by M. N. KRISH
‘What do we do about the culprit, sir?’
‘What can we do?’ Lakshman sighed again, in despair. ‘We can’t even track him down unless we take everyone’s fingerprints and match them with those on the window . . . Even then it’s all a road to nowhere.’
‘I didn’t mean that, sir. I meant the actual culprit. I’ve caught him, sir.’
‘Really?’ Lakshman said, eyebrows shooting up.
‘Yes sir,’ Mahendran said, beaming proudly. ‘There,’ he pointed under the table near the power surge protector.
Lakshman had missed it earlier in the darkness. He now saw the little one that lay sprawled and jumped. ‘Oh my God! Is it dead?’
‘No sir, it was still breathing when I saw it. I think it touched some live wire, got a shock and fainted.’
‘Has anyone called the veterinarians?’
‘Veterinarians, sir?’ Mahendran asked, puzzled. ‘I thought we should call the police and let them take the culprit into custody for damaging government property. In fact, I have tied his legs to the table with a rope so he won’t suddenly wake up and run away.’
You fool! Lakshman wanted to scream. ‘If the police come here, you and I will be the ones taken into custody first, you know that?’
‘Oh my God!’ Mahendran slapped his forehead. ‘I didn’t think of it, sir. Indian Wildlife Act, 1972.’
‘Call Major Madhavan. He knows what to do. He can get the people from the zoo to take a look. We already have plenty of wild animals to deal with on this campus. We don’t want one more.’
Rishi would have picked up on the innuendo. But it didn’t even make a ping on Mahendran. ‘Yes sir. I’ll get Madhavan immediately,’ he said and made for the phone with urgency.
‘No wait, I’ll call myself. But first please go untie the rope,’ Lakshman said and scrambled to his office.
~
Lakshman could breathe easy only after the vets from the neighbouring Guindy zoo succeeded in reviving the monkey and reuniting him with his fraternity, who like Rama’s troops had laid siege outside the lab windows and were anxiously following the proceedings inside. Only after watching the happy reunion with a cheering crowd of staff and students was Lakshman able to proceed with his original agenda for the day, starting with Joshua.
Since Lakshman had been the chairman of the conference organization committee, he had access to the list of participants who had originally signed up as speakers or presenters during the sessions. He pulled up the file in his computer and ran his eyes over it and then followed it up with a Ctrl-F search for Jeffrey Williams. He tried all variants of the name: Jeff, Will, Bill . . . But there was no trace of the name anywhere.
Next, he scoured the list of speakers who actually showed up for the conference, including the standbys who magnanimously filled in for those who ended up playing hooky. It was in a paper file gathering cobwebs on his bookshelf and he scanned through it thoroughly. Once. Twice. When he drew a blank even there, he could safely conclude that Jeffrey wasn’t participating in the capacity of a speaker or a presenter at the conference. There was of course the possibility that he participated as audience and Lakshman decided to check that next in the attendees’ register.
With the exception of speakers and presenters, no advance registration had been required of the participants. Since time was short, the attendees could walk in and register directly at the venue. Those sign-up sheets were filed together and left languishing in the document archives at the end of the conference. Lakshman called up Velappan Kutty, an administrative assistant who’d helped him with the logistics, and asked him for the attendees listing.
‘It’s very surprising you’re asking for that file now, sir,’ said Velappan Kutty. ‘I don’t even know where it is. Must be somewhere in storage. Do you really need me to go, search and get it, sir?’
‘Yes, please. I need it for something.’
‘I can get it, sir, but it’s going to take time.’
‘How much time?’
‘Don’t know, sir. It could even take an hour or two to search through all the documents.’
‘I need it by this afternoon.’
‘Okay sir, I’ll do my best.’
‘Thank you, Velappan.’
Lakshman moved on to his other affairs, starting with the arrangements for the coronation of Pomonia.
