Category: Anecdotal

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The Life Saving Villain

Devout Hindus all over the country offer ‘jal’ (water) at Shiva temples, particularly in the monsoon month of Sawan. In the early 1970’s, the practice of carrying Gangajal for long distances was, however, peculiar to Bihar. The main Kanwar Yatra was performed by carrying water from the river Ganga at Sultanganj, in Bhagalpur district, to Baidyanath Dham temple in Deoghar, a hundred kilometres away. As part of my training as a police officer, I was deputed to Sultanganj to handle arrangements for the fortnight-long yatra. The road snaking through the town had to be kept clear for traffic, crowds at the ghats had to be kept moving; and drowning mishaps were to be prevented. These were not easy tasks with just the handful of constables available and willy nilly I spent a lot of time at the ghats.

One afternoon, I saw a bundle of clothes floating past the ghat steps and, while I watched, a hand waved from that bundle. I rushed into the river fully clothed, without even taking my boots off. I grabbed the bundle and dragged it ashore, only to discover that there was an old woman swaddled in those clothes. I stretched the supine form on the ground and carried out resuscitation exercises in the best fashion as prescribed by the St. John Ambulance Association and the Royal Life Saving Society. Fortunately, I did not need to do any of that mouth-to-mouth stuff as the old woman sputtered to consciousness soon enough and sat up with surprising energy.

By then, a goodly crowd of a hundred or more onlookers had gathered and a collective cheer went up when the woman came to life. Cries of ‘Bol Bam’ and ‘Har Har Mahadev’ rent the air. I felt every inch a hero, even as I presented a sorry sight, with water dripping from my sodden uniform and my waterlogged boots squirting Gangajal with every step. But I was ever so happy that I had saved a human life and I fleetingly prayed to Lord Shiva to get me a medal awarded for it.   

We learnt later that the old woman had fallen into the river more than ten kilometres upstream from Sultanganj. The air trapped in her clothes provided sufficient buoyancy to prevent her from drowning and she had been floating along serenely, confident that she was on her way to meet her Maker. Quite rudely, I had disrupted her heavenward journey. Instead of being grateful, the woman was understandably angry, and she cursed me for saving her life. She kept shouting obscenities for a long time because the old crone believed that Ganga Maiyya herself had come to conduct her to Baikunth Dham. Furthermore, she declared that she would never attain salvation because she had been now defiled by the touch of a paraya mard – a stranger – that too one belonging to the low caste of the police. The volley of spells and curses hurled by her totally unnerved the life-saving hero within me. I prayed to Lord Shiva to protect me from evil and, if He were so inclined, keep the medal for Himself in exchange!

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The Storm Over a Cup of Tea

As Sub-Divisional Police Officer of Madhepura in north Bihar in 1974, I was required to frequently visit police stations in my area. I reached one of these, Kishanganj, on a wintry evening. I was received by SHO Dhaneshwar Singh and the cook-cum-chowkidar of the dak bungalow in which I was to stay. I directed the cook to serve dinner at nine and bring bed tea at seven the next morning. I then settled down to discuss matters relating to the thana with the SHO.

Sub-Inspector Singh started with a request: “Please, sir, you should always ask for chai, never for bed tea. We had a riot here last year, involving villagers of Kishanganj and members of a baraat that had come from Patna. The baraat was put up in a dharamshala, and the bride’s relatives attended to every wish of the guests. The father and brother of the bride took it upon themselves to look after the groom.”

The SHO then told me that despite the good arrangements made by the bride’s family, a quarrel broke out between the hosts and the guests the next morning, with the two groups attacking each other with sticks and stones. In the brawl, many persons were injured. The Sub-Inspector reached the spot along with a few constables and separated the warring groups, but both sides continued shouting and screaming. The bride’s family accused the groom’s kin of insulting them, while the baraatis maintained that they had never uttered an impolite word. The bride’s father declared that he could not bring himself to even repeat the offensive demand made by the groom. It was then discovered that the groom was missing, and his family accused the girl’s relatives of kidnapping him.

