An ACP for 15 years. No promotions. So what? The public acclaim is there. People here never telephoned the police, it was always the CID. And we marched out like the Magnificent Seven. Why worry about promotions when even police commissioners were being kicked upstairs for opening fire or not opening fire.
Teamwork, that is the secret of my success and I built my own team brick by brick giving them some liberty. Daya can break or kick open as many doors as he liked or smack a ‘phataka’ on the face of a suspect to get a confession. (I did not like it when he entered a dance show, but boys will be boys.) Abhijit carries on a mild flirtation with pretty forensic expert Dr Tarika. Freddy plays the fool and is desperately scared of his wife and the ghosts (atma), though not in that order. Want to know a better allrounder than Gary Sobers and Jaques Kallis combined. That is my forensic expert-cum-pathologist-cum-fingerprint expert-cum-handwriting expert cum so many other things, Dr Salunke. With such a team, how will the CID ever lose? Our crime detection was based on simple, logical thinking and hard work. One victim died of ‘Curare’ poisoning. I tell Vivek and Freddy, “Dhoondo, South America mein, poori duniya mein dhoondo” and within no time they were back with the results. Whichever case came to us we tackled it with our full team, which may or may not indicate that we didn’t have sufficient work.
No one interfered with our work, neither the commissioner nor the ministers. Occasionally, the DCP, who looks as though he’s come straight from the sets of a horror movie, tries to discredit us but we take care of him properly. Occasionally, for the sake of variety, we make Daya or Abhijit suspects in anti-national activities but as is to be expected they clear themselves and come out with flying colours. Why, in some episodes even I am framed and made to look like a double agent but all that only added to the fun. One of these days, I plan to have a case where Abhijit is suspected of being a woman running a ‘honey pot’ racket, but is then cleared by Dr Tarika who proves he’s a MAN after all!
Sometimes I feel I am Sherlock Holmes with a dozen Dr Watsons. The Watsons throw points and I come out with brilliant solutions. “Sir, suspect hotel room No. 222 mein 10 baje aaya aur 11 baje nikal gaya, laash ko room mein chhod ke” and I come out with the brilliant solution, “Iska matlab hai khoon 10 aur 11 ke beech mein hua!” The devastating last line was always mine, “Jail mein chakki peesoge, phansi ka order aane tak.” Provided there were no mercy petitions!
The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’; E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 AT gmail.com