He shot off a few emails to his colleagues, dictated a few memos to his secretary Chamundeeswari and drafted a letter to Pomonia’s office requesting his measurements for the convocation gown. That done, he stepped out of the office to take stock of the lab with Mahendran.
The lab had been cleaned and sanitized and four machines were up and running, but Lakshman could still smell simian excrement filtering through the aroma of Dettol and couldn’t bear staying inside too long. He instructed the students to open the windows but keep a watchful eye for monkeys and stepped out, signalling Mahendran to follow. He was standing outside the door and discussing with Mahendran how to restore the place to its original glory as quickly as possible when Chamundeeswari came shuffling down the corridor.
‘Sir sir sir, urgent phone call for you,’ she said.
‘Fifth Floor?’
‘No sir.’
Lakshman knew there was only one other person on earth who would make such a frantic phone call. He raced back to his office, switched on the fan and sank into his chair. Chamundeeswari put the call through to him.
‘Sorry Josh, I don’t have any breaking news for you yet,’ Lakshman said and told him about the files.
Joshua went mute, clearly disappointed.
‘I’ve asked for the attendees’ register now. It’s there only in hard copy and I’m expecting it to arrive in my office sometime this afternoon.’
‘Oh, okay,’ said Joshua, perking up a little.
‘But my hands are full today, Josh. I have to do a lot of running around and I’m not sure when I’ll be back in my office to search through it. If you want it done fast I suggest you come down here and take a look yourself.’
‘That would be great,’ Joshua said. ‘So can I swing by your office later in the afternoon then?’
‘Sure. You might have to wait a little in case I’m not around. But I’ll let my secretary know before I leave.’
‘Not a problem, Lax,’ said Joshua. ‘See you in the afternoon. Thanks a bunch.’
13
What was Durai going to bring? The anticipation gnawed away at Joshua and he did everything in his capacity to not let it consume him.
After talking to Lakshman, he strolled down to the multi-cuisine restaurant downstairs and had a long and leisurely brunch in the company of the day’s newspaper, always curious to study the style, structure, content and political proclivities of English dailies in different parts of the world. The crazy-quilting of styles under the same masthead – colonial hangover in the OP-ED page, rabble rousing Indianism on the front page, idiomatic Americanism of the syndicated sections, curious colloquialism of the entertainment sections, pidgin thriftiness of the classifieds, grammatical anality and thematic banality of the editorials, old world charm of the culture and religion columns and the sheer incomprehensibility of the sports page – seemed to perfectly capture the dizzying chaos and contradictions sitting side by side with the striking coherence and consistency in the country. It was both amusing and revealing at the same time.
He returned to his suite after brunch and remained there for a while, taking a re-look at the paper he was working on. He was still unable to believe that he had failed to see the efficiency of the non-Robinsonian push-pop approach that Divya was so quick to spot and went through his algorithm once again with a fine-tooth comb. When his eyes and back started showing strains from sitting hunched and staring intently at the screen, he turned off the laptop and shifted base to the balcony.
The whiff of fresh air helped him u
nwind a little, but he was unable to bear the blazing sunshine beyond a few minutes. He decided to go downstairs and lounge in the shade of palm trees and parasols by the swimming pool and get some tan without pain. He changed into a comfortable T-shirt and khaki shorts and was knotting up his sneakers when the doorbell buzzed.
He opened the door and saw Durai Raj standing in the corridor, a respectful metre away from the door.
‘Hey Durai, come on in. I’ve been waiting for you with bated breath,’ Joshua said.
Durai walked in after Joshua and closed the door behind him.
‘Why don’t you sit down?’
‘It’s okay, sir,’ said Durai. A guest offering a seat to a driver was as much a rarity as one offering coffee. In any case, Durai preferred not to sit, partly out of feudal respect for Joshua and partly out of the fear that he would be out of a job in case anyone ever found out about it.
‘What can I say?’ said Joshua. ‘If you’re comfortable standing, so be it. Any luck?’