To defuse the tension, finding the groom was the first priority. After a brief search, he was found hiding in a muddy pond nearby. With great difficulty, the Sub-Inspector got both parties to talk, and it was learnt that the father of the bride flew into a rage when the groom asked him to send his daughter to his room. The father alleged that the boy had insisted several times that the girl be sent to him, even though the wedding was to take place only in the evening. The groom stoutly denied that he had ever made any such demand.

“What does all this have to do with my asking for bed tea?” I said.

“That is just the point, sir,” said the SHO. “The boy never demanded that the bride should be sent to his room. All that the city-bred groom had said was ‘Bed tea lao’, and when the hosts did not oblige, he kept repeating, ‘Bed tea lao! Bed tea lao!’ The misunderstanding arose because the girl’s father thought that the boy was saying ‘Beti lao, beti lao!’ That is why, sir, I urge you to only ask for chai when you visit small towns.”

 

(The Tribune – August 17, 2023)

 

 

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Man Power Problems

Gender issues in the workplace can be a minefield and they were certainly more challenging some thirty years ago, when women employees were fewer and misogyny all pervasive in many offices. I learnt this the hard way when, briefly, I handled establishment matters in my organisation. There was a litany of complaints against one lady, a Section Officer. No supervisory officer was willing to have her in his department and it fell to my lot to find a suitable slot for her.

Before posting her to some branch, I decided to first meet her and counsel her, if required. My personal secretary warned me. “She is a regular troublemaker, Sir!” he said. ” No matter where she has been posted, she has created trouble.” “What kind of trouble,” I asked. “Well, all kinds,” was the vague answer.

She came for the meeting with an air of disdainful hostility. She was in her late thirties but looked older. After pleasantries, I discussed her work and organisational matters. I discovered that she was quietly confident, intelligent and knowledgeable. She did not say so, but I was convinced that she did not gladly suffer fools. I suddenly realised why she was a misfit – her male colleagues and supervisory officers felt threatened by her!

After thinking the matter over, I posted her to work under the very best branch officer in the organisation. There was an initial howl of protest from him, but things soon settled down. A few months later, I was happy to get glowing reports about her work and dedication. Years passed, and I forgot the so-called troublemaker.

I ran into her at a social gathering last month. She walked up to me and greeted me warmly. She said that she had recently retired after a successful career, for which she thanked me. I expressed surprise that she remembered me at all. “Oh, I remember you well, Sir. You are the reason why I continued in government service,” she said.

I must have looked as puzzled as I felt, because she explained, “Sir, the day I met you, I had decided to quit service because of the environment in the office. I decided not to resign only because you did not ask me what my husband did for a living.”

I wondered what faux pas had I committed. “Oh, my God! I am so sorry. It just never occurred to me to ask. Should I have asked? Is he someone I know?” I blurted out.   

Seeing my bewildered expression, she started laughing. “No Sir, That’s just it! I wasn’t married then, and I am not married now. But you were the first person who did not ask me what my husband did. That convinced me that I could exist on my own.”

Quite unwittingly, I had done the right thing! Many a times in life one does not know what one is doing wrong.  Serendipitously, there are also times when one does not know what one is doing right!

(Published in The Tribune – July 27, 2023)

 

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The Missing Shiva Temple of Manipur

Bringing up a child in a place like Imphal presented challenges that my wife and I had not anticipated when I volunteered for a posting to Manipur in 1978 — right from the non-availability of fresh milk for our three-year-old daughter to educating her against drinking unboiled and unfiltered water. We could not buy treats such as toffees for her, and she had no playmates. In those days, Imphal did not have many things, like popcorn, soft drinks and television, which children in big cities enjoyed. Our daughter, blissfully ignorant about her deprived childhood, thrived on powdered milk and happily improvised games to play with off-duty CRPF constables at our bungalow. They were happy to humour her and one particularly devout constable, Ramjatan, regaled her with stories from Hindu mythology.

