My Alcaponian Self

It is not everyday that my mother gives me a compliment and when she said I was looking good
with my new hair style, I almost stumbled and fell down. I thought I always looked good, with
hair parted in the middle, combed and pasted tight against the head with coconut oil, which gave
me that 'Al Capone' look. Every now and then, I would go on a crash diet of just eggs, milk and
few slices of bread, which brought in an advent of pimples all over my face, not to mention a few
on my head. This prevented me from pressing my hair tight against the cranium, the style my
mom alluded to,causing it to be wavy and flutter evertime mother nature let out a yawn. Al Capone never had wavy hair, neither did any of his goons, but then you didn't look very tough
and gangster-like if you sported a wavy tuft atop your skull.


Al Capone always was an inspiration to me. I knew everything about him, from the time he was just a teenager looking for a job to the time when he became the top notch hooch seller in Chicago. He had to brave all odds in his quest to brew the best +cooh for the citizens of Chicago
and the effort that went into becoming the best was not lost on me and I worshipped him for that. If ever I wanted to be anything in life, I wanted to be another Alphonse Capone.


Now how do I go about being Alcapone? I did not know how to make hooch..come to think about
it, I couldn't make a lemon juice if I died of thirst. The occasional bru coffee that I made would
wake up the dead", if you asked my mother. I could emulate other attributes of the great guy.
e was a great shooter and a fantastic marksman, and I could miss an elephant if I shot at it from two feet away. He had killed and put away a few people in his time and I, well..I never needed to, in the first place. But I knew there was a killer in me and was determined to take a leaf out of his book .

I knew an oppertunity would present itself someday and I would rise to the occassion. And it did, which shook my Al Caponian self so bad it almost did in my dream to be ...


I was madly in love with a woman named Rose and there wasn't anything in the world that I couldn't do for her. I knew that because there wasn't anything in the world that she did not
make me do. Women were such sensitive creatures that they needed to know how far their man
would go to woo her , which was often a test of patience for your ear drums; clever, smooth and deft manuevering skills vis a vis the topics to avoid and that which caused a lot of agonising mental stress, because you never know if you really passed the test or not. And their sensitivity
would never leave you in doubt how far you could go with your taunts and tests, which wasn't very far by any yardstick. Faltering just once is the end of the road for the relationship and off
she will go to evaluate the skills and patience of another guy and believe me , there are hundreds of men willing to subject themselves to such ordeal and trials. I think all men have an inherent
urge to submit themselves to these torture sessions and even jump themselves overboard in a mad rush to be first to get the treatment.


And I was a seasoned campaigner. I always knew when to say yes and also, never to say no, as it
happened in the story Iam about to narrate. It happened as we were taking a walk down the
museum road to the park nearby, when she suddenly said,

"I don't like the way this guy is staring at me".

It seemed like the time you were in school and the teacher made you constructsentences in an exercise called fill-in-the -blanks. That was as far as she would go to suggest that I teach this guy some manners. Now I wasn't built like Arnold Shwarzennegger nor was I proficient in any martial arts. But then, neither was Alcapone. And yet he knew where to push, to flush the guy crimson red with fear. He had "connections" and that would take care of a lot of things. If I had connections, they would disconnect the moment I asked something of them.

But I had to do something. It was either that or melt in the molten lava of words that would gush
out incessently from her mouth the whole week. The thing with women is that they cared only
for the results and never interfered or confused you with abstract suggestions on how to carry
out their suggestions. And when she says this guy has no manners, it means that he needs to
learn some, with a suble hint that I take over the reins of teaching him some. She will never
prescribe the syllabus nor the method, but will give you all the freedom in the world to do it
your way. "That is my man" she would say when you rise to occassion and successfully complete
the job. You have to admit that men would kill to hear that from a woman.


