Rajrupa Gupta's Blog, page 2

The Uncouth Indian

Each day I go to work, my conviction about the IT industry being the dumbest workforce of India grows a bit stronger. A crowd of stupid closed minded people with a dangerous self impression of knowing everything under the sun, who think they have attained Nirvana when handed an onsite assignment. Proud mummy papa come to see Pappu off to his Phoren trip.
Our Pappu has lived in metro cities that boast cosmopolitan culture, is Internet savvy and social media freak - truly global citizen! Yet, untrained and uncouth with a mangled sense of personal space and hygiene gives offense wherever he goes. Unwilling to observe and learn, happily sitting in his own well in the world’s stage, Pappu is unaware that his behavior is only making the world form a skewed view of Indians as a whole. Prepared to argue with me, are you now? Hold on to it please, till I finish my whole story.
The other day standing in a queue at the office cafeteria, I saw a man in front picking up a dessert from the dessert platter on his used plate and then a moment later putting it back on to the same platter - with bare hands! I swerved and left from the queue unable to think of taking my serving from the same platter and ashamed too!
It’s perfectly fine for the Pappus of the IT industry to shout on phone in native language while others work. Why even loud laughter and rowdy gestures in closed places like elevators are fine without even being considerate of the fellow passengers. Always seen in groups, these individuals are immensely insensitive to the other people sharing the same space. Turning up in office in a pair of old frayed and painted jeans, unshaven and with dirt under fingernails and a red button carelessly sewn on a white shirt is perfectly acceptable to them. Because it’s what’s inside that matters, not the outside appearance. Only show offs dress up. I am told. As long as the work is done, no one cares how Pappu looks or behaves.  Pappus are too innocents to look groomed!
Will one’s innocence go away if he turned up in office in clean wrinkle free clothes, shaven and with trimmed nails? I don’t know. Nor do I understand how maintaining social decorum makes one less smart! Not only am I stumped by this argument, I even fail to understand this self professed goodness when the same people talk rudely, complete with ugly hand gestures to a sales assistant in a store, simply because he could not give them the deal they wanted, and cringes away from  donating a cereal packet to an orphanage. Not only are these people horribly groomed, they reflect right back any initiative as well. All exercises to improve the social skills taken up at the corporate level fail because  no one’s interested.
And it’s only the tip of the iceberg. The typical Indian sluggishness is really a unique thing to behold. The lack of seriousness in anything they do, and the shameless unapologetic stance infuriates me. The same people who boast about doing their work so well, are still miles behind the Germans, Japanese and even the Chinese. I am ashamed to admit that I’d choose a non-Indian team member over an Indian any day! You get the work done faster, you get good social skills too!  
Yes, we have succeeded in convincing the rest of the world that - “These people never change! This ineptitude - they call it as Chalta Hai.” I heard the exact words being spoken when a manager who came to look for his team members after a critical issue needed immediate attention, found that unfazed by the problem they have gone for an elaborate tea-break!
While sometimes I feel angry enough to feel like shaking our entire population out of their eternal slumber, some other times I feel ashamed that these pappus and I come from the same country! I don’t know if the problem has any solution other than an apocalypse!

Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

Home Sweet Home

Home in my earliest memory is but a half built structure. Of jutting out bricks resembling a giant’s uneven teeth, of grey paste of sand and cement, mixed expertly with a grub hoe. Of something ugly, yet spoken of with pride. To me then, the rented house we lived in presented a much better case for a place to live. Smooth walls, cool floor and clean. But it was not home. 
A year later, indeed those ugly bricks gave way to the most beautiful house. White with blue windows, and pink climbing bougainvillea. It was home. I loved it as dearly as I had hated it when it was ugly. Facing east, our home welcomed the sun very early in the morning into the house every morning. The bougainvilleas turned bright golden in the sun as it climbed up in the sky. The palm lined boundary rendered enough shade, so that the humid sun was still likable. I loved those big windows that opened at all sides of the house. They let enough air in to keep us cool even in those long hours of power cuts. 
My room situated at the south-west corner had pink walls and four windows. Two faced south and the other two faced west. Outside the south facing windows was a mango tree and outside the west facing windows was a guava tree and a dwarf Ixora tree.  The red flowers it was always laden with and the butterflies they attracted made me value my room even more. 
Grandma told stories of her home back in Bangladesh lying on my bed with such fondness and the way she never seemed to have left it made me wonder. Would I too, when as old as her, tell my grandchildren stories of this house so fondly? As I collected them, my memories of home increased as the house grew with me. The first line of green algae on its white sparkling exterior where rain had come down, the sticky dirt on the outside of the window pane, the cobwebs - each had its story. 
Then, suddenly, all too soon I left it. Away in college, amidst friends, I pined for my home. That pink room, those red Ixoras. Every Saturday as the final bell rang, I would run to catch the first train that would take me home. My home was still my home, but somehow it had changed from where I lived to where I returned, a weekend abode. Four years, I told myself. Just four more years, and I will be back, reclaiming my space, restoring what was, what meant to be.
But that never happened. Home, as I had known it forever, never was the same again. College culminated in a job and I was away again. And this time I knew, like a heavy rock, it sat upon me, the reality of it causing me physical pain yet I knew there was no escaping from it, that I would never be home again. No more green streak of algae would have their own story, or maybe they would, its just that I wouldn't be privy to those.
Yet, in spite of everything, home evolved into something else. With time home became what I shared with S. At the end of the day I looked forward to return to the small apartment I rented with her. The scarcity, the minimalist nature of our living was home. Different stories, different memories - fond, bitter. But still loved, still cherished.
Since then the definition of home has changed many a time in my life. In fact, since 2011, I have spent every Diwali in a different house. From a comfortable two-bhk to a cramped studio, home has been as varied as it could be. Different cities, even countries. I have called them all home. Perhaps because it gives an illusion of settlement to my nomadic life. Or perhaps I carry a piece of home with me which, over the years, has grown adaptive enough to flourish anywhere if nurtured a little. Maybe it was the people I lived with, that made me feel at home in those unknown houses. Whatever it is, there’s one certain thing that I have learnt, or understood rather  - you don't just build a house and call it home. Home is a state of mind that you attain! And if you are anything like me, you can have a home waiting for you in every corner of the world and enjoy a homecoming wherever you go. 
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