‘I spoke to other drivers like you said, sir. And asked them casually about Mr Jeffrey Williams . . .’
Joshua leaned forward, eyebrows shooting up. ‘And?’
‘Mr Jeffrey did not have a regular driver like you, sir. He went with different drivers to different places. I could not talk to all the drivers, sir. Only some. What they’re saying is that he went to the Institute many times, sir. There was some conference going on last month and many foreigners had come to attend it.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Joshua said. ‘Where else did he go in the city apart from the conference?’
‘Don’t know, sir. These guys today didn’t say much. But I will check with the others, sir. Unfortunately, he never travelled in my car; otherwise, I would have known more.’ Durai said that with genuine regret which Joshua didn’t quite understand. ‘But there is something else I found out, sir. Mr Jeffrey did not always stay inside the city, sir. He also travelled long distance.’
‘Long distance? Where?’ Joshua asked eagerly. ‘Kanchipuram?’
Durai was surprised. Not even in his wildest dreams did he expect someone like Joshua to know the name of remote town like Kanchipuram. He had pronounced it can-chee-poo-ram, but there was no mistaking it.
‘Kanchipuram, I don’t know, sir,’ Durai said. ‘No one said he went there. They only said he went to the Delta area, sir.’
‘Delta area?’ Joshua asked, puzzled.
‘Cauvery river delta area, sir. It’s in the south.’
‘Oh, okay,’ Joshua said.
‘Tanjore, Trichy, Kumbakonam, Thiruvaiyaru . . . all those historic places, sir. All in the old Chola kingdom. A lot of tourists visiting the state usually go there, sir.’
Joshua remained quiet for a few moments and Durai began to wonder if he had understood. He had taken care to say the names slowly, but he wasn’t sure if they’d got across to Joshua. ‘Sir, if you want, I can write them down on a paper for you.’
‘Don’t bother,’ said Joshua. ‘I got what you said. I know some of the places myself.’
The professor had taken Durai by surprise again. He seemed to know the lay of the land better than most foreigners the driver had encountered in his career. Curious, he asked, ‘Have you seen those places, sir?’
‘No, not yet. I only know of them. Maybe I’ll go visit sometime.’ Joshua had been to Trichy in the Seventies to attend Lakshman’s wedding, but it was a short trip and he hadn’t done much sightseeing.
‘They’re good places to see, sir. So many beautiful temples, both Shiva and Vishnu. The palaces are all gone, sir; just one or two left. But the old temples are all still there, sir,’ Durai said, his voice brimming with excitement. ‘I can drive you around, sir. I know all the places in and out. Three days and you can cover everything. I make at least one trip every month, sir. Foreign tourists are always interested in going.’
‘Thanks. I’ll let you know if I want to go,’ said Joshua. ‘Are you sure Jeffrey didn’t go to Kanchipuram?’
Durai became even more intrigued. Why was Joshua harping on Kanchipuram? ‘I don’t know for sure, sir,’ he said. ‘I haven’t talked to all the drivers yet. I’ll know better after I talk to more people. Is there anything special about Kanchipuram, sir?’
‘Could you try talking to the other drivers?’ Joshua said, brushing the question aside. Inquisitiveness was his prerogative, not Durai’s.
‘Yes sir, I’ll talk to other drivers. Today, tomorrow, anytime I see anybody, sir.’
‘Thanks,’ said Joshua. ‘Please try to find out as much as possible, about his local trips as well as his long distance trips. Come and see me as soon as you have something. And, as always, watch out, take all precautions.’
‘Yes sir, I know.’
Joshua opened his wallet and took out a sheaf of one-hundred-rupee bills. He didn’t even count. ‘Thanks for all your effort. Really appreciate it.’
Durai accepted his reward with both hands, a big smile lighting up his face. ‘Thank you, sir.’
