Authors: Piyush Jha
'Injection,' Virkar heard a voice say behind him. He turned around. Dr Kishore Sawant from the government hospital looked grim. 'He was killed by a deadly injection, saheb.'
Virkar pursed his lips and turned towards the body again. He bent down for a closer look at the injection prick. The tiny red dot sat silently, not revealing any secrets at all.
Virkar's eyes keenly surveyed the room. He walked up and stood in front of one of the large wall-to-wall bookshelves, loaded with medical tomes. He stared at the titles. This was definitely a doctor's office. The only thing missing was a collection of large glass medical jars with body organs preserved inside—a common motif in movies.
There was a single door for entry and exit. Another door, set in the corner, seemed like the entrance to a bathroom. Virkar opened the door and entered. It
was
a bathroom: huge, as big as Virkar's one-room tenement.
Laid with ancient, white-tile flooring it had a cast-iron bathtub in a dark corner. There was also a porcelain washbasin with iron taps, which went out of stock in the middle of the last century. A modern, full-length mirror on a blank wall seemed the only thing out of place. Virkar walked up to the mirror and stared at his own image. Tiring quickly of his reflection, his attention now got directed towards the mirror itself. It was a little longer that a grown man's height, and wide enough for two people to be reflected together, if they stood side by side. Where it touched the floor, a few brown stains spattered its otherwise spotless surface. Virkar bent down and scraped one of the stains with his thumbnail. The dry powdery substance came off on to his nail.
Finally, some blood, even though dry.
His fingers touched the edges of the mirror, running up and down the entire length. He tugged at the mirror, trying to get it off the wall. Nothing happened. Then Virkar applied pressure, pushing against the mirror. Again, it didn't budge.
Virkar walked outside the bathroom, all the way to the corridor. There, he signalled to a paan-chewing constable. The constable picked up his moth-eaten rifle and shuffled behind his boss, irritated. Virkar led him back into the bathroom and pointed at the mirror. The constable made a grumbling sound, then picked up his rifle with both his hands and tapped the full-length mirror with the butt. Virkar expressed his annoyance: All your energy goes into chewing paan.'
The constable answered by smashing the butt of the SLR on the mirror. Dr Sawant rushed in on hearing the loud crash of cracking glass. Behind the space emptied by the mirror, a wooden door was revealed. The constable stepped back, surprised. All of a sudden, he was overtaken by a burst of energy. He started smashing away at the glass, taking care that none of the pieces flew back to cut him. Soon after, a tiny wooden door that had hidden itself behind the glass stood totally exposed. A catch-lever, at the left bottom corner of the broken mirror, revealed the actual mechanism for the door to swing open.
Virkar finally stepped forward and pushed his brown leather shoe against the catch. The door swung open inwards. Sawant, Virkar and the constable stood looking at each other, a little wary of what they might find inside. Virkar drew himself to his full height and entered.
The first thing that hit him was the smell. Powerful. Medicinal.
His fingers tapped the wall for a switch. He found a modern switch set in the rough colonial wall and flipped it on.
The bright light bouncing off the stainless steel operating table in front of him hurt his eyes. On one side was a rack laden with medical operating tools. Oxygen tanks stood on the other side. An extendable domed light hung ominously from the ceiling.
Sawant pushed himself into the room behind Virkar. Words finally escaped his dry lips, 'Operation Theatre'.
Virkar didn't react to this superfluous information. His eyes were fixed on the far corner of the room. He had finally found what he had missed outside. A wall-to-ground shelf on the far side was loaded with scores of sealed glass medical jars. Virkar inched closer and stared at them. Floating in the preserving liquid in each jar was a single body organ.
Behind him, a bewildered Sawant whispered, 'Human kidneys'
Doctor Murdered, Suspected to be Leader of Human Organ Trafficking Racket
The body of Dr Animesh Jetha, MD, FRCS (Edinburgh), winner of the Governor's Medal for Renal Research, dean of the prestigious Johnson Medical College, Mumbai, was found yesterday in his office chambers. Police have registered a case of murder. He is believed to have been poisoned by a deadly injection.