My work often took me away from home for days at a stretch and whenever I returned, my daughter would impatiently ask what I had got for her. I felt guilty each time because I could never bring her goodies such as chocolates or chips. So, I started bringing unconventional gifts — the kind that privileged children seldom get. On return from different trips, I brought for her a duckling; a flowering orchid; a large piece of driftwood that resembled a dancing fairy; and even a long plank of wood. I once bought three chickens from a roadside market, and another time a Burmese silk parasol from a shanty selling smuggled goods. Every gift was greeted with squeals of joy!

On the way back from one trip, however, I was unable to get anything and, as a desperate measure, I loaded in my Jeep two large rocks from a riverbed — a large flat one and the other oval. I reached home near midnight, but my daughter was awake and wanted to know what I had got for her.  I declared I had brought a throne for my princess! Then, with the help of the sentry on duty, I placed the flat rock as a seat in the middle of the lawn and the oval one as a backrest. My daughter was thrilled and went to bed only after sitting on her ‘throne’ for an hour.

Early next morning, I was awakened by a commotion in my garden. I came out and found Ramjatan and two other constables in the lawn, blowing conch shells, ringing bells and chanting prayers.  “Look, sir!” exclaimed Ramjatan, pointing to the ‘throne’.  “A miracle! A Swayambhu Shivling! Har Har Mahadev!” It required all my persuasive skills, and the derisive laughter of the sentry who had helped me the night before, to convince them that the ‘Shivling’ was not ‘self-created’. Now, over four decades later, I wonder what would have happened had I not busted the misbelief of the Swayambhu Shivling. Would Imphal have had a place of worship to rival its famed Govindajee Temple?

 

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Thievery for Breakfast

When I was a young Assistant Superintendent of Police in Bhagalpur in the early ‘70s, life was tough and unpredictable. Working hours were long and mealtimes irregular. I seldom knew when I would return home for lunch or dinner; or even to sleep. The only constant in a life full of the hurly and burly was the delicious breakfast that my orderly, Islam, cooked for me. Every morning, he presented four lightly buttered toasts, one grilled tomato and a glorious three-egg omelette stuffed with onion, a hint of ginger and a whole load of cheese! Islam’s Special Cheese Omelette was guaranteed to provide sustenance for many hours, and I was thankful for it more than once when I got no food during the rest of the day.

While Islam loved to cook and I loved to eat, I really could not afford to eat like a prince on a pauper’s pay. Reluctantly, I directed Islam one day to cut out the expensive cheese from my breakfast. Next morning, I braced myself to face a cheese-less omelette. But no, the cheese omelette was there in all its glory!

“Why haven’t you stopped stuffing cheese in my omelette? You know that cheese is expensive!”
Islam was all innocence and light. “But Sir, I bought four tins because of the erratic supply. Surely, you don’t want me to throw them away?”

So I relished Islam’s cheese omelettes for a couple of months more. Finally, his stock of cheese ran out and I morosely ate cheese-less omelettes for some days. And then suddenly, after many tasteless breakfasts, Islam presented the most wonderful cheese omelette – not with Amul processed cheese but stuffed with the delicious cheddar that could only be Kraft’s! I ate with unbounded joy! After I finished breakfast, I knew I would have to confront Islam about the cheese, because Kraft was far more expensive than Amul.

Islam had a facile explanation. “Sir, you never objected to cheese. You only objected to the cost. I bought this Kraft from the circuit house khansama, who usually purloins the provisions meant for visiting VIPs. He sells the Kraft cheese at a fraction of the price of Amul.” He gleefully added, “I have bought five tins!”

