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Prologue
They weren't the best of times for me
‘The Narrator’
The Visiting Card
(Part 1)
My visiting card is a bit large, almost as big as an invitation card to a wedding. The first line on the card is in the upper case.
It is a simple, block-lettered "VISITING CARD", done because there shouldn't be any misunderstanding on that score. Below that is a
line in slightly smaller letters but still in the upper case; it says "God bless and redeem us". The reason for writing this is that
nearly all of us believe in this or that sort of God or Fate, because all of us commit evil deeds and are sinners. The third line is
like this: "Pandurang Humnabadkar, Private Detective and Private Finder of Sins". The lines below it are now in even smaller letters,
which the reader will have to take a bit of trouble to read. The message in such lettering, I find, increases the reader's curiosity.
To satisfy this need, I’ve given choice information—some false and some true—about myself, all turned into a spicy morsel, though
not necessarily very tasty. The information given is from my childhood to the present: it starts with my date of birth, the important
events in my life; of how I
faced up to difficulties and solved serious problems of a personal nature, my love affairs and to top it all, without mentioning names
or details, the tough cases I’d solved. In all this, I put an emphasis on my skill, honesty—accompanied always by good luck because,
I find, people prefer people with luck to work for them. Then my thoughts and what I would like the world to be. At the bottom of the
card I’ve given my address with the pin code; not forgetting the parting line, again in block letters "SUCCESS GUARANTEED”. I send this
card to the professional addresses of my potential clients. I’ve divided these into two classes; one, highly successful in their work
and two, those who started their careers with lots of confidence and high hopes but couldn't fulfill them. Both these types feel they
have hidden enemies; maybe they’re right and therefore feel constantly insecure. And that's where I come in.
Those weren't the best of times for me. I’d just lost a very lucrative job as a medical representative of a top Multinational due to a
slight miscalculation on my part; but of that misfortune a little later. I was then thirty years of age, with a full head of hair flecked
with grey, and so looked a bit older than my years. After dyeing my head, however, I used to look much younger than my thirty years because
age is shown more by the texture of the skin than by hair colour. I had good, firm skin, a slim but well-muscled body and was quite personable.
Both in friendly and in non-friendly circles, I was known as a good carouser and a womanizer; a good reputation to have at that age. I was
tough looking, so even in some of the bad speakeasies (it was prohibition then!) I and my friends used to frequent, there was no trouble
for us. But when I took up the profession of a private detective, I found my slightly menacing looks somewhat of a disadvantage in gathering
information. People just don't like to talk much to such people. I, however, had a simple way out of this: to drink heavily the night before
and the next morning a remarkable transformation takes place! I’ve become haggard with my muscle tone gone; I can't speak with any authority,
for my voice has become squeakish, at best a hoarse croak, and I can't walk or think straight; I feel guilty and inferior. Mr. Hyde has
become the good and helpless Dr. Jekyll, the searcher of truth. When I was in this condition, even the mild, meek sort, I didn't mind
picking quarrels with me at the bus stand, railway stations and the market place. But they would speak out many other things, totally
ignoring me giving me at times valuable information. Once, dead drunk but not out, lying in the fetal position at a bus stop, I picked up
very vital clues about a sensational uptown robbery that had the police in a baffled. I was well rewarded by the robbed. But this was
much later, when I had turned into a true professional and had, in addition, the benefit of the sagacious advice and help of Inspector
Pig, Crime Branch. Why did I choose to be a private Detective? some ask. And some answer: because I am a nosey character and ike to peep
into the sinful lives of others. This isn't true. I do it to feed myself: to keep myself reasonably well in terms of food and drink.
There’s a pithy jingle we had in our Marathi primer which I’ll never forget, which tells it so well:
Kashasathi? potasathi, Khandalyachya Ghatasathi!!
For what's sake? For belly's sake, for the Khandala Ghat's sake!!
