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The stiflingly dry heat of the southern metropolis, Chennai – the seat of power for the state of Tamil Nadu has been encountering a spell of welcome showers as have the other parts of the state – an event that has triggered the emergence of all sorts events out of the woodwork – or should one call it the stone work?
The dead cannot wait, so the tragedy ought to be handled first.
Muthu Raja – a textile mill worker called out to his cousin Karthick for a sundowner at the TASMAC (Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation) owned "bar" in a town 550 km south of here on Wednesday evening.
Called Tirupur, it is the hosiery capital of India and ipso facto a major destination for migrant labourers.
It was raining fit to drown a duck. The duo didn't know that the weather bureau in the town had measured the aggregate of the droplets to 55 mm already.
The watering hole was one of the favourite haunts of Raja – situated close to his home in the outskirts of the town – as a leant-to – standing adjacent to a stone wall.
His cousin Karthick had come all the way from Usilampatti – a village on the up and up situated nearly 70 km farther south west. By profession, he was a stone mason. By 7-10 pm, the duo had quaffed off half a bottle of what they thought was whiskey. Virtually nobody in the town knew that the spirit they had ingested was nothing but coloured and flavoured industrial alcohol. Even if someone had, they wouldn't have listened.
Karthick sitting with his back to the wall noticed that one of the stones that formed the structure was coming loose.
"This structure is weak. If there is so much as a buffalo scratching its side on the outside, this wall will fall down," Karthick predicted pointing in the general direction of the wall. His hand moved in an arc dovetailing the rest of the crowd consisting of a little over 50.
Suddenly there was a streak of lightning and the heavens opened up a little more. A sharp crack followed and the wall caved in. Raja and Karthick were the first to die, smothered by the hard, rough, rectangular rocks. Two dozen more followed in quick succession. Others wailed in pain and hurt, but neither Raja nor Karthick were able to hear their yells.
Before the end of the day – exactly 26 others had died as they were finishing "one for the road."
In a north eastern direction, 450 km away as the crow files, in Mahabalipuram – it was raining too.
Around the same time, Deputy Superintendent of Police Amal Raj was completing the formalities in a small lodge – after seizing everything owned by a 60 year old fugitive American paedophile called Alan Jay Horowitz – for being stored safely till the cops from New York arrived to take their man.
Horowitz, a trained psychiatrist, had sexually abused children and had been jailed. A judge had conditionally set him free pending the disposal of the criminal's appeal. Using his underworld contacts, Horowitz, a Jewish Rabbi had managed to forge whatever travel documents were necessary and had travelled through Thailand, Hong Kong and finally reached the recently renamed Bangalore under an alias.
Alerted by the Interpol, David T Hopper, the American Consul situated 60 km away in the southern metropolis had tipped off Raj's boss – Director General of Police D Mukherjee who had wanted Horowitz delivered trussed like a turkey, pronto.
Annamalai, one of the assistants of Raj was going through the telephone records of the lodge to figure out as to who had tipped off Horowitz about the raiding party. The Jewish Rabbi had attempted to give the cops the slip, but the seaside resort (a favourite haunt for culture vultures – both local and foreign – mainly for its frescoes) of Mahabalipuram had been rendered "inescapable" by Raj's posse. The brief attempt to escape in a three-wheeler had ended unceremoniously when a stern and alert head constable had spotted him a day ago. Raj had done the rest of the honours.
Horowitz had given himself up without a struggle. The rains had played their role. The child abuser wouldn't have boarded a three-wheeler had it not been for the downpour and could have escaped as a nondescript foreign tourist by boarding a bus.
Raj finally noticed an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel's – an upmarket variety of Bourbon. He leaned out of the window and looked at the rains again. He decided that the bottle would do him some good as the rest of the evidence materials were being tagged.
Back in Chennai, media personality Radhika Sarat Kumar – was having a story session in her office situated in the southern part of the city. Her commercial godfather, DMK President and state Chief Minister Karunanidhi had said the other day that he wanted something "earthy" for the new television channel (owned by Sri Lankan expatriate businessman Rajendran) to be named after the octogenarian leader.
Radhika looked at the rain drumming up a tune on the eaves of her office. She told her writers that the new soap opera ought to be centred on the moisture that came down from the heavens.
Even as her creative team told Radhika in a chorus that they would do it, she smiled to herself at the irony of it all. She had emplaned to India around the same time as Rajendran from Sri Lanka to begin a career in show business nearly two and a half decades ago. True, for sometime, one of the companies owned by Rajendran had misused her proprietary movie software sold to them for being distributed as video cassettes (and CDs) and shown them in their channels. But that was water under the bridge.
Now Radhika would have the best of as many worlds she wanted. Her top programmes with high TRP value would still be shown on Sun TV and yet she would have a commanding position in its rival channel – all because of a man she called her father – Kalaingar. That he happened to be a friend of her demised real life father MR Radha was incidental. On the other hand, her brother MR Radha Ravi – was in the opposite political camp – as an MLA of the AIADMK. She had the best of the three worlds in one go.
Not far away from where Radhika was positioned was a man called Prem Kumar, till recently a Superintendent of Police. Despite the fact that several cases of misconduct were pending against him, the former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had given him the high profile case of Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati.
Kumar had arrested Saraswati on a rainy Diwali night in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh three years ago. The popular press was virtually eating out of his hand then. But now, Kumar was all alone. The Madras High Court upheld the petition filed by an ex-serviceman from Madurai for maltreatment and torture and sacked Kumar.
Kumar had packed his bag to leave for New Delhi – to file his appeal in the Supreme Court. His man-Friday – a constable still in service gave him the plastic wrapped file containing Kumar's appeal triggering a questioning glance.
"The papers shouldn't get wet sir. You see the rains spare nobody," the aide said as Kumar began his trudge towards his waiting hired vehicle to take him to the airport. He only hoped that the rain wouldn't delay his flight.
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