The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

Twenty-Seven

Vish Puri was at home in his sitting room laughing so hard the tears were rolling down his face. His mother, who had come to visit, was also having convulsions.

“What a total duffer!” she guffawed. “There’s daal in that head of his or what?”

Jaiya, who was by now six weeks from her due date – it being a week after Maharaj Swami’s disappearance – waddled into the room with a quizzical smile.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, lowering herself into one of the armchairs.

“Sorry, na,” said Mummy through a grin she could barely control. “Just we’re talking about Bagga-ji.”

“Oh God, what’s he done now?”

“Go ahead and tell her, Chubby,” prompted Rumpi as she returned from the kitchen with a tray of tea and chillas. “Jaiya, you’ve got to hear this. Even by Uncle’s standards, well, it… bagga-rs belief!”

Everyone burst into laughter again. It was a good minute before Puri was able to pull himself together and let his daughter in on the joke.

“Beta, you remember Baggage-ji was here the night you arrived, no? Talking about some money-minting scheme?”

“I remember.” She did an impression of him in a strong yokel accent: “‘I’ll soon be richest man in aaall Paannjaaab!’ Didn’t some construction company want to build a mall on his land?”

“Correct.”

“Let me guess. The company is a bogus one.”

“No, no, company is bilkul real.”

“So?”

Puri went on to describe his visit to his brother-in-law’s drinking den in Punjabi Bagh and how Bagga had admitted that he was planning to buy his neighbor’s land for one crore, hoping to sell it to the construction company at a profit. The detective also described the priceless expression on Bagga’s face when he had cursed him and stormed out.

“Papa, I don’t understand,” said Jaiya. “What was so wrong about Uncle buying the other land?”

“Obviously its owner, a most cunning gentleman by name of Jasbir Jaggi, was giving Bagga the squeeze.”

“How?”

“See… Mr. Jaggi wanted to sell some land adjacent to Bagga-ji’s. But it had market value of maximum half crore. So the fellow devised one plan. He asked his friend and associate working at the construction company to contact Bagga and make him one offer. ‘Tell him you want to build one mall on his land. Mention you require the adjacent land also’.”

“The adjacent land being owned by Jasbir Jaggi?” asked Jaiya.

“Correct. Knowing his greedy and idiotic nature, Jaggi was certain Bagga would try to buy it for himself.”

“With the idea of selling it to the construction company at a profit… now I see.” Jaiya shook her head in disbelief. “So presumably Bagga went to Jaggi and asked to buy his land for one crore and of course he accepted.”

“Exactly. That is why he required one crore. I got him to admit to the plan by offering to loan him the amount. Naturally I never intended to give him the money.”

“So did you warn him about Jaggi, Papa?”

“Naturally I told Preeti and she in turn tried to convince Bagga-ji,” answered Puri. “But he refused to believe.”

“He went ahead anyway?” asked Jaiya, wide-eyed, with her hands half covering her face.

Puri smiled. “What happened was this,” he said. “Bagga visited the construction company. There he begged Jaggi’s associate to build a smaller mall on his land. You know what this fellow told him? That he would not build even one public urinal there. Then he abused him and told him, ‘Get out!’

“Later Bagga-ji came home and told Preeti that he believed he was the victim of one conspiracy. ‘That is what I was trying to tell you earlier!’ she said. ‘No, no,’ he answers. ‘Just they’re trying to trick me into believing my land is worthless so I will sell cheap! But I am no fool! A better offer will come and then I will be…’”

Everyone in the room joined in: “‘Richest man in aaall Paannjaaab’.”

Rumpi and Jaiya went to the kitchen while Puri and Mummy sat back enjoying their tea.

The TV was now on and one of the channels was repeating the video footage that DIRE had released to all the channels a few days earlier, shocking the nation with the truth about the Kali illusion.

Dr. Jha appeared on the screen. He was sitting in the hospital after faking his own death. There was fake blood around his mouth and a remarkably realistic wound on his chest. But he was smiling and laughing and chatting with his friend Professor Pandey.