The Perils of Social Media And My Plight

I have been a blogger for some time now, but you probably don’t know my name. I have written a book, but I am not sure how many of you have read it. Apart from that I work my days in an office, which is full of people who have either gone to an engineering college or a B-school. What I am trying to say is, I am just another person with a not at all unusual hobby and surrounded by people who are generally classified as common, if slightly privileged, middle class. I live my life unremarkably, mind my own business. I don’t even share the common craziness of sharing everything about my life on social media. Excepting my blog posts. Basically, I am not at all famous. One would think, I am too non-consequential to be on someone’s radar. One would think my life of obscurity would be enough to be private. After all, there are always enough people more interesting than me out there.
Thus, I was secure in my small world believing I was secure from the prying eyes. Even though I was aware of the problem, aware of the shady affairs that lurked around the corner, I didn’t really care because you know how self-centered we all really are, and how we tend to be perfectly happy as long as our personal space is un-hurt. And over time, with so much increase in time spent gawking at phones and computers, we have become so short sighted that we don’t even notice until it’s too close and too late.
So when I read about online identity thefts, all I did was to forget all about it. Because hey, I am a nobody, a boring nobody whose social profiles have only links to her blog posts! And who reads the musings of a personal blogger anyway? Who would be stealing my identity? What would they gain from it?
But then, out of the blue, I found out, someone did! Indeed! They thought it was fun to create a fake Facebook profile using my name and then use it to be-friend people I knew. Now the funny thing is, my friend list in Facebook is hidden. If a person visits my profile, he would be able to see only people we both are friends with. It in turn means, the person who created this duplicate profile of mine is either someone I know and probably have interacted with or he is my ‘friend’ on Facebook and we shared quite a few common friends.
When I went back to recheck my friend list and prune it, I found I didn’t have many ‘friends’ from the virtual world. My ‘friends’ consisted of classmates from school and college, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and few fellow bloggers! On top of that I found this imposter had befriended only my colleagues – meaning he either was one of them or someone, who knew both them and me. He also knew that I was friendly with them enough to be accepted by them as a “friend” in Facebook, or perhaps, he was just taking his chance. I will never know. This has been going on since 2012 and I have only come to know now!
I did what I could do next. I reached out to my friends and asked them to report the profile. They all did. I counted 1,2..30. Yes, at least 30 friends reported the profile as fake. It’s really easy to tell really, an original one from a fake. In this case, most of the friends of this imposter were fake profiles themselves. A look at the timeline and it becomes clear. I sat back, believing that the complaints will be looked upon and investigated.   
But apparently, the profile didn’t violate any “community policy” by pretending to be me and so Facebook didn’t take the profile down. Our profiles on Facebook, after all, are nothing but numbers that can earn them better revenue from the advertisers – the more the better. After all, it takes a lot to maintain those cool looking employees who eat pizzas and throw darts at work. The cybercrime cell too, I was told, acts only if you are really famous and a public figure or if you lose money! What about loss of reputation? Apparently that doesn’t apply any more.
While I was coping with this and deciding on what to do next, another friend of mine reported her picture being used as the profile picture in another profile which was not her own. To add to the woe, the timeline of this profile was full of sexually explicit content. Imagine her distress! She too complained about the fake profile but nothing was done. The profile wasn’t taken down. She sought legal advice and reported the crime to the cybercrime cell.  So far, they too have done nothing other than shuttling her file from one irrelevant department to another.
While I keep my investigation on and try to find more details on this, it’s been an eye opener.  Stalkers exist, more often than not, in our closest circles. Doesn’t matter who we are, or how benevolent, we can still stir anyone’s fancy or vengeance. It becomes really easy to exploit someone in the social media. It is no longer a thing that happens to others and not me. Accidentally falling victims is different but poses a great possibility in this era of social media too. None of us are safe in our own world anymore. I considered removing my profile from Facebook for a while. But then it doesn’t make sense. I don’t know if my absence will starve or feed the imposter. Also I need the network for my own benefit and all the right reasons. I however, will have to be even more careful about what I share at all on social media. But one good thing has happened from all of this though and I admit it. It has weaned me off Facebook permanently.
To you the reader however, I preach, let this post serve as a cautionary tale. Be wary of everyone. Think well, twice, thrice, even five times before you post or share anything. There’s no delete after you tweet. I used to be complacent in my knowledge of being surrounded by “safe” people. Not anymore. Even things you share within closed communities in strictest confidence online may make you vulnerable to threats.
The Internet makes it easy to casually sculpt real people in the virtual world. Easy to do damage but awfully hard to repair. Your name or mine. Taken. Used. When it happens to you, it’s no small thing, believe me. And when the authorities turn blind to your plight, it becomes even more painful. I am not giving up though, not yet. I urge you, too. Take notice, be vigilant. Don’t take the social media for granted. It’s not a scribble pad. And if you find yourself a victim, don’t run away. Dig your ground, stay back, and see it through. Who knows if we all are vocal enough, maybe the authorities will take a notice?   Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

Mother Tongue – A Language That My Mother Speaks!

