THE PUPPETEERS OF PALEM (3 page)

Woh kagaz ki kashti, woh baarish ka paani…

Sniffle, sniffle, sniffle; I am scared of the cripple.

Chapter Four

1984

C
rickets
.
So many crickets.

They seemed to be everywhere. Chanti had caught a cricket the night before in front of his hut. He had used two sticks from the broom to pin it by the wings. It had not struggled to get away. It had merely leaned forward, lifted its legs and scratched itself under the wings. He had wanted to squash it to stop that horrible noise, but he only had the two thin broom sticks for weapons. And he was too afraid to squash it with his hand. It had such big eyes. And so many.

It was the season of crickets. They made that sound because they wanted to get married, his mother had once told him. They got married, and then had baby crickets who would get married the next year and have more baby crickets who would come back the following year to get married
—
there was just no end to it. The only way out of it was to kill them all. One day he would squash them all. No, not with his hands. With a hammer. Yes, maybe when he was as old as Aravind.

They were walking through the babul bushes down the narrow path to the Shivalayam.

‘Thorns,’ Venkarataramana said. ‘Thorns everywhere.’

Aravind did not turn back. ‘These are babul bushes, Ramana. You expect thorns.’

‘We should have brought a torch.’

It was Sarayu’s idea that they did not need a torch. But there was no blaming her. How was she to know that the clouds would gather with such haste?

‘It better not rain,’ Venkataramana said sulkily.

Sarayu did not say anything. Her anklets were the only sounds that accompanied the harried croaks of the crickets. Chanti had always liked the sound of her anklets
—
the smoothness of her hair too, but mainly her anklets
—
but now, with thorns strewn upon their dark path and with their destination just coming into view as a black shadow looming ahead of them, he wished she had come bare-footed. The sound, sweet though it was, was beginning to get creepy.

‘Why are we going to the Shivalayam? Thatha
said
—
’

‘Chotu, if you are feeling scared, run back to the house,’ Aravind had snapped.

Ghal. Ghal. Ghal.

He wouldn’t run back, of course. It was a good two kilometres to Chotu’s house. Hell, Chanti knew that even he himself would have wet his pants if he had to walk back to his house alone. If there had been a time to pull out of this, it was at Thatha’s
house. Chanti wished he had. But Aravind had given him the ‘run home to Mother, kid’ look. How he hated that look!

They came to the lingam and stood near it in a huddle. Behind it, the Kalikadevi tree stood silhouetted by the silvery grey clouds, extending its branches downward in a canopy. It was stupid, he knew, but the tendrils at the ends of the branches nearest to them looked like fingers. Any moment now, one of them would snap him up. The lingam would open at the top and Chotu would disappear under it, screaming and snatching.

Something moved under the leaves. Lizards probably.
Or snakes.

From somewhere close by, beyond the tree and just
out of view, a dog whimpered; a low, whiney sound that went on for eleven interminable seconds. Chanti counted out each second.

He heard the clack of knees next to him. Venkataramana’s bow legs were shivering. Chotu’s hand tightened around his. The only ones that made no sound or movement were Aravind and Sarayu. How nice it would be to hear the sound of her anklets just about now?

Aravind bent down and picked up a stick. ‘Aravind, Thatha
told us a story,’ Chanti said. His voice sounded very small and insignificant, like an echo coming from a distant place. All Chanti could hear was the whimpering of the dog. ‘And I want to see if Lachi will come here tonight.’

‘Are there… snakes here?’ Venkataramana asked.

‘I want to ask her what she is doing here. I want to know whom she wants to kill.’

‘How do you know she wants to kill someone?’ Sarayu asked. She moved a little and her anklets jingled. Why was she even listening to what Aravind was saying? Who cared what Lachi wanted? Thatha
had told them never to go to the Shivalayam. Chanti wondered for a second if he should turn back and leave. Let Aravind do what he wanted. Let him
die
.

‘Dead people don’t hang around if their job here is done. If they don’t leave us, it means they want
revenge
.’

‘But she was crazy,’ Sarayu said.

‘Was she?’ Aravind walked around the lingam, tapping at it with the stick. ‘Oye, Ramana, come here. Chanti, Chotu, come.’ He reached into his pocket and held out his hand. ‘Here, tamarind gum. It will keep you safe.’

None of them asked what from. They held out their hands.

