As with most things, it was DragonballZ that inspired this article. A vague reference by a character in a video game led me to yet another example of the inherent hypocrisy of religion.
"The sins of the father shall be visited upon the son."
I will analyze a bit of biblical text using only one logical tool- Ockham's Razor. The simplest explanation that logically explains phenomenon is usually the correct one and in the absence of proof to the contrary- is to be treated as such.
The text I shall analyse is-
"You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,"
What's the direct interpretation? Well, the God in the Bible is vicious prick who punishes people for being alive. Remember killing the egyptian children for their parents' transgressions?
But the interpretation used by many christians is that-
A father's sin will be passed onto his children because of the way he raises them. Because the child will learn to sin from the father... and thus the father can lead a family astray for many generations. Without proper guidance, the sin will only multiply as the children come into contact with more bad influences.
Oh, puhleez.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Mr. Approachable.
Walking down the street in connaught place with two friends, I was approached for directions.
It wasn't the first time it'd happened. It wasn't the last. It isn't even rare.
It's fairly common.
Perhaps the only reason it'd even be worth mentioning is because the approachee, in this case, was a hot girl, rather than the usual 40 year old parent.
I only caught her face from the corner of my eye as I gave out directions to the nearest McDonalds. I regretted it immediately, of course, when I hot girl speaks to you you damn well look at her face. Instincts take over though... I'm still shy at the most basic level of functioning.
It's no longer coincidence. Even if I'm in a group of people... the one asked for directions, advice, help, is me. Some 85% of the time. Hell, the rest of the time I assume they're talking to me and answer instinctively.
The same thing happened at IIT Delhi, when I tagged as my sister was getting admitted. It happened again in Nehru Place when one guy assumed I knew all the bus routes in Delhi.
Because I'm a generally under employed human being who thinks about six times as much as he needs to, I have spent a bit of time pondering over this.
Can I form I hypothesis to explain this phenomenon, my apparent approachability, in a logical manner?
More importantly.
Can I exploit it for personal gain?
Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm a cold person when it comes to interacting with new people, a not so well hidden mean streak for stupidity, and a master at finding out how to piss people off with minimal effort. So it's not that my personality traits that are somehow apparent in my demeanor.
So switch to physical appearance. This makes more sense. Analyzing my body is a lot less interesting than analyzing my wills, skills, motivations and deviations. My body is pretty unexceptional in comparison.
Which is precisely the answer.
What makes me approachable is probably that I seem non-threatening, but also without displaying any undesirable qualities.
Not tall, not too short either. Not fat, not thin either. Not handsome, not ugly. Not dark skinned, not fair. Not intimidating, not pitiful.
Average.
I generally look like a tramp. Walking with head down and looking at my surroundings rather than at people.
Maybe it looks like I know where I'm going... or maybe I'm just loitering around so I'm easy to approach.
Initial Assessment: This will not help me in any way.
It wasn't the first time it'd happened. It wasn't the last. It isn't even rare.
It's fairly common.
Perhaps the only reason it'd even be worth mentioning is because the approachee, in this case, was a hot girl, rather than the usual 40 year old parent.
I only caught her face from the corner of my eye as I gave out directions to the nearest McDonalds. I regretted it immediately, of course, when I hot girl speaks to you you damn well look at her face. Instincts take over though... I'm still shy at the most basic level of functioning.
It's no longer coincidence. Even if I'm in a group of people... the one asked for directions, advice, help, is me. Some 85% of the time. Hell, the rest of the time I assume they're talking to me and answer instinctively.
The same thing happened at IIT Delhi, when I tagged as my sister was getting admitted. It happened again in Nehru Place when one guy assumed I knew all the bus routes in Delhi.
Because I'm a generally under employed human being who thinks about six times as much as he needs to, I have spent a bit of time pondering over this.
Can I form I hypothesis to explain this phenomenon, my apparent approachability, in a logical manner?
More importantly.
Can I exploit it for personal gain?
Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm a cold person when it comes to interacting with new people, a not so well hidden mean streak for stupidity, and a master at finding out how to piss people off with minimal effort. So it's not that my personality traits that are somehow apparent in my demeanor.
So switch to physical appearance. This makes more sense. Analyzing my body is a lot less interesting than analyzing my wills, skills, motivations and deviations. My body is pretty unexceptional in comparison.
Which is precisely the answer.
What makes me approachable is probably that I seem non-threatening, but also without displaying any undesirable qualities.
Not tall, not too short either. Not fat, not thin either. Not handsome, not ugly. Not dark skinned, not fair. Not intimidating, not pitiful.
Average.
I generally look like a tramp. Walking with head down and looking at my surroundings rather than at people.
Maybe it looks like I know where I'm going... or maybe I'm just loitering around so I'm easy to approach.
Initial Assessment: This will not help me in any way.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
MIT's shitty laptop
To be honest, the 100 dollar laptop is a joke.
Lashing out at the indian gov for not buying into MIT media labs' Negroponte is great and all, but lets see what our alternatives are shall we?
Lets start at the outset.
Families are NOT going to buy a shitty, useless laptop for their kids, they simply don't have that kind of spare cash. It goes into food, education, cell phones (I'll get to this)
How did OLPC plan to make money?
BY MAKING THE GOVT SPEND MILLIONS ON THESE LAPTOPS
then leaving the govt to market them to a public that does not give a shit.
The creators will be lauded as geniuses trying to help the poor, and the govt as incompetents who failed to market the killer product (hey! it's cheap!) to the public.
If the govt tries to say that product quality wasn't up to the mark, or that the pricing was uncompetitive- the media will have a fucking field day with the govt insulting MIT.