I turned around to face the guy and gave him one of my meanest, hardest stare. There was a
glint of amusement in his eyes when he saw I was beginning to walk towards him. Rose put
her arm around mine and said something like "don't bother dear, let's ignore this guy and
walk away". But I knew that if I walked away, she would skin me alive with the whiplash of
her tongue, much later during the day. You had to learn to interpret and know when her
'yes' meant 'yes' and when it meant 'no', if you cherished a life with her, that is. I donned my
'Am-all-man' look and said, " hon, this is a man's game. You stay out of this". With misty
eyes and in a voice quivering with reverence, she said ," I understand". Which simply meant
"go beat that guy up and save my face or don't come back to me".

With a heart laden with fear and a face frozen out of terror, I started my slow, staggered walk towards the guy. I had seen Clint Eastwood do this with much effect and read somewhere that that was how tough guys walked when they meant business. To my utter dismay, his amused expression turned into a low chuckle and was joined by three others. That was four chuckles to one pair of feet that buckled. I tried to think how Alcapone would have handled such a situation, before he made connections that made him what he was. Time was running out and I was almost upon them when I heard myself hiss,

" Do you know Bosco Tandon?".

Rose was just so far away that she couldn't hear what was being said. The guys looked stunned. Their amused expression turned into total disbelief . They looked at each other and then at me.

"What if I do?"

"Bosco is my best friend and if any of you rats push it a wee little bit, I am gonna turn him loose
on you."


Bosco Tandon was a ganglord who had earned a name for himself, with a string of fights and
murder attemps to his credit. He lived in the neighbourhood and I had read a lot about him. I also knew from the news papers that Bosco was serving time in prison. I had never seen him in my life and so it was just as well that he was in prison because there was no way any of these guys could check with him. A smile played on my lips as I congratulated myself on the quick thinking and also the freezing effect the word Bosco had on them.


He raised his hand in a gesture of peace and walking backwards, said

"Ok, ok, bud. Now that you mention Bosco...we don't have any problem with you. Din't know you were Bosco's friend".

The guys started to walk away, but there was something about their behaviour that irked my
intelligence or whatever was left of it. I felt drained, probably due to the intelligence drain, but also had a funny feeling these guys were laughing at me though their faces did not betray any such emotion. I was also panting a little bit as relief hit me all over, shaking me from head to toe, as they are wont to. I had expected the worst, to be beaten up blue and black by gang of thugs. Instead I came back thumps up, even threw a scare over those guys and won tons of gratitude from Rose. I turned back to look at her and found her agape with admiration. I walked towards her with air of a man who was used to settling disputes the hard way. Now I knew how Alcapone must have felt all those years, settling disputes, throwing a scare and walking away feeling a winner inside him. I made a note in mind that I had to make this a habit, this art of walking like a winner.

Rose hugged and pressed her head against my chest and was besides herself with emotion.

" Easy girl, moments like this happen everyday in a man's life. When I say men, I mean real men. They couldn't walk away from it, but turn around and face them, like I did today. I had
to meet them head on or something in me dies, baby. Iam sorry if I scared you, lovebug".

"My god, Venu!! You have a nerve walking up to Bosco Tandon and scare him off with a few
words. It was only this morning that I read in the paper that Bosco was let out because the
murder charges against him could not be proved. I took a while recognising him, because the
photo in the paper wasn't that good. Imagine shooing Bosco Tandon off...oh.. you were wonderful,
oooh, that's my man!!..my man!!!".

With all my love...

What, my mother, is love?

My young one looked up and smiled

I couldn't tell you, my child

But you have it in you

And you feel it always.

I have grown too old

Burdened with fear and loss

Couldn't give in nor open up

Love would mean so

To open up the heart

To invite, to let go, to let sink in

Only you could my child

Love with all thy heart

You could teach me love

For you could cry

And let no demonic ego cast a shadow.

An uninhibited expression, love is.

Born from the heart and soul

Only you could my child

For I have lost touch

With the world and love

If only for a moment I could be you

A soul with no tainted heart

I could embrace you, hold you

With all the love only a child could give

For love is innocence, untouched by knowledge

Pure, virginal and uncorrupted

So teach me, my child, my love

How to love with all the heart

For I wish to cry, drown my burdens

In tears, to feel lighter and young

To take a voyage in the sea of love

So pray teach me, my child

How to love with all my love.

