Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup

Author:Vikas Swarup [Vikas Swarup]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781407040257
Publisher: Transworld

12

The Curse of the Onkobowkwe

THE TRIBAL from Little Andaman sat on tram number thirty plying between Kalighat and Howrah Bridge and felt the breeze caress his face.

It was nine thirty a.m. on 19 October. The air was pleasantly warm, the early-morning smog had lifted and the sky was without a cloud – a seamless expanse of blue broken only by the jagged pinnacles of the high-rises. The tepid sunlight tickled Eketi's skin.

He inhaled the heavy, acrid smell of the city, spread his arms wide, threw back his head and revelled in the dazzling delight of being alive. As if on cue, two grey pigeons fluttered over his head in synchronized unison, sharing in the day's jubilation. He was in Esplanade, the teeming heart of the metropolis, and everywhere he looked he saw people and more people. Children pointed at him excitedly, men simply gawked, and women drew their breath sharply and covered their mouths with their hands; he smiled and waved at them. All around the tram was a vortex of traffic – cars, taxis, rickshaws, scooters, cycles. Horns blared, honked, buzzed and screeched. Swarms of battered private buses hurtled along the road, with uniformed conductors hanging out from the side shouting destinations at the top of their voices. Garish advertisements for toothpaste and shampoo screamed for attention from huge billboards. The tall decadent buildings on either side of the road loomed like a range of ancient hills. Eketi felt as if he was floating through a magnificent dream.

It was just over a fortnight since that fateful day when he had volunteered to recover the sacred rock stolen by Banerjee. The Elders had been taken by surprise by Ashok Rajput, the junior welfare officer, who had eavesdropped on their deliberations. They had been even more surprised by his willingness to take Eketi to India by ship and help recover the ingetayi. Under duress, they had grudgingly accepted his offer. Not only had he discovered their plans, he was the only one who knew Banerjee's address. But they had cautioned Eketi to be wary of him. The welfare officer was to be used to reach the sacred rock and then discarded like a pesky fly.

The preparations for the trip had taken more than a week. Ashok had to obtain leave from the Welfare Department. And Nokai, the medicine man, took his time putting together Eketi's 'survival kit' – tubers and strips of dried boar for eating, medicinal pellets for healing, lumps of red and white clay for body-painting, a pouch of pig fat for mixing the clay, and the pièce de résistance, the chauga-ta, a charm to ward off disease, made of the bones of the great Tomiti himself. Eketi had hidden all these in a black canvas bag – a fake Adidas he had picked up from Hut Bay – and covered them up with a few old clothes. Following a night of feasting and festivity, he had received a hero's send-off. The next day he had left Little Andaman with Ashok for Port Blair in a government speedboat.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.