On an overcast day, Peter Ramanujan intently watched a children’s game of gullee cricket unfold under a flyover.
“Bowl him out!”
It was the last over of a frenetic match. As the ball sailed over the captain’s head after his exclamation, tempers frayed even further. The next deliveries—marked by prolonged deliberations, interpretations of the game, and yelling—yielded a boundary, followed by a hattrick of wickets, and more noise. The equation came down to six runs off the final ball with a wicket remaining.
Even Peter, who was the farthest thing from an ardent cricket devotee, found himself transfixed by the spectacle. “Impossible to see such pure emotion and passion in professional sports,” he thought. Just then, the batter slogged the ball a long distance. Cue the inevitable cacophony of voices. “Four,” shouted a trio. “No, six,” erupted the opponents. A fight seemed to be brewing, but after a minute examination of the makeshift boundary line and the ‘mark’ made by the ball, the teams begrudgingly decided on a six. As the winners broke into a celebration, the other team promised to exact revenge in the next match—“we will defeat you!”
Peter moved away from the battlefield, only to turn back and hear a dull thud. Whatever was going on there had been interrupted by a steel lunch box that flew and landed close to the tower of bricks that functioned as one of the stumps. Peter instinctively looked up but could make out no one looking over the flyover. “Probably someone from a moving car … ”, he muttered. He made towards the place the box had landed, but the children had mobbed around the box by then, and were about to examine its contents. Soon, cheers rang out. “Certainly an unexpected reward for a hard-fought match, and a half-day of hunger,” thought Peter, as he allowed himself the briefest of smiles.
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Peter Ramanujan continued on his way to the Brahmatalab police station in Mayanagari town. He had been invited out of the blue by his dear friend, Inspector Ashok Ghosh. “I wonder what he wants to meet me for,” he thought.
Ten minutes on a straight path from the spot where he had watched the cricket match brought him to the mouth of the Brahmatalab road, locally known as the police thana road. The road was fragrant and tree-lined, but despite its peaceful environs, suffice it to say that the street and the police station on it had, over the years, gobbled up all the foul secrets and mysterious events from the neighbourhood and some other adjoining areas. “I just hope it’s not another case,” Peter mouthed, as a silent prayer escaped his lips.
His prayer was not heard. After five more minutes of walking, Peter stood in front of the station—a one-storey greyish-yellow affair that looked more like a homely cottage than an office building, with a blue-and-red board proudly spelling out BRAHMATALAB POLICE STATION in white, its address and contact details in black. The cottage was surrounded by a well-maintained garden filling the air with a fragrant, infectious smell, but Peter was not distracted by the blooms.
He found the station to be in a state of unusual activity. Several jeeps and vans stood outside the gate, and a constant stream of police personnel issued back and forth. “Excuse me, but where can I find Ashok Ghosh?” he asked, just as a khaki-clad constable rushed out of the station gates and jumped into a jeep. “Sorry, no time,” the constable yelled before the jeep rode off. “Ah, Ramanujan ji, you are just in time,” called out a voice. Peter turned around, and came face-to-face with Ramnath the sub-inspector. “I was looking for you—Ashok sir has asked me to accompany you to a crime scene.”
“But what is the matter, Ramnath ji?”
“An accident involving some big-wig. Near the roundabout close to the Hanuman mandir. Are you coming with me?”
There goes my day of peace, Peter cussed himself. He hadn’t even stepped inside the station, before he was ushered into a mobile van as it drove off, sirens blaring, along the same route he had come from. As they approached the junction of police thana road and the main thoroughfare, Peter was seized by a sudden desire to catch a momentary glimpse of the children playing cricket under the flyover. He wanted to revel in the youthful exuberance of a children’s game, before the senses-numbing, almost dehumanising, demands of a morbid crime scene took over. “Can we stop somewhere for two minutes?”
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The detour led them to a scene straight out of hell. Gone were the vibrant screams of the children, and in its place was an eerie quiet unaffected by the din and noise of the passing vehicles. This unnerving silence had, in fact, heralded the sudden and uninvited appearance of death.
Peter and Ramnath could not quite believe what they were seeing. The state of shock lasted for a second, before instinct took over. Rushing out of the car, they sped to the first child lying on the ground. Within a minute, they had checked the pulses of all the children and a woman lying on the ground—to no avail. They were all dead—some clutching their stomach, others their throat; a few clawing and scratching the ground; some had fallen over to their sides or on their backs, while the woman, her head hanging limp, had tightly grasped two children to her bosom as if to protect them from some faceless enemy.