When the Bombay train nears Khandala, nestled in a mountain range, one can see deep down below a valley which has become a permanent
metaphor in the Marathi language for the maw of a man. Anyway, a detective is only a searcher of truths, maybe at a mundane level,
and to call him nosey is wrong because the latter is only in search of gossip and is more interested, therefore, in half-truths which
go on multiplying as though they have a perverse life of their own, whereas the Truth of any matter, once proved, puts an end to all
such false lives. Now, to the unfortunate and stupid (entirely my fault) episode of how I lost my well paid job as the medical
representative of the famous multinational, M/s Gazebo Ltd. In addition to my job, I also lost my credibility. I shall tell you all.
This is how it happened, and then I chose to become a private detective.
First, let me tell you about the job duties of a Medical Representative (known also in abbreviated form, in fact, even better,
as simply MR); he has to see certain number of doctors (about ten) and chemists (five) per day., He has to talk to the doctors
about his company's products and persuade them to prescribe them to his patients; from the chemists, also known as retailers, he
has to garner information about who prescribes his products and similar brands from other firms and book him if possible for some
of these. This is just the barest outline of the job, and because it deals with humans and their egos, it soon begins to present a
host of mazes and intricacies, which the man, the Medical Representative, has to face and solve to keep the job and also to get ahead.
A man with a sufficient presence of mind could do it fairly well. Each MR is given his beat, his working area. He has a sales executive
who oversees his work, works at regular intervals with him, judges his work, advises him and reports on him to his direct super, the
regional manager. Good MRs can get promotions and at least theoretically go to the top positions in the company. Most of the time the
MR is on his own; he works alone, the firm having no alternative but to trust him; his work is judged by his sales figures and daily call reports. Therefore, the most tabooed thing a representative can do is to show false calls in his reports, and if he’s found out, he could lose his job. That's
what happened to me; it was bad luck and wasn't entirely my fault, as you will see. In my working area there is a small town called
Kurbad about twenty kilometers east of Kalyan. It has only about a dozen doctors but one of them with a very large practice is Dr.
Neelkanth Patkar. Over some years, we had become good friends and he used to prescribe all my products heavily. He was a young and
healthy man, and so was able to manage his very heavy work load quite well. At any given hour, there was a crowd at his clinic and
being in a small town, even his Sundays were full of work. Because of this busy routine, he used to meet the MRs very late. After his
call, the rep barely had time to catch the last bus to Kalyan. There is no train service from Kurbad to Kalyan, so to catch the last
bus became for the MR a matter of great tension and urgency or else he had to pass the night at the S. T. stand, there being no lodges
in town; an unpalatable prospect. Dr. Patkar, being almost a friend, used to tell me: "Arre, Pandurang, why do you take so much trouble
over me; I’ll continue to prescribe your products even if you don't see me. Anyway, you come all the way to make one call. Forget
it, just report me; you’ll save
time and money; just keep me posted about new products, that's all". To which I’d say "Thanks for being so kind doctor; but God
forbid, what if something happens to you, you know what I mean? I’ll be out of a job". "Have you gone mad Pandu? Look at me; it’ll
be a long time before I die”. Yes, he did look very healthy and tough; he knew I was considering his proposal and also sizing him up.
"Don't you worry yaar, the day you're supposed to be here, stay at home and booze in my name, OK?” After such talk, I took up his
suggestion as sensible and stopped visiting Kurbad. In this, I implicitly trusted him not to make a faux pas anytime, anywhere,
regarding this matter. However, one fine afternoon I received a telegram from my branch manager, asking me to report to office
at 9 a.m. sharp with my daily report book. That shook me. Something had gone wrong, I was certain, but didn't know what. I rang up
my immediate superior. His wife told me, in a rather odd tone, that he was out on tour and was expected tomorrow. I was in a sweat
and took the only way out; three large pegs of my then favourite drink, Solan no. l. In the enhanced and illusory world of drink,
a lizard started making lizard sounds in my brain and began to wonder if Patkar hadn't made a faux pas somewhere by oversight because
while all my other work was O.K., the only lacuna was Patkar, in which case I’d make him take it back with due apology to me in writing.