Image Courtesy: http://canadianimmigrant.ca/Recently, in Facebook everyone was discussing their favorite books and tagging others to do the same. After the ice bucket challenge, probably, this was the most viral post my Facebook timeline has seen. While it delighted me that most of my FB friends, who posted about their list of top 10 favorite books and even tagged me, were exceptionally well-read (Why, some even quoted Samuel Richardson or James Joyce), it saddened me to no end that none of them could think of any book written in their mother tongue.
            Now, most of my favorite writers were born Bengali and they wrote in their mother tongue. They created a treasure trove that no one today searches for. I wonder if today anyone reads Tagore? Or Ray? Even Sunil Ganguly? I doubt. Forget reading. The other day a grown up woman in her early twenties maybe, asked me the meaning of the Bengali word, ‘Nirmom’. To my non-Bengali friends, it is a very common word that means cruel or heartless! She defended herself (or was it gloating?) that since she studied in an English Medium School, her Bengali was rusty! It’s depressing, the way Indian Languages are dying a slow death!
Indeed, this seems to be the trend now. We read only books written in English. Even Hindi-fied English books are infinitely better than books written in Hindi. It’s hip and cool not to be able to speak your mother tongue. Parents speak in English to their children. When I was living in Chennai, I saw only people conversing in English, in shopping malls, cafes, restaurants and theatres. I am sure it’s the same across India in all cities. If you don’t speak in English, you are automatically looked down upon. The mother tongue identifies a lesser individual now. No one studies these languages anymore! We are busy correcting the grammar of this borrowed language so much that we are forgetting the basics of our own! Soon Mother Tongue will mean, a language that my mother used to speak, of which I know nothing of.
It scares me. My mother tongue is not only a tool of communication but a repository of culture, of our history, our traditions, and our folklore.
I have heard Indians argue that English is an Indian language because more people in India speak English than in the other countries where English is the native language. True, in a purely numeric point of view. Yet most of us only speak a “dialect” of it. It’s but a mutant, not the Standard English! But we are so eager to be included in the list of English speaking nations that in our hurry we are ready to leave our own languages behind. Strangely this logic never applies to the European countries and even China - they are so proud of their own languages and yet they know English well enough.
I don’t understand our need of borrowed cultures. Perhaps it’s a direct consequence of the British colonialism. Because the argument of globalization doesn’t hold ground in my mind. Globalization certainly doesn’t demand forgetting your own language and even taking pride in that.
Let me recount my meeting with a person this weekend. I was fortunate to meet this person, a professor of Mathematics in the Harvard University. He is teaching there since 1993. In a casual conversation he said, in the past 20 years, he’s taught students from all over the world. All brilliant. But never has he seen students willing to adapt and forget about home quicker than an Indian. While students from rest of the world are always sharing about their culture and traditions, Indians are content in halfheartedly participating in a Diwali celebration here or a Holi there. That’s it! Other times they are trying too hard to parrot the Americans, so much so that they are driving others away from them. While the rest of the student population is able to mingle without trying so much! Over time this drove him to understand that the fundamental of globalization lay in understanding your roots first. Globalization didn’t mean being unified with the rest to the point of having no identity, it meant recognizing and acknowledging the diversity and taking pride in your individualism.
I was so surprised to see an entire wall full of Bengali literature in the small library in his suburban home that I swallowed my embarrassment of the first acquaintance and of my supreme inadequacy, and asked. He simply said, “Matri bhasar moto rosh ar kise pawa jaye, bolo?” Which loosely translate to, “There is no language sweeter than the Mother Tongue”.
Even though, I write and think in English these days, I agree with him wholeheartedly.

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

Shopping, Anyone?

Shopping – oh, what joy it produces! An orgasmic pleasure almost, I must say. Strolling through rows upon rows of clothes, shoes, jewelry and accessories - can any other compare with the happiness this brings? Retail therapy is very real. It’s the best. Anyone who disagrees is only fooling herself.
I am a shopaholic. There I admitted it! I will admit one more thing. Even though I consider myself a veteran of online shopping (trust me, I contribute to almost 10% of Amazon’s total profit, single-handed), it never really comes close to the store hopping in the physical world. It’s the real deal. The soft touch of the fabric, the cold dazzling beauties of the jewelries, the perfect fit of the shoes – heavenly.
When after a stressful week of negotiations and explanations, the situation finally felt swaying toward favourable, I had to unwind. And what better than shopping!
Now, when I go shopping with my husband, usually (barring those rare occasions when he feels he loves me so much that he can tolerate any torture for me) I just get what I need and try to finish as quickly as possible because he tires out really quickly when I parade before him modelling the new dresses and probe him for the final choosing.
So this time I went alone. I didn’t want him breathing down my neck, going – “how long how long” on a loop.
Exhilarating, I must tell you it was.
I went shoe shopping. Shoes, every girl’s true love. Oh! How we love them! And these days I am into pumps. After two hours and three stores later I got myself two pretty pairs! See –

Now that I was at it, I found a handbag too. I can cross my chest and swear, it was calling my name out sitting prettily on the shelves – 
And these dresses. Oh my! I was on a roll. 
Shopping is therapeutic but you have to admit it drains you out after some time. And then you need to recharge for the next round! What best than a cosy little chair in my favourite corner of the Barnes and Noble. And a coffee from Starbucks of course! Few flyaway words, weird conversations and Kafka on the Shore – a book I have planned to finish reading during my visits to the store! An hour in the quiet and I was ready. I emerged from the store with this – I dallied a little, but I could tell I was done. But yet something was missing. Then I saw a Claire’s and knew what! See what I got! 