I was confronted by an ethical dilemma of gigantic proportions – Should I order Islam to return the cheese to the khansama or should I simply enjoy it? I knew that any SHO worth his salt could draw up a watertight FIR against the khansama for theft and against Islam for receiving stolen goods. I would be accused of abetting the crime, conspiring to steal, receiving stolen property, and destroying evidence. The choice was between the right course of action and the main course of breakfast. Islam saw me dithering, so he gave the clinching argument, “Huzoor gustakhi maaf ho, but the khansama will in any case pilfer and sell the provisions. If I don’t buy the cheese, someone else will. If you don’t eat it, someone else will.”

I hesitated no longer. “So, how many more tins of Kraft cheese is the khansama willing to sell?” I asked.

Published in The Tribune on 16/3/23 with some edits.

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A Feast – The Greatest Of All Time

News of the impending visit of a VVIP to Manipur caused a flurry of activity in Imphal in early 1979. A communication from Delhi specified that the VVIP, known for his idiosyncrasies, needed to have fresh milk of a black goat every morning. This caused great consternation among government officials because in those days there were no goats in Manipur — black, white or of any other colour. So, a week before the visit, a police officer was despatched to Guwahati with a 5-tonne truck to buy a goat. Within three days, he returned with a fine milch goat of the specified colour. The animal was handed over to Raj Bhavan staff to feed and to milk.

As scheduled, the VVIP arrived in Manipur and stayed at Raj Bhavan for a couple of days, and presumably enjoyed the goat’s milk for breakfast. The state government spared no effort to make the visit a memorable one; and it passed off uneventfully to the collective sigh of relief of all officers responsible for the arrangements. After the VVIP left, the officers who had toiled decided to celebrate with a grand dinner. Many who were present remembered that banquet for months afterwards, especially the delicious mutton curry. Some even called the feast the ‘greatest of all time’.

The VVIP visit saga would have ended with that dinner, but that was not to be. The police officer who had bought the goat claimed reimbursement of the amount that he had spent. This led to a veritable war among different government departments. The District Magistrate’s office said it had no budgetary allocation for the purchase of a goat. The Animal Husbandry Department declared that it could do the needful, provided the purchase was shown to be that of a pig or a cow. The Protocol Department refused to approve the purchase in the absence of three quotations. The Governor’s Secretariat distanced itself from the matter, observing that it had never placed an order for a goat. The Finance Department said since prior approval had not been sought, reimbursement of expenditure was not admissible.

Ultimately, it was decided that the officer should take the goat back to Guwahati, 500 km away. So, the police officer went to Raj Bhavan to fetch the animal. But the goat was missing! Someone recalled that it was last seen on the day that the officers had the celebratory party. But it had not been seen after that day. In fact, no one ever saw it again.

Published in The Tribune – February 23, 2023

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The Oil Well That Wasn’t

The mid-1970s were a testing time for the police in Bihar. Besides controlling crime and managing difficult law and order situations, considerable effort was required for bandobast for examinations, conducting raids to unearth hoarded essential commodities and enforcing collection of levy foodgrains. I was posted as Assistant Superintendent of Police at Madhepura, a backward area with erratic electric supply and poor roads. Even the water, drawn by a hand pump, was not potable. It had a distinct metallic taste and accumulated a thin film of oil if kept overnight. People ascribed this to the presence of iron and oil in the ground.

In the summer of 1974, a murder was committed in Rampur village, about twenty kilometres from Madhepura. I visited the village twice; Inspector Jha and other police officers visited the village more frequently for a fortnight. After one such visit, a very excited Inspector Jha came to my office and declared that oil had been discovered in Gangapur, a village near Rampur. He said that villagers had found natural oil seeping into a well and he had himself seen hurricane lanterns being lit with water from that well.

I was dumbfounded. I thought of sending messages about this oil strike to Patna, to bring it to the attention of the government. But I wanted to see this miracle myself first, before informing the world. So Inspector Jha and I proceeded to Gangapur. On the way, we happily discussed the impact that the discovery of oil would have on this backward area of Bihar.

