'It is unnecessary therefore', the article continued, 'to seek to blame Murugan's well-wishers at LifeWatch for the sad events of August 1995: it would be more appropriate to join them in grieving for the loss of an irreplaceable friend.'

Chapter 8

THE TORRENTIAL downpour had now thinned to a gentle drizzle. Murugan made his way quickly out of the premises of Rabindra Sadan, to the traffic-clogged edge of Lower Circular Road. Ignoring the beleaguered policeman