At seventy-three, Manjunath’s index finger was incredibly still, as he extended it to pat his charioteer. The touch was both firm and gentle - and mysteriously, the muddy fingernail communicated his intent to pull over. The rickshaw came to a halt at the sidewalk, as the veteran courier climbed out with caution, carrying the watertight bag over his shoulder. The smell of the fresh monsoon leftovers greeted him, bringing a dry smile to his exhausted face, while he rummaged through his pockets for change. It was horribly dark, and with the power out, the only light came from a divine source reflecting the full face of the moon.
Nazeer Pasha was far from honest. The khaki-clad driver lit a matchstick near the meter to read the fare, and doubled it.
“Saab, Chaalis”
It was way too dark, and Manjunath couldn’t read his lips, although he sensed the speech. Moving a step sideways to allow the light into the rickshaw and its driver’s face, he asked his charioteer to repeat the last words.
“Chaalis”.
The deaf undertaker paid the fare and walked towards the lake. Tonight was a one-man show, and he had only the corpse for company.
- - -
He was no ordinary cop. Thirty years in the service brought his aim to near-supernatural accuracy, and any criminal who offered the question was either silenced or rendered incapable of doubt. A recent promotion landed him in the Office for Counter-terrorism, an ad-hoc initiative setup by the district authorities to expose potential terrorism within urban Bangalore. Raman’s recruitment was hyped by the media to the extreme, although it was an obvious choice. His name was synonymous with the highest level of ruthlessness that the city had to offer, and it wasn’t always about the kill, but about his presence and visibility, even on Page 3. The force came under heavy criticism, but made deep inroads into the dormant underworld, a proactive step to combat crime. As Director at OCT, many felt that Raman’s encounters were a thing of the past.
What they didn’t know, of course, was that he still gave the bullet to organized crime in the city. Madhusudan Raman had merely switched focus, not roles. A bureaucrat by day, a freelance sniper by night.
- - -
Manjunath had grown up in the area, he’d been at the heart of the action all the way through the Cantonment’s rise and fall. He’d seen the Union Jack replaced with the tri-color that made him swell with pride, and with times changing, his versatility at handling funerals only increased. Now past his best years, Manjunath had retired to die a peaceful, natural death, until his latest ‘employer’ introduced him to opportunity, a job that he could have as long as he evaded fatality. It wasn’t legal, it wasn’t easy, and it had tremendous risk attached to it, but it offered his fragile frame a means of living. It was livelihood, a way of life that didn’t require his lost capability of hearing. He had nodded his head frantically at the proposition, his palms folded in gratitude, as the employer remunerated him with half the value for the job.
Today was his last job for the employer, but the confidence and enthusiasm had peaked as it always had, and he got around to working on the corpse like clockwork, fantasizing of the other half of the pay-packet that waited at the end of his task.
- - -
He knew his way into the premises, an opening through the fence that guarded the lazy lake from the busy roads. Mustering up the strength, he threw the bag ahead and climbed over the parapet, coming face to face with the huge cemetery that lay ahead. The graveyard itself was unique - it had many graves but never needed diggers. It accommodated over hundreds of the dead, yet it always seemed empty, ready to conceal more corpses under its skin. A dump of bodies in the heart of the city, yet it remained invisible to almost everyone, except for one single soul - the undertaker responsible for setting up this burial ground - a world of souls, suspended and submerged underwater, a mortuary better known to the city as the Ulsoor Lake.
Manjunath gave one last look at the watertight sleeping bag, and a sadistic smile followed. He never regretted that today would be his last task ever.
- - -
Raman’s freelance assignments had one issue - disposal. Police encounters were a different ball-game, but private killings required a lot of physical effort to hide the body in a safe place. With the real-estate boom, practically every little land worthy of occupation was used up, and that left the sniper with few areas to lose his kill.
Until he recalled Manjunath, who came up with the idea of turning the city’s most popular waterbody into a necropolis.
“The lake, sir. In the whole wide universe, no one would have thought of this.”
Raman had his doubts, but he also trusted the aged transporter - a veteran of many corpses. However, it was with a touch of reluctance that the cop agreed to the idea.
But it worked wonders.
It was absolutely impossible to imagine where these bodies would be lost. Every week, people from the city would arbitrarily vanish without a trace, and the body would never be recovered. Manjunath would seal the corpse in a watertight case to prevent human rot from contaminating the lake. And the space underwater was immense - it would last them a lifetime. The plan had worked well - flawless - until last week.
Tears rolled down the old man’s face as he sealed the most recent corpse in the fiery orange case. He couldn’t lift the body anymore, but the weight of the dead wasn’t the concern. It was the weight of feelings that had grasped him, on first encountering the dead body of his only son, and then sealing him with the same fate as the rest of Bangalore’s crime community. He refused to believe that Harish would’ve ever gone against the law - and when he questioned Raman about it a few weeks after the dust settled, the latter’s reply shocked him.
“When you’re hunting, many stray animals get killed.”
“Did you know?”
“What?”
Manjunath looked at the floor, as his hands went to the pockets.
“He was my only son.”
“Harish? Oh my God, I’m so ” -
But the apology never made it to the lips. He still held the knife in his hands, although they were stained with blood. The cop’s body fell flat on its back, the face frozen in fright as it was during it’s final moment before mortality. A mixture of saliva and blood trickled out of the mouth that was wide open, as it flowed through the cheeks till it reached the cement tiles at the Raman residence. Manjunath had brought the bag with him, and quickly got to work, not noticing that the fallen cop clenched his fist, the final movement that Madhusudan Raman made before being sealed to his fate.
- - -
The night had reached its core, and life around the lake was as still as the water itself. Manjunath guided the wooden raft strategically to a point where he’d made lesser dumps - this was a body that required isolation. He pushed it as it fell into the lifeless water, sinking down waywardly until it hit the lake’s bed. The latest bag to enter the huge pond, but it was unique from all the other corpses in its vicinity. One single factor separated it from the rest of the bodies submerged in the Ulsoor lake.
The body within that case still had life.
It has been one week since. Raman continues to attempt an escape from mortality, in vain.