The channel went live to Haridwar where Bossy was standing in front of the darshan hall at the Abode of Eternal Love. In the past few days, she had taken over as the spokesperson for the charitable trust administering the ashram. The CCTV sex videos were fakes, she claimed. Anyone who believed they were real was not worthy of Swami-ji’s teachings.

“He is testing all of us,” Puri heard Bossy say before pressing the mute button on his remote control.

“So many people are getting totally angry at what Dr. Jha did, na,” said Mummy. “Makes you wonder if the whole thing hurt his cause after all.”

“No one enjoys being made fools out of, that much is certain,” said Puri. “But I myself cannot help admiring what he did. Absolute genius it was, actually.”

“What about this Swami character? His whereabouts are known or what?”

“He we’ll not be seeing for a very long time – if at all,” said the detective. “Same goes for his cohort, Swaroop. Must be they stashed away so many of crores.”

“And what about that goonda health minister? I was reading he could be facing money-laundering charges.”

“Could he facing,” emphasized Puri. “But it will be a dry day in Patiala before a neta finds himself behind bars.”

Suddenly there came a yell from the kitchen.

“Chubby, come quick!” screamed Rumpi.

The detective ran into the room to find Jaiya slumped on the floor. She was bleeding.

“By God! Jaiya!”

“Call an ambulance, na!” cried Mummy.

The ambulance, a little van that had to come from a private hospital twenty minutes away, took thirty minutes to arrive – by which time Jaiya was complaining of severe abdominal cramping.

The van was just large enough to hold one patient, a doctor, a nurse, a driver plus one relative on the passenger’s seat.

Rumpi got inside and it raced out of the gate, siren wailing and emergency light flashing.

Few vehicles gave way for the ambulance en route and it was another half hour before it reached the entrance to the emergency ward.

Puri and Mummy, who followed together in the Ambassador, pulled up in time to see Jaiya being wheeled inside.

Soon, they were gathered with Rumpi anxiously awaiting news.

Another twenty minutes passed.

Then a doctor in a green smock and mask came out to tell them that Jaiya had gone into preterm labor.

“We’ll do everything we can for her twins,” he said before returning to the operating theater.

By now, Rumpi was crying and clinging to Puri.

He remained calm and collected as he comforted and reassured her. But after ten minutes, the detective stood up to leave, asking Mummy to take care of his wife.

“I must go,” he said. “Call me when the outcome is known either way.”

“I understand,” said Mummy, taking a hundred-rupee note from her purse and handing it to him.

Back at the car he instructed Handbrake to drive as fast as he could to DLF City.

“Never mind usual rules,” he said.

“Yes, Boss.”

They covered the distance at breakneck speed, soon screeching to a halt outside the Ganesh temple in Phase Four.

At the gate, Puri bought some offerings – a coconut, a few bananas and a packet of some candied nuts – as well as incense sticks. Having removed his shoes, he climbed the steps and hurried inside.

The temple was quiet, it being a weekday afternoon. Just a few worshippers sat in prayer or contemplation. Puri approached the effigy of the elephant god in the temple’s main shrine, bowed and sat on the floor before it. A priest received his offerings and Mummy’s one-hundred-rupee note, listened to his plight and began to say prayers asking for the protection of Jaiya and the safe delivery of her twins.

With head bent devoutly, eyes closed and the palms of his hands pressed together in supplication, Puri silently be-seeched God’s mercy.

Handbrake soon joined his employer, sitting to one side of him and making his own offerings.

The two men barely stirred for nearly three hours despite the oppressive heat.

When Mummy finally rang, it was dark and the temple was packed with worshippers and the sound of ringing bells.

Puri returned to the hospital to find Jaiya weak but in stable condition and the twins lying in separate incubators.

He stood watching them through the observation window of the maternity ward, their tiny, frail bodies still purple and wrinkled.

“It was really touch-and-go, Chubby,” said Rumpi as she and Mummy gathered next to him, mesmerized by the latest additions to the Puri clan. “The doctor said they nearly didn’t make it. But something – who knows what? – pulled them through.”

“It’s a miracle, na,” declared Mummy.

Puri smiled, his eyes brimming with tears.

“Yes, Mummy-ji, it is a miracle,” he said. “This time a real one.”