First
The PC. PCs are always cheaper than laptops- the MIT model ignored this in favour of mobility. Guess what, a 250 dollar, fully functional PC used by 5 or more children is actually much more economical than a 100 dollar laptop.
Second.
The second hand market.
I had a PC. It cost my parents a bomb when they bought it. I played warcraft on it for many years, learnt a lot. But it was just faar to outdated after 6 years. These days, the son of the man who used to do our gardening might be playing warcraft on it.
The HP Laptop I'm writing on right now is 7 years old. On the market it would fetch me 3-4-5k (60-100 dollars) max. It's ancient. I refuse to sell it though, partially because of nostalgia I feel it is worth much more than the price It'd fetch in the market- even after 7 years of purchase. Someday I'll buy a new laptop, but I will pass this on to some child somewhere who can learn from it- it'd only net me 60 dollars on the market... and it's infinitely better than this 100 dollar OLPC crap. Imagine if there was a mechanism to start this kind of a secondhand business on a huge scale.
Imagine.
Thirdly.
Why would anyone by a 100 dollar laptop when they can get a (relatively) HIGHLY functional phone for 50-60 dollars. The phone translates into communication and tangible benefits rapidly, all without a strong need for literacy- while the 100 dollar laptop without an internet subscription is simply a document/picture viewer with a calculator.
There are fairly functional 30 dollar phones in the market, connecting indians to the world like a 100 (actually almost 200) dollar laptop can't dream of.
This is a wasted effort, according to me. And mixed with the second-hand market- phone prices crash even lower. We just need to use this to get quality tech to the poor instead of throwing it in the bin or smashing it or something.
First
The PC. PCs are always cheaper than laptops- the MIT model ignored this in favour of mobility. Guess what, a 250 dollar, fully functional PC used by 5 or more children is actually much more economical than a 100 dollar laptop.
Second.
The second hand market.
I had a PC. It cost my parents a bomb when they bought it. I played warcraft on it for many years, learnt a lot. But it was just faar to outdated after 6 years. These days, the son of the man who used to do our gardening might be playing warcraft on it.
The HP Laptop I'm writing on right now is 7 years old. On the market it would fetch me 3-4-5k (60-100 dollars) max. It's ancient. I refuse to sell it though, partially because of nostalgia I feel it is worth much more than the price It'd fetch in the market- even after 7 years of purchase. Someday I'll buy a new laptop, but I will pass this on to some child somewhere who can learn from it- it'd only net me 60 dollars on the market... and it's infinitely better than this 100 dollar OLPC crap. Imagine if there was a mechanism to start this kind of a secondhand business on a huge scale.
Imagine.
Thirdly.
Why would anyone by a 100 dollar laptop when they can get a (relatively) HIGHLY functional phone for 50-60 dollars. The phone translates into communication and tangible benefits rapidly, all without a strong need for literacy- while the 100 dollar laptop without an internet subscription is simply a document/picture viewer with a calculator.
There are fairly functional 30 dollar phones in the market, connecting indians to the world like a 100 (actually almost 200) dollar laptop can't dream of.
This is a wasted effort, according to me. And mixed with the second-hand market- phone prices crash even lower. We just need to use this to get quality tech to the poor instead of throwing it in the bin or smashing it or something.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Ranchi
Dichotomy.
The hotel room I’m in is a contradiction. Clean, modern, and almost certainly designed as a tribute to perhaps the only artist I’ve referred to in my blog (and with a fair amount of derision I might add.)
The main windows in the lobbies of different floors are designed in the shapes of Pierre Mondrian’s works. The entire hotel has a remarkable abstract-cubical aesthetic.
My room is great, tables with rounded edges that remind me of my signature designs in photoshop. A window makes up most of one wall- eight feet high, over 15 feet across.
Majestic, really. When the curtains part, furious light floods the room, and from my pristine hotel room, sipping on bottled water, I can see hovels, a mosque under construction, and the tumours of India’s burgeoning middle class spread all throughout the city.
It is a contradiction, to be in a high-class hotel room in Ranchi, Jharkhand. It is a contradiction to walk into a bar in this hotel and watch a football world cup match.
A seething mass of bicycles, scooters and hatchbacks at noon, the city is almost empty in the early morning and at night. There is plenty of greenery, and I pass several semi-artificial lakes as I travel between the hotel and my relatives’ home. The mountains in the city are an unusual feature- tumours on the landscape, once again. Every second signboard, of which there are millions, advertises for school tuitions, coaching classes, preparation for entrance exams- IITJEE, AIEEE, AIPMT, AIIMS, for colleges- mostly small institutions willing to admit anyone- I see several massive billboards advertising the Birsa Institute of Technology- which surprisingly offers BBAs and MBAs but no engineering degrees. Perhaps more surprising are the billboards offering coaching for the NTSE scholarship- and as far as I’m aware, that didn’t help me one damn bit with anything in life.
Any ‘coaching’ you undergo for the scholarship will end up being more expensive than the money you can expect to get.
This is the face of an aspirant nation. It unnerves me to see the mindless desperation- but every coin has two sides. The proliferation of tuitions and coaching classes is only in reaction to the desire of the small town student to rise above his or her circumstance- but to be completely honest, it sometimes brings a small smile to the side of my face.
Yes, it’s partially because the mad rush to academic glory ascribes great value to my not-completely-insubstantial achievements in the past, it stokes my ego- and it reminds me of those little things that don’t really matter in the long run that I thought mattered then. But it’s also because of the contrast between the small town and the big city- rife with decadence and the justifications of men and women who gave up before they ever tried, who may perhaps never reach their full potential. They are willing to mock those who take part in the rat race, all the while unwilling to put their own necks on the line to achieve something tangible- instead hiding behind a veil of materialism or pseudo-nihilism, depending on where you’re looking.
