The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

Two

At five forty-five the following morning, Dr. Suresh Jha reached India Gate, the centerpiece of Lutyens’s colonial New Delhi. He looked calm, in spite of having been told this was the day he was going to die.

Leaving his old Premier Padmini Fiat in the usual spot in the car park, he set off along Rajpath, the grand imperial boulevard that led past Parliament House and the Secretariat to the gates of Rashtrapati Bhavan – once the home of the British viceroy, but now the official residence of the president of India.

There had not been a hint of a breeze for days and the collective emissions of sixteen million souls hung heavily in the morning air. The dense haze created halos around the Victorian streetlamps and made keen edges of the headlights of passing vehicles. The rising sun was but a feeble glow in the sky. With visibility down to less than a hundred feet, the sandstone domes and chuttris of the Indian seats of power lay far off in the distance, shrouded from view.

On either side of the tarmac boulevard lay sandy paths and, on either side of these, wide lawns edged with trees. Dr. Jha made his way down the path on the left-hand side, having first smeared a dab of eucalyptus balm on his upper lip to disguise the nauseating pong emanating from the Yamuna River a mile and a half away.

Despite the hour, he was far from alone. Many of the other regulars who came to Rajpath every morning to exercise before the heat of the day made such activity unthinkable passed him along the way: the flabby, middle-aged couple in matching sun visors who did rigorous ‘brisk walking’ but never seemed to lose any weight; the tall, muscular Muslim army officer who always jogged the full length of Rajpath and back in a sweat-soaked T-shirt; the decrepit gentleman with the pained expression whose servant had to push him along in his wheelchair.

Dr. Jha, too, cut an instantly recognizable figure. He had a long, white beard and wore open-toed sandals and a dhoti. Anyone seeing him for the first time might have been forgiven for assuming that he was an ascetic. But the retired mathematician was the very antithesis of the ecclesiastic. The founder of the Delhi Institute for Rationalism and Education, or DIRE, he was known to millions of viewers who had watched him debunking and unmasking India’s God-men on national TV. They knew him as the ‘Guru Buster’.

This newfound celebrity was something Dr. Jha had neither sought nor welcomed. It had crept up on him over the past few years since the twenty-four-hour news channels had started reporting on so-called miracles as if they were newsworthy events, leaving him with no choice but to take to the airwaves and preach the gospel of reason and logic.

In doing so, he had lost his anonymity. Starstruck admirers were forever approaching him in public to shake his hand. And he was often hassled by ignorant people who, having seen him on TV demonstrating how simple ‘miracles’ were performed – like walking on red-hot coals or making holy ash pour from the hands – believed he had acquired the very powers he was trying to discredit. Only last week, for example, he had been asked to exorcise an evil spirit from a boy of five who was unable to speak. Subsequently, Dr. Jha had made some inquiries and learned that the boy had suffered from jaundice during infancy, was partially deaf and therefore unable to mimic sounds like normal children.

But here on Rajpath, where the early birds were drawn from the educated middle classes, Dr. Jha’s privacy was rarely invaded. It helped that his body language was reserved. He walked with arms held studiously behind his back and head stooped in contemplation.

On this particular morning, as his mind mulled over the death threat he had received the day before, his thoughts turned to his childhood and the first time he had set foot on Rajpath.

Suresh Jha had been seven at the time, still small enough to sit on his father’s shoulders. From that dizzying height, the view in all directions had been unforgettable: a vast ocean of people, their heads adorned with every kind of gear – pagris, Maharashtrian turbans, Gandhian topis – surging around the walls of the Secretariat and Parliament House.

The date: August 15, 1947, the day India gained its independence and, at the stroke of midnight, Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister, made his famous ‘tryst with destiny’ speech.

“A moment comes which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new… when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance,” Pandit-ji had said. “We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.”

Nehru’s enthusiasm, his belief that as a secular, socialist democracy India would modernize, build factories and power stations, schools and universities, clinics and hospitals – that it would retake its rightful place as a leader of the civilized world – had been infectious. The young Suresh Jha, brimming with optimism for the future, had been one of the first students to enter the newly formed Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. Later he’d helped design India’s first indigenous telecommunications network.