I slept on this note—a dreamless sleep. Next morning I, in the office at nine, was immediately ushered into the Branch Manager's room
by his secretary, the stone-faced Mrs. D'Cruz. They were all sitting, relaxed, sipping coffee and munching biscuits; an asshole bunch,
my branch manager, Mr. Mamledar, his top boss, Mr. Trivedi and my direct super, Mr. Desai. Seeing me enter, they stiffened up a bit,
then began to wink at each other and started to snigger; Mr. Mamledar was kind and asked me to sit down; he ordered coffee for me,
making a snide remark "Sorry, Humnabadkar, I can offer you only coffee for now". When I sat down, he asked for my daily report book
which I gave him; he started going through the pages and without looking at me asked "How are your visits to Kurbad?” "Quite regular,
sir", I said. "Yes, I can see that". He said, passing the report book to Trivedi, his boss, who turned a few pages and remarked
cryptically, "Yes, very regular, I must say". And turning to me, said "You make only one call there, do you? Dr. Patkar's? " .
"Yes sir, he’s the only good call for us there and he gives us a lot of business; in fact his prescription ratio per visit is the
highest in any rep's area, as you know already, sir". "Yeah, that's okay by me, you have done a good job on him... when did you last
visit him?” "Just last week, on Wednesday, the third". At this they began to laugh. The cue was given by Mr. Trivedi, who was here,
the first in the pecking order; it was taken up by Mamledar, followed by my boss, Desai. For Mamledar it became uncontrollable, and
losing all decorum he started rolling on the cabin floor, over and over; he let out a loud fart and since the cabin wasn't fully
soundproof, its rough, distinctive noise must have escaped from the cabin and entered the outer office. Mr. Trivedi coughed and everything
became quiet and official again. Mr Trivedi said "So you met him, last week on the third, right?” "Yes, but what's there to laugh about?”
I said, now getting piqued. At this, Desai put the Marathi paper, the Maharashtra Times, dated the 30th of last month into my hands.
I don’t know if it augured things to come; my eyes fell on the top headline, "Inspector Pig in a wondrous manner solves the kidnapping
case of Seth Mangilal Fudhimull!" This case was a hot news item for a good part of last month because the kidnappers had demanded a huge
ransom of forty crores. I was reading this item with great interest, when something odd struck me; what did all this have to do with me?
It was then that Desai stood up, pointing to the news item in the column at the bottom. It was a small news item with a dim-looking,
blurred photograph of a face known to me; when my eyes happened to shift to the written word, the whole thing became clear. The small
headline said "Famous Dr. Patkar of Kurbad dies of massive heart attack". The photo was a faded old one of poor Patkar. So what I was
afraid of deep down had taken place after all! "So, what now, Humnabadkar?” asked Trivedi with a leer. "You must be a wonderful man,
since you can talk about our products to the dead!” Seeing my bewildered face which must have been straight out of the comics, they all
burst into spontaneous, cruel laughter you hear when. someone makes a fool of himself the great comic movies of Laurel and Hardy. This
time the laughter was even worse than before because it was started by Trivedi, the big boss. But it proved too much for him. Not only
he let out louder fart than Mamledar but, he seemed to have lost control of his bowels and bladder. He shat and pissed in his pants. He
was a known patient of renal calculi (kidney stones) and piles, and so, blood soon started dripping from both his front and back vents
onto the expensive office carpet, which scared him and he started to hiccup (he had recently undergone a costly operation for inguinal
hernia and so laughter, farting, hiccups and coughing were bad for him). With the hiccups, he started vomiting the just consumed biscuits
and coffee, followed by his morning breakfast of tea, dhokla and farsan, all this dripping from his mouth, and fell onto the chair, his
eyes turned upwards. Both Mamledar and Desai, now scared shitless, began to sweat and screech. The cabin was filled with an overwhelming
stench of blood, excreta, urine, vomit and sweat. Now all three of us began to retch and vomit. Just then, the staff rushed in. The door
now being open, I pressed my hankie to my mouth to keep the vomit in; I rushed out, into the open space; there, I sweated, shat, pissed
and vomited.