There are many who are more than willing to exploit the gullible gumption that proliferates the slightly lower middle class of India.
I met my cousins in Ranchi, I had come here to attend a somewhat distant cousin’s Janeo, the sacred thread ceremony of the brahmins.
One of them had been staying in Patna for the last two years after moving from Delhi, he transferred from Delhi Public School, Noida, to Delhi Public School, in Patna (Oh the irony) which was considered to be the best school for boys in the city.
What happened next was odd. Soon after arrival, he was interviewed by the school principal and deemed a delinquent, simply because he was from Delhi- despite being a moderate mix of nerd and jock. He was told to leave behind his Delhi Attitude, which I assume implies decadence and westernization, but also confidence and flexibility. Other teachers were nice to him, until they asked him where he was from, and he replied ‘Delhi’, at which point he was subjected to the same extreme prejudice.
I found this hard to believe, but the story continued with his younger brother, aged nine, being sent to the same school. First of all, my nine year old brother was not allowed to bring bread to school, for whatever twisted reason the authorities could think of.
On his bus rides to and from school, the nine year olds weren’t allowed to sleep.
They also weren’t allowed to talk.
The Orwellian nightmare continues- my nine year old cousin, tired after a long, hot day of school, fell asleep on the bus, only to find a teacher grabbing his ears and pulling him to his feet.
When I heard this, I felt rage. The same kind of rage that everyone has at times but inevitably fails to act on. This isn’t discipline. This is torture. I am a human being. This is my brother. I am angered.
And the story isn’t over- the elder cousin was witness to the occasion of a friend of his beaten mercilessly by his principal- on account of being a prime suspect for some ‘crime’ or the other, on account of being from Delhi.
The laws of the Republic of India can be Damned.
He asked the other students why they tolerate this man, even though he clearly breaks the laws of the Indian nation. With some resignation they told him that they were in no position to get into trouble, lest it leave a lasting mark on their future.
He’s moving back to Delhi now, and looking forward to returning to some kind of sanity.
Many of my cousins are entering the phase where they need to do things greater than they ever have before… to secure a future for themselves… I hope they manage it. I can do little else. I fear that might make the same mistakes I made, but if I try too hard to warn them, I might scare them off entirely. Let us see.
In the mean while, I haven’t done something stupid for a long time. It’s time to make a big mistake.
P.S: I now sport a large festering slash/welt on the thigh from my first attempt to play football after over a year. 4 goals bitch!
PPS: One of my bihari GRANDMOTHERS asked me if I had a 'female-friend' in college. I said 'No'.
FML.
Monday, June 14, 2010
45
One. Two. Three. Four.
The first pass inconsequentially. I listen only to the beating of my own heart.
Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
There is a pull. A smothering. The water drives against my hair. Discomfort.
Eleven. Twelve.
I don't think. Thinking consumed energy, the reactions that drive electricity through my brain use up oxygen. The less I think the longer I breathe.
Even so. My heartbeat is too fast.
Seventeen. Eighteen.
Relax. Calm down. Reduce yourself to nothing.
Twenty one. Twenty two.
It's hard now. My mouth wants to open, but there is no air to breathe. The heart beats faster then slows.
Twenty five.
Time itself is broken into pieces of five seconds each. At the end of each- I beg for five more.
Already, a numb despair is beginning to sink in.
Don't panic. Here is a situation where losing your cool can actually make a difference between life and death.
Thirty.
Burning, horrible.
breathe...
Give me FIVE MORE!
Thirty four, Thirty five.
Panic taking over.
breathe!
Aargh.
Thirty eight.
The senses begin to decay. Hope, confidence, decays. This is a fight now.
Thirty nine.
Forty.
I am aware of what it must feel like, to be face to face with death.
Breathe!
Forty one.
The despair soaks through the soul. Black fire burns within my chest.
Forty two.
Everything gives way.
BREATHE!
Forty three.
Peace. Resignation.
Forty four.
There is Nothing.
Forty five.
BREATHE!
My head explodes out of the water and into air, every cell in the body burns for breath.
Halogen lights pierce into my skull as my lungs devour the wind.
I am resurrected.
No one else in the pool notices.
breathe
The first pass inconsequentially. I listen only to the beating of my own heart.
Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
There is a pull. A smothering. The water drives against my hair. Discomfort.
Eleven. Twelve.
I don't think. Thinking consumed energy, the reactions that drive electricity through my brain use up oxygen. The less I think the longer I breathe.
Even so. My heartbeat is too fast.
Seventeen. Eighteen.
Relax. Calm down. Reduce yourself to nothing.
Twenty one. Twenty two.
It's hard now. My mouth wants to open, but there is no air to breathe. The heart beats faster then slows.
Twenty five.
Time itself is broken into pieces of five seconds each. At the end of each- I beg for five more.
Already, a numb despair is beginning to sink in.
Don't panic. Here is a situation where losing your cool can actually make a difference between life and death.
Thirty.
Burning, horrible.
breathe...
Give me FIVE MORE!
Thirty four, Thirty five.
Panic taking over.
breathe!
Aargh.
Thirty eight.
The senses begin to decay. Hope, confidence, decays. This is a fight now.
Thirty nine.
Forty.
I am aware of what it must feel like, to be face to face with death.
Breathe!
Forty one.
The despair soaks through the soul. Black fire burns within my chest.
Forty two.
Everything gives way.
BREATHE!