What an exhausting yet refreshing day it has been! I should totally indulge more frequently, I thought. But oh, wait! I need to eat and pay my rent too, and the bills! So there it is! For this month at least!
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

A Rant about PDA

Lately, there’s been a surge of PDA around me. 
Now if PDA still means those weird looking handheld devices suave secretaries in old Hindi movies used to flaunt, to you, then you may consider finding yourself a place in the Rare and Exotic Species section of a museum. These days everyone’s got a personal digital assistant, called smartphone. They are handheld, look sleek and they can speak too!
Anyway, before I get carried away and start speaking about how smartphones are the most essential part of one’s existence, let me just take a deep breath and bring my attention back to the topic at hand. 
PDA – Public Display of Affection! It’s everywhere!
In Starbucks, waiting in the line for the morning coffee to wake me up, I notice a couple two spots up – already wide awake and feeling passionate enough to share continuous pecks. It’s a pattern. Hug the shoulders – give a rub – kiss and do it all over again. 
Waiting for the ferry, tired and irritated at the end of the day, there’s another couple ready to provide free entertainment. One moment they stand before me discussing about buying a new computer, the next moment I see them entangled in a fierce kiss! 
Couples violently in love are everywhere! Hetero and homosexuals alike! There’s no bar to PDA. 
Interestingly they were all Desis. Adults in probably their late twenties or thirties. The Indian couple in Starbucks kept kissing noisily while the others looked on with expressions ranging from amusement to disgust. 
Even more interestingly, the girls all behaved like creeper plants. They needed help even to stand straight on their own legs. They kept leaning on the guys. Heck! Some even spoke in half formed baby voices to each other! Once seeing a couple acting as though they were joined at the hip, my amused husband commented, “They might have taken ‘Till death do us apart’ a little too literally!”
Sometimes watching these desi couples I get this odd feeling. They always seem ready to go in front of other people. Arms so tightly around each other, it’s a wonder they can breathe. The extreme making out, the feeling each other up all over – enough to gross anyone out. I can’t help but think, in their hurry to claim the freedom a first world country offers they often overstep the boundary between decent and indecent. In order to compensate what they couldn’t do back at home, they often overdo it. The relationship dynamics of these people baffle me. 
I don’t need to be smothered to know that I am loved. Or perhaps it’s just me. 
Trust me, I am all for PDAs. It’s good, freeing even. I don’t have problems in a spontaneous hug here or a passionate kiss there! A genuine display of affection is never so displeasing to the eye. I feel affection for a crowd is an act, it just seems so fake. There is substance in subtlety in intimacy - that personal, deep connection between two people - where outside attention is irrelevant because everyone else disappears.
But is there really a need to make the people around to stand witness over the overtly gross lovey dovey stuff? Doesn’t it just show their insecurity over anything else? What do you think? 

Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

The Tangled Mess - VII

Read Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI here.


Jha was waiting for Ambekar to arrive. He had requested an audience of Bibha, Mr and Mrs Sharma, Mr and Mrs Basu, Mrs Murthy and her son Raja (out on bail), Rahul – the sub inspector and Ambekar in apartment 9B in Paradise. Everyone except Ambekar had arrived on time and now they were waiting. They sat in a circle on the dirty floor. Some sat on their shoes or sandals. Everyone had a different expression on. Bibha kept making a clicking sound as she opened and closed a lighter. Raja kept making odd grunting sounds as he always did. Mrs Murthy kept digging the floor with her toes. The Sharmas, the Basus and Rahul however sat quietly.

At half past seven Ambekar walked in carrying a paper packet with him. He looked around and settled down on the floor beside Jha. “I see everyone’s settled. Good. Shall we begin then, Jha? Here, I brought snacks for all. After all, we have never had such round table meeting with suspects. I thought we might as well be good hosts.” He said and handed samosas to all.
Jha took a long hard look at Ambekar and began, “Let us start from the beginning. Shall we? Miss Bibha, you can correct me if I am wrong.” Jha paused for a moment and then continued, “It all began three years back when Bibha met Aditi at a tailoring shop which used to take orders from the designer whom Bibha used to work for. Now Aditi had been an orphan at a very tender age. She had learned to survive on her own. Whether she had recognised an opportunity toward a better living when she had met Bibha or whether she had really considered her a friend I don’t know. In fact I know very little about her past. Surprisingly the tailor shop where she worked didn’t know much about her either. They just knew she stitched really well. 

Anyway, when Bibha and Aditi moved in here, Bibha was particularly happy. She had every plan of settling down, because she thought she had found her soul mate and hence paid no heed in decorating the home to her heart's desire. To the world however they were only roommates. They also struck an instant friendship with the Sharmas, Mrs Sharma in particular.” Jha stopped again to look at the audience. Bibha was grinding her teeth and her hands were clenched. Mrs Sharma kept looking at the floor resolutely. 

Jha began again after a moment or two, “They had met at the supermarket downstairs and according to Bibha, Mrs Sharma took an instant liking to her upon learning that she worked for the famous designer. She was, apparently, fond of expensive clothes that carried the designer’s label. They socialized, met pretty often and were invited to each other’s house. 

