Six Suspects

He grabbed a seat next to the window and didn't budge from it throughout the twenty-seven-hour journey, feeling the sun in his eyes, the wind in his face, watching the changing kaleidoscope of colours as dull brown cornfields gave way to lush green rice fields, marvelling at the vastness of this country where you could travel for hours, passing village after village, and still not reach your destination. As day dimmed to night, the relentless rhythm of the train became a lullaby which gently rocked him to sleep.

Everything was different about Chennai. The weather was hotter than Kolkata and more humid. The men were swarthier and wore moustaches. The women were dressed in colourful saris and had flowers in their hair. No one spoke Hindi.

As soon as they left the brick-red Gothic structure of Chennai Central, the tribal sniffed the air. The north-east monsoon was still active and the aroma of rain hung in the air like a moist perfume. 'Does this place have a sea?'

'Yes. How do you know?' asked Ashok.

'Eketi can smell it.'

They boarded one of the ubiquitous yellow-and-black autorickshaws and Ashok told the driver to take them straight to Rajagopal's residence on Sterling Road in Nungambakkam. As they entered the swirl of traffic outside the station, Eketi looked in wide-eyed wonderment at the imposing buildings and elegant showrooms lining the crowded boulevard. The city was full of hoardings, advertising the latest Tamil blockbusters, but what fascinated him most were the giant plywood images of politicians and film stars dotting the streets, some as tall as two-storey buildings. Chennai was a cut-out city. A giant smiling woman in a sari competed for votes with an old man in dark glasses. Lusty-eyed heroines and moustachioed heroes with exaggerated hair-dos towered over the traffic like colossi.

Sterling Road was a busy thoroughfare, full of commercial establishments, banks and offices, interspersed with large houses. The auto-rickshaw dropped them off directly in front of Rajagopal's The Curse of the Onkobowkwe 297 residence, which was an elegant green-and-yellow-painted villa. Two uniformed guards stood impassively on duty on either side of the high metal gates, which for some reason were open.

'Have you come for the prayer meeting?' a guard asked Ashok.

The welfare officer nodded blankly.

'Please go inside. It is in the main drawing room.'

'You wait here,' Ashok instructed Eketi, and entered the gate. He went along a curved driveway with well-kept lawns on both sides. The house had a solid teak door which was also open, and he stepped into a large drawing room from which all furniture had been removed. There were white sheets on the floor on which approximately fifty people were seated, mostly wearing lightcoloured clothes. Men sat on one side and women on the other. At the far end was a large framed picture of a young man with a crew-cut and a thick moustache, which was decorated with a garland of red roses. Incense sticks burnt in front of the picture, the smoke curling upwards in thin wisps. A good-looking, slightly overweight woman in her early thirties sat beside the picture. Clad in a plain white cotton sari with no frills and no ornaments, she looked every inch the grieving widow.

Ashok sat down in the last row of the men's section and put on a suitably solemn expression. Through discreet questioning of the other mourners he learnt that this was a condolence meeting for the industrialist Selvam Palani Rajagopal – known to friends as SP – who had died of a heart attack two days ago, caused by a sudden and unexpected business loss.

Ashok waited two hours for the assembly to be over. After the last of the mourners had left, he went up to the widow and folded his hands. 'My name is Amit Arora. So sorry to hear about SP's death, Bhabhiji, so sorry,' he mumbled. 'It is hard to imagine that a man of thirty-five can suffer a heart attack. I met him just ten days ago in Kolkata.'

'Yes. My husband had a lot of business in Kolkata,' she replied.

'How did you know Raja?' There was a strangled quality to her voice which he found oddly erotic.

'He was my senior in IIT Madras.'

'Oh, so you are also an alumni of IIT-M? It's strange Raja never mentioned you.'

'We sort of lost touch after graduation. You know how these things happen.' He spread his hands and fell silent. Somewhere inside the house a pressure cooker whistled.

'So are you also living in Chennai?' Mrs Rajagopal enquired.

'There are not too many North Indians here.'

'No. I now live in Kolkata. I left Chennai soon after graduating.'

A maid brought him tea in a bone-china cup.

'If you don't mind, there is one thing I wanted to ask you, Bhabhiji,' Ashok said in the oily tone of someone bringing up a delicate subject.

'Yes?' she responded warily.

'SP told me he had bought a shivling from an antique dealer in Kolkata. Can I see it?'

'Oh, that shivling? Adu Poyiduthu! It's gone. It is now with Guruji.'

'Guruji? Who is he?'

'Swami Haridas. Raja was his disciple for the past six years. Guruji came for the funeral yesterday. He saw the shivling and asked if he could have it. So I gave it to him. Now that Raja is gone, what would I have done with it?'

'Can you tell me where Guruji lives? Is it close by?'

'He lives in Mathura.'

' Mathura? You mean Mathura in Uttar Pradesh?'

'Yes. That is where he has an ashram. But he has branches all over India.'

Ashok slumped back. 'So now I will have to travel all the way to Uttar Pradesh!'

'Why? What is your interest in that shivling?'

'It is rather complicated… Can you give me Swamiji's telephone number in Mathura?'

'Actually Guruji is not in Mathura now.'

'Then where is he?'

'He has gone on a world tour. Yesterday he left Madras for Singapore. From there he will go to America, then Europe.'

'So when will he return to Mathura?'

'He will only return after two to three months.'

'Two to three months?'

'Yes. Your best chance of finding him will be at the Magh Mela in Allahabad in January next year. He told me he would be going there for discourses.'

'Thank you, Bhabhiji. Take care. I shall be in touch,' Ashok said, trying to mask the disappointment in his voice, and took his leave.

Eketi was still sitting on the kerb outside the entrance when Ashok emerged from the gates. 'What took you so long?' He looked quizzically at Ashok.

'The sea-rock has eluded us once again. Worse, it has left the country,' Ashok said dejectedly. 'It will come back only after three months. So I am taking you back to the island.'

'Back to the island?' Eketi sprang up in alarm. 'But you promised that we would return with the ingetayi.'

'I know. But what will I do with you for three months? I don't want to get into trouble with the Welfare Department.'

'But Eketi doesn't want to return to the island.'

Ashok looked at him sharply. 'Are you out of your bloody mind? Why don't you want to return?'

'What is there to return to? Eketi was trapped on that island, suffocated by it,' the Onge cried. 'I would look at the pictures of India in the book they gave us in school and dream about them. I observed the big ships crossing the ocean and wondered where they went to. I used to see the foreigners arrive with their cameras to gawk at us, and my mind used to go crazy. I felt like jumping into their boats and just going somewhere. Anywhere. That is why I came here. To escape from the island. And Eketi is not going back.'

'Is that why you volunteered to recover that rock?'

'Yes. Eketi wanted to come to India.'

'And you have no concern about what will happen to your tribe if they don't get that sacred rock back?'

'Eketi will help you recover the ingetayi. Then you can take it back, and Eketi will remain behind in your wonderful country.'

'So this was all part of a devious plan, eh? And have you thought of what you will do here?'

'Eketi will get married. Back home, old people marry all the young girls. I had no hope of finding a wife if I stayed on the island. Here I can have a new life. Get a wife.'