It was quite a scene that met my eyes in Gangapur. The villagers were milling around a well, while some police constables tried to keep them away. The whole area smelt strongly of oil. I had a bucketful of ‘water’ drawn from the well. The liquid smelt of kerosene and burnt readily. The only suspicious aspect was that the liquid was too clear. Even with my rudimentary knowledge of petroleum, I expected the oil to be cruder, to coin a term.

I decided to investigate further and directed that more ‘water’ be taken out of the well. The villagers gleefully started taking out bucketfuls. By evening, the smell was not as strong as earlier, and the water stopped burning when lit. It became clear that there was no seepage of natural oil, but it was kerosene that was being taken out of the well.

The truth emerged after some enquiry. The fair price shop licensee of Gangapur, one Sahu, had hoarded kerosene for black marketing, instead of selling it to ration card holders. Spooked by the frequent visits of the police to neighbouring Rampur and fearing a raid, he and his henchmen had dumped about one thousand litres of kerosene into the well the previous night. With the mystery solved, Inspector Jha asked whether a case should be registered against Sahu under the Essential Commodities Act. I advised him to let Sahu go because the case would be difficult to prove. Moreover, Sahu had already suffered substantial loss!

We returned crestfallen to Madhepura, deeply disappointed that the first oil well of Bihar had turned out to be a dud!

 

(Published with minor editions in The Tribune on 1/2/23)

 

 

 

 

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The Bungled Drug Operation

Drug laws permit pre-trial disposal of seized contraband; it is an exceptional provision to prevent malpractices. Law enforcement agencies strive to destroy dangerous drugs periodically, with the least environmental damage. Sophisticated facilities for safe destruction, however, are not available everywhere. Such facilities were not available in Manipur 15 years ago, when, as the chief of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), I was confronted with the problem of destroying about five truckloads of ganja and substantial quantities of charas. Reluctantly, I decided that the cannabis would be destroyed by burning it in the open, on a deserted hillside about 30 km from Imphal.
I supervised the operation myself. Officials of the bureau transported the ganja and charas early in the morning, along with firewood, wastepaper and old tyres to facilitate burning. The cannabis was arranged in three heaps, doused with diesel and set on fire.
That is when we ran into the first snag. The ground was damp, and the moisture content of the cannabis was high. The ganja refused to catch fire. We soon had three smouldering mounds, sending spirals of smoke to the heavens. Even through my mask, I could smell the acrid smoke. With great difficulty, the local officer and others managed to get the drugs to burn evenly, but then it started to rain!
The drizzle almost killed the tentative flames. That is when we hit the third snag. Curious villagers came from near and far and stayed to inhale the smoke. Word spread to other areas, and soon more than a thousand men and women collected around the burning heaps. The handful of NCB officials had a difficult time trying to keep the reluctant biomass burning, shooing away the villagers to prevent them from inhaling the smoke and chasing away some intrepid ones who tried to surreptitiously take away fistfuls of half-burnt ganja.
In the afternoon, the hillside resembled a bizarre battlefield. Some 50-odd villagers lolled around the burning drugs in a stupor. By nightfall, they stumbled home and only the masked NCB personnel remained. It was almost midnight when we returned to Imphal after the cannabis turned to ash.
I reviewed the fiasco in the NCB office the next morning and remarked that we were fortunate that no one from the media had reported the ignominious happenings. The local officer corrected me, ‘Sir, a reporter had indeed come and declared that he would write a story about the botched destruction of drugs. But you can rest easy. I let him take away about 5 kg of ganja from the burning stacks. I know he won’t be writing that story!’

(Published in ‘The Tribune’ on January 12, 2023)

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The Dirt-Cheap Billiards Table

In the 1970s, the 13th Battalion of the Bihar Military Police, Darbhanga, had no campus of its own. It was housed in the disused stables and garages in the palace compound of the erstwhile Darbhanga Raj. I was posted as the commandant and my residence was a sprawling Raj kothi, which used to be that of a ‘British tutor’ in the days gone by.

