

  Richard: Any idea how the infants; the newly born female children are killed?

  Pandi: Sir being a doctor, why you want to know this. U have some plans to kill someone.

  Richard: Pandi, Be serious. I want to save the hundreds of infants who are being murdered using some strange techniques. I really want to educate the people.

  Pandi: They use oleander sap, grain husks which are easy to find and apply.

  Richard: Can infants be killed using wet cloth?

  Pandi: Oh yes! If a new born is placed in wet cloth for a while, it will get pneumonia and eventually it will die. Poor villagers who are uneducated think that the baby died due to some disease.

  #I imagined Dr Bhoj Placing a wet cloth which has been Squeezed of water and Placed under baby ‘Jasmine.’ Dr. Bhoj was KGH student and regular visitor, so no one doubted him. It was raining that day and the hospital was understaffed. He took an advantage of the situation as there was a climate change. Dr. Bhoj has used a native technique which he learnt in india to kill Jasmine.

  I was almost there; I wanted to hear this from culprit himself. The person who has subjected us to lifetime guilt and pain.

  Chapter 19

  There was a change of government in tamilnadu in the year 1996. This was an opportunity for Muthappan’s rival to seek revenge on him.

  Dr. Bhoj collected sufficient data evidence on the number of illegal abortions carried out based on gender scan at Meenakshi Hospital. He submitted this data to the now ruling party MLA Ramaswamy so that they file a complaint against Muthappan and take legal action.

  #This will completely destroy the political image of Muthappan and ruin his finances.

  On a fine Saturday evening, the local police arrests Muthappan and his son karthik for carrying out illegal abortions based on gender scanning. #The courts working hours ends at 6pm on any weekday and also the following day is Sunday which is a holiday. On Occasion of Diwali on Monday, It was a government holiday for courts. This was planned very well so that Muthappan does not seek any bail out and is sent to Jail.

  Bhoj smartly pushed the blame on me that I was the one who could have passed on the confidential data to the govt officials that served as evidence for Muthappan’s arrest. Karthik’s wife Priya is 9 months pregnant was few days due as per EDD (Expected date of delivery) and could experience pains at anytime.

  The hospital was sealed and was not allowed to carry any operations until further orders from court.

  At Muthappan’s residence:

  Vishu: Dr. Richard, what’s going on? Why did you pass on the information to the government about the gender scanning? Your move has completely defamed our family. What is your problem and why are you carrying this grudge on our family?

  Richard: Before I answer any of your questions, Just answer one of my question. Why do you think I will pass on any evidence to the ruling party and how do I Benefit out it?

  Vishu: I believed you tried to convince Ayya about this gender scanning and he has not bothered to listen to you. You tried hard to stop this and maybe this c
ould have been the last way out for you.

  Richard; So are you 100% sure there are no other rivals in Madurai for Mr. Muthappan? How about business, political and family rivals?

  Vishu: I am not sure. But these kind of things never happened before. It happened only after you started working at hospital.

  Richard: Now please calm down and listen to me carefully. The rival is not an outsider, it is known person. I am sure you will not believe my words, the person is none other than Dr. Bhoj. If I am not wrong, the person who informed you/seeded with doubts is him.

  #Vishu was amazed in silence. Dr Bhoj had already informed Vishu that I was the culprit who gathered evidence on the pretext of conducting health camps and passed over information to cease gender scanning. Such things never ever took place when Dr Bhoj was incharge of Meenakshi hospital.

  Vishu: What makes you think he is and why would he do after all he is our family friend known for several years. You are just trying to deviate us.

  Richard: Dr Bhoj recently visited ‘Meenakshi Hospital’ and also treated few patients when he was not actually authorized to. He had informed the staff that he was asked voluntarily to carry out medical services and no one from hospital could neither question him nor inform the same to Ayya. He learnt that the both of us were not there at hospital. All this happened when Michelle delivered baby.

  He had created a set up with video recordings of patients and bills clearly mentioning Gender Scanning.

  He knew gender scanning was against the law and this was the point where he can corner Muthappan.

  #Vishu was in Dilemma.

  Vishu: Whatsoever, I am more concerned about my father in law’s release.

  #Vishu and myself met the opposition party leaders to which muthappan belonged to. But it was already late night and they could do nothing at this point of time. The leaders tried to arrange a meeting with the ruling party for muthppan’s release, but they were not reachable.

  At muthappan’s residence, Kathik’s wife geetha had delivered baby boy under Michelle’s supervision.

  The arrest of her husband subjected her to shock and was on an emotional low. Because of which, she was not in a state of mind to breast feed milk to child inspite of being healthy.

  Michelle took the baby and breastfed the milk as she was a mother of new born baby.

  Next day morning at around 10 am, We along with party leaders had discussion with MLA who had lodged a case to withdraw it. He was warned of Political Vendetta when this party comes to power.

  He received orders from higher authority to withdraw case. But the police have already registered the case and FIR has been filed for the same.

  The high court judge issued interim bail orders based on which they both Muthappan and his son Karthik were released in the evening. Later, MLA withdrew the case.

  Priya’s condition came to normalcy after meeting Karthik. Muthappan was happy to reunite with the family and his joy knew no boundaries with this grandson’s birth.

  The incidents that took place in these two days were like a roller coaster ride. Finally, I was happy that everything ended smoothly. One thing which was still haunting was why would Dr Bhoj get down to this level. I was thoroughly analyzing the sequence of events right from KGH London till that day to understand the role of Dr. Bhoj.

  Chapter 20

  Pandi drank too much and fell asleep. After reading Dr. Bhoj’s diary, I realized that he was deeply in love with Sarita and came to India to seek revenge.