Wayside Dahlia

"Flower by the way side, the fragrance

Unsavoured, the softness of the petals

Uncaressed, a being so divine, yet so

Unnoticed, but a presence felt and marked

The world be oblivious to its presence

But I, the wind, know and touch

The tangible yet enigmatic soul

For I caress those petals of sweetness

The fragrance I carry and spread

Far and wide, and they say

Oh, wind , come thee and spread

The sweet smell you carry in your bosom

I smile, for they do not know

I have been blessed, by a soul so graceful

She gives me all and I take all the goodness,

The dew she holds on the petals,

The blanket of sweet perfume she dons,

And the honey, but she only smiles

Gives me more and to everyone, who

Care to visit, and dine with her

I spread the gifts far and wide

And they say, come thee, Oh sweet cool breeze

Fill my home and drive away the

Wrath of drought, and I smile

For I know, the cool breeze that is I,

Am blessed by a soul who send with me

The cool dew drops I carry on me

If only they looked, if only they would listen

They would know you, my Pretty

A being so divine, so lovely and so pure

So virginal, yet pregnant with love and affection"

"BEHIND" THE STORY...

I never go to the temple wearing pants or jeans but always
wear the traditional 'mundu' and wear no shirt either. It is
not that you are not allowed to don the shirt, but to enter
the sanctum sanctorum, you have to be shirtless and no
vest or shawl over or around your torso is allowed either.
Simply put, the 'mundu' is just long white sheet of fine cloth
which you wrap around your waist and hope it will stay there.

I have seen people wearing 'mundu' and do all sorts of things
like run around, jump, climb up trees and no matter what
they do, the mundu stays wrapped to the waist. And I....all
I have to do is say 'jack' loudly and the mundu falls down to
my feet, leaving my "you-know-where" exposed to the
weather and other elements, not to mention becoming the
butt of jokes. It is not everyday that someone shows off
his butt in such a carefree manner to anyone and Iam no
Jayabharathi or Sheela [ the famous film actors] to be
endowed and gifted with ..er..you-know-what and so people
do not take to it very kindly if they suddenly find me clad
only in something that covers barely 1/100 th of my physical
presence. And this is one of those times when the brand
name of the piece of cloth with an elastic bandage does not
impress anyone either.

Needless to say, Iam always alert to this danger of my
mundu falling off, whether it be at the temple or at home,
where I wear my dhoti, a very colourful version of the
mundu. To think I have worn mundu almost all my life,
since the time I was about fourteen or fifteen years old...

In public and at the temple, my movements are therefore
conducted very gently, with no sudden or jerking movements,
as though Iam playing everything in slow motion. Whatever
I do, one of my hands stay around the waist line....just in
case....The only time both hands come up together is when
I bow before God with folded hands. That is a very tense
moment for me, what with so many women and men standing
in front and behind me, I could cut up a very silly figure if ,
all of a sudden, women open up their eyes to look at God and
find me standing before them wearing something that could
embarass the living daylights out of the Deity himself.

This incident happened a few years back, during which time,
I was the treasurer of the Temple festival committee. It
required me to visit every single house in the neighbourhood
to ask for donations for the temple festival and something
that requires me to walk a lot. Yes, ofcourse, I wear a mundu
then, because, everyone else with me wears it too.

"Venu, why do always walk with your left hand to the hips?
Does it hurt your hips to walk?"

"No, but it will, if I don't"

"What do you mean..it will if you don't?"

"It will hurt if I don't"

"That is what I asked you whether it will hurt if you don't
put your hands to the hips and you said no, it will hurt.
What does that mean ?"

It was very embarrassing even to explain it and so I let
it go at that. How could I bring myself to tell anyone
that I would end up looking like Arnold Shwarzenegger
in Conan The Barbarian, if I let go of my grip on the mundu?.

"You walk like Arnold Shwarzenegger in Conan The Barbarian
, with his hands to the hips, only he was not wearing a mundu
in the movie". Said one of my friends.

"Why don't you go in this house and I to the next house,
as there is only one young lady staying there. We can
finish our business faster that way."