My wife and I loved that house, with its enormous drawing room, spacious kitchen and wide verandas. We hired a maid to help clean and cook, but we had no place for her to live. My driver informed me that behind the bungalow, there was a servant room, locked and under the custody of the Estate Manager. I asked the quartermaster subedar to request him to let our maid live in that room. The subedar returned crestfallen and told me that the Estate Manager refused to spare the room, claiming that ‘royal’ property was stored there.

The next day, I had a close look at the locked room, which seemed to be no more than 10 ft by 10 ft. The door was covered with dust and the rusted lock indicated that the room had never been opened in recent years. I decided to make another request to the Estate Manager.

‘No, sir, the room can’t be vacated!’ he declared bluntly when I met him. ‘But why not?’ I persisted. He explained that a lot of property of the Darbhanga Raj was stored in various rooms and godowns all over the palace compound. ‘So, what is stored in that room?’ I asked. He did not know and fetched a thick musty ledger. He ran his finger down various columns and then declared brightly, ‘Ah! It is the British tutor’s billiards table!’ A billiards table? In that tiny room? He must be joking!

‘Well, sir, I have no other place to store a billiards table, so I can’t empty out that room,’ he said. Then he perked up: ‘But if you buy the table, you can do what you like with it!’ What a preposterous idea, I thought. More to humour him than with any intention of buying the table, I asked how much he would sell it for. He took out another bulky ledger. ‘The depreciated value of the billiards table is Rs 9.’

I was dumbstruck! I quickly paid the man Rs 9 and he sent a lackey to remove the lock. The room indeed contained a billiards table, broken in pieces and stored so many years ago that termites had eaten away almost all of it, except the slate slabs. I had the slates moved out and the room cleaned of cobwebs, dust and termites.

And thus it came to pass that our maid got a room to live in, and I acquired the right to brag that I once bought a billiards table for all of Rs 9!

(The Tribune – December 16, 2022)

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Casting a Spell

In the early 1970s, a dacoity was – and may be still is – the most dreaded of crimes in rural Bihar. The number of dacoities that took place in their jurisdictions was often used as the primary yardstick to judge the performance of thana officers, and sometimes even of District Superintendents of Police. It was no wonder that crime prevention and investigation was almost wholly centred on controlling the number of dacoities. This was more applicable to rural areas like Madhepura, where I was posted as the sub-divisional police officer.

The SHOs – the Station House Officers – resorted to various stratagems to avoid registering a case of dacoity; which is defined by the Indian Penal Code as theft by use or threat of use of force by five or more persons acting in concert. The commonest ploy was to register a case of robbery by four, and not five, persons. The more creative of SHOs used sections of law relating to theft, unlawful assembly, rioting, rioting armed with deadly weapons, causing hurt, causing hurt by dangerous weapons, causing grievous hurt, criminal trespass, trespass by night, mischief and acting with common intent.  They would go to any length to avoid using Section 395 of the India Penal Code, the specific section that relates to dacoity.  

 A number of superstitions also grew up around the obsession with dacoity – the commonest of which was that in the police station the First Information Report register and the Station Diary should not be allowed to come in contact with each other; else a dacoity would certainly take place. Policemen were superstitious about even uttering the word ‘dacoity’, choosing instead to refer to it simply as ‘D’. It was not unusual to be woken up at night by the sentry on duty, calling from the veranda outside the bedroom to say, “Huzoor, ‘D’ ho gayee!”

In much this manner, I was woken up quite early one winter morning by a constable who called out from outside my bedroom. “Huzoor, Singheshwar thana!”  

The constable did not even dare say ‘D’! He must have thought that by merely naming the police station, I would understand that a dacoity had taken place in that thana area. Why else would he wake me up at seven?  