My detective idol now is Inspector Pig, more famously known in the city as Inspector Suuver. When I started out, my idols were the
great detectives of fiction. That was because I hadn’t known any flesh and blood detectives. In our land, this profession or vocation,
whatever you wish to call it, is still in its infancy. This is because, for us, the truth hasn't yet assumed enough importance to need a
regular profession to discover it. Anyway, in the city of Bombay at least, the importance of truth was day by day becoming more evident
because of the activities of one individual of the crime branch: C.I.D. Inspector Pig or Suuver. He has surpassed the high esteem in
which I hold the fictional detectives, M. Auguste Dupin and Father Brown, also Nero Wolfe. He subsumes them and goes beyond. His real
name isn't Suuver or Pig. I learnt this a little later. His true name is, I am told, known only to his bosses. How did he acquire this
name? Shall I say because of the meanness and malice of others? Judge for yourselves. The inspector had a habit; I don’t know if it
was purposefully inculcated. After almost every sentence he’d say, to his superiors, subordinates, to the criminals and shady people and
later to his friends and
relatives, the English phrase, "Are you sure?” The only thing was, he’d pronounce it, “Are you a suuver?” meaning in Hindustani,
“Are you a pig?". His superiors would pretend to tolerate this and turn a Nelson's ear, mainly because he was very good at his job and
saved them a lot of embarrassments, but they took care to stop his promotions and he remained an Inspector and would probably remain so.
He handled pure crime—murder, robbery, rapes, kidnappings, which had minimum political involvement. He’d become almighty and indispensable
in this. Now his subordinates and the criminal elements—both of whom he grilled thoroughly during his interrogation—he asked constantly,
even going out of the way to frame a question in such a manner so that he could end it with the words, "Are you suuver?" (To his superiors,
he had the grace to say: ”Sir, I am suuver about this hunch of mine, but, sir, you are asking me to take along on this job sub-inspector
Chavan; are you suuver about him?" And so on). Deep down the criminals resented this and as an act of revenge gave him the nickname
of inspector Suuver, i.e. inspector Pig. Gradually the name stuck to him, both among the police and the criminals and then as his star
rose higher and higher in
because of his extraordinary police work that made our city an extremely safe and secure place for law-abiding citizens, the name inspector
pig or swine, was mouthed by common people as an expression of gratitude and respect; which in turn gave them a sense of familiarity
and nearness to him, which in turn gave them a greater sense of security and safety in this most criminal, corrupt and dangerous of our
cities. They used to say, that
if he had been blessed with at least equally honest subordinates, peers and superiors, he would’ve been rightfully placed in heaven. Anyway,
it was on my first case, "the case of the missing Dr. Karmarkar", that I first met him in the consulting rooms of Dr. Haldankar.
Dr. Haldankar is from Thane city. A very well known, highly efficient and versatile general surgeon. He was both an M.S. and an
F .R.C.S. Some time back he had gone to the States for a course on microsurgery. As his hospital was on the Eastern Express highway,
he’d always get accident cases. The place was full of factories; so the cases of finger and hand amputations were not uncommon. He was
already an expert orthopedic; now, with knowledge of microsurgery, he’d also reattach severed limbs to the body. He’d started barely
five years ago, but in that time had managed to put all competition behind and emerged as the leading surgical light of Thane. He was
quite famous among us MRs; almost a legendary and heroic figure. We all held him in high regard; for one thing, despite his heavy
practice, he never kept us waiting and was always available for an interview unless he was engaged in an emergency operation. During
his normal consulting hours, he’d see an MR after every third patient. Dr. Haldankar was among the first few people I knew who’d
receive my visiting card with a covering letter requesting his patronage. On the third day after I’d presented it, I received his
reply, asking me to call on him and so I went. But before that, a few words as to what happened after I lost my job. As I said earlier,
I sweated, pissed, shat and vomited in an open space. When I reached home, I began to shiver as the full implications of the matter dawned