Everything was going alright, but somewhere, along the way, all got mixed up. You see, Mr Sharma fell for Aditi. And this is where Raja comes into the picture. Raja used to watch these two ladies through the window, sometimes climbed over the window sill in his excitement to watch them, which his mother took as tendency of suicide. Whatever Mrs Murthy may think, but Raja didn’t dislike them, he actually liked them. Bibha and Aditi also kept the window open most of the time. When they did close it, Raja didn’t like the hazy window pane obscuring the view. That’s why he often broke the window pane to get a better view. Now why these two ladies didn’t add a curtain, Bibha would probably be able to tell us, but that was that. 

So when one day Raja saw Mr Sharma and Aditi, it reminded him of his father and he started hating her. He often shouted crude slangs through the window. Initially Bibha ignored but then she started paying attention. When she confronted Aditi, she accepted, because by then she was really in love with Mr Sharma and together they had thought of many plans or it might have been another of her schemes to climb the social ladder. We have no way of knowing. Bibha was jealous, of course, but she really loved her and so decided to leave gracefully.
Meanwhile Mrs Sharma also discovered her husband’s affair, while he was sick and was in the hospital few weeks back. It wasn’t meant to be, because Mr Sharma had planned it well but a few minutes slippage in timing was all that was needed. One day, Mrs Sharma walked in on Aditi while she was visiting Mr Sharma. They tried to pass it off as a friendly visit because Aditi was in vicinity but Mrs Sharma wasn’t a fool to buy that. Later when confronted, Mr Sharma accepted the responsibility and agreed to end it. He was, however, too cowardly to admit that he was planning for a divorce and that they were planning to go to abroad together.
Mrs Sharma on the other hand never really believed her husband. She went ahead, visited Aditi in her apartment and threatened her quite a few times. Quite understandably she was furious with her because they had a certain level of friendship and Mrs Sharma blamed Aditi for overstepping it. Then only on the day of murder, she discovered the divorce notice in her husband’s briefcase in the morning when he was out doing yoga. Losing her sense she rushed to Aditi’s apartment, a violent argument followed and then Mrs Sharma killed her. I don’t think she intended to, but once it had happened, she kept a surprisingly cool nerve. She took her mobile and meticulously wiped all prints. All happened while her husband was busy doing yoga on the terrace.”
Jha stopped again. Mr Sharma and Mrs Basu had gone wide eyed and Mr Basu seemed likely to have another attack. Raja was even more jittery than he usually was. Mrs Sharma resembled a stone.
“But she only called me to inform about her death. Surely she wouldn’t do that if she had killed her!” Bibha asked. She was sniffing softly.
“That was a masterstroke, wasn’t it now? Telling you about her death and then taking you into confidence not to tell the police about your acquaintance because then police would dig the dirt out about her husband’s affair. But she had missed one thing. The visitor's pass. If only she had searched the room better and found it, it would've taken me a much longer time. Anyway Mrs Sharma then asserted me that she didn’t know anything about any woman called Aditi and heard about her only after her death. She was quite an actor and I too believed her. Initially at least.”
“Why would she put her dead body across the window? It doesn’t make sense!” Bibha asked.
“She didn’t do it. Raja did.”
“What?”
“Oh yeah. Isn’t it Raja? He watched the whole thing from the window. The argument, the killing, everything. When Mrs Sharma left, he went to see what happened actually. As I already told you, he hated Aditi as she reminded him of the woman his father left with. He saw her lying dead on the bed and thought she deserved that. He also seemed to believe that it was his duty to display her to the world. So that everyone will know what happened to people like her. What fate God entitled them to. Hence he pushed her body through the window, out in the open, for everyone to see and learn a lesson. He then came out and locked the apartment and kept the key with him.”
“What gave me away?” Mrs Sharma spoke. She was still looking at the floor and her voice seemed to come from a very distant land.
“Your slippers Mrs Sharma.”
All the heads in the room turned together at Jha’s direction. He took a moment to relish the rare attention and then continued, “Mrs Murthy told me that she had stumbled over a pair of blue flowery slippers outside Aditi’s door. Incidentally I had seen Mrs Sharma wearing that very type of slippers earlier that day. Now I only had to add two and two. Mr Sharma and Aditi were having an affair after all. A chat with Mr Sharma later proved more helpful than I could dream of.”
“Hmm. Quite cool. But I am going to charge Raja as well. He is capable of extreme violence.” Said Ambekar.
“I agree. It was shocking what he did to Aditi’s body. We will definitely have to charge him. But probably we’d have to charge Mr Basu as well for withholding information from police.” Jha replied with a smirk.
As an immediate reaction to these words Mr Basu dramatically clutched his heart and let out a whimper. “What did I do?” he asked.
“Why didn’t you say you met Mr Sharma in the elevator? Why did you lie about the time you found the body?”
“I blacked out at the sight of the blood. When I woke up I didn’t remember meeting him, all sense of time were lost too. Why would I not tell you otherwise?”
“Ridiculous. He is lying right?” Ambekar asked stupidly.
“As a matter of fact, he isn’t”, smiled Jha.
“Then why didn’t he say it before?”
“He was just afraid everyone would think him a coward.”
“Huh? Do only insane people live here?” Ambekar shook his head.
“Anyway, Sharma confessed of running away after seeing Aditi dead. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t express what he felt, the whole affair being a secret, but he couldn’t hide it as well. So he went directly to his office. I double checked. It holds up.”
“Still he is no less a criminal.” Rahul, the sub-inspector had spoken up.
“Can’t agree more, Rahul. Did you know he had no plan to take either of these two women with him when we went abroad? Did you know that he had another mistress, someone in a more advantageous position to help him with his career and that she was the one who had facilitated this abroad vacancy for him?”
Mr Sharma looked up, dumbstruck.
“Don’t worry Mr Sharma, we won’t be able to charge you for being an opportunist and a bad husband. I do however hope that you will be a responsible father to your daughter when your wife serves her life in jail.”
Jha finished with a scorching look at Sharma and walked away. A victory at last, he had solved a murder, a crime. But was the murderer a criminal? He didn’t know. It was a tangled mess, the world of crimes and criminals. Often they meant different things. The more you delve, the more confused you become. It was much better to live with solving just the crimes and not the criminals’ minds.