Their faces—some with eyes open, others closed—were contorted into visages of sheer, unimaginable agony which somehow still spoke volumes of their desperate attempts to cling to life. These life-like expressions of the dead would haunt Ramnath and Peter for a long time.
It was then that Ramnath observed the weird, misshapen blotches of cherry red and pink on the mouths and skins of the deceased—telltale signs of mass cyanide poisoning. “What has happened? And why did you want to come here?” he asked. “I will explain that later. But first, you must secure the scene and gather all the evidence. The corpses also need to be transported,” Peter somehow managed to say, despite the storm raging inside him.
A moment later, recognition seemed to dawn upon Ramnath. “Wait a minute—it was only last week that I had told these people to vacate this area. So, how come they have returned?” Peter didn’t reply, but it was not hard for him to realise that the children must have still not got over their attachment to their old haunting grounds, and had returned once the vigilance had been lifted. “And on this very day …”
For quite some time, Peter’s attention had been drawn to the steel lunch box lying in the midst of the corpses. “Wasn’t this the one that flew off the bridge?” he pondered, taking a closer look but not handling it. Its lid, neatly labelled ANIL, lay some distance apart, but the contents of the box—a dish of peas and paneer, daal, and maybe some chapattis—were nearly emptied. “Ramnath ji, please handle this box carefully. It may be poisoned,” Peter called out. When he found a moment to himself, he started crying—“the curse of the gift from the heavens” was his repeated, cryptic refrain.
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Their mourning for the 11 victims was over by the time they wrapped up their preliminary analysis of the scene of crime. Leaving three constables in charge of canvassing and securing the scene of this tragedy, and collecting the rest of the evidence, Ramnath and Peter sped off to the accident spot, with an evidence bag storing the likely-poisoned tiffin box.
Twenty minutes later, the mobile van reached the accident spot. Inspector Ashok Ghosh had completely forgotten why he had invited Peter Ramanujan in the first place. Hiding his embarrassment, however, Ashok hailed Peter the moment he stepped out of the van.
“Oh Peter, you have arrived? Just look at the mess here. The media is going to have a field day—the city’s famous businessman, Anil Mahajan, has been critically wounded in this accident.”
“When do I ever meet you without some kind of ‘incident’ happening?” thought Peter, a tad unkindly. Aloud, he said, “What? Only that day I came to know he had received the contract to redesign the state’s municipal corporation headquarters. And today, this happens!”
Anil Mahajan happened to be the kingpin of Mahajan Constructions, a civil construction company that invariably took over any and all major construction projects in the city, public or private. Its modus operandi involved making use of its exhaustive network of eyes to spy on the operations of all its rivals, outbidding them always at the last possible moment. It had many enemies, but sabotaging its operations was out of the question—it had already driven most of its rival businesses into bankruptcy. Mahajan and his enterprise enjoyed considerable clout in political and private circles—his mansion, the largest in the city, was a seat of power in itself where deals were forged and lives ruined before they became public knowledge, and was located in the aptly named Mahajan Hills, a sprawling privately-owned property spread over 150 acres of sparse hilly forestland. “For such a person to meet such an ignominious fate—what a fall!” wondered Peter.
“But if it is an accident, what can I do?” Peter asked Ashok. “Listen for a moment, Peter!” replied Ashok. “Arriving at the site, I too had thought that this was a normal accident. But there are witnesses who state that before the crash, they had seen Anil shouting for help, saying that the brakes were not working. Passengers in other cars at that time have also said the same thing.”
The car, it turned out, had overshot the traffic signal at the Hanuman mandir roundabout—and, instead of turning right, had gone straight, veered and then crashed into the boundary wall of the premises of the state’s Civic Works Department headquarter. “At long last, the Department will have to get something repaired by themselves,” muttered Peter to himself. After all, this department was infamous for never ever letting its tools and men repair the crumbling buildings and roads.
A man emerged from the wreckage of the car. It was sheer luck that a malfunctioning car speeding at over 80 kilometres an hour had not caused a single casualty, owing to the unusually empty road at that time. The man—a mechanic who had been called to quickly ascertain the cause of the accident—confirmed that the car’s brakes had indeed been tampered with in a manner that “driving above 60 kilometres an hour meant that he was a dead man.” “I will of course have to analyse the mechanism of tampering,” the mechanic continued. “But I also feel that an accelerant may have been mixed in the car’s fuel, ensuring that the car could never have slowed down. It was a death trap on wheels—and my guess is that it was meant for Anil Mahajan only.”