on me. I was now on the road, down and out; had I been capable of weeping, I would’ve wept but instead, I drank and slept. I got up with a
bad hangover when the doorbell rang with a deafening shrillness. With the word "Motherfucker" in my mouth, I opened the door for two of my
close friends: Ambekar and Iyer. They were standing with two large bags in their hands. They came in and judging from their looks at me,
they already knew of my fate. In our small world of MRs, the news that I’d lost my lucrative job and as a consequence, had sweated, shat,
pissed and vomited in an
open space, had spread like wildfire, as did the news of what had happened to Trivedi, Mamledar and Desai. It seems our MD, who likes to
put on various disguises and wander about in the office and factory premises, learning about my case and that I’d been called for a
dressing down prior to being sacked that day, had, in the guise of a char-woman, come and occupied the adjacent cabin and seen the whole
show through a specially made, large peephole. He couldn’t control his laughter over what happened to Trivedi, and later (he was also a
patient with piles) had undergone an even heavier loosening of the bowels than Trivedi, also suffering a massive heart attack; he was found
in the room that afternoon with his sari and choli all disheveled, organs exposed, moaning softly. While being carried out on a stretcher
to an ambulance headed for the hospital, he managed to dictate and sign three letters sacking Trivedi, Mamledar and Desai. I had of
course already been sacked. Mrs. D'Cruz told me later that the smell of blood, urine, turd and vomit lingered in the office for the
entire weekend. Ambekar and Iyer were, like me, representatives of two top multinational pharmaceutical firms. Good pay and allowances.
Both were married. Ambekar was a regular user of both Mandrax and Dexidrine, one a soporific and the other a stimulant. He takes them by
turns; so at times he is very much turned on and at other times quiet. Iyer gets high on booze and women, but both do these things with
great elan and on the sly. Iyer is also a lover of horses, a great one and has a deep knowledge of every horse in the run, including
its genealogy and past history at the races. When the races were on, he used to get up at 5 am so as to be at the Mahalaxmi Race
Course to view from afar, with a
very powerful German binoculars, the state of the horses brought out for running. He was fairly well acquainted with stable boys, and
some of the big trainers and jockeys.. I feel he made them happy with the company's samples of tonics, vitamins and so on. So his betting
was pretty sound and at the season's end, he was very much on the plus side. If I remember correctly, his earnings from horses was much
more than the income from his company. During the monsoon, he used to attend races at Pune, invariably taking along some girl or woman
to enjoy the weekend with.
Once, after coming in and putting down their bags, Iyer came up to me and put a heavy envelope into my hands on which was written
“Rs.5000/-“. He said, "Listen, Pandya" and wrote “USE ME” in bold letters the envelope . “This is for this month. O.K? Give it back
when things improve. Now wash, shit and wash and come back". My mouth was stinking of all the seven hells and I had let escape a big
fart. I went in and cleaned my self in a closed place to my poor heart's content. Washed and cleaned of all the smells, I came back
to the sitting room, where Ambekar, a good cook, had made a pot full of fine strong tea. He had set it on my poor but large-hearted
table, along with snacks like chivda, dhokla and cheese sandwiches. In a corner of the room, along the wall,, standing
like guardians, were six big bottles of Solan No.1, a bottle of Booth's gin and a dozen packets of 555 cigarettes -- all of it,
Iyer's handiwork.. Ambekar tapped my back and said, "Arre, don’t worry, my son. This Ambya is behind you." He then
silently brought out a bundle of notes from his bag, counted them and placing them in my hands, said: "Two thousand five hundred,
just got my incentive," giving a ludicrous, large wink which was his specialty. Seeing the simple goodness of my friends, I sat down
in front of them and bawled, howled and wept as I have never before. They let me have my cry and said, "We will be back in the
evening. O Panduranga, let's have fun." They came in the evening at seven, bringing with them a lot of goodies: fried liver,
testicles and kidneys; fried ravas and prawns; tandoori chicken and biryani, all from the small little special
shops at Koliwada. Iyer, a prolific reader of James Hadley Chase, spy and detective fiction, also brought some of these books.