‘Ouch!’ he said and slapped his wrist. ‘Mosquitoes.’ He bent down and picked up the piece of gum. He touched each of their hands with the gum. It was sticky. ‘Keep touching it now and then.’

None of them asked why. Chanti immediately started dabbing a finger on the sticky spot of his palm. It got stickier and stickier with each touch.
I cannot see the others, but I bet they’re doing it too,
he thought.
Yes, even
Sarayu.

They sat down around the lingam, holding hands. Sarayu’s hand in his felt limp and lifeless. Every now and then, he would release the pressure on her palm and dab his finger on the sticky smudge. The crickets had stopped croaking now. The night was once again silent. They were far away from the village. Sitting like a bunch of goats waiting to be butchered. That is, if goats held hands. They had tamarind gum on their hands too. Some pickle to go with the meat.
Pichi Lachi
would come any time now and pick them off, one by one.

Will she come with a rock? With that old rolling stone stained with Chakali Sangadu’s blood?

Why was it so damned silent?

Or did she have a new rock now
—
a brand new rock for a brand new slaughter.

Why were Sarayu’s anklets not making any sound? He reached out with his foot and tapped it against hers.

Ghal. Ghal. Ghal.

He stopped. That was no better. In fact, it was much worse. It made him think of women’s feet. Of Lachi’s feet. Did she have feet, first of all? If she did, were they turned around the other way? Did she still have teeth after all these years?

Teeth or fangs?

His eyes closed. The branches of the tree swayed in the breeze and made rustling
—
no, rumbling
—
noises. He drifted off into semi-consciousness. The last thing he saw that night was the image of an old woman clad in white, the edge of her sari draped around her faceless head, two curved, conical fangs protruding from nothingness where her mouth should have been, and a vertically slit tongue showing itself every now and then before vanishing behind the featureless whiteness. And her hands were the long, slender branches of the Kalikadevi tree, swaying in the breeze, wrapped around a smooth, oval rock. There was no blot on it.
A new rock for a new goat.

And the last thing he heard was a soft, thudding sound. Nice and slow. Slow and rhythmic.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

It was the beating of his heart.

‘She did not come.’ Aravind’s voice was bitter with disappointment. ‘And where the hell is Chotu?’

Chanti kept his eyes closed for a moment longer, savouring the relief. Whether Lachi had come for them or not last night, the fact that he was able to hear Aravind’s words was proof
—
sweet proof indeed
—
that he was still alive. How nice it was to be alive.

‘Why do you think she did not come?’ Sarayu’s voice sounded so much sweeter this morning. Last night, it had felt like someone had their hand wrapped around her throat. She had spoken in short, desperate gasps and snaps. Now, there was the old lilt to her voice that he liked so much. ‘Don’t worry about Chotu, he probably woke up before us and walked back to the village.’

He waited for the sound of her anklets.

‘I don’t
know
,’ Aravind said. Even Aravind’s voice had smoothened from last night. Yes, it was definitely good to be alive. Maybe she was scared of our tamarind gum. I should not have brought it but for these… mouses.’

‘Mice,’ Sarayu corrected.

‘Next time, I will come alone. Next time, I will
not
bring any of these fellows. I will come without tamarind gum. When she comes, I will ask her
—
’

‘I will come with you.’

‘Are you crazy? There will be no gum on your hands.’

A second’s silence. Then, again, ‘I will come with you.’

Chanti heard her move, but there was no sound. He opened his eyes. She was sitting up against the lingam with her arms wrapped around her knees. The hem of her skirt hitched up.

‘Right,’ said Aravind. ‘Let’s wake the others up and go home. Not a word to your parents about where we spent the night, okay?’

Chanti nodded absently.

‘Hey,’ Aravind was saying to Sarayu, ‘where are your anklets?’

Yes, her anklets. If it were not for them, wouldn’t he have gone crazy last night? Was there a sweeter sound in this world than the sound of Sarayu’s anklets? Chanti did not think so. He smiled with contentment as the
ghal
of last night echoed in his ear.

Sarayu said, ‘I did not wear them yesterday.’

Thud.
Chanti opened an eye. Slowly, he let his gaze move down her body. Her ankles were bare. Beautiful, but bare.

‘Too bad. Your anklets
—
are nice.’ Aravind walked around the lingam to wake the others. ‘Ramana, oye Ramana!’