  Apart from that I learnt that Dr. Bhoj was carrying out research on the ‘Nagalinga’ flower that has various benefits which he confirmed by visiting various siddha ayurveda centres.

  If my instincts were not wrong, Dr. Bhoj would have gone to collect the samples of Nagalinga Flower which would help him demonstrate its benefits to leading Pharma giants across UK.

  I picked up a torch light and started walking towards the Old Shiva temple which was situated amongst the lush green fields.

  There were only few streetlights at distant places that were not sufficient to lighten the streets. I knew this place where Dr. Bhoj was heading and Infact I visited the place once.

  I reached a place near the fields from where I could see the huge Nagamalli Tree. I could see no one near the tree; I was wondering where Dr. Bhoj would have gone as he was nowhere to be seen.

  Just then I saw a person coming from the back of the tree hitting the torch on the ground which inturn was throwing light at his face.

  I moved little closer to the fields to watch what Dr. Bhoj was really upto.

  Now, I could see him under the light of the Full Moon. Dr. Bhoj held few Nagalinga flowers and said “You are my fortune. I will tread my path to become millionaire.”

  I started smelling the strong aromatic fragrance of Jasmine flowers around me the one which appeared in London before having hallucinations. My sixth sense indicated something supernatural against the laws of nature is going to happen.

  I don’t believe my eyes; the flowers turned into baby jasmine.

  Dr. Bhoj was in utter shock; he tried to throw the baby, but could not as if it was glued to his hands. He was hearing some strange noises and behaved as if he was experiencing hallucinations just like we both myself and Michelle) experienced in London. He was looking in all directions as if he was seeing some visuals. There was Psychic vibration all over!!!

  The baby in his hands turns into a king cobra which spews venom into his eyes. Bhoj loses his eye sight and starts shouting.

  Next day morning, the dew drops from the leaves of the maize crop fell on my eyes and I woke up. I saw a lot of villagers assembled near the temple. I too joined them and found Dr. Bhoj to be dead. His body was torn into several pieces and decayed badly overnight. It was like as if hundreds of venomous serpents had bitten him to death.This is the most fierceful death I have ever witnessed in my life. Villagers started whispering among themselves and every one had their own perceptions/assumptions over the death of Dr. Bhoj. They strongly felt that the untime visit of Dr. Bhoj to shiva temple premises caused his death due to snake bites. Their superstition turned true.

  Just then Pandi joined the crowd and was amazed to see the dead body of Bhoj. He looked at me and noticed torch in my hand, my dress being shabby with mud. He took me aside and asked me

  Pandi: Where were you yesterday night? I did not find you at home. I got up in the middle of the night, you were not there.

  Richard: Yes, I was not there at home. I went outside to attend the nature’s call. Later, I was moving around enjoying fresh breeze.

  Pandi: Sir, I don’t believe your words. You don’t have to walk all the way till shiva temple to get breeze of fresh air.

  #I did not want to reveal the truth that jasmine’s soul and other infants who were killed ruthlessly by Dr Bhoj have formed a superpower and took revenge by killing him. If this secret is revealed, it would spread like a wildfire and people will isolate this place of worship. I had a feeling that I could not get rid of villager’s superstition, But I had a greater motive to achieve (Eradication of Female infanticide/Foeticide). Let their superstition remain true in their minds so that no one will dare to reach the Nagalinga tree and its sanctity remains forever.

  Richard: Do you remember everything you spoke yesterday night?

  Pandi: naaa …Not Much.

  Richard: I have this strange habit of walking while I am drunk and enjoy the nature. It just happened that I walked too much as I was fully drunk and did not know where I was heading towards and reached near the shiva temple. It was just a coincidence.

  Even I am not able to recall what happened exactly after I reached the fields.

  Pandi: I think you’re having an Hangover. Don’t worry drink buttermilk; it will bring down your dizziness and normalize you.

  I had loads of buttermilk and slept. I was okay by afternoon. I thanked Muthappan and his family for hospitality.

  Richard: Sir, before leaving India I wanted to tell you something.

&nbs
p; You know how Dr. Bhoj died?

  “Everyone was looking at me with pound of eagerness.”

  Let me tell you as why we have to come to India and extend our stay for so long? We remember that unfortunate day when the condition of Jasmine got worsened and finally she died.

  We felt guilty as we could not save her. We thought it was sheer medical negligence on our part as we have given enough hope and confidence to their parents.

  We both were experiencing Hallucinations! We would hear and see Jasmine all over. We got married, even then the hallucinations did not cease. A documentary in discovery channel which we saw made us felt that there is something mystic about Madurai. It was our instincts that we followed and landed up in India. In India, we never experience the hallucinations!

  I later realized that there is bigger mission that needs to accomplish here in Madurai. We found that Female Infanticide and foeticide were a common sight and all this was happening under your own shadow;” Meenakshi Hospitals”!

  I visited the Meenakshi hospitals to witness the same. I read the diary of Dr. Bhoj and realized how much he loved your daughter Sarita. He carried the same amount of anger against you for not getting your daughter married to him and has utilized every opportunity to take revenge on you.

  Jasmine did not die out of medical complications; She was literally killed by none other than Dr. Bhoj by wrapping the child in a wet cloth due to which the baby developed Hypothermia and literally died. Everyone thought there was a drop in the temperature due to high rainfall that day which was unnoticed.

  Dr Bhoj who earlier worked at your hospital performed several abortions and was involved in huge foeticide of female unborn babies. He did the same to jasmine as well, but this time the motive was not financial gain but to seek revenge. He terminated Jasmine by wrapping in a wet cloth that caused Hypothermia and things went out of control.