It was almost ten by the time I along with the Circle Inspector of Madhepura, Rajeshwar Singh, reached the small village where the dacoity had taken place. The officer in-charge of Singheshwar Police Station had reached earlier and completed the initial formalities of recording statements, preparing lists of stolen property and issuing what were then quaintly called ‘hue and cry notices’.

I now do not recall the name of the village, but that is immaterial. Over the years, it is likely that things have changed. It is equally likely that they have not. But again that is immaterial. What is relevant is that all those years back, one village looked like every other and one dacoity crime scene looked like any other. Most villages were clusters of miserable huts, their mud walls barely keeping the inhabitants safe from the prying winds and prying eyes. The thatched roofs were in all shades from golden yellow to murky brown, depending on how long the straw had been in the sun. The thatch on some houses would even be black – black with dust and soot and exposure to the elements. In the middle of this squalor in many villages would be a house less pitiable, the comparative affluence of the owner being exhibited by the brick walls of the house and a roof made of tin sheets. Some villages had two or three such houses, with the richest owners going to the extent of getting constructed low walls of mud or bricks to enclose space in front of their houses to proclaim their exalted status.

It would almost always be one of these rich villagers in whose house the dacoity would be committed. The dacoits would snatch jewelry worn by womenfolk and break open the two or three steel boxes in the house. It was not unusual for the dacoits to decamp even with kitchen utensils and clothes, leaving the victims with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.

The dacoits almost always smashed open the ‘kothis’ – granaries the size of a water cooler made of mud and straw in which the affluent householders stored paddy and wheat for the whole year.   The ‘kothis’ were broken in search of those small bundles of cloth which the women of the house hid their jewelry in, sometimes without even the knowledge of their husbands.

The house of Dr. Jagat Lal Das in that obscure village looked no different. It was the only pucca house for miles around and it had been thoroughly ransacked. The dacoits had smashed open the ‘kothis’ and the floors of the two rooms of the house were littered with a thick layer of paddy. The stomping by an unending procession of gawking villagers, who trooped through the house quite uninvited, had rendered the grain unfit for consumption.  Three steel boxes had been dragged to the courtyard and broken open. It seemed that all clothes, bed sheets, blankets and kitchen utensils had been taken away by the criminals.

Dr. Jagat Lal Das and his wife sat on the floor in the courtyard, seemingly in shock.  Their daughter sat nearby, angry with the whole world. The sobbing daughter-in-law cowered in a corner of the courtyard, with clotted blood on her ears from which her earrings had been forcefully snatched. Dr. Das wore a pajama and a vest, and the three women shivered in their thin saris, which they pulled tight around themselves and tried to draw over their faces. The family had been asleep and the women wore no upper garment, as was the custom in rural areas. Since the dacoits had taken away even the blankets and sheets, there were no clothes with which the women could have covered their selves.

To me, the family seemed frozen in a tragic tableau. Without really being aware, I noticed that Dr. Das’ teeth were stained red with paan and that his vest was clean but torn; that his wife’s cheeks were streaked with tears and that the daughter-in-law was a buxom woman in her mid-twenties. But it was the daughter’s looks that arrested my eyes. She was about twenty and exquisitely beautiful.  She had well formed features and long black hair. There was a fire in her eyes and a mocking challenge in her demeanour.  Her fiery spirit was also proved by the fact that she had attacked the dacoits and grappled with one of them. Riled by her spirit, the dacoits had given her a severe beating. Later when I saw her exposed back, I involuntarily let out a gasp on seeing the angry red and blue welts on her milky white skin.    

I had seen many similar houses ransacked by dacoits, where the criminals took away everything that they could carry. Yet, the sorry look on the faces of Dr. Das and his family melted my heart. I had never seen such abject misery, underlined by the efforts of the women to hide their nakedness from the villagers, the policemen and, in the case of the daughter-in-law, from her father-in-law as well.