He looked back again. Back in the room, Rahul was urging Mrs Sharma and Raja out of the room. He hadn’t handcuffed them. A sudden smile lit his face up. This lad, Rahul was going to have a lot of problems in his life detangling the meaning of crimes and criminals. He watched a few seconds more and then walked back in to help him.
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

The Tangled Mess - VI

Read Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V here.

It was eight o’clock by the huge clock on the wall. Ambekar was stretched in his chair, relaxing after a vigorous interrogation session with Raja who was now lying in a foetus position on the cold floor of the lockup. The constables had caught him in little less than fifteen minutes in the woods. His mother, Mrs Murthy, was sent home by Ambekar about an hour ago and asked to come back with an attorney.
Everything seemed calm. Except Jha. There was a discomfort, a nagging discomfort that was keeping him restless. He couldn’t go home; he couldn’t peel his eyes off the twenty two years old autistic man who lay like a child on the prison floor. He still couldn’t make peace with what everyone said, that he was the killer: even though he confessed doing it, he couldn’t give the details of how he did it. There was something, there must be something that he was missing. Or was it simply that he didn’t want to accept that this time also Ambekar pulled one over him. He got up. A walk in the fresh air would probably do him good.
There were so many questions that were not answered. Jha thought as he walked on the road outside the police station. What was the boy’s motive? Why would he kill the woman even if he did it? Why would Aditi go to visit Sharma in the hospital? As a friendly neighbour? Then why would his wife deny any knowledge of knowing her. It meant only one thing. They were having an affair. Why would Basu lie about being alone in the morning when he was clearly with Sharma? Or was it that Mrs Basu was lying? Why would she lie though? It didn’t make sense. Was Sharma really a good husband or was Mrs Sharma lying? His pacing grew quicker and quicker as his thoughts got wilder and wilder.
He collided with what seemed like a rag ball. It was Mrs Murthy. She fell unceremoniously on his feet, “Please save my son. He’s all I’ve got. He didn’t do anything.”
“How can you be sure Mrs Murthy? He has confessed.”
“He doesn’t even know what he is saying. I am always there to keep watch on him.”
“Would you deny that your son hated Aditi? That he used his sling shot and shattered their window glass? And it happened not only once but repeatedly? You have failed to restrain your son from doing that, haven’t you?”
A look of pure shock crossed through her face, “how did you…?”
“Know this?” Jha completed her sentence for her. “It was quite easy actually Mrs Murthy. The maintenance folks told me. They got quite a few complaints from 9B about your son.”
Mrs Murthy sobbed loudly.
“Listen Mrs Murthy”, said Jha, “I too believe that your son didn’t kill Aditi. However this is just another information that will help to prove in court that he did. I won’t be able to help you unless you help me.”
“How can I help you? I know nothing about who killed her.”
“But you do know more than you told me in the morning. Don’t you? After all, your window is barely 5 feet away from hers. And your son’s been keeping a tab on her, he keeps saying that she deserved to die.”
“I really don’t know much Inspector. But Raja’s been like this ever since his father left. He doesn’t like young women since then.”
“Hang on. What do you mean by ‘left’? I thought he was dead!”
“Oh no. He is very much alive. He left us for a younger woman five years ago. After our divorce I moved in here. We live off the small alimony he pays; I tell people it’s his pension. I don’t want to stir up a gossip. So I keep to myself.”
“I see.”
“Yeah. Since then Raja doesn’t like young women. He seems to think all young women are bad, they break homes. I don’t know if he saw anything that fuelled his dislike, but I know he didn’t kill her. He couldn’t have, he’s too soft hearted for that.”
Jha was starting to feel restless again. The conversation was turning out to be useless.
“How well did you know these two women who lived in 9B?”
“Not much. I think they were very busy. All the time I walked past their apartment to get to the elevator, I saw it locked. Yes. They were cautious. They used to put a big padlock. I remember that was why I noticed it first. Only during weekends they used to be at home, I guess, because I didn’t see the lock during weekends. I remember I used to wonder inwardly, how these two girls would manage once they got married. Would they quit working? Would they become housewives like I once was? Would they be able to keep their husbands interested?”
“What else do you know? Any acquaintances? Any visitors you saw?”
“No. I don’t remember seeing anybody. But, I don’t know if it’s of consequence, day before yesterday when I was coming back from the doctor appointment, around seven in the evening, the padlock wasn’t there, the door was closed but the padlock wasn’t there, so it must mean that she was inside and there was a pair of slippers by the door. It was kept there casually. I remember because I stumbled on them.”
“A pair of slippers! How interesting! Do you reckon someone was visiting her?”
“I don’t know. Really. It could very well have been hers. Maybe she forgot to take them inside!”
“Do you remember how they looked? The slippers?”
“Not much. I wasn’t paying attention. It was blue I think. Dark blue rubber slippers with white flowers if I remember correctly.”

