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I have to admit I am getting a bit worried about Malini’s disappearance, no matter what Inspector Macho Murugan says about my indifferent attitude. But there is a history to my not pressing the panic button. The thing is that Malini has done this disappearing act before, when we used to live in Totapuri. On that occasion, she had jumped into an open tempo at midnight and jumped off the next morning at some village. She was just 14 years old that time and had left a note for her class teacher that I was trying to forcibly marry her to a 40 year old man for money. The teacher had called me and taken full revenge for all the jokes I had been cracking about her on social media. If it hadn’t been for the humanitarian intervention of the Principal, she would have asked me to sit in ‘murga position’ also. Malini was eventually found by the local police and returned to Totapuri.
When she was born, I had her horoscope made by Bhayankar Baba, who had warned me that she has a mysterious disappearing planet in her horoscope which will be the cause of her own mysterious disappearances from time to time. This fault in her stars could be rectified only by transferring it to someone she married. He had suggested that I marry her to a goat so that the goat could carry the misfortune and later when she turned adult, she could transfer her misfortune to a human. I did what he said but a bigger misfortune struck the goat and it was eaten by the pet leopard of a family in the neighbourhood. This ended all the benefits of the pseudo marriage and I didn’t bother with another one.
She attempted this again recently with help from Handyman Harry, who had set up a rope ladder from the balcony to help her escape. Stupid Harry didn’t know which floor we lived on and ran short on the length. Malini had to jump about 20 feet to the ground, twisting her ankle and had to abort her plans. I did not give all this information to Snoopy Susie and Inspector Murugan because I don’t want them to work with assumptions. What if she hasn’t escaped but been kidnapped? My boss keeps telling me that assumption is the mother of all evils and he wants facts on the table all the time. That is one of the few things I have learnt from him. The other being that a balance sheet must always balance
Murugan tells me that Malini was last seen in Totapuri and that all the locations seem to have one thing in common – pubs. She doesn’t drink so it is highly unlikely that she was doing pub hopping alone. It is also highly unlikely that her kidnappers were doing pub hopping with her in tow instead of locking her up in some damp smelly basement. There has been no ransom call either, except one guy on Twitter who goes by the handle ’25kfollowersin5days’. He himself has less than 30 followers, so I find his credibility to be rather low. Another person on Facebook messaged me saying he has call records of Malini which he can sell me for Rs 50,000. Too bad that I already have this information as the number is in my name.
My wife Shalini, also known as Shalini hasn’t spoken to me since Malini’s disappearance. According to her, if I hadn’t repaired the puncture in Malini’s scooter, she wouldn’t have been able to run away. Little does she know that I had actually deflated the tyre that evening, only to show Handyman Harry that he hadn’t fixed it in the first place and therefore I didn’t owe him any money. I had no idea Malini knew that I kept a bicycle tire inflator in the false ceiling of the study room. I found it hanging from the fan in the bedroom next morning when I woke up, clearly hung there by Malini to mock me. And all night I was thinking that the repeated feeling of being slapped in the face by a rubber tube was just a bad dream.
Wait. I just got a message from Snoopy Susie. I think she has some updates on the situation.
This Snoopy Susie asks too me irrelevant questions. I think Inspector Murugan is a better investigator to deal in this matter. He says he employs best practices from TV serials like Crime Patrol, CID and Mentalist. How can such a man not succeed.