Forty three.
Peace. Resignation.
Forty four.
There is Nothing.
Forty five.
BREATHE!
My head explodes out of the water and into air, every cell in the body burns for breath.
Halogen lights pierce into my skull as my lungs devour the wind.
I am resurrected.
No one else in the pool notices.
breathe
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Kalki Chapter One: The Debutant (Part 1)
The man wore a light pair of metal rimmed glasses over a stern, strong face. The grey eyes behind those glasses looked … angry, but intelligent- they hungrily swallowed everything that came before them- but not without having fiercely evaluated every aspect of it. He was in his mid fifties, looked healthy and like he’d only recently slipped out of athleticism, with hair graying at the temples and a well preened moustache.
He went through the documents that he held in his hands exuding an aura that emanated an emotion bordering fury. He put the papers down on the desk before him and looked up at the well dressed young man seated across the table from him.
“Why?” He demanded.
The other man did not respond. A flicker of annoyance flashed across his face. “I don’t quite understand what you mean, sir.” He replied politely.
The younger man wore an immaculate black suit and creaseless white shirt, had perfectly combed black hair and a complexion paled by having been out of the sun too long. He was handsome, in a slightly feminine way, but physically unimpressive. He too evaluated the other man.
"No matter how long I go through these pieces of paper..." The older man continued. "I can't make sense of it. There's no reason you should be here."
If the statement evoked an emotional reaction, it didn't show on the younger man's face. "I'm here because I want to, sir." He said, simply.
The other man's eyes flashed back to the pieces of paper on the desk.
"... Degrees in computer science, biology... with your academic record, you should be doing an MBA and minting money... but... psychology?"
"I believe it's absolutely necessary in this line of work."
"Why someone would come back to India after a stint abroad, to join the FIA, is something that goes over my head. Even with the 'specialist' allowance, you can't expect to earn even a fraction of what you would in a multinational."
"I'm not doing it for the money, sir." Still cold, expressionless.
"You don't have any of the powers and privileges of a traditional bureaucrat either."
"Perhaps, Sir," He paused, flicking a stray hair out of his forehead. "I will be better able answer questions pertaining to my qualifications and contributions rather than conjecture on other career options."
"Yes." The middle-aged man said, without breaking eye contact, "Just as soon as I know why you want to be a detective."
The younger man's expression hardened for a moment.
"Because I'm perfect for the job. I thought that’s what you’d be looking for."
Something shifted in the older man's face, some might have detected a half-smile, others- nothing at all. "Fair enough. The interview is over, follow me." He got up.
The younger man- up till that point a paragon of stoic calm- was unable to stop his mouth from opening a little as his face distorted in confusion. "Wha- Certainly sir."
The older man motioned the younger to follow as he opened the door to the small corner office he had been conducting the interview in and out into the main hall.
The hall was a large area with little furniture- a few desks, chairs and computers were in the process of being unpacked. One wall was made entirely of glass, giving the officers in the hall a clear view of the sun beginning to rise over the city skyline.
It was 8:25 am.
Overlooking the hall was a curious emblem mounted on a small rift in the ceiling- a plain black circle emblazoned with the words 'Federal Investigative Agency'.
The older man saw the younger looking at the emblem. He answered as soon as he saw the black haired youth open his mouth to ask the question.
"The top brass hasn't decided on a logo yet. We're keeping the space blank till they come up with something."
He began to walk, the younger man followed.
"Did you know that the Research and Analysis Wing had a logo privately commissioned for them for fifteen lakh rupees?"
"No."
"It could never be used. Security risk."
"But... what?"
The older man never broke pace as they reached the elevator and he hit the button.
"This kind of functioning was what facilitated the formation of this organization. I intend to make sure it is not repeated here. This is why we're hiring people like you...specialists...Not sure how much that'll help..." He said. "What was your name again?"
They entered the elevator, leaving the bare-boned office behind.
"Akash. Akash Agnihotri… Er, Sir, where are we going?”
“I’m going to see just how useful you are in the field. We’re heading for a crime scene.”
“Ok.”
The elevator doors parted and the men walked into the main lobby of the ground floor, within seconds they had reached the entrance and emerged out the building into the street.
“I’ll try to brief you on our way there.” The officer.
A car was parked near the entrance to the building. A white Honda City- the driver, a heavily tanned, somewhat tired looking man in his late thirties dressed in a simple white shirt and dark pants, waved to the older of the two men. The car was meant for them.
“Mr. Sharma, where are we going?” He asked.
“Rajender, throw me the keys.” The middle aged officer, Viraat Sharma, replied. The driver seemed bemused as he threw the keys to officer Sharma, the younger man noticed, but not particularly surprised by the unconventional order, he made a note of it in his head.
Sharma thrust the keys into the younger man’s hand, who almost recoiled at the touch of the metal. “What kind of law enforcement officer is afraid to drive?” Sharma smiled sardonically.
Agnihotri clenched his teeth, grabbed the keys and pulled open the door into the vehicle.
“That’s more like it.”
***
The skyscraper was fairly ugly by modern standards. A crude, block of grey with no adornments- every shape on it was either rectangular or cuboidal, nothing like the glistening havens of glass, metal and air conditioning like that came up these days on the outskirts of the city.
It must have been thirty years odd years old, and in a state of pathetic disrepair. Almost half the windows were without panes, paint had peeled off almost everywhere- they wouldn’t be able to tell if it had ever been any colour other than grey. Seepages and corrosion could be seen from a distance. It looked like it had been abandoned for years.
Akash Agnihotri was sweating, even though the air-conditioner was on, the weather outside was cloudy with a slight drizzle and it was thirty minutes past eight in the morning and most of the city was still asleep.