“Thanks a lot Mrs Murthy. I will see what I can do.” said Jha. A small hint of a smile was playing in his lips. He had to go to Paradise, again. He had to speak with Sharma and Basu again.

To be concluded tomorrow.
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

The Tangled Mess - V

Read Part I Part II Part III Part IV here.

When Jha pushed the calling bell in 2F, a woman in her thirties opened the door. Unlike the other apartments that he had visited so far in this building, this one was over stuffed with expensive furnishing. It looked as though the owner had lot of money to spend but didn’t quite know what to spend on.
The woman, Mrs Sharma informed that her husband was out in office and confirmed that they didn’t have the slightest familiarity with the murdered woman from 9B. It took Jha a lot of effort to restrain his eyebrows that were threatening to shoot upward but he managed. He decided to wait for Mr Sharma while his wife continued to talk.
Mrs Sharma couldn’t stop raving about her husband. She spoke at a length about how Mr Sharma’s company had been begging him to accept the post of the Operations Manager and how after refusing for over a year he had finally agreed and that they were soon scheduled to travel. She also gave him a detailed account of all her neighbours and whom she thought could be involved in the case.
It was pretty neat, thought Jha. Have an affair with a neighbour and when things got complicated leave the country with family. It fit in. But what remained to be seen was whether or not Sharma was the killer. It could be. Upon learning that Sharma was about to leave the country Aditi could have threatened to expose him to his wife. Seeing the situation out of control, Sharma could have seen no other way than to kill her.
Jha decided to find out more details about Mr Sharma. But his wife had only words to worship him. According to her, he was attentive to her and their eight year old daughter’s every need, loved them dearly and never ever came home late. She broke down when she got to the health issues of her husband, she couldn’t understand why such a good man had to suffer so much and bitterly accused God for such injustice. What a two-faced neat liar this Sharma was – thought Jha.
While leaving, his eyes fell upon a photograph that intrigued him. A group of men, all dressed in white t-shirt and shorts stood smiling in front of the housing complex’s gate. Mrs Sharma supplied the information he was looking for. It was Mr Sharma’s morning walk group. [next]
When Mrs Basu opened the door to find Inspector Jha, she could barely suppress her annoyance. But Jha ignored her less than welcome expression and entered with an air of someone who was regularly invited in this home.
“Where’s Mr Basu?” Jha asked.
“I sent him to the supermarket downstairs for a packet of tea. He will return anytime. Would you like to wait?” Mrs Basu looked as though she had just had to chew an entire branch of Neem leaves.
“Yes. I have very important business with him.” Jha chirped.
“Okay.” Mrs Basu turned to leave.
“Mrs Basu, tell me one thing, what do you know about Mr Sharma, who lives on the second floor?”
“Mr Sharma?” Mrs Basu replied and turned back, “Oh not much. He is my husband’s acquaintance. Why? Is he a suspect? Even if so, I expect you wouldn’t grill my husband much. He has a weak heart.”
“Oh is it? Why? What’s wrong with him?”
“My husband has had two surgeries in his heart already. He is very weak and delicate. I request that you keep that in mind.”
“Sure I will. Thank you for letting me know Mrs Basu. By the way, I heard that Mr Sharma also had undergone a surgery recently?”
“Oh yes. Few weeks back I think. My husband told me. Some problem was there in his pancreas. He’s started doing yoga in the open air on the terrace ever since. Morning also I saw him. Why, he went down the same elevator as my husband.”
“Really?”
“Yes! You can confirm that with my husband. But I think it was him only in the elevator.”
“Thank you so much Mrs Basu.”
While Jha waited for Mr Basu to return, a noise caught his attention. A woman was shouting at the top of her voice countered by an equally loud male voice.
He peered through the open window. Downstairs, through the open space between the buildings and the main gate a constable was dragging the autistic son of the widow who lived opposite to the victim’s apartment and she was running behind shouting. Ambekar followed with quick steps. A lot of otherwise closed windows were open and many faces were dotted behind them.
The woman tugged at Ambekar’s sleeve. Her voice, though unclear, was clearly pleading. Then a lot of things happened, in such quick succession that they were over even before Jha could pelt himself away from the window.
Ambekar stumbled as the woman tugged at his sleeve. He flapped away his arm to avoid, and, Jha couldn’t tell whether it was intentional but his fist landed squarely on the woman’s neck, effectively knocking her down to the ground. At that instant the autistic son of hers wiggled himself free miraculously from the constable’s clutch and clamped his fingers around Ambekar’s neck. Before Jha could even begin to appreciate his height and strength, he had let go, hopped over the boundary wall with surprising agility and vanished into the woods that lay beyond leaving Ambekar on his knees. 
The two constables went after.
It took Jha a moment to recover and then he was on his way downstairs. A lot of people – mostly housewives, unhinged by their husbands’ absence, were now coming down in the opening. Few of them sympathetic but mostly curious. When Jha reached, a substantial crowd had gathered, unlike the morning. The mother was still on the ground like a heap crying her heart out while Ambekar tried to talk her to get up.
Feeling lost, even though a tiny part of him knew what was happening, Jha approached Ambekar. Seeing him, Ambekar threw both his hands up in the air and said, “Here you are. I have been looking all over for you.”
“You could have called me. What happened?”
“Her son,” Ambekar jerked his head toward the woman on floor, “you know the mental one? He is our killer. I came to arrest but he hit me and took off. I’ll make sure he gets the noose for this.” He gritted his teeth.
“How do you know? How do you know that he is the killer?”
“How do I know? Well, I know because I don’t ignore the calls that we take at the police station. He called after you had left. When I pestered, he confessed the crime.”
“Confessed? What did he say?” Jha was amused and had to work a lot to keep from sarcasm.
“He kept telling that she deserved it. That she deserved to die. When I asked why, he said because she did bad things to good people. Then I asked if he did it. He said yes he did it, he confessed that he put her there, to show the world. To teach them a lesson that bad things happened to people like her.”
“He said all these?”
“Well, not so eloquently. But I got the gist.”
“You can’t arrest someone on the basis of a phone call Ambekar. That kid is five years old mentally, he doesn't even probably understand anything.” Jha was beginning to feel irritated. The woman on the floor gave a whimper and let out a wail at this point.
“Oh no. I have proof.” Ambekar showed his yellowish nicotine stained teeth and held out a plastic bag containing a blood stained key. “The front door key of 9B. And I will get the prints from the apartment matched.” he said triumphantly.
Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random