Sources have also confirmed the discovery of a secret operation theatre inside Dr Jetha's private office at Johnson Medical College. It has been alleged that Dr Jetha was running an illegal kidney transplant racket. Doctors at the hospital say that they never got wind of any such operations. 'Dr Jetha was an extremely respected doctor, all his patients will vouch for him,' a doctor, who wishes to remain anonymous, told us. 'We can't believe that he was part of such a racket.'
Mumbai Crime Branch officials suspect the involvement of more doctors at the college. It is believed that up to 500 kidneys have been sold over the last seven years.
◉
'Crime Branch? Wasn't I handling the investigation well?' Virkar asked Kapse.
Senior Inspector Ravindra Kapse got up from his chair and laid a hand on Virkar's shoulder. He sighed, as if speaking to a child. 'Virkar, Virkar, the case is too complicated. Too big! Why should we bother our little police station with such big cases? Let the Crime Branch handle all the shit. You have been assigned Law& Order duty. You have to take care of bandobasts. Don't dabble in criminal investigations'
'But I was the one who found the operation theatre...'
'That is only because our station's PI Crime is on leave. That's why you were sent to the incident spot.'
Kapse's large frame, with the generous bulges that had succumbed to gravity long ago, was shaking uncontrollably. He was not used to standing for too long, and went back to his favourite sitting position, at the largest desk in the small police station's inner office.
Virkar's voice got harder, 'You don't know my abilities, saheb'.
Kapse's tone changed to a mixture of sarcasm and irritation. 'Yes, yes, I know! Everybody in the police station knows the "famous" Inspector Virkar, who fought Maoists in the jungles of Gadchiroli. Winner of the President's Gallantry Award, blah, blah, blah. But you know this is not Gadchiroli, this is Mumbai. This is not a small pond, this is the sea, where the big fish eat the small fish.'
Virkar's voice was a mixture of strain and patience. 'Sir, I know that I am a small fish, but sometimes, the small fish are the biggest catch.'
Kapse broke into derisive laughter. Bubbles formed at the corner of his corpulent mouth. 'Is that some profound saying by your fishermen ancestors?'
Virkar flinched. Kapse shook his head, as if trying to control his laughter. Then, serious again, he snapped, 'Go to the duty desk and report for today's VIP security duty. The Crime Branch will take care of the investigation and we will hear about it through the newspapers'
Virkar didn't budge. Kapse picked up his phone and raised a quizzical eyebrow at him. 'Do you want to take me on, Virkar?' After a long silent stare, Virkar strode out of the office room without another word.
◉
Being given the short end of the stick was not something new to Virkar. He belonged to the Koli community, that's amongst the oldest inhabitants of Mumbai. A community of fishermen that has, over time, been eroded, and now exists only in small pockets along the Mumbai shoreline. A community whose rights have been disregarded by all and sundry when it comes to land and ownership. A community that is dwindling at an alarming pace, its traditional means of fishing fast becoming outmoded.
The scion of a line of Koli fishermen who adopted the title of Virkar ('worshipper of the ancestors'), Virkar grew up in the shanties of the Macchhimar Nagar area in Colaba. As a child, living and breathing in the shadows of the tall buildings of the upmarket Cuffe Parade, disparity stared him in the face everyday. But, his convent' education at the nearby Holy Mary High School gave him the English language skills and confidence to go up to the rich Cuffe Parade kids and play hide 'n' seek with them in their building compounds. However, as he grew up, dividing his time between keeping up with his schoolwork, helping his father fish and his feisty mother sell the daily catch, he knew that one day, he would have to face the prejudices that make the world an ugly place.
Although he passed his tenth standard board exams with flying colours and enrolled in the science stream at Elphinstone College, he switched to psychology after his dreams of joining an engineering college were shattered for want of two precious marks. After securing a first-class Bachelor of Arts degree, he had wanted to pursue a MBA, but there, too, the serpent of favouritism swallowed up his dreams. A chance reply to a Maharashtra Public Service Commission recruitment advertisement led to him joining the police service. For the first time, he felt at peace, as he had been selected on merit. But as he worked hard at the Maharashtra Police Academy in Nashik, a new kind of prejudice dogged his footsteps. A reverse prejudice. His being the only English-speaking boy from Mumbai became a millstone around his neck. The cadets and teachers who hailed from rural and interior Maharashtra couldn't stand him.