He brought the car into a halt next to a couple of officers standing next to the street and herding people away from the building. He opened the door and stared straight at the dark clouds above him, letting pinpricks of the cold rain pepper his face.
“The tip off came over an hour ago, the details coming in have been erratic. That’s part of the reason I didn’t have time to interview you properly- but since you’d taken the early flight into the city, I thought you’d like to get on the job as soon as possible.” Sharma explained as the two walked up to the nearest uniformed constables.
“Yes of course sir.” Agnihotri still seemed a little rattled by his drive through the Indian financial capital.
Sharma started talking to a constable. Agnihotri looked past them- behind them were more khaki clad police officers walking in and out of the building, along with two ambulances buzzing with activity as white-uniformed medics sprinted to and fro, a fire-truck waited on standby, but some of the firemen were also getting ready to enter the building.
What the hell happened here?
“Sir you can’t go in-” One of the constables was speaking.
“I’m I.P.S. you ignorant lout!” Sharma exploded. “Take me to the man in charge here!”
The constable gave a little squeal and nodded his head. “Sorry sir, mein bas le jata hoon”- I’ll take you there immediately.
Sharma followed the constable, putting his temper back under his control. Agnihotri followed Sharma.
The head officer was a lean, shrewd looking man in his fifties- wearing full khaki unform- the name on his tag was Rakesh Sinha, Agnihotri observed, he was talking to the constabulary until he saw Sharma and seemed to recognise him.
“Viraat!” He exclaimed. “You’re with the FIA now right?”
Viraat Sharma grunted a positive. “What in god’s name happened here, Rakesh?”
Officer Sinha’s expression soured a little at Sharma’s direct question and his dismissal of official pleasantries.
“It isn’t like anything we’ve ever seen. We have found seventeen casualties in the building, nine fatalities as of now, and we’ve recovered over two dozen firearms from the premises.”
Sharma frowned. “Extrapolation from your faint cheerfulness, you think this was a gang war.”
“Er, we don’t think it’s a gang war.”
“Why?”
Agnihotri caught something out of the corner of his eye.
“It’s because of the manner of the deaths- suffocation, knife wounds, blunt traima, snapped necks and just one death because of gunshot wounds.”
“What?!”
Agnihotri had moved away from the two government officers. His eyes settled on a spot on concrete that was heavily stained by an ugly red, the stones of the sidewalk were cleanly split and cracked around the centre of the pool.
Both the older officers followed the younger man’s gaze.
“A man fell there.” Sinha supplied helpfully.
“Oh.” Said Agnihotri.
“We estimate from the twentieth floor.”
“How come, did you get a crash or ballistics expert or something?” Sharma inquired.
“Er, no, but you’ll see why.” Sinha replied.
The three of them looked at the bloodied, shattered depression in the sidewalk. Viraat Sharma ran his hand through his hair and frowned. His voice was almost a growl “Do you have any idea who’s responsible for this?”
“Not a damn clue.” Said Sinha.
“Any evidence that might tell us more about what happened?” Agnihotri asked cautiously.
“Er... well you could say that.”
***
In the dim light of early morn, the room was ominous. The door shrieked as it opened fully.
The first things he noticed were the pictures.
They were littered all over the floor of the dark room. The upturned ones showed happy, sometimes tired looking, men, women, families posing to have their photographs taken. Most of them were smiling. Some of them were sprayed with blood.
The second thing he saw was the chair and the body of the man tied to it. The chair was tightly secured with rope on top of a bed. The man in it ‘sat’ with his head down. He wore a night-gown, and his mouth remained trapped in a dumb gape.
Blood dripped into the bed-sheets at his feet from three bullet holes in his chest.
Agnihotri scrutinized them immediately. The three holes formed an equilateral triangle on the man’s chest. Did it mean something? Or was it simply some result of taking advantage of the accuracy offered by point blank range.
Along with him, there were four other men in the room. Officers Sharma, Sinha, a ballistics expert and a blood splatter specialist.
After a few seconds of being deep in thought, the ballistics man announced loudly. “This man was shot from extreme close range.” --which educed everyone else in the room to give him a long, hard, cold, stare. He closed his mouth.
It was a small room, the furthest anyone could be from the man without leaving the room was about eight feet.
“I’ve seen this man’s face before...” Agnihotri mused. “...A businessman?”
Both Sharma and Sinha snorted simultaneously.
“More like a crime-lord. That’s Prasad, the leader of the biggest gang in the city.” It was Officer Sharma who spoke. “That bastard’s weaselled his way out of a dozen cases of extortion and kidnapping. He disappeared from India about ten years ago and fled to Dubai.”
Rakesh Sinha nodded. “Back in the day, his name used to come often- but he was never directly involved in anything- there was never any evidence... and someone else always took the fall- and his name was interspersed with many others. We didn’t realize how important he was until he moved to Dubai and set up a business enterprise with drug money and declared himself CEO- that’s when we realized that he’d been the mastermind behind the whole operation. Now- he was invited back to Bombay with open arms by the chief minister for being a Valuable Conduit of Foreign Investment.”
Sharma muttered a few obscenities under his breath and then picked up one of the photographs from the ground, a brightly beaming young woman posing near the Gateway to India monument next to the Arabian Sea. The blood splatter expert opened his mouth to protest- but the protestation never came.
“I’m willing to bet two legs and an arm that these are the pictures of the victims of crimes he was never convicted for.”
Sinha frowned. “Yes, that seems... but surely that can’t explain the whole...” The sentence faded into silence before it got anywhere.