The Tangled Mess - IV

Read Part I Part II Part III here.


Jha sat on his desk with his head bowed. His brows were knitted, yet a small hint of a smile was playing on his lips. He had just got off from a disturbing call with Bibha. The hatred that burst out of her was astonishing. She didn’t pretend to be shocked or sorry to hear the news. In fact she proudly announced that she was expecting his call and that she was already informed of this mishap by a resident who got in touch. She also announced that it was no shock to her to see Aditi killed this way because for someone who lived off of taking advantage of others this was the only possible end. While Jha was able to finally convince her to come down to his office for a statement, she didn’t agree easily. In the end, though she maintained that she wasn’t involved and didn’t know anything about the murder, she agreed to co-operate with the investigation as best as she could.

Now Jha knew a little more about the murdered woman Aditi. An orphan at the age of twelve, she made her way in this world alone. She worked in different types of jobs and it was while working as a tailor that Bibha met her three years back. She worked as an assistant of a designer. Although Bibha knew almost nothing about Aditi’s past, their friendship grew rapidly and after a year Bibha took her in. They moved in this apartment together: while Bibha brought all the furnishings, Aditi came with only her clothes. Of late, over some glossy details that Bibha obviously didn’t want to spill, they had fallen apart and Bibha had bagged a bigger job in Mumbai and moved out. But Jha could guess. Because when asked why she thought Aditi deserved this fate, Bibha had said, “because she used me, took advantage of my weakness, pretended to be someone she was not. All because it would benefit her. I don’t know how many more might have been there before me! Anyone might have wanted revenge.”
Could it be a boyfriend? Did Aditi have one?
“I would not know. Would I?” Bibha had said.
It was almost unbelievable that as Aditi’s roommate Bibha didn’t know whether she had a boyfriend or not, unless the man was one of the exes of Bibha. But she had said, “wouldn’t know” and not “didn’t know”, which could only mean that they were in some kind of relationship. Jha could only assume, but probably that was what Bibha was referring to as “taking advantage”? It all made sense. Now all he could do was to wait for the sub-inspector to arrive from the hospital.
♦
But the phone had started to ring again.
“Hello. Inspector Jha speaking.”
“Hello.” A slurry voice drawled.
“Who is this?”
“It’s me. You are looking for the witch’s killer right? Don’t. She deserved to die. Don’t waste your time.”
“Who is this?” Jha pressed the phone to his ear a litter harder.
But all he could hear was a rustle of clothes, a small grunt and then the line went dead.
For a whole minute Jha listened to the dead tone as he sat still with the phone pressed firmly against his ear. That was twice in five minutes that he was told that the dead woman Aditi deserved to die. No doubt she had ruffled a lot of feathers. But who was the caller right now? Who had the audacity to call up a police inspector and advise not to do his job? His breath quickened. That voice, he knew that voice. But why would he call? Did it mean? But how was that possible?
“So concentrating hard? Any clues so far?”, Ambekar, the IPS officer called out from behind the plywood that served as the walls of his makeshift cabin. Jha jerked his head in frustration as his train of thoughts was interrupted yet again.
“Not yet.” He called out.
“I can help you out you know. If you have any difficulty you can always consult me. I am here for you.” Ambekar’s head appeared on the side of the partition.Jha’s temples were beginning to throb. But he fought down an immense urge to shout. He forced his voice to a calm whisper and said, “Thanks. I will remember the offer.”
Jha couldn’t sit there a moment longer. He picked up his notes and stormed out of the police station. He hadn’t yet decided what to do but a moment longer with that snob IPS officer would surely have killed him.
Now where was he? Ah, the mysterious caller. Mysterious? He supposed he could call it that even though he thought he knew who called. He was about to get on his motorbike when the sub inspector arrived looking harassed.
“What is it Rahul? Anything interesting?”
“I think so. But I am never being sent off to do your dirty works. Here.” He said and held a torn page of his notebook out to Jha.
“What is it? P. Sharma? Who is he?”
“A man obviously. Our victim happened to visit him last month when he had a surgery done in his abdomen.”
“Wow. This can be a crucial clue. Do you have the address?”
“I do. It’s 2F, same building as the victim in the Paradise. But to get it I had to almost kiss the Matron’s feet, literally. You owe me.” He had to shout the last part because Jha was already driving off.

Love,

© copyright 2014 – All rights reserved

Riot of Random