It was then, while boozing and eating flesh, the idea of being a real life detective came upon me. Discussing it with my friends, funnily,
I found them all for it. And the idea of the large visiting card was worked out in detail there and then, along with many other things.
Among the many people to whom I sent the card, a prominent name was that of Dr. Haldankar's, and one fine day, I received his reply,
asking me to call on him in this connection the following day at 12 a.m. I live in Kurla East. From Kurla railway station, many fast
“up” and “down” trains are available. I thought it would be best to catch the 10.30 “fast” for Thane, which would take me to Thane,
latest by 11.15. I would then take an auto to Haldankar Hospital, which was famous there. My working area had been the Thane District
and I was well known in Thane city. After losing my job in such a shabby way, I was therefore bit embarrassed to show my self there.
So I thought of going in disguise. Anyway, Private Detectives or the C.I.D. do quite often use disguise as a means to run their show,
and for a Hindu, what better and also what playful disguise can anyone conceive than that of Muslim? Eh? I wore kurta pyjamas,
a false beard and a skull cap and carefully created on my fore head the dark mark that comes automatically on the forehead of a devout
namazi ate paan. Then I took my place in the train. At Haldankar Hospital, things were much the same : the big waiting room
was almost full. The receptionist was a Keralite Catholic girl named Mercy. I was very friendly with her and had taken her out a couple
of times but still she couldn't penetrate my disguise. She doesn't like Muslims and I could see that on her face as she took down my name,
a very common one -- Abdul Latif Chougule. The doctor, however, was very fond of Muslim patients. For one, they were very honest in
their dealings; two; they followed his instructions to the last dot and once convinced that you are good at your job, promoted you among
other fellow Muslims. It was thus that Dr. Haldankar had developed a large Muslim clientele, many of them from the busy industrial town
of Bhiwandi, which was nearby. Most of them were almost down-and-out daily-wagers at the loom. I remember the talk I once had with him in
this regard; it was all about poverty. "These poor people have great faith in me and I in turn have great regard and respect for their faith
in me, so I do my best to be worthy of it ... My charges are high and there I do not make any difference between the poor and the rich., But
one thing I do in return for their trust: I never keep them waiting. I see them, even without appointment, any time of the day and night,
and listen Pandurang, there I make no difference between a poor Muslim and a poor Hindu. Though, I must tell you that I prefer the Muslim
to the Hindu, as they are much better customers."
"That's all? You just save their time?" I said with a smile.
"Arre, don't say that's all. I would say that's too much really, Pandurang, there are two things that the poor here are almost
deprived off, that's cash and time. Here life for the poor is so awful ... It just can't be described, Pandurang.. For them time is
literally money. For the daily-wager, the self-employed poor like vegetable sellers, sandwich vadapaav - and bhajji- men; the poor
bhaiyyas, sellers of gram and peanuts, who start selling them at a young age and grow up into men doing the same thing; the sellers
of boiled eggs and fried fish outside the gavthi bars -- all have to be at their wares till late in the night. As for the poor
employed, it's only a little better. The employed poor are only a little better off: poor working conditions and poor wages for most
of them; if there is a strike or a lock-out, they are buggered, for they have to beg to survive and sell off whatever little they
have accumulated, like utensils. And look Pandurang, the point I’m making, the poor more often than anyone else have to stand and stand
and wait all the time in long frustrating lines for their kerosene, rations, railway passes and tickets; they stand in the train, they stand
in the bus. They are too tired, I tell you, too tired of their own lives and, deep down, also of their families. So they keep falling sick
all the time, get involved in accidents and die. They have a short lives and that's why they value their time very much, at least much
more than you and I. And that's why a man who understands this about them, the value they attach to time because this is all they
rea1ly possess, and gets their work done fast and relieves them, gets their unending worship and regards."
“You are very much right doctor, but our poverty is so deep and interpenetrating and vast, so labyrinthine that even if Brahmadev,
the creator of this universal comic comes down, I don't think he could do much about it. That's why all we should do is to sit back
and look through the various windows, sorry widows created by poverty and enjoy ourselves."
