An Invitation to Die by Tanushree Podder

Author:Tanushree Podder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: Harper Black
Published: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

16

It was a calm morning. The storm that raged through the town died a little after midnight, and the rain stopped pelting the ground. Mist rose from the valley and swathed the mountains. The best time to catch the mountains at their best was early in the morning. Wrapped in a thick woollen coat, the hood covering his head, the colonel set out for his morning walk. This was his favourite time of the day when, undisturbed, he could ruminate on the issues that bothered him.

The eagle-headed walking stick in hand, he soldiered along the long and snaking Ridge Road that led towards the top of the hill. On a good day, he covered three bends that tallied to 3 kilometres each way. With Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata tantalizing his ears, Acharya strode bravely up the incline, pausing briefly at the second bend. He gazed at the dense pine forests that flanked the road and took a deep breath of the pine-scented breeze. For the umpteenth time, he patted himself on the back for having chosen Ramsar as his post-retirement haven.

Untouched by tourists, grime and greed, it was a utopian place. Dotted with red-roofed bungalows, snaking roads, pine forests interspersed with blazing rhododendron blooms, and with a sweeping view of the magnificent mountains in the north, the town was a dreamer’s delight. Not that he was a dreamer.

The colonel walked leisurely down the steep road, invigorated and eager to face the day. With each stride, he could feel the cobwebs that had clouded his brain disappearing bit by bit. By the end of the walk, as he rounded the last bend, he had decided to share a cup of tea with Laxmi Badola.

The woman had barged into the police station to share some information, but the police had been too busy to give her a patient hearing. Acharya was aware of Laxmi’s reputation. He knew that the lonely woman was in the habit of blowing minor incidents into major events, so no one took her seriously.

Led by his intuition, he decided to hear what the woman wanted to share with the police. He had heard snatches of her argument with the constable, and gathered that she had spotted an unsavoury character at the bus stand. The man’s portrayal could be exaggerated, but she couldn’t have conjured the person from thin air. The woman must have seen such a person, he was sure.

Attention to minor snippets often paved the way to a bigger picture, the colonel believed.

Although he had wandered through Pinewood Street a couple of times, he was not fully familiar with the houses on either side of the street. Now, as he ambled past the houses, looking for Laxmi Badola’s residence, Acharya noted the houses on both sides of the quiet street. He knew the woman lived across Negi Mansion. Armed with that knowledge, he began looking for the specific building.

Ten minutes later, he was standing before a single-storeyed brick house opposite Negi Mansion. It was a modest house constructed by Laxmi’s husband on a patch of land inherited from his parents.

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