But during the 1970^s and ‘80^s, while China, South Korea and Taiwan pumped billions of dollars into research and development, Indian technology lagged far behind. Economically, the country fared no better. The so-called License Raj ensured that a small number of industrial families monopolized manufacturing. Corruption ate at the heart of the political system.

Now in his sixties, Dr. Jha felt bitterly disappointed by his country’s failures.

“While the middle-class elite grow richer and maintain an exceptionally high degree of tolerance for the inhuman levels of deprivation around them, India still languishes among some of the poorest countries in the world – on the Human Development Index just behind Equatorial Guinea and Solomon Islands,” he had written in the latest edition of Proof, the DIRE quarterly of which he was editor in chief. “India will remain a feudal society as long as people continue to believe their destinies are governed by some nonexistent higher power, whether it be God, Allah or Vishnu, and don’t take control of their lives for themselves.”

His campaign had made him countless enemies. Many a village fakir and traveling sadhu had sworn vengeance after the Guru Buster had unmasked them as frauds. Dr. Jha had been denounced as a ‘devil’ and a ‘monkey’ by the church and the mullahs. He had also provoked the ire of India’s Hindu right. But his most famous – and arguably most powerful – adversary was His Holiness Maharaj Swami.

“Swami-ji,” as everyone referred to him, had risen to prominence in the past three years. Revered as a living saint by more than thirty million followers and watched by millions more around the world on Channel OM, the saffron-robed Godman claimed miraculous powers. He often levitated, produced precious stones and valuable objects out of thin air and communed with an ancient rishi whose ghostly face thousands claimed to have seen materialize before their very eyes.

Dr. Jha had described him in the past as a ‘fraud’, a ‘crook’, ‘David Blaine in saffron robes’. On numerous occasions he had also challenged Swami-ji’s claim to be able to cure the sick of cancer, diabetes and HIV/AIDS.

And then a month ago, the two men had finally come face-to-face when, unbeknownst to one another, they had been invited onto the same live TV talk show for what the host had billed as a ‘showdown’.

Seizing the opportunity to rail against Maharaj Swami before an audience of millions, Dr. Jha had angrily denounced him as a ‘charlatan’ who was swindling the public.

“You should be prosecuted as a common criminal,” he’d said, adding: “If you can levitate, show us now!”

With his equable, beatific smile, Swami-ji had calmly explained that he only performed miracles when ‘there is a purpose and a need’ and that such feats were designed to ‘inspire humanity to understand its true potential’. He’d also added that he was not ‘a circus performer’.

“Scientists seek to undermine our belief in the divine,” the guru had continued, fingering his Rudraksha rosary. “The power of the intellect and modern technology is insignificant compared to the power of love that each and every one of us carries in our hearts. At times, people must be reminded of this – they must be shown something truly miraculous. This helps to renew their faith. Thus within the month, I will perform a spectacular miracle that will leave no one – not even atheists like my friend Dr. Jha here – in any doubt about my powers.”

The talk show host had pressed the Godman to explain the nature of the ‘supernatural occurrence’ he had predicted, but Maharaj Swami had refused to elaborate. He had promised, however, that Dr. Jha would ‘be left speechless’.

Then yesterday the death threat had been delivered.

WHENEVER THERE IS A WITHERING OF THE LAW AND AN UPRISING OF LAWLESSNESS ON ALL SIDES, THEN I MANIFEST MYSELF.

FOR THE SALVATION OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF SUCH AS DO EVIL, FOR THE FIRM ESTABLISHING OF THE LAW, I COME TO BIRTH, AGE AFTER AGE.

UNBELIEVER! TOMORROW YOU DIE!

The Hindi words had been made up of letters cut from a newspaper and pasted onto a piece of paper.

Terrified, Dr. Jha’s wife had called the police. They in turn had advised her husband to stay indoors. But the Guru Buster had been determined to keep his regular early morning appointment.