She blushed and turned around, holding him in her gaze. ‘My mother took them to have the clips mended.’

Thud.

‘I will wear them tomorrow
—
if you want.’

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Cold and clear, Chanti started hearing his heart pound again.

Chapter Five

2001

Excerpt from
Demons of the Mind
(Visalandhra Publications, 2003), reprinted here with the permission of authorsDr Lakshmana Rao and Dr Mohammad Khadeer, Department of Psychology, Osmania University.

In the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, under the municipal corporation of Rajahmundry, is a town called Dhavaleshwaram. It sits by the bank of the prominent Godavari river and is the closest human settlement to the famous Arthur Cotton dam. The residents of the town regard the dam as their own.

Northwest of this town, snuck into a corner so that you would not find it unless you looked for it, is a small village that answers to the name of Rudrakshapalem. At last count, this village had a population of two hundred and twenty-eight. There is no direct bus service available and the only way to get to the village is to catch a bus to Dhavaleswaram and complete the journey either on foot or in an ox-cart.

Rudrakshapalem, known to everyone in the region as Palem, is an understandably close-knit community where everyone, as the saying goes, knows everyone else. Common sense dictates that such places ought to be relatively free of crime and wrongdoing, because the closeness of the community would make it hard for a crime to go unnoticed, and that should, all things being equal, act as a deterrent to an aspiring criminal mind. The fear of getting caught is the most powerful negative emotion that a wrongdoer experiences.

Yet, in this very village, seven deaths occurred, not very long ago, over the space of a few days. This is not unique. Last year, Amaravati, another apparently idyllic and picture-perfect village, hosted the murder of a young woman who was drowned in the Krishna. The year before that saw the killings of four children by their mother in Bhimavaram. All tiny, innocent villages and all of them providing the backdrop for gruesome deaths.

The great horror and mystery writers of our age delighted in setting their novels in villages and towns like these. One can see why—a village offers the easiest way to prepare a cast of characters bound together in a small geographical location. Also, it appeals to the romantic in all of us. Even though we have moved on to live our lives in cities, going back to the ‘good old days’ where life was simpler and friends were fewer (and perhaps closer), even if vicariously through a book, calls out to the cave-dweller within all of us who loves nothing more than to sit around a fire at the end of a long day and exchange stories.

So while small villages are ideal settings for a work of fiction, they don’t very well serve the purposes of a real criminal. So it came as an intriguing surprise indeed to the authors of this little book (and we hope to you too, dear reader) to discover the number of crimes that have taken place in our villages over the last two years—and probably longer.

The most recent of them all is also the most horrific. Seven people were killed, and more would have met the same fate if it were not for fortuitous (and brave) interference by two boys who happened to catch the criminal just as he was about to act. If the boys had reached the scene a few minutes later, most of Palem would now be lying in clumps of ashes and the death toll would have been a lot higher than seven.

What kind of man would want to kill the people he grew up with? What kind of man would be so inhuman as to want to see the destruction of the place that had given him birth, bred and sheltered him? What sort of mind are we looking at here? Can we reconstruct some of the murderer’s thought processes if we knew a few facts about his character? And the seven victims—what role did they play in all of this? Why did they have to pay with their lives? Will studying their character shed any light on why
this happened?

They say that a village, home to a variety of characters and personality types, is a veritable microcosm of humanity. If that is true, the evil must be balanced out by the good, the angry by the sage, the timid by the heroic. The case of Palem presents this perfectly, with the man who wanted the village burnt on one hand and the disabled boys who defended their hometown on the other; David on one side, Goliath on the other. This is one reason why we have chosen this case as the main focus of our study—the hope that it will offer us a glimpse into the psychology of a larger slice of human nature.

We cannot promise to have the answers, but we consider it a worthwhile expenditure of effort to ask the right questions. If we can probe, and somehow pierce, the mind of the Palem murderer, we can hope to better understand, if not forgive, men of his ilk. Perhaps it will go a little way towards unearthing the real roots of incidents like this one, and equip us with possible ways of preventing future occurrences of its kind.

Equally, if we can understand what it is within us that goads us into standing up for something we believe in, sometimes even at risk to our lives, we can possibly make it a habit. Then maybe more of us will become as heroic as the boys in this story. And more of us will take on odds that may seem insurmountable to us at first sight.

For who knows… maybe it is all in the mind, dear reader.