The foundation we laid a decade ago was solid. The monsoon evenings spent squatting on the footpath debating current affairs. We’d stay there until a bonda cart or two rolled out, devouring the first of the savoury delights that were also treated to the leaves and twigs that dropped on the kerosene stove.
Andrew understood the complex strain of my seemingly straightforward existence. The way I sometimes dragged my feet through it, in protest, preferring to laugh at myself instead of letting the confusion surface in a sob. Then, after having had no contact for eight years, he picked up my determination, my new-found zeal for life and living at our first meeting. We had the comfort of history.
I was going to Parappana Agrahara to interview a family of serial killers who had left a trail of 21 dead across the country. It was for ‘Crime 3.0’.
The Sharmas – husband, wife and adult son – slit the throat of their landlord, an octogenarian, when he knockedon their door to collect rent. This happened 12 years ago. They had occupied the two-storey house in a pricey but relatively new layout in the city and hadn’t cleared their dues for two years.
News reports of the time said the wife had attacked the old man with a kitchen knife when he refused to sign the house over to them. The father–son duo then smothered him with a pillow. They drove almost 100 kilometres to the Tamil Nadu border in the dead of night to dispose of the body.
I had a memory of this story. My mother and I had read the paper together. It was one of those crimes that had happened when Bengaluru was moving from sleepy bean town to IT Capital. It held the city captive.
It took me all my contacts in the police department to locate the fourth and youngest member of the Sharma family. He’s 26 now and works as a food and beverage manager at a four-star hotel just off MG Road. He agreed to speak to me on condition of anonymity.
I met him at his workplace, in a room crowded by multiple shelves of crockery and cutlery. We sat in the centre; there was a table between us. He started on his story even before I turned on my recorder. It was like he was waiting for me.
He had woken up to his nightmare at 2 a.m. – sounds of pushing and shoving, doors opening and muffled voices. He reached for his older brother, but his side of the bed was empty. He called out to his mother, and she asked him to go back to bed. From the window in his room, he saw his family crowding around the boot of their car. He returned to bed.
A couple of days later, the crime branch of the city police connected the dots between a missing-person complaintand a body that was burnt in an open field in Tamil Nadu. The octogenarian’s identity card was in his back pocket and was only partially burnt. Not everything dies.
The cops apprehended the Sharmas as they were preparing to flee the city. A constable let the 14-year-old escape. He made his way to the house of his domestic help at the crack of dawn, after spending the night in a bus shelter. The lightless morning was his invisibility cloak. He later burnt the blue denim and saffron-coloured tee he had worn that day, torching an identity.
He called her Mother, and she named him Pradeep. She was a spinster, living in a one-room lodging, and she ensured he completed his education.
This piece was going to be different from the others I had written for ‘Crime 3.0’. I wanted to write two stories, the first a profile of the boy who was now a man and juxtapose it with a portrait of the family. The Sharmas’ blood trail, spanning 11 years, saw them hoodwinking the police by changing identities and addresses.
I went alone for most of my ‘Crime 3.0’ pieces. On occasion, I had company, a junior in the team, tagging along for the thrill of coming face to face with a criminal. Only a couple of stories in the series were done by other reporters and that was in the early days. It was a monthly feature, and Mr Kumar was increasingly looking to me to carry it forward.
I hadn’t informed my editor that I was going to Parappana Agrahara today. That was the one thing that was sure to annoy Mr Kumar. He liked to know where his team was during work hours. He took great pride in it even if it was borderline intrusive. I thought of messaging, then I looked at the intercom before walking over.
‘Myra,’ he said when I was about to knock.
I was telling Mr Kumar about my proposed Parappana Agrahara visit when the political editor joined us. I’m not sure if he was listening to me summarizing the story, but all eyes were definitely on me.
For some reason, I was reluctant to go to Parappana Agrahara on my own this time. It wasn’t that I would have to speak to the three Sharmas at the same time. It would be on the same day, of course, but in different sittings. My palms were wet, and I could feel sweat beads on my upper lip. I didn’t convey my nervousness to my editor, but as I prepared to exit his space, he enquired if I wanted company on the assignment.
I told him I was good.
Andrew followed me out of Mr Kumar’s cabin. ‘Rai,’ he called. This second-name business was infuriating. I paused, but I didn’t turn. ‘I would ask for an army to go with me if I were you, or I would just ask Brown to drive over.’
I could feel myself tear up.Get your act together, Myra. I took my time turning around. ‘Please be my driver today,’ I said with a laugh that wasn’t forced.
‘At your service.’
Andrew had waited until we were out of earshot from Mr Kumar’s cabin before he offered to go with me.
I had missed this friendship, and I was damned if I was letting it go again.
Andrew shadowed me as we walked past the iron gates and through the grim construction of Parappana Agrahara, spread across 40 acres with almost 5,000 inmates. The bare walls of the quadrangle echoed the stench of oppression. Or was it vomit? At a distance were the barracks. If you listened carefully, you could hear groans and shouts, the shuffle of chained feet.
Each time I walked through these spaces, I felt like I was in a movie set.
‘Feels like a reality show,’ Andrew said over me.
I giggled only because I needed to.
The meeting room, a separate one for media, far removed from where the undertrials met with family, had a distinctly corporate feel to it. A roll call of Inspectors-General of Police adorned the wall. An empty vase and two bottles of mineral water were on the table. There was an intangible coldness to the room. I felt a shiver go down my back.
I spoke to the mother first. She was a remorseless killer; her eyes blanketed her face. They remained unmoved even when she laughed, and she laughed a lot. A soft, hissing sound. Then they brought the son, a strapping man, now approaching middle age. The parents had got life imprisonment; the landlord’s family had asked for the death penalty. The son had got 15 years. Unlike the parents, there was regret in every word he spoke.
