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back, when Swami was posted to Mullaipuram. Murugesan had shown Swami the ropes. It has to be said that those ropes, in those days, were not the cleanest ropes around,
and since then they have only got grubbier. The policemen of Mullaipuram are not consistently renowned for being entirely incorruptible in all circumstances. For example, whenever there is a
crackdown on a vice den in Mullaipuram, the police and the gangsters negotiate in advance as to how many paid volunteers should be arrested during the raid, thus keeping the newspapers happy with
photogenic crime-busting operations, whilst safeguarding the kickbacks that flow from the den, through several tiers of the IPS’s finest, all the way up to the wife of the District Super, who
has expensive tastes in European crockery. Even so, amongst this formidable legion of law-enforcers, Murugesan and Swami have always prided themselves on being slightly less corrupt than some of
the others.
    It is these superior ethical values that are informing Murugesan’s expression today, as he walks through Mullaipuram’s early-morning streets to visit Swami. The gaze above his hairy
outcrop has a slightly harassed aspect; the violent demise of a white man in a small South Indian town was always going to spell trouble for those unfortunate personnel assigned to the case, and
Murugesan is feeling anxious because he is one of the investigating officers.
    Forces and pressures far above Murugesan’s sphere of control are pushing and pulling at the case. Aware of the potential damage to tourism that could spread across the entire state of
Tamil Nadu, various regional government agencies are overtly anxious to see the case concluded as quickly and as tidily as possible; it is known that the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu is hopping mad
and advocating a speedy low-profile resolution; and as for DDR – Doraisamy Devanamapettai Rajendran, the filthy-rich domineering Mr Mullaipuram of this town, who is also a State Legislature
political hopeful and an influential member of Mullaipuram District Police Board of Governors and the owner of five hotels and a score of other businesses, including Hotel Ambuli from which the
unfortunate white man is suspected to have fallen… well, he’s got half the town in his pocket. He’s already been telling Murugesan’s superiors that nothing could be worse
for the prosperity of Mullaipuram, nothing could be more detrimental to the operation of natural justice, nothing could be more contrary to the principles of effective police investigation,
“than if that bouncing white man is found to have been killed in
my hotel!
” In brief, anyone with a sliver of common sense is agreed that this case is a clear instance of
suicide by an unidentifiable foreign drifter of low worth and no importance.
    But when did common sense hold unfettered sway over one second of time or one atom of matter? Several western consulates, anxious to know from where the victim hails, have been urging the Indian
authorities to investigate the nationality and identity of the dead man; central government officials in Delhi, under pressure from a concerned American Embassy, are also dissatisfied with the
response of the authorities in Tamil Nadu. So pressed this way and that way to do one thing or another thing, Murugesan’s bosses are trying to find responses which seem proactive and useful
while being the opposite. This is why it has been decided, at the highest levels of political futility, that Swami will be taken by Murugesan to a Madurai morgue, to confirm formally that the body
currently lying there is the same one that fell on him a week earlier.
    Murugesan turns into Swami’s street, and starts thinking about Amma’s breakfast idlis, which are famous.
    * * *
    Jodhi, Kamala and Pushpa are standing outside the toilet waiting for Appa to come out. Kamala has a bar of soap, Jodhi holds a jug of water, and Pushpa bears a small towel. They
wait in a row, talking in