During supervision of the investigation, I learnt that Dr. Das was a licentiate medical practitioner, who attended to the medical needs of all villagers within ten miles. Even then, his modest consultation fee of five rupees was too steep for many and Dr. Das perforce did a lot of charitable work. His son was a jawan in the army and posted somewhere far away. The son regularly sent money home – enough to make the Das family one of the wealthiest in that poor area.

I was quite accustomed to seeing poverty in that area, as also the pitiable condition of victims after traumatic events.  Yet, the dacoity in the Das house greatly incensed me. I was angry because a doctor was the victim. I was angry because their son was away from home, protecting the country. I was also angry because the dacoits had beaten up women. And I was angry because the crime had been committed against a scheduled caste person, the surname ‘Das’ being common amongst the lower castes. 

I spent a long time with the family, repeatedly asking them for accurate descriptions of the miscreants and more details of the property that could help in recovering the stolen items. I left after giving instructions to the officer in charge of Singheshwar, and directing him to keep reporting progress to me.

About  ten days later, I had to visit the scene of another crime and, while returning, I made a short detour to meet Dr Das. His soldier son had taken leave to come home. I reassured them both that we were making all efforts to solve the case. I had hoped to see the pretty daughter too, but she did not come out.

It happens quite often that in spite of every effort, a crime remains unsolved. And so was it with the Jagat Lal Das dacoity case.  Even as I made certain that no effort was spared, the investigation made no headway. A couple of months later, I had to reluctantly admit that while the case remained open, the investigation was as good as over.

Some weeks later, I again visited Dr Das, along with Inspector Rajeshwar Singh and the investigating officer. There was really no reason to visit the crime scene yet again, but I justified the trip to myself as part of the effort to do everything possible to solve the crime in which the victim was a scheduled caste family. The beautiful daughter came out of the house briefly to serve us tea. Yes, she was as beautiful as I remembered her to be.

Days passed. In the routine of office work, law and order issues and supervision of crime, I all but forgot about the dacoity in the Das home.

One day, Inspector Rajeshwar Singh put up a wireless signal for my approval, which related to providing information for answering a question in the State Legislative Assembly. In reply to a question about the number of crimes against scheduled caste persons, Rajeshwar Singh wanted to me to approve a reply stating that no such crimes had been reported.

“How can you send a ‘nil’ statement, Rajeshwar Babu?” I asked. “What about the dacoity in Singheshwar police station?”

The Inspector looked nonplussed.

“The dacoity in Dr Das’ house,” said I to remind him.

“But, Sir that wasn’t a crime against any member of the scheduled castes! Dr Laldas belongs to the upper castes.”

“But isn’t ‘Das’ a surname used by scheduled castes?” I asked.

“Sir, he is not a scheduled caste person at all. His name is Jagat Laldas. The surname is Laldas, not Das. Laldas is an upper caste name. He is a Lala, Sir.”

“Then my good man, why on earth didn’t you tell me earlier? I visited the place of occurrence thrice! Had I known Dr. Das was an upper caste person, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to such an extent. You could have seen that I was putting in so much greater effort.  You really are quite stupid!”

Rajeshwar Singh’s answer left me quite dumbfounded. He said in a low voice, “Sir I knew you were putting in extra effort and I know you kept prodding the investigating officer to solve the case and recover the stolen property. I thought, Sir, that you were doing this because Dr Laldas is a Kayastha – the same caste as yours.”

“You know that I couldn’t care less about belonging to the same caste!” I blurted out. All of a sudden I was intensely irritated with the Inspector for letting me labour under the impression that Dr. Das belonged to the Scheduled Castes.

I was about to angrily give Rajeshwar Singh a piece of my mind when he added softly, “And Sir, pardon me, but I thought you were going the extra mile because of being interested in the beautiful daughter of Dr. Laldas!”

I somehow managed to keep my outburst in check. I kept very quiet. For a long time. Indeed, I might have even blushed.  Ultimately, all that I said brusquely was “Okay, Rajeshwar Babu, send the nil report!”