Agnihotri used the silence to clear his throat.
“The revenge motive should be looked at very carefully here. This setting, it’s very personal. All the other men have been ambushed and disposed of immediately. This man was executed. He’s bound, but there’s no cloth in his mouth- he wasn’t gagged. He was allowed to talk- to beg, to scream. He was shot- when no one else was shot. If you look at the swellings on his arms- he was conscious for at least ten minutes and tried fiercely to struggle against the ropes.”
Sinha interrupted-“Viru, who is this guy? IPS?”
Sharma sighed. “No. He’s an FIA Specialist.”
Sinha- “What does he specialize in?”
Sharma- “He... is, just, er... generally specialized.”
Agnihotri ignored the interlude.
“Look at the photographs meticulously scattered around the room. The killers might have done this before executing the man. We can be pretty sure that this room was originally intended for Prasad to stay in.”
He paused for a moment to consider the room. Then walked to the nearest work-desk and shuffled through a few papers.
“We can be pretty sure that this room was specially prepared for Prasad. It’s the only liveable room in the building- air conditioning, newspapers and financial reports... and the victim is dressed in his nightgown- he was probably trying to sleep on this very bed. It seems like the killers spent a lot of time in this room- the time taken to do this elaborate rope binding would imply that Prasad was either incapacitated or being controlled by force as it was set up. It would be much easier to simply kill him than to make a show of it like this. In that sense- the revenge motive makes sense.”
“Or it might just be an elaborate ruse to divert our attention.” Said Sinha. Officer Sharma’s cellphone rang and he answered discreetly.
Sinha continued. “Prasad’s gang is definitely the biggest in the city- but he’s got some stiff competition, as many as three other gangs are fighting to take over his drug running turf. Some say he was coming back to India to intimidate the other gangs- they might have seen it as an opportunity to assassinate him. It makes sense- a surgical strike like this might be enough to break down the structure of the Company.”
He stopped to mull it over in his head.
The young man drifted along the desk, examining each object- just like the killer had- hours ago. His hand fell on a diary, instinctively he pulled it open and flipped through the pages. All blank.
Except...
The last page had a small block of text written in small cursive script.
I wonder if anyone will read this. He’s already confessed. It means nothing of course; it must feel good to not have to pretend to be human anymore, right? It’s sick that monsters can don human skin with such ease.
And Then-
He closed the book.
Who wrote that?! He inhaled sharply, and started looking for anything else that might give him a clue.
Sinha had finished thinking. He spoke out loud, though no-one was listening. “If it was a gangland killing, we needn’t worry- one of the gangs will know about the hit- the others won’t. We’ll keep this out of the media, suppress news of his death- most people just know him as a legitimate businessman anyway- and see which gang shows the most aggressive activity in following days”
Sharma had returned from his call, white faced.
“So Viru, any bets on who it will be- which rival, I mean? Your only real contenders are of course Tanveer Qayoom, Khalid Mortaza, and Bhimsinha Sharma.”
“It isn’t any of them.” He spoke sharply.
“What? Why?” Sinha asked. Agnihotri put down whatever he was fiddling with to look at Viraat Sharma.
“They’re all Dead.”
He went through the documents that he held in his hands exuding an aura that emanated an emotion bordering fury. He put the papers down on the desk before him and looked up at the well dressed young man seated across the table from him.
“Why?” He demanded.
The other man did not respond. A flicker of annoyance flashed across his face. “I don’t quite understand what you mean, sir.” He replied politely.
The younger man wore an immaculate black suit and creaseless white shirt, had perfectly combed black hair and a complexion paled by having been out of the sun too long. He was handsome, in a slightly feminine way, but physically unimpressive. He too evaluated the other man.
"No matter how long I go through these pieces of paper..." The older man continued. "I can't make sense of it. There's no reason you should be here."
If the statement evoked an emotional reaction, it didn't show on the younger man's face. "I'm here because I want to, sir." He said, simply.
The other man's eyes flashed back to the pieces of paper on the desk.
"... Degrees in computer science, biology... with your academic record, you should be doing an MBA and minting money... but... psychology?"
"I believe it's absolutely necessary in this line of work."
"Why someone would come back to India after a stint abroad, to join the FIA, is something that goes over my head. Even with the 'specialist' allowance, you can't expect to earn even a fraction of what you would in a multinational."
"I'm not doing it for the money, sir." Still cold, expressionless.
"You don't have any of the powers and privileges of a traditional bureaucrat either."
"Perhaps, Sir," He paused, flicking a stray hair out of his forehead. "I will be better able answer questions pertaining to my qualifications and contributions rather than conjecture on other career options."
"Yes." The middle-aged man said, without breaking eye contact, "Just as soon as I know why you want to be a detective."
The younger man's expression hardened for a moment.
"Because I'm perfect for the job. I thought that’s what you’d be looking for."
Something shifted in the older man's face, some might have detected a half-smile, others- nothing at all. "Fair enough. The interview is over, follow me." He got up.
The younger man- up till that point a paragon of stoic calm- was unable to stop his mouth from opening a little as his face distorted in confusion. "Wha- Certainly sir."
The older man motioned the younger to follow as he opened the door to the small corner office he had been conducting the interview in and out into the main hall.
The hall was a large area with little furniture- a few desks, chairs and computers were in the process of being unpacked. One wall was made entirely of glass, giving the officers in the hall a clear view of the sun beginning to rise over the city skyline.
It was 8:25 am.
Overlooking the hall was a curious emblem mounted on a small rift in the ceiling- a plain black circle emblazoned with the words 'Federal Investigative Agency'.