Peter and Ashok silently agreed with that last assessment. It was a well-known fact that if there was one thing Anil Mahajan took pride in apart from his construction empire, it was his fleet of seven high-end luxury cars—one for each day of the week. It was also widely known that Anil always drove the cars himself—“I could never entertain the idea of someone else driving my hard-earned cars,” he had once bluntly stated in an interview. So, it was quite a shock last week when people on the streets saw Anil’s car—the same one that was wrecked in this accident—being driven into a mechanic’s shop by Samir, his eldest son. Anil himself was nowhere to be seen, and when tabloids pushed him for an answer, “no comment” was all he would offer.
This line of thought, however, also opened the distinct and uncomfortable possibility that this incident may have been an inside job, involving immediate family member(s) or someone hired by them. Ashok therefore dispatched three officers from the scene to the Mahajans’ residence to interview them and check their stories. At that moment, Ramnath came with a report: “Anil ji has been admitted to City Heights Hospital, but his condition at the moment is touch-and-go.”
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“Brain haemorrhage. Neck break. Rib fracture. Bleeding in lungs.” Peter and Ashok listened to the doctor in the emergency ward of City Heights Hospital list out the near-fatal diagnosis. “There are a lot of external lacerations. When he was wheeled in, he was in a state of deep shock, but he has now been sedated. He could regain consciousness in the next two or three hours, but I can’t predict anything at the moment.”
Peter and Ashok looked at the barely breathing Anil Mahajan. There was no doubt that, had he been conscious, his state and the doctor’s diagnosis would have given him a nasty shock. It was just as well, but in this state, Anil resembled a mummy somehow brought to life. Bandages were wrapped around his face, arms, and chest, almost serving as a life support. His legs, which had miraculously escaped any kind of injury, barring the odd scratch or two, were barely moving—owing, no doubt to the sedation, but also creating the illusion that the shattered upper portion of his body was where his life resided the most.
“Doctor, you also mentioned that Anil ji was muttering something?” Ashok finally asked.
“Yes, he was. Give me a second…” Hailing a passing ward boy, the doctor said, “Call Ramesh once.” As the boy ran off, the doctor added, by way of explanation, “Ramesh was the one who had heard Anil ji say something.” Accompanying the ward boy, Ramesh, the male nurse, arrived a few minutes later. Ashok repeated the question. “I can’t say for sure, but my impression was that he was repeatedly saying something like ‘they have killed me—they are all my enemies’. After a pause, I also heard the names ‘Samir, Sunil, Amar’ from him.”
Ashok and Peter nodded their heads meaningfully. The incoherent talk of a man in a delirious state did not mean anything, but Samir, Sunil, and Amar also happened to be the names of Anil’s three sons—and the squabbling successors to his empire. Together, the three sons, their wives, and Anil were the very portrait of a dysfunctional family, united only by thoughts of greed and more greed. Ironically, even though they each had different visions, none of the sons showed any inclination to continue the construction business. And so, despite its stature, Mahajan Constructions’ existence seemed inextricably tied to Anil Mahajan’s.
The inspector’s phone rang. As Peter and Ramnath watched, Ashok’s face grew cloudier and grimmer. By the time the call was over, Ashok wanted to bang his face against the wall. Having decided otherwise, and after taking a long breath, he relayed what he had heard: “The team from Mahajan Hills just called. All members of the Mahajan family have been killed, no exceptions. Cyanide poisoning suspected.”
At that moment, Peter and Ramnath’s blood ran colder than it had ever done.
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Peter had no desire to visit Mahajan Hills—one scene of massacre had tormented him sufficiently. Directing Ramnath to keep watch over Anil and to report any developments, Ashok rushed over to Mahajan Hills. He drove through the gates of the stately mansion, coming to a halt in front of the portico with arched pillars. One of the constables greeted him and accompanied him to the scene of carnage, past the copiously weeping maali (gardener) standing at the doorway.