The three of us parted ways to move into two houses
opposite to each other. It was one of those old houses
with lots of space at the front yard, tiled roofed and
with about seven or eight steps leading to the sit-out.
The sloping roof was so low at the verandha that your
head could hit the ceiling if you weren't careful.

The gate adorned a big white board which said "DOGS ON
GUARD. ENTER AT YOUR RISK". I leaned over the gate
to look for dogs and did not see any. So I pressed the calling
bell on the wall and waited for the dogs to rush up to the gate.

Still no sign of the dogs.

"Yuhoo...doggie..doggie" I wailed at the top of my voice, my
neck craning over the compound wall to guide and send all my
voice and noise into the house. No dogs.

I opened the gate gently. I explained earlier about my gentleness,
but now I was more gentle than I usually was, what with this
confounded terrible wind threatening to blow my mundu off
my hips and the fear of having to explode into a fast dash if the
dogs rushed at me, were playing in my mind. Again, no dogs
around.

Now I knew what this was all about. It was only a single young
working woman staying in the house who did not have the time
to look after dogs, but still put up the sign board about dogs just
so it would deter potential robbers and other intruders from
trying anything funny. I walked confidently into the house and
a long walk it was. I realized that if the dogs rushed at me now,
I would not make it to the gate. But I was reasonably sure there
were no dogs and pressed the calling bell at the door and this time
I pressed the bell a little too long.

The sound of the bell seemed like a bird, suffering from 'piles',
screeching in agony while attending to a call of nature. Worse
still, was the sound of dogs barking as they rushed to the front
door. Trembling with fear, I realized that I had not heard the
sound of the calling bell, at the gate, when I pressed it. It was
probably out of order, which was why the dogs did not come to
the gate. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw two huge
dobermann pinshers coming round the house, rushing towards
the verandha.

There was only one thing to do, reach up with my hands, hang
on to the wooden beam of the roof and swing my body up to the
roof. All these years of working out at the gym had physically
prepared me for such an eventuality..... I could raise my body
on my hands and raise my hips and legs too, to the level of my
head. I proceeded to do precisely that.

AND THEN IT HAPPENED. MY MUNDU WAS COMING
OFF FROM THE WAIST.

One of the dogs grabbed the mundu which had fallen on the
floor, tugged at it in a fit of anger and ran away with it while
the other dog tried to jump up and bite my plump ..er..cheeks.
I pulled myself higher and stretched my legs as high as possible.
Then the dog thought it would be better if he could jump up
and grab my shirt, which was flailing high because of the wind.

THAT WAS WHEN THE NEXT WORST THING HAPPENED.

I looked like I was wearing no shirt and my mundu had become a
thousand small handkerchiefs [thanks to the dog] and my legs
were raised, spread and pointed to the front door. The door
opened and a beautiful woman stepped out into the verandha.

She took one long deep look at me, so long it took that I almost
asked. "Hey babe, you never seen a naked human being before?".

Now I wasn't exactly a bad looking sort. I have had people tell
me many a times that I looked like Jean Claude Vadamme and
there were some incidents that happened which made me think
that perhaps I was something of a "sex object" too. I mean,
what else do you make of it, when women object when you talk
about sex to them? But she seemed to ignore all those finer points.

She screamed at the top of her voice which made me release my
grip from the roof. I landed heavily on the dog's head, which was
on its way up and needless to say, it received quite a jolting butt
on the nose. Yelping loudly, the dog disappeared into the
backyard of the house. I jumped up in an instant and ran into
the house through the open door, followed by the lady screaming
more loudly than she did previously. I hope you realize why I
did not run out of the house and compound, but ran inside. In
case you haven't guessed.... you don't walk on the streets wearing
almost nothing and also the other dog was still ferociously
attacking my mundu.

The whole commotion had attracted the attention of my friends
who had gone into the neighbour's house and they came out, to
see me run into the house with the lady.

"Boy, this guy sure is a fast worker. Five minutes back, he
did not even know this lady in that house and now he is
rushing to the bedroom and can't even wait until he reached
the bed room to take his clothes off".