One day, the inevitable happened. The somewhat naive Virkar rose to the bait laid out by one of his jealous batchmates and made the cardinal mistake of correcting the pronunciation of an instructor. From that day on, Virkar was a marked man. And sure enough, as soon as the class graduated from the academy, he was handed a posting otherwise reserved as punishment for serious offenders within the police department, to a far-flung, Naxalite and Maoist infested war-zone called Gadchiroli. A place with a name he couldn't even pronounce at first. A place where death stared him in the face everyday.
◉
They made ferocious love. Specially-made-for-release love. Tension-expelling love.
As she lay savouring the throes of her orgasm, Porus spoke for the first time that evening.. 'I killed your father,' he said.
The four words spun around the room at lightning speed and exploded inside her head like an atom bomb.
Dr Saakshi Jetha lay dumbstruck. Tears crept into her doe-shaped eyes. The dusky beauty had been away, attending a seminar at the Army Medical College, Pune, when her father, Dr Animesh Jetha, was killed. The investigation had started even before she could reach Mumbai And she had come home only to be faced with interrogation about her father and his associates. She had been questioned about her own movements, too, and was only allowed to claim and cremate her father's body after a full forty-eight hours.
Sensing her emotional paralysis, Porus Udwadia spoke again. 'For seven years, your father's murder was my single-minded goal. Everyday, I would envision your father's death by my hands. In my head, I would play and replay how I would kill him, again and again.' His words continued to strip her already shattered mind, tearing through her tattered thoughts like shrapnel.
Saakshi still didn't move or speak; her limbs seemed welded into the mattress. Her lips were frozen stiff with the thought that her lover was her father's cold-blooded murderer. Her eyes, open but unseeing, visualized how her paramour must have taken the life out of her guardian and mentor, whom she had loved above all else.
Porus continued in an ominous tone. 'Your father killed my father. He didn't stick a knife in his chest or shoot him, but killed him by much more sinister means. My father was a small-time horse-trainer at the Mahalaxmi Race Course. Unfortunately, his horses lost too many races and he was reduced to a poor stable hand. But even during his days of penury, he held on to the dream that his studious son would one day become a doctor. Unfortunately, I didn't study hard enough. I fell short by a few marks and no respectable medical college would give me admission. And my father didn't have the money to pay capitation fees. So, through a horse-race bookie, he found his way to your father and pleaded with him to grant me admission in Johnson Medical College.' At this point Porus almost stopped breathing . His voice grew sharp. 'Your father was very accommodating. He gave me admission almost immediately. Of course, the only thing my father had to do was to give his left kidney to your father.'
Porus stopped to breathe, summoning up energy to carry on with his monologue. 'It had to be the left kidney, because you see, the right kidney was damaged and would not last too long.'
Pain crept into his voice. 'My poor father gave up his one good kidney for my sake. He spent the next two years dying. Hiding his pain, he motivated me to continue my studies. Only after he collapsed in the stables and finally died one day, did I come to know his secret. My budding doctor's mind was shocked at the discovery of his scar, and I operated upon his body and discovered the true cause of his death'. Porus's words tumbled out, as if trying to escape from the painful memory. 'I broke down that day...I almost lost my mind, till the bookie who had sent my father to yours told me the entire story'. Sensing the end of the monologue, his body began to relax, 'As I watched the vultures circle over the Tower of Silence after my father's funeral, I swore that I would pay back his killer in the same coin.'
Porus fell silent and popped some chewing gum to relax.
For several minutes, the only sound heard in the room was the lazy clack-clack of the ceiling fan.
'Was getting me to fall in love with you a mere ploy to get to my father?' Saakshi finally broke the silence.
'Initially, yes, but as I got to know you, I fell totally in love with you. I know it sounds like a "filmy" dialogue, given the circumstances, but it is true,' Porus answered in an emotionless tone.
'Is it?' Saakshi's voice dripped with scorn.
'Yes, unfortunately, yes. Yes, I do love you. That's why I have told you everything. I wish I didn't have to kill the loved one of someone whom I love. But then that is the hell I have been ordained to suffer,' Porus said without hesitation.