The first thing that caught one’s eye on entering the Mahajan’s mansion were the gigantic white-marble statues of gods and goddesses from the Hindu pantheon kept at various corners of the massive living space. The Mahajans liked to think of themselves as deities presiding over the lives of whoever stepped foot inside their house, and this installation of statues served to inspire awe and reverence among the visitors. This time, however, they stood as mute, omniscient witnesses refusing to say whodunnit—“as if they had run out of boons to bestow upon the family, and had instead meted out divine justice for a change,” thought Ashok. The very next moment, he corrected his line of thought—“but, surely, murder is very much a human act.”
Five officers were minutely analysing and scraping the room for prints, and other evidence. Ashok surveyed the scene—one of the officers was kneeling near the corpse of Amar, who had collapsed, face-forward, on the first landing of the staircase that led to the floor above. The three wives had evidently been sitting on the sofa in the sitting room, but death took different forms with them. Amar’s wife had pitched forward, nearly shattering the glass table in front of the sofa. Samir’s wife was still sitting clawing at her throat, head hung back over the sofa, eyes bulging open. Sunil’s wife, meanwhile, had fallen sideways on the floor, a trickle of blood around the portion of head that had struck the ground, mouth open with the tongue hanging out. In the kitchen adjoining the dining space, Sunil himself lay half-kneeling, head slumped, an arm trying to reach the tap in the sink. Samir lay fully on the floor, limbs in a posture that suggested wild thrashing movements before death, and a light pink foam issuing from a wide-open mouth.
Ashok fell sick to the stomach. He had already observed the same misshapen cherry red/pink blotches on the victims’ skins which Peter had observed in the children and mother. An officer came forward to tell him that some traces of a cyanide derivative had been detected on each of the dishes and glasses in the kitchen as well as those on the dining table. “I hope no one has touched anything with bare hands? Keep yourself covered with the gloves and mask here.” Having barked out the directions, the inspector then proceeded to call one of the officers, and instructed him to have all the bodies transported to the morgue in the police headquarters [since the Brahmatalab police station itself didn’t have one]. “When will it all end today?” Ashok asked himself wearily.
The maali’s pathetic sobs could still be heard from outside the door. Still in his mask and gloves, Ashok enquired, “Are you the gardener here? Were you the first to see the dead bodies?”
“Yes…”
“Tell me what happened here. Speak freely, and leave out no detail.”
“I was watering the plants. I was supposed to be paid today, so after I had completed watering all the plants, I rang the bell two-three times. When no one opened the doors, I went to the front-facing windows and looked inside. I immediately felt something was odd. I shouted all of their names, but no one responded. It was then that I realised something was very wrong.”
“What did you do then?”
“For some time, I had no idea what to do. Then, the milkman arrived. We tried to break open the front door, but it did not budge. We were about to call the police, when your men arrived. How can I face my master now?”
Ashok thought it prudent not to mention anything about Anil’s death. Instead, he changed tack.
“When you were watering the plants, did you see anyone enter or leave the premises? Are there any other entry or exit points from the house?”
“No, I do not think so.”
“Okay, that’s all for now. But stay here—and do not try to leave.”
Ashok turned to join the investigator’s activities, but the maali’s voice beckoned him.
“Sir… there’s something I want to tell you.”
“Yes, go ahead?”
“I should not speak ill of the dead, but it is a fact that I did listen to the family members speak during the evening. Anil ji was not there, so they were all speaking pretty loudly. What can I say? The colour drained from my face as I listened to them.”
Ashok egged the gardener on.
“Sir, they weren’t nice people at all. Yesterday evening, they were planning to kill my master. They were saying that they would mix poison in Anil ji’s tiffin-lunch for the following day. They seemed to be excessively troubled by some will. I listened to the entire conversation, and stealthily ran away from the house, but at some distance away, I paused and stood beside the road. When Anil ji passed by the spot on the way to the house, I stopped the car. Then I told all I had heard to him. My master pledged me to secrecy, and so I have done. But this matter has now left me shaken. Is the master alright?”
The confession of the gardener hit Ashok like a thunderbolt. But it had only served to complicate matters. Who had killed the would-be murderers? And, how did Anil Mahajan become a victim of a planned accident, when the plan actually was to poison him at long distance?
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Meanwhile, back at City Heights Hospital, Ramnath received a call from the forensic analyst at the morgue in the police headquarters, confirming what they had already suspected—that cyanide had stained the fingertips and a large portion of all the victims’ bodies—from the foodpipe all the way down to the intestine. The poison was also detected in the food samples from the tiffin box—“of a dose sufficient to kill 10 elephants,” added the analyst. Anil Mahajan’s life—with his vital signs closely observed through monitors and beeps—hung in the balance.