What happened inside the house and the version my friends
give are very different. I had a tough time explaining to her
why I looked like what I did and finally when I came out of
the house, I was wearing her nightie, which was all she could
give me. She stayed alone and there were no shirts or T shirts
or jeans that would fit my size. My friends gaped at me with
open mouths, their eyes glittering with admiration as I walked
out of the house, with a woman who looked very amused and
was still chuckling [ after she heard my story]. In their eyes,
she looked very happy and smiling with contentment and they
spread this story that I, in a hurry to meet my friends before
they finished their business in the other house, I mistook and
wore her nightie on my way out of the house.

I still wear mundu to the temple and weddings, but with an
added aid to help bolster mundu securely around the waist.
A small thin tough white thread.

"Always tie this thread over the mundu and around your waist.
No one will notice it. It may also come in handy if such an incident
happens again in your life." She told me.

"In what other way can this thread be useful?"

"If something like this happens ever again, you can use
this thread to hang yourself. I wouldn't be surprised if
it happened again".

Ode to my boy

The rain thrashes the earth with a vengence
A distant sound of thunder augments its fury
The fury of the rain, an echo of my passion
I lie on the bed, my mind and soul tilled,
By a myriad of stinging, sharp memories
Memories of times so sweet often visit, flooding
My eyes with tears, and a bitter rage throng at the temple
A fury never abated, never relenting in its torment of the heart


I know I must face tomorrow, all alone and without support
A void exists where a passion ruled, that was you
You woke up everyday with a sweet smile,
A smile that lit the lamp of my life, every day
I couldn't wait too long if you came home late
Bizarre thoughts start to haunt my mind
I couldn't bear it if you wanted to be away
And yet you are gone..I wouldn't see you in a long time
Unless you so wished, a faint hope still exists


You turned back to look many a times
Your eyes said it all, you wished me to be with you
You couldn't know, my boy, you are only a child
That we couldn't ever be together, your mother and I
But my heart would always be, where you are
And my soul would know if you cried
Sometimes on a drunken stupor, I see you
I wrestle with you, you chase me with a pillow
I fall down and we laugh together
And those times when you wouldn't eat
I had to beg and plead and promise a gift
Yes, you were a pain, my son, that was you
A sweet, sweet pain, so overwhelming


I cannot fathom another day, without you
How I pulled on all these days, I couldn't tell
Now and then, I wake up in the night
I would turn around to look for you
The emptiness that envelops the room
Laugh at my misery and my aching mind
How I miss you, my boy, if only you knew
You would forget, you are only a child
Wounds heal faster and memories fade into oblivion
You would start anew, every day would be new and fresh
To an old man, everyday is just one more bundle of dreams
Dreams shattered and of hopes renewed


If I would live another day ; if I could, in my power
I would win you back and we would fight,
We would wrestle and chase each other
We would play with the dogs and cats
We would climb up the trees and jump down
And cycle down the mud path road to the river
Swim and frolick, like two good friends
If only tomorrow would make a miracle happen
Until then, incarcerated I will be, in my cage of memories
Of you, my boy and of our times together

Sherlock Holmes of Vadakkancheri

"Elementary, my dear Watson...er..Muscilesh", I was explaining
to sub-inspector Muscilesh and constable Savitha why I thought
the case of a man who died of eight stab wounds in the back, was
suicide and not murder. I am Venugopal Unnikrishnan, better
known as Sherlock Holmes of Vadakancheri, which also happens
to be my home town.

"How could a man stab himself eight times in the back?

I don't think it was suicide." "It is really very simple,
Savitha. Now what would you do if I pinched your back?"

"I would turn around and kick your nuts out of its wrinkled
socket."

Muscilesh " ha ha. Then no one would ever call you nuts
again, he heh"

Savitha " And that is putting things in a nutshell"

"what did you say you would do, Savitha?"

" Turn around and kick your nuts"

" Exactly. What did you say before "kick your nuts"?

"And"

"No, before "and"

"Turn around"

"Now , what would happen if I turned around when someone
was stabbing me in the back?, I would get stabbed on the
front side too. In this case, he was not stabbed in the front.
So what does that mean?"

Muscilesh , "He was stabbed only in the back?"

"And..?"