The older man saw the younger looking at the emblem. He answered as soon as he saw the black haired youth open his mouth to ask the question.
"The top brass hasn't decided on a logo yet. We're keeping the space blank till they come up with something."
He began to walk, the younger man followed.
"Did you know that the Research and Analysis Wing had a logo privately commissioned for them for fifteen lakh rupees?"
"No."
"It could never be used. Security risk."
"But... what?"
The older man never broke pace as they reached the elevator and he hit the button.
"This kind of functioning was what facilitated the formation of this organization. I intend to make sure it is not repeated here. This is why we're hiring people like you...specialists...Not sure how much that'll help..." He said. "What was your name again?"
They entered the elevator, leaving the bare-boned office behind.
"Akash. Akash Agnihotri… Er, Sir, where are we going?”
“I’m going to see just how useful you are in the field. We’re heading for a crime scene.”
“Ok.”
The elevator doors parted and the men walked into the main lobby of the ground floor, within seconds they had reached the entrance and emerged out the building into the street.
“I’ll try to brief you on our way there.” The officer.
A car was parked near the entrance to the building. A white Honda City- the driver, a heavily tanned, somewhat tired looking man in his late thirties dressed in a simple white shirt and dark pants, waved to the older of the two men. The car was meant for them.
“Mr. Sharma, where are we going?” He asked.
“Rajender, throw me the keys.” The middle aged officer, Viraat Sharma, replied. The driver seemed bemused as he threw the keys to officer Sharma, the younger man noticed, but not particularly surprised by the unconventional order, he made a note of it in his head.
Sharma thrust the keys into the younger man’s hand, who almost recoiled at the touch of the metal. “What kind of law enforcement officer is afraid to drive?” Sharma smiled sardonically.
Agnihotri clenched his teeth, grabbed the keys and pulled open the door into the vehicle.
“That’s more like it.”
***
The skyscraper was fairly ugly by modern standards. A crude, block of grey with no adornments- every shape on it was either rectangular or cuboidal, nothing like the glistening havens of glass, metal and air conditioning like that came up these days on the outskirts of the city.
It must have been thirty years odd years old, and in a state of pathetic disrepair. Almost half the windows were without panes, paint had peeled off almost everywhere- they wouldn’t be able to tell if it had ever been any colour other than grey. Seepages and corrosion could be seen from a distance. It looked like it had been abandoned for years.
Akash Agnihotri was sweating, even though the air-conditioner was on, the weather outside was cloudy with a slight drizzle and it was thirty minutes past eight in the morning and most of the city was still asleep.
He brought the car into a halt next to a couple of officers standing next to the street and herding people away from the building. He opened the door and stared straight at the dark clouds above him, letting pinpricks of the cold rain pepper his face.
“The tip off came over an hour ago, the details coming in have been erratic. That’s part of the reason I didn’t have time to interview you properly- but since you’d taken the early flight into the city, I thought you’d like to get on the job as soon as possible.” Sharma explained as the two walked up to the nearest uniformed constables.
“Yes of course sir.” Agnihotri still seemed a little rattled by his drive through the Indian financial capital.
Sharma started talking to a constable. Agnihotri looked past them- behind them were more khaki clad police officers walking in and out of the building, along with two ambulances buzzing with activity as white-uniformed medics sprinted to and fro, a fire-truck waited on standby, but some of the firemen were also getting ready to enter the building.
What the hell happened here?
“Sir you can’t go in-” One of the constables was speaking.
“I’m I.P.S. you ignorant lout!” Sharma exploded. “Take me to the man in charge here!”
The constable gave a little squeal and nodded his head. “Sorry sir, mein bas le jata hoon”- I’ll take you there immediately.
Sharma followed the constable, putting his temper back under his control. Agnihotri followed Sharma.
The head officer was a lean, shrewd looking man in his fifties- wearing full khaki unform- the name on his tag was Rakesh Sinha, Agnihotri observed, he was talking to the constabulary until he saw Sharma and seemed to recognise him.
“Viraat!” He exclaimed. “You’re with the FIA now right?”
Viraat Sharma grunted a positive. “What in god’s name happened here, Rakesh?”
Officer Sinha’s expression soured a little at Sharma’s direct question and his dismissal of official pleasantries.
“It isn’t like anything we’ve ever seen. We have found seventeen casualties in the building, nine fatalities as of now, and we’ve recovered over two dozen firearms from the premises.”
Sharma frowned. “Extrapolation from your faint cheerfulness, you think this was a gang war.”
“Er, we don’t think it’s a gang war.”
“Why?”
Agnihotri caught something out of the corner of his eye.
“It’s because of the manner of the deaths- suffocation, knife wounds, blunt traima, snapped necks and just one death because of gunshot wounds.”
“What?!”
Agnihotri had moved away from the two government officers. His eyes settled on a spot on concrete that was heavily stained by an ugly red, the stones of the sidewalk were cleanly split and cracked around the centre of the pool.
Both the older officers followed the younger man’s gaze.
“A man fell there.” Sinha supplied helpfully.
“Oh.” Said Agnihotri.
“We estimate from the twentieth floor.”
“How come, did you get a crash or ballistics expert or something?” Sharma inquired.
“Er, no, but you’ll see why.” Sinha replied.
The three of them looked at the bloodied, shattered depression in the sidewalk. Viraat Sharma ran his hand through his hair and frowned. His voice was almost a growl “Do you have any idea who’s responsible for this?”
“Not a damn clue.” Said Sinha.
“Any evidence that might tell us more about what happened?” Agnihotri asked cautiously.
“Er... well you could say that.”