Dr. Jha passed several other groups on the wide lawn that lay to the left of Rajpath: the first was a ladies’ yoga session, the supple participants arching their backs so that they looked like giant snails. Next, five bare-chested south Indian men were practicing the ancient Keralan martial art of Kalaripayat, the sound of their long wooden staves clattering against one another sounded like drumbeats. And finally, members of the local chapter of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were conducting their morning drill in Hitler Youth-style khaki uniforms.

In the past, Dr. Jha had challenged the RSS’s right to gather on Rajpath; in his view, the group presented a clear threat to public law and order no matter how much social work it carried out. The swayamsevaks had not taken kindly to his protests, and on a number of occasions there had been heated exchanges between them. But this morning the Guru Buster passed the ‘hate-mongering fascists’, as he had often referred to them, without incident.

A quarter of a mile farther on, in the shadow of a jamun tree, four men dressed for exercise were standing in a circle.

As Dr. Jha approached them, they raised their arms and stretched toward the sky. An instructor’s voice called out a command and they lowered their hands to their hips. Then all but one of the men tilted their heads back and began to laugh. Not a titter, chortle or snigger: they ejaculated heehaws like drunken men.

For ten seconds, they shook with infectious mirth, going abruptly silent as if the joke that had caused their collective amusement had suddenly lost its appeal. The instructor’s voice boomed out again and, with varying degrees of success and groans of discomfort, the men bent forward to touch their toes. Then they flung their arms wide and burst into another bout of joyful hysterics.

“Welcome, Dr. Sahib!” said the beaming instructor, Professor Pandey, who was in his late fifties. He had a big face surmounted by a shock of white hair partially stained yellow from smoking a pipe. “Welcome, welcome, welcome! We’re doing our warm-up! Join us!”

Dr. Jha, who had been a member of the Rajpath Laughing Club for two years, greeted the other men before taking his place in the circle.

“Unfortunately, there are only a few of us present today because so many people are away on holiday,” continued Professor Pandey.

The Laughing Club was usually attended by at least a dozen regulars. Their morning sessions were always noisy and rambunctious and there had been complaints from some of the other exercise groups, which was why they gathered so far down Rajpath.

“Now that we’re all assembled presently and correctly, good morning to you all!” said Professor Pandey.

“Good morning!” chorused the group.

“I’m delighted to see you, gentlemen!” The instructor carried on, grinning as he spoke. “First order of the day, we have a newcomer. Allow me to introduce Mr. Shivraj Sharma. Please make him welcome.”

“Good morning!” chorused the others with a round of applause.

“Mr. Sharma, what is your profession, please?” asked Professor Pandey, addressing the distinguished, middle-aged gentleman in the purple tracksuit.

“I’m a senior archaeologist with the Survey of India,” he answered haughtily.

“Very good, Mr. Sharma,” Professor Pandey said, smiling, as if he were talking to a child who had correctly recited his twelve-times table. “Now, you must know that here at the Laughing Club, we do laughter therapy. It’s a really wonderful approach that involves exercise and breathing as well as laughter, which is good for the heart and the soul. And what are we without heart and soul?”

There was a collective “Nothing!” from everyone except Mr. Sharma.

“Exactly! The ultimate goal of laughter therapy is to bring about world peace. People anywhere belonging to any culture can laugh. Laughter is the common language we all share. So how can we bring world peace through laughter? Very simple! When you laugh…”

Here the other men joined in again, chorusing: “You change. And when you change, the whole world changes with you!”

“Very good, very good, very good!” exclaimed Professor Pandey, addressing each part of the circle in turn. “So, Mr. Sharma, do you know what a jester is?”

Before the archaeologist could answer, the instructor continued: “He is a comedian and therefore laughs loudest of all. So let us now do jester laughter. On the count of three. One, two…”

On three, Professor Pandey pointed at the man opposite him in the circle, as if he had just told the funniest joke the world had ever heard, and started giggling feverishly.

The other men mimicked him, staggering about like intoxicated teenagers while holding their hands over their mouths.

Sharma tried his best to join in but looked awkward and self-conscious.

“Ho ho, ha-ha-ha! Ho ho, ha-ha-ha!” sang the group at the end of the Jester Exercise, doing a little jig and clapping their hands together.