Joshua looked at his Rolex and decided he could ill afford to spend time sitting by the pool and toasting himself to a tan as he desired. Durai’s report injected a sense of urgency into his system and he decided to get moving on the other line of investigation. Since Durai’s conversations with the other drivers were already yielding results, he decided not to disturb him. He asked Durai to fetch him a taxi and resume his good work.
‘Where do you want to go, sir?’ Durai asked.
‘Into the city,’ Joshua said.
Durai realized Joshua was not going to get any more specific than that. ‘No problem, sir,’ he said. ‘The taxi will be waiting in the porch in five minutes.’
He thanked Joshua once again and walked out of the suite a happy man: his job was not yet over and there was more mileage to extract from Joshua. As he padded down the corridor and made for the lift, he couldn’t help marvelling at the quirky way destiny worked. Dame luck didn’t smile on him when Jeffrey had come calling, scattering dollar bills out of a hat. Yoked to that Scrooge from Bombay, he didn’t get to make a single pie off Jeffrey’s generosity. But now, fate had sent him Joshua with a red ribbon bow around him, a milch cow willing to pay any price for information about Jeffrey. Present or absent, alive or dead, Jeffrey was still showering cash at the Oceanic.
14
By the time Joshua came calling, Lakshman was back in his office after his errand runs. However, there was no sign of the attendees register. Lakshman made Joshua wait in an adjoining room and rang up Velappan Kutty.
‘The office boy will bring the file to you in five minutes sir,’ Velappan Kutty said, sneezing.
‘What if the file doesn’t come in five minutes?’ Lakshman asked.
‘It will come after that, sir.’
Lakshman had no answer to such studied insolence. He knew he was at the mercy of Velappan Kutty and if he continued the conversation any further, he would have more such volleys coming his way. He hung up and waited. If there was anything Lakshman could take comfort in, it was that he hadn’t called Velappan Kutty in Joshua’s presence; it would’ve been doubly insulting to have his old friend witness his humiliation at the hands of a minor official. As Lakshman pondered over his ascent to head of the department, he couldn’t help feeling that his promotion was a dubious amalgamation of elevation on one hand and emasculation on the other, a marriage of inconvenience that could not be done apart.
An office boy delivered the file in half an hour. Lakshman turned it over to Joshua in the room next door. ‘Josh, all yours.’
Lakshman’s terseness told Joshua that his comrade of old was not able or willing to get involved any further.
‘Thanks, Lax. I’ll take it from here,’ Joshua said. He slumped back in his chair and flipped open the file. His heart thumped faster and he found himself breaking into a sweat. He riffled through the file quickly onc
e and noticed that the attendees register was nothing but a sheaf of signup sheets, eighty to hundred of them. A quick and dirty estimate told him that, with about twenty or so rows per page, the total number of entries ran into thousands. He was sure the number of participants did not run into thousands and he got his confirmation when he thumbed through the pages a little more slowly: The organizers had made the participants sign in at every plenary and breakout session, so most of the names were just repetitions. Why they chose to collect the same information in so many places instead of just having everyone sign up once at the point of entry was something Joshua couldn’t tell. But he didn’t linger on it for long. This was India, where filling forms and paperwork in triplicate was a national occupation. They never made anything easy for you and he resigned himself for the long haul.
Once he got the hang of the file, he began plodding through it carefully, his glasses sliding down his nose. The entries were often in illegible handwriting as one could expect from signup sheets but he went through them patiently, dog-earing the page and marking the rows he wasn’t sure about with a pencil for further review.
A little over twenty minutes of search, his heart skipped a beat and then began to thump faster again.
Jeffrey’s name in full . . .
There was no mistaking it. His university and official email address were scrawled next to his name, in block letters.
Joshua sprang up from his chair and shot out of the room, the file clutched in his hand. He barged into Lakshman’s office, barely pausing to give a perfunctory knock on the door.
‘Lax, we’ve got work to do,’ he said, slapping the pink file down on Lakshman’s desk.
Lakshman froze in his chair for a moment before collecting himself and saying, ‘So you found what you were looking for?’