Benyamin - Yellow Lights of Death

‘Did they get any information on him?’

‘Whether they find him or not, what’s your interest in it? Who is he to you? Son, complaints should always be given by those who have a claim on the missing person.’

‘Papa, this is not a missing-person case as you think. It is a murder. I saw it with my own eyes. It wasn’t just me, at least a hundred people were witness to it. Or can’t we talk about it in this country?’

‘Why don’t the others open their mouth? Because it’s none of their business. If you want to be a writer, become one. Remove everything else from your mind. Why should you take up unnecessary issues? What’s your benefit in that?’

‘But I have not committed any mistake, Papa.’

‘You should never go to Public Security to get into the affairs of someone who is a stranger to you. You don’t know the complications involved. We’ll get dragged into a huge mess. Don’t you know the rules of the land? You won’t be able to even leave the country without clearing the mess.’

‘That’s okay. I’m not going to leave the country any time soon.’

‘Says who? I’ve decided to send you to Canada or Australia or Portugal. For some higher studies. You know the achievements of your classmates.’

‘But Papa knows that I’m writing my novel.’

‘Who said you can’t do that too? But you haven’t proved yet that you can earn a living just by being a writer. Not that there are no such writers. There are. Dan Brown, Roland Barthes, Paulo Coelho, Orhan Pamuk and many others. But you don’t have their discipline or style or their marketing. And son, wherever you are in the world, you will be able to write what is destined to be written by you. You said the novel is about Diego. It’s better to write it from outside the country than from within. Then the work will have new perspectives. New views. It’ll then be known as an international novel rather than just a regional novel.’

‘I know these are not your concerns. This has got to do with the complaint I’ve filed. Someone has fired up Papa. Or Papa is a supporter of the Public Security department. All you guys have something to hide. ’

‘No, I’m your supporter. Your victories mean a lot to me. I can’t stand you losing focus. Ours is a collapsing family. In the common man’s eye, we are still rich. Our fall is visible only when we compare our current assets with those before the French retreat. When we compare ourselves to the status of a newly rich man in Cornish, we are mere worms. You’re the one who’ll change our status, that’s my dream. But now I fear for you. History proves that one who takes on others’ deeds has always failed.’

I didn’t want to extend the conversation further. I got up and went to my room.

However, any hope of support from either Stephen Pereira Andrapper or the Public Security died that night.

I FELT A sort of fondness and favour towards this half-baked story that I never had for the dozens of stories I had heard before. It was not because there was something novel about the story, but there was no extravagant exaggeration stuffed in it to grab my attention. Because of that, I was curious to know what happened later.

Where could I get the rest of his life story? Whom should I approach for it? After having written the opening section so well, what fearful thing had happened to stop him? Had the police snatched him?

Had he hidden clues in the first section as to who had the rest of the manuscript? To be honest, even after reading it many times, I couldn’t find any clues. In the portion that he sent, he has mentioned the names of more than twenty people, from Mohandas to Mullikratnam. How would I know who among the lot has the next part? Even if I come to know, how would I contact them from this far? I was in the dark.

That’s how I presented it at the Thursday Market. This was our name for a group of close friends. From global warming to the increasing cost of cashew nuts, from Idi Amin to Iyob’s books, everything comes to the table at our Thursday Market. Anil, E.A. Salim, Nibu whom we call Achachan (Grandfather), Sudhi Mashu, Pattar Biju, Saju who blogs under the name of Nattapranthan (Mad Man), and I, that’s all of us. During a discussion about my new novel, I brought this topic before them, as a challenge to their investigative skills. Then everyone wanted to listen to the story. I took a printout and brought it to the assembly. Mashu read it aloud.

‘A stupid guy good enough to become a novelist!’ Achachan Nibu was the first to respond. No one reacted for or against it. Nibu explained his comment. ‘If I was in his shoes, before approaching the police, I would have done three things. One,’ he said, counting with his fingers, ‘I would have caught the murder visuals with my mobile phone. Two, as any citizen journalist, I would send that video to a channel for telecast. Three, if no one was willing to show it, I’d have posted it on YouTube. Any of these actions would have naturally put the police on the defensive.’

‘Nibu, that’s logical when we sit here and think about it calmly,’ Anil said. ‘But, for these three things to happen, he should have had a mobile phone with camera. He should also have been aware that the police was not going to take up the case. But that’s not what happened.’

‘From what we know, he belongs to an extremely rich family in the country. A leaner elephant is also an elephant. So, let’s leave the camera phone part,’ E.M. Salim said. ‘But I agree with what Anil said next. He couldn’t have thought of such a thing then.’

‘He had another option,’ Nattapranthan said. ‘He could have blogged about what happened. Then, the people who had witnessed or heard of the event would have posted comments, and perhaps helped him out. Why didn’t he do that?’

‘We are now debating how he should have reacted to a particular incident in his life,’ I interfered. ‘That’s not my point. How can we get the rest of the story? Which character do you think has possession of it? What’s the hidden clue, and where is it?’

The assembly calmed down for a while. There was a shadow of inefficacy in that silence.

‘Benyamin, are you taking this seriously?’ Sudhi Mashu asked me after some time.

‘Yes, why?’

‘The novelist mentioned in this. what’s his name? We don’t know. Let’s call him Mr Andrapper for now. You are going to face the same problem that he did.’

‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ said Salim.

‘Our man is working on a new novel. If in the middle of it, he goes after this story, he won’t be able to complete the novel. We don’t have a Papa here to give him a telling-off.’

Mashu was worried about the novel I was working on — set in the Nedumbassery airport and the lives around it. In fact, Andrapper’s father’s words had motivated me to get back to my novel.

‘If all of you cooperate in unravelling this mystery, I can manage the novel,’ I said.

‘Well, we can start a blog on behalf of Andrapper and publish what we have. We might get responses,’ Nattapranthan said.

‘The idea is fine,’ Biju said, ‘but there is a catch. This was sent to Benyamin in secret. We shouldn’t make it public. Not just that, the blog may not reach the person whom we want to contact. Also, we’ll be in danger if the wrong person reads it. We don’t know who this guy is or what else he has written.’

We were quiet. Pattar Biju was right.

‘One week!’ said Salim. ‘This puzzle, I’m now naming it Operation Diego Garcia — we’ll come up with a solution before our next Thursday Market.’

On that note, we split. About three days after that, Pattar called me. ‘Benya, I see some light. Yesterday, I came across this new catalogue of Z Books in Ernakulam. Listed in it is the novel Archipelago by Mohandas Purameri! This Mohandas and his book might be able to help in our Operation Diego Garcia. We can contact Z and get his number.’