“Very good, very good, very good!” cried Professor Pandey. “Next, Gibberish Exercise! What is gibberish, Mr. Sharma?”

The newcomer’s scowl suggested he was thinking: “Everything that comes out of your mouth!” But again Professor Pandey answered for him. “Gibberish is nonsense,” he said. “What infants speak.” He grinned again. “So let us now pretend we are two years old again.”

Professor Pandey spent the next minute uttering embarrassing baby noises while swinging his arms around him like a windmill.

More exercises followed: Silent Laughter (which involved puffing out their cheeks, holding their fingers over their lips, wheezing like old bellows and pumping their shoulders up and down) and finally the Chicken.

“Ho ho, ha-ha-ha! Very good, very good, very good!”

At the conclusion of the session, which lasted thirty minutes, Professor Pandey invited anyone with a funny joke to share it with the rest of the group.

“Strictly no non-veg jokes, thank you very much!” he said. “Nothing you wouldn’t tell your nani-ji!”

“But, Pandey Sahib, my nani-ji is telling the dirtiest jokes of all!” cried out Mr. Karat, one of the other regulars, who could do an alarmingly realistic chicken impersonation.

This comment provoked more laughter – genuine, natural and wholly spontaneous laughter, that is. And then another regular, Mr. Gupta, announced that he had heard a cracker the night before.

“Manager asked a Sardar-ji at an interview: ‘Can you spell a word that has more than five letters in it?’ Sardar replies: ‘P-O-S-T-B-O-X’.”

Professor Pandey followed this up with a knock-knock joke.

“Knock, knock,” he said.

“Who’s there?”

“Bunty.”

“Bunty who?”

“Bunty,” repeated Pandey with a giggle.

“Bunty who?” the others said, prompting him again.

But the professor could not answer. Like Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins, laughter had got the better of him.

“Really, Professor Pandey, you must finish your joke. Otherwise what is the point?” said Mr. Karat, smiling. But then he, too, erupted into a fit of giggles.

Dr. Jha and Mr. Gupta followed suit, chortling like little girls.

This time, however, it was different; this time they were unable to stop.

“I… I… can’t control my… myself!” Professor Pandey declared through his laughter. “And I… I can’t move my feet!”

Dr. Jha said he felt rooted to the spot as well. To their alarm, Karat and Gupta felt the same. They all looked down at the ground, trying to ascertain what was holding them in place. As they did so, a mist started to form around their ankles. Soon, it blanketed the earth, lapping up around their shins.

Only Sharma was not affected by what was happening. But he dared not shift from his position. The stray dogs that had been lazing in the shade of the trees along Rajpath had started to surround the group of men, howling and barking. Dozens of crows were also circling overhead, cawing menacingly.

The sky seemed to darken. Thunder rumbled. There was a blinding flash. And then, in the middle of the group, a terrifying figure appeared.

Hideously ugly, with four writhing arms, a jet-black face and a large tongue slithering from her bloody mouth, she wore a garland of human skulls around her neck.

The men, still laughing but struck by sheer horror, recognized her instantly as the goddess Kali.

“Unbeliever!” boomed a screeching witch’s voice as the mist rose up around her.

The goddess pointed one of her long, wizened index fingers at Dr. Jha and rose up into the air, hovering several feet off the ground. In one hand, she wielded a bloodstained sword, in another a man’s severed head.

“I am Kali, consort of Shiva! I am the Redeemer! I am Death!”

A jet of fire shot from her mouth.

“You! Who have dared to insult me! You who have dared to mock my power! You will taste blood!”

The goddess glided through the air toward Dr. Jha, spewing more flames. The cawing of the crows and the howling of the dogs grew louder.

“Mere mortal! Now you are speechless!” she cackled.

Dr. Jha was now face-to-face with the goddess, still unable to move his feet thanks to some invisible force. He looked terrified and yet he was still laughing.

“Now die!” screeched Kali in a chorus of voices.

She raised her sword and drove it down into his chest. Blood flowed from the wound and spewed from his mouth. Clutching his chest, the Guru Buster uttered a last guffaw and then fell backward onto the grass, dead.