"O, you mean take advantage of poor men's widows and see the tip of the iceberg? Ha! Ha! Ha!”
This was four months ago. Now having lost my well-paying job, I was glimpsing the iceberg. But at the Haldankar Hospital everything was
just as it always was. Mercy, after writing my name on a small pad, gave the piece of paper to an attendant, who took it into the
consulting room and asked me to take my place among the patients. I realized that today was Thursday, Haldankar's day for seeing those
patients whose bones he had set right by orthopedic surgery, and those whose accidentally- or otherwise-amputated limbs, he had
reattached by microsurgery. There I saw my old friend, the now famous Radhabai. She didn't recognise me, though. Three years ago, she
had lost both her feet in a train accident near Kalwa. Luckily for her, she was brought to Haldankar hospital along with her feet quite
early. Leaving everything aside, he carried out a nine hour job of microsurgery and fixed back her feet successfully, but it was a
near miraculous attaching of the feet in the reverse; a Janus-like pose with the feet and the body facing opposite directions! He became
very famous after that and along with Radhabai, who also got her share of fame, went on a three month lecture tour of the world. He also
taught her how to walk with those feet and she, a poor sixty-year-old cast-off widow, was picked up immediately by our film industry to
play the part of Hadal, the infamous female Hindu ghost who is recognized by her reverse feet. There was a great demand for her
all over the country. She was in all the ghastly films, which because of her ran to full houses. She, having faced poverty once, invested
her money wisely, brought a piece of land full of hapus hapus mango trees and a house in her native Konkan village, where she was
feared and worshipped as a Hadal goddess and ultimately grew into a cult figure for people all over Konkan. Why were her feet
reattached in this manner by Haldankar? Haldankar says, "You know, I have a deep belief in our myths: when in doubt, go to the myths,
at least I do. While operating on her, I suddenly began to have doubts; that if I reattach her feet in the normal manner, this woman would
lead the same type of poverty-stricken life or, even worse, maybe get herself cut off again, and maybe I wouldn't be on the spot again
to provide relief, so what was the point of it all? Then from my depths, the concept of the Hadal came on me. If I attach her
feet in the reverse direction, she would be an oddity and solve her problem of livelihood and so on. And I have been proved right. Whenever
the need arises, I shall do such surgeries, all for the good and for God's sake, thanks to our myths, as you will see".
Along with Radhabai, I saw also, Vitthal, another victim of a train accident on whom too Haldankar had done an excellent job.
Vitthal was a middle-aged beggar from the Naupada area of Thane. He was slightly hunchbacked and short . In the accident, his right
hand and left leg were cut off. Haldankar reattached the limbs but gave them a slight twist to resemble the famous and grotesque
Ashtavakra Ashtavakra of mythology, the wise sage with eight deformities. It was all to the good and Vitthal never had to beg
again. Seeing him, one of the doctor's friends and a patient, Sattar Bhai, a big builder from Bhiwandi, also a financier of films
and T V serials, who recently had got approval for a long serial on Bhagvat Purana, was inspired to make Ashtavakra,
, played by Vitthal as the narrator and moralizer of the said serial. As everyone knows, the serial became highly popular and
the sage once again is, after hundreds of years, a part of popular ethos. Vitthal also got then, the plum role of the hunchback,
in the new Hindi version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Both Radhabai and Vitthal were eternally grateful to Haldankar
and used to meet him often to fall at his feet and grace themselves. I noticed another old acquaintance, a man who looked like a rabbit
with a wide hare-lip and tall elongated ears. It was Rajnibhai. Two years ago, he had come to Haldankar to get his lip set right
as if it was proving to be an hindrance in his securing a good job. Again, a problem of livelihood and so Haldankar persuaded him to get
his ears elongated, and sure enough, Rajnibhai got picked up by a top Madison Avenue Advertising Agency and is now a successful
model in the United States. He lives in the magical world of “Bugs Bunny and the Man in the Moon”.
NOTE: “The Visiting Card” (Part 2), the concluding part of this excerpt, will appear in our next issue.
i from the Marathi title “Varaha Ani Simha”
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