“Now that I see it, I have completely forgotten to send the lunch box to the headquarters? Should I go to drop it off?” Ramnath’s remark broke Peter out of his reverie.
“No, leave it be. As it is, the results have already arrived. At this moment, it is more important that we keep strict watch over Anil.”
At around the same time, around 20 kilometres away, Ashok was racing to meet a certain Ravi Bansal, lawyer in the firm Jajwala and Sons. Ravi and Ashok had crossed paths several times before, their first encounter dating back to their childhoods. Ravi, Ashok, and Peter went to the same school where they were known to be top-class pranksters and troublemakers.
Ashok met Ravi not on the premises of Jajwala and Sons, but in Ravi’s house. As Ashok sank into the leather sofa, Ravi asked, “Ashok, what brings you here? Have you thought of a new chapter for The Book of Practical Tricks? Hey, look at this! I am working on an entire section of tricks involving water.” Ashok took the scratch pad, but its contents failed to amuse him. Seeing the cloud descend on his friend’s face, Ravi asked, “Ashok, what’s the matter? Is there something you are not telling me?”
“Have you seen the news?”
“No. I have just returned today, from my annual vacation.”
“Anil Mahajan was in a car crash today. He is in a critical condition. But, that’s not all. His entire family was murdered today. Poisoned.”
“But, I… I do not understand. What are you saying? Why, it was only last week that… ”
“Yes, Ravi?”
“What I wanted to say is that it was only last week that Anil ji changed his will in my presence and registered a new one. This was the day before I left for my leave. The new will is in the office.”
“Ravi, I am in a bit of a hurry, but could you quickly explain the differences? It could give us a motive for the incidents.”
“Why, yes, of course. It’s all pretty simple. The earlier will had divided all properties and assets equally among his three sons and their families—the divisions clearly outlined. However, since none of the sons and their families had shown any desire to continue the operations of Mahajan Constructions, he had revoked all the earlier provisions in this new will, and had instead bequeathed everything to a heritage conservation trust. Unless anything drastic happened at all, the will was to be made binding today, via an announcement.”
“Why, that’s pretty straightforward and convenient,” thought Ashok. A couple of possibilities had sprung to his mind, but only one could explain the change in modus operandi and how the would-be murderers ended up dead.
“Ravi, think carefully before answering, but did Anil have any offspring or family members other than these three? What I mean is, he may not have publicly acknowledged them, but legally, they could still have a claim to what the wills offered?
“I know what you are implying, but no. Anil ji was pretty firm on this point. And, neither have we received any such claims to this day.”
That shut the door on the possibility as soon as it had opened.
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More than four hours had passed since Anil Mahajan had been sedated. He had already been carried on a wheel stretcher to one of those private cabins in the hospital reserved for the super-rich and powerful. An attendant kept a watch on the patient, noting down the patient’s vitals and administering drugs intravenously from time to time, according to the doctor’s instructions.
Outside the room, Ashok, Peter, and Ramnath stood in deep conversation. They had already exchanged notes from the three incidents, and the fog had gradually lifted. Peter had offered an explanation that connected the three—yes, all three—incidents, but whether they could prove its veracity was a different matter altogether. At the most, they were banking on a kind of indirect confirmation, which would hold little value in a court. But, then again, none of the three present expected the case to make it to court. Which is also the reason why they had agreed to carry out an unconventional experiment.
The doctor came out of the patient’s room. “Anil ji is now conscious and awake,” the doctor said. “However, he cannot speak, as his vocal cords have received extensive damage. At the moment, he can only barely shake his head.” The three men nodded. Then, Ashok entered the room. Ramnath followed, carrying with him some items: car keys, sunglasses, a damaged leather briefcase, a pair of shoes, a blood-stained overcoat, a steel lunch box, and a plate. Peter entered the room last, standing close to the doorway.
Peter, sitting beside Anil, grasped Anil’s hands, before saying, “Anil ji, what happened to you was absolutely shocking. We are trying to get to the bottom of the matter as soon as possible. Can you please take a look at the following items and see if you can recognize them? No, no—please do not move yourself. Just nod your head to say yes, and shake for a no. Okay?”
With an almost imperceptible jerk of the head, Anil nodded yes.
“Ramnath!”
Ramnath came forward with the shoes, displaying all sides and angles to the patient. As Anil’s eyes followed the motion, he slowly shook his head once.