"he died"

"Of course, he died, you idiot. What does that prove?"

"He died of stab wounds".

"And what else"

"Let me think..."

"It means he did not turn around when he was being stabbed,
which he normally should have done. So it was probably
suicide"

"Why do you think he stabbed his back eight times to
commit suicide, when he could have had the same effect
by stabbing in the front side?"

"That is what we have to find out"

This man had owned a hardware store and he was found
lying dead in his own storehouse. This case was going to
be difficult to prove. There was no way this man could
have been murdered. All the evidence pointed to it.
But how does one stab himself eight times on his back,
unless he fixed eight knives on the wall and crashed into
them. Also Savitha made an important point. Why didn't
stab himself in the front if he wanted to die?

I remember a similar case where a man died of being hit
on the head with a coconut. It was also a suicide. He
had climbed up the tree, cut down a few coconuts and
then left a few half cut. Then he climbed down and simply
waited for the coconuts to fall on their own, which it did
after a few days. And one of them fell on the waiting
man's head and he died instantly. From experience I
knew people chose funny ways of committing suicide.

I also had a reputation of proving all my cases very fast
and make them look so easy.

A big crowd had gathered near the shop and as I stepped
out, they looked at me with so anticipation and admiration
that I felt I had to do something to make them keep on
admiring me.

I motioned one of the people who had gathered to come
near me. He walked over towards me with the air of a
man who had absolutely no fear of police. I had to do
something about that as well.

"What is your name?"

"Why do you want to know my name?"

"Tell me your name"

"Why?"

"That is a very funny name".

I guffawed loudly and looked around to see who else
joined me. I usually had to laugh first at my own wit
and humour. This was sometmes necessary to encourage
people to laugh with me. Most often, people did not
recognise good humour and you had to prompt them
to laugh every so often so that in future they would laugh
loudly if they heard the same joke again.

The young man also laughed which was vaguely irritating.
I normally did not like the victim of my jokes to laugh with
me. But I chose to make this an exception as he was the
only one who laughed at my joke. If I reprimanded him,
others might take it as a cue, not to laugh at my jokes and
I did not want that. But I had to do something to put down
his insolence and I wasn't called Sherlock Holmes of
Vadakkancheri for nothing.

"Where were you when this man died?"

" Does that matter? I heard you say it was suicide.
So why try to find out where I was?"

This man was beginning to bug me. The crowd was also
warming up to this trial of sorts and watching very intently.
I had to do something to get on top of the situation.

"Did you know this man personally?"

"I didn't know you could know anyone impersonally?"

"Listen boy and listen hard. Smart, I like; smartass, I don't"

"And listen Sherly and listen good. I don't care who you are
and what you do. But you are wasting my time here. Iam
the district collector who stopped on the way to office, to
see what the crowd was all about. If you have any more
questions to ask me, come to my office and I will be glad
to oblige you."

Have you ever stepped on banana peel and fell down?
Your hands fly in the
air to maintain balance , your legs simply collapse under you,
your face contorts in unimaginable ways and a myriad of
comical expressions appear on your face in a flash, before
a horrified look takes over as you realize that you are going to
land with a heavy thud. It is only when you get up that you
do some face saving exercises which may come out even
more comical than the ones you portrayed on your face,
on your way to the crashing episode. This was exactly
what happened to me when I realized that I was questioning
the person who had the powers of a district magistrate.
Not only did I slip and fall, but made a donkey of myself
in the process.

" Iam sorry, sir. I did not know that you were the collector
of the district..I mean..er..district collection agent..er district
collector. I only hoped to extract some information
on the murder that happened here"

"But I thought you said it was suicide".

"It was a suicide, sir"

"Then why do you call it murder?"

"Sir, it is a murder committed by the man on himself during
which process he died". My face saving exercises were
in full swing.

"How do you know it is suicide and not murder?"

"He was stabbed only in the back, sir"

"Since he was stabbed only in the back, it was not
murder..eh? That is a very stupid explanation"

"Sir , if I pinched Savitha in the back, she would turn
around and kick my nuts. This man did not turn
around and so it is suicide."

