An Order from the Sky and Other Stories by Imayam

Author:Imayam
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: Harper Perennial India
Published: 2023-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Missing Persons

WALKING TOWARDS THE BUS TERMINUS, Kolanjinaathan spotted a bus. It seemed to be waiting just for him and ready to start. Reaching it quickly, he climbed in. There was not much of a crowd inside. ‘One ticket to Kadalur,’ he told the conductor, took out the money, paid it and got the ticket. He was just in time – the bus set off within a few minutes of his getting in. A lucky omen, he thought. ‘This thing I’m going for – it’ll all work out fine.’

‘Come today at two o’clock to the wedding hall behind the Kadalur Police Superintendent’s office.’ That was the instruction he had received on the phone from the Karuveppilai-kurichi police station.

‘Any news about my father?’ he had asked straight off.

‘Come to Kadalur, ’nga, let’s talk then,’ the constable had replied. He seemed to have no inkling of Kolanjinaathan’s agitated state.

‘Please tell me, saar?’ he pleaded.

‘You have to go to Kadalur first. Then you will know. Your ID proof, the ID proof of the missing person – you have to bring all that. And exactly at 2 p.m., you have to be present,’ the constable warned, before he put the phone down.

It made Kolanjinaathan very angry. ‘Why are they telling me to go to Kadalur instead of Karuveppilai-kurichi? Have they found out something about my father Kaliyamurthi, who’s been missing? Is he alive? Where is he?’ His mind throbbed with the questions he longed, and at the same time feared, to ask. What if they said, ‘You have been told whatever there is to tell. Then why are you phoning?’ All he wanted to know was if Kaliyamurthi was alive. That would calm him down … Let them scold and curse him if they wished, he resolved.

No one picked up the phone. He dialled once more, and again no one answered. ‘Can’t they say just one word – that he’s alive? What do they lose by it? Arrogance – because they’re police!’ he fumed.

Right after the constable’s phone call, it became impossible any more for Kolanjinaathan to sit or stand in any one place. Over and over again he walked to the doorway and back into the house. Inside, he went round and round in circles. When Sumati said, ‘Calm down, ’nga,’ he vented his blazing rage upon her. ‘Time … time … What’s the time?’ he kept muttering and peering at his watch. He wanted to leave for Kadalur at once … What should he do? With whom was he to share this matter? In an agony of bewilderment, he finally rang up his elder sister Parvathi and told her that the constable had instructed him to turn up at Kadalur.

‘I’ll come too,’ Parvathi said.

‘What this will turn out to be, one way or another, I don’t know. Police haven’t broken the news so far, whatever it is. I’ll go find out and tell you. No need for you to run around,’ he told her, and hastily put the phone down as though he had to get back to some urgent task.

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