Next came the car keys. Anil nodded his head.
The sunglasses elicited another no.
The leather briefcase, on the other hand, was recognised.
At this moment, in came the doctor with an attendant carrying a pot full of khichdi. “I am sorry, gentlemen, but I must ask you to stop for a bit. Anil ji must have some food.” The attendant, in the meantime, poured some of the watery food into the plate, and some into the lunch box that Ramnath had earlier kept on the chair to show Anil. As the attendant slowly brought the plate before Anil’s eyes, he scooped a spoonful and brought it close to Anil’s mouth. By then, Ashok, Ramnath, and Peter had already seen the visible panic-ridden change in the patient’s movements. Eyes bulging wide, Anil frantically shook his head to the extent possible, and clenched his hands tightly. His body trembled, and he actively tried to avoid being fed the food. The doctor also observed this, and asked the attendant to stop. “Anil ji, you must have some food, otherwise you will become too weak. Or, do you want to be fed from the tiffin box?” And, thus, the same action was repeated with the lunch box. This time, Anil’s reaction was even more vehement. “Strange, I have never seen anyone react so violently to a meal of plain khichdi.” He made a note to later check if Anil had any existing food allergies, particularly to khichdi or any of its ingredients.
But, Peter, Ashok, and Ramnath had come to a different conclusion from the events that transpired. Closely watching the entire proceedings was the lid of the lunch box—the lid with the name ANIL.
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A little time later, Peter found himself alone in the hospital cabin with Anil. He had requested his good friend to grant him this time. Ashok understood immediately, particularly since it was Peter’s explanation of the entire sequence of events, which he had outlined previously, that made the most sense.
Peter took a deep breath. Followed immediately by a long sigh.
He was scared. Scared of what he was about to do. “A long day of dealing with death, non-stop, tends to do that to you … ” he tried to rationalise. But, what good, if any, were these actions going to serve?
Ever since the death of the children, there was a nagging sensation at the back of his head—the kind that makes you want to take a hatchet to your own head. A part of him had then fuelled this into a fire of righteous indignation, as news of more deaths rolled in. And now, having figured out the disparate threads of the affair, he wanted an outlet. It was selfish, petty, no doubt—and it would only serve to prolong the suffering and torment of himself and the patient. But, at this moment, no torture seemed to be greater than what he was going through, silently.
Peter slowly approached the victim. After comparing his thoughts with the inspector’s findings, a certain structure had come to his mind. Anil Mahajan must have told the family about his intentions to not leave behind a single penny, as long as they didn’t take up the mantle of Mahajan Constructions. The greedy vultures would then have given in to their murderous impulses—the first prey being Samir, who acted on his own. The tampering of the brakes and the car fuel would have been done when Samir took the car for repairs—incidentally, the very day Anil Mahajan finalised his new will. Samir must have told no one about it; otherwise, the second attempt made no sense, especially since Anil’s driving schedule of ‘one car a day’ was fairly easy to deduce.
“So, what about the failed attempt, and how did the children get mixed up in this? And why did the family end up dead?” Inspector Ashok’s question came to Peter’s mind. The gardener’s account was vital to unpick the mystery here. Having learned about the family’s poisoning plans, Anil Mahajan would have been furious. That he had taken matters into his own hand should come as no surprise. He must have gotten hold of some cyanide poison after his conversation with the maali. Later, at night or very early in the morning, when the entire family was asleep, he would have tiptoed into the kitchen, smeared the poison all over the utensils, leaving no one any the wiser. Later, on the way to his destination, acting on the maali’s warnings, he had dropped the lunch box off the bridge from his speeding car. It is possible that the choice of spot was completely random, or he may have seen it empty sometime over the week—either way, this act had the horrific consequences which Peter had witnessed earlier in the day. The unfortunate Anil was unable to cheat his karma, though—unaware of his eldest son’s machinations, he ended up in this hospital cabin, struggling to hold on.
Aloud, Peter said, “Anil ji, you have killed two families today. There were children under the flyover where you dropped your lunch box. They ate from it, and are now dead. I hope you know what you have done.”
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By the time Peter left the hospital, it was night. The bright lights of the streets failed to cheer him up. Two hours later, Ashok called Peter to inform that Anil Mahajan had also passed away—from a haemorrhage caused by a stroke.
That day, two families vanished from the face of earth in the city of Mayanagari. And a god-fearing man listened to the whisperings of the devil for the first time.