"WHAT!!!???"

"Sir, I asked Savitha if I be allowed to pinch her back
and she said if I did that she would kick my nuts out.
She also said she would turn around first. But this man
did not turn around. Sir, if I pinched your bottom........"

"YOU WILL NOT PINCH MY BOTTOM!!!".

"But if I did, you would turn around, wouldn't you?"

"Tell me something, Sherly of Vada. Are you nuts?"

"No sir, Iam not nuts. Just now, Muscilesh also told
me no one is going to call me nuts if Savitha kicked my nuts"

"Jeeeeezz!!! What the heck are you talking about?"

"Sir, it is like this. If I pinched Savitha in the back, she
would turn around and kick my nuts out of its wrinkled
socket. Now if I did not have them, I couldn't be called
nuts. That is what Muscilesh told me . And that is how
Savitha put it in the nutshell".

"Oh God! Either I have gone nuts or Iam missing something"

"You only missed that part where Savitha steps up to
kick, sir. But that was after she turned around first"

"Let me see the body first and you step aside. Don't walk
with me and talk to me as I wish to remain sane the rest
of the day".

I walked with him anyway. These kids may be collectors
of the district, but they were also wet behind the ears and
you had to be around to lend a helping hand or necessary
advise. It was so exasperating explaining to this guy.
It was a different matter if he did not like to be pinched,
but the point was that he would turn around if pinched
and the dead man did not turn around. It was as simple as that.

I also needed to stop this guy from calling me Sherly. It
was really annoying to hear that name uttered in the most
irreverent way possible. Here I was, the one and
only Sherlock Holmes, having to act so subservient to a
person who was much younger in age and of course did
not match my intellectual taxidermy. In fact, I would
have loved it very much if he, in the end, said something
like, " Sir, it was a great honour meeting you".

I was determined work this to perfection when.....

"why are you called Sherlock Holmes anyway?"

"Sir, I had proved certain cases which were hitherto
uncrackable. The most famous of them being the
'mystery of the lost diamond ring'. It was that which
earned me this name".

"Tell me about it"

"The Royal family of south vadakancheri always held
me in high esteem and I was not surprised when they
asked to me come over and find the missing diamond
ring of the erstwhile raja. And I proceeded to do so
within a few minutes"

"How did you do that?"

"Sir the Raja had misplaced it and thought one of the
servants may have taken it. I asked him a few questions
like the name of the person he suspected, when he realized
that the ring was missing etc. He told me that the ring
had become very loose on the finger and normally he
was wont to remove the ring and put it on the left hand,
before eating breakfast. That day, after the breakfast,
he checked his left hand and the ring was not there.
I asked a few sharp questions and then the last question
produced results".

"What was the question?"

" I asked him if he checked his right hand. And lo! the
ring was on his right hand. He had simply forgotten
to remove the ring from his right hand while eating and
thankfully it did not end up in his stomach".

" I do not think you will get lucky today."

"It wasn't luck, sir. It was all calculated and carefully
thought out questions from a sharp mind, that did the
trick. In this case too, if only you will let me demonstrate
something by letting me pinch..."..

"YOU WILL NOT PINCH MY BOTTOM!!!"

"Yes sir, I mean..no sir"

"Who broke open this front door?"

"The police, sir. It was locked from inside and there
were no other doors. Despite repeated pleas and requests,
this man would not open the door. He couldn't open the
door because he was dead. So we had to break it open
to get inside".

"What is this stuff that is spilled here?"

"Oil, sir"

"Is that a knife stand with eight knives, with blood
stains on it, on the floor?"

"Blood stains? I thought it was painted red."

"Now look at this, Sherly. You see those marks on the
floor where someone seems to have slipped and fell.
This man probably slipped on spilled oil and fell on the
stack of knives. This is a godown and store where no one can
enter except from the front door and it was locked from
inside. It goes on to prove that this man died of a freakish
accident and it is not murder".

"Exactly as I said sir. I knew it was not murder all the while.
As I had been telling constable Savitha, it was impossible
to think it was murder. If it had been murder, he would
have turned around like Savitha had turned around first........."