***
In the dim light of early morn, the room was ominous. The door shrieked as it opened fully.
The first things he noticed were the pictures.
They were littered all over the floor of the dark room. The upturned ones showed happy, sometimes tired looking, men, women, families posing to have their photographs taken. Most of them were smiling. Some of them were sprayed with blood.
The second thing he saw was the chair and the body of the man tied to it. The chair was tightly secured with rope on top of a bed. The man in it ‘sat’ with his head down. He wore a night-gown, and his mouth remained trapped in a dumb gape.
Blood dripped into the bed-sheets at his feet from three bullet holes in his chest.
Agnihotri scrutinized them immediately. The three holes formed an equilateral triangle on the man’s chest. Did it mean something? Or was it simply some result of taking advantage of the accuracy offered by point blank range.
Along with him, there were four other men in the room. Officers Sharma, Sinha, a ballistics expert and a blood splatter specialist.
After a few seconds of being deep in thought, the ballistics man announced loudly. “This man was shot from extreme close range.” --which educed everyone else in the room to give him a long, hard, cold, stare. He closed his mouth.
It was a small room, the furthest anyone could be from the man without leaving the room was about eight feet.
“I’ve seen this man’s face before...” Agnihotri mused. “...A businessman?”
Both Sharma and Sinha snorted simultaneously.
“More like a crime-lord. That’s Prasad, the leader of the biggest gang in the city.” It was Officer Sharma who spoke. “That bastard’s weaselled his way out of a dozen cases of extortion and kidnapping. He disappeared from India about ten years ago and fled to Dubai.”
Rakesh Sinha nodded. “Back in the day, his name used to come often- but he was never directly involved in anything- there was never any evidence... and someone else always took the fall- and his name was interspersed with many others. We didn’t realize how important he was until he moved to Dubai and set up a business enterprise with drug money and declared himself CEO- that’s when we realized that he’d been the mastermind behind the whole operation. Now- he was invited back to Bombay with open arms by the chief minister for being a Valuable Conduit of Foreign Investment.”
Sharma muttered a few obscenities under his breath and then picked up one of the photographs from the ground, a brightly beaming young woman posing near the Gateway to India monument next to the Arabian Sea. The blood splatter expert opened his mouth to protest- but the protestation never came.
“I’m willing to bet two legs and an arm that these are the pictures of the victims of crimes he was never convicted for.”
Sinha frowned. “Yes, that seems... but surely that can’t explain the whole...” The sentence faded into silence before it got anywhere.
Agnihotri used the silence to clear his throat.
“The revenge motive should be looked at very carefully here. This setting, it’s very personal. All the other men have been ambushed and disposed of immediately. This man was executed. He’s bound, but there’s no cloth in his mouth- he wasn’t gagged. He was allowed to talk- to beg, to scream. He was shot- when no one else was shot. If you look at the swellings on his arms- he was conscious for at least ten minutes and tried fiercely to struggle against the ropes.”
Sinha interrupted-“Viru, who is this guy? IPS?”
Sharma sighed. “No. He’s an FIA Specialist.”
Sinha- “What does he specialize in?”
Sharma- “He... is, just, er... generally specialized.”
Agnihotri ignored the interlude.
“Look at the photographs meticulously scattered around the room. The killers might have done this before executing the man. We can be pretty sure that this room was originally intended for Prasad to stay in.”
He paused for a moment to consider the room. Then walked to the nearest work-desk and shuffled through a few papers.
“We can be pretty sure that this room was specially prepared for Prasad. It’s the only liveable room in the building- air conditioning, newspapers and financial reports... and the victim is dressed in his nightgown- he was probably trying to sleep on this very bed. It seems like the killers spent a lot of time in this room- the time taken to do this elaborate rope binding would imply that Prasad was either incapacitated or being controlled by force as it was set up. It would be much easier to simply kill him than to make a show of it like this. In that sense- the revenge motive makes sense.”
“Or it might just be an elaborate ruse to divert our attention.” Said Sinha. Officer Sharma’s cellphone rang and he answered discreetly.
Sinha continued. “Prasad’s gang is definitely the biggest in the city- but he’s got some stiff competition, as many as three other gangs are fighting to take over his drug running turf. Some say he was coming back to India to intimidate the other gangs- they might have seen it as an opportunity to assassinate him. It makes sense- a surgical strike like this might be enough to break down the structure of the Company.”
He stopped to mull it over in his head.
The young man drifted along the desk, examining each object- just like the killer had- hours ago. His hand fell on a diary, instinctively he pulled it open and flipped through the pages. All blank.
Except...
The last page had a small block of text written in small cursive script.
I wonder if anyone will read this. He’s already confessed. It means nothing of course; it must feel good to not have to pretend to be human anymore, right? It’s sick that monsters can don human skin with such ease.
And Then-
I Will Destroy Them All
He closed the book.
Who wrote that?! He inhaled sharply, and started looking for anything else that might give him a clue.
Sinha had finished thinking. He spoke out loud, though no-one was listening. “If it was a gangland killing, we needn’t worry- one of the gangs will know about the hit- the others won’t. We’ll keep this out of the media, suppress news of his death- most people just know him as a legitimate businessman anyway- and see which gang shows the most aggressive activity in following days”
Sharma had returned from his call, white faced.
“So Viru, any bets on who it will be- which rival, I mean? Your only real contenders are of course Tanveer Qayoom, Khalid Mortaza, and Bhimsinha Sharma.”
“It isn’t any of them.” He spoke sharply.
“What? Why?” Sinha asked. Agnihotri put down whatever he was fiddling with to look at Viraat Sharma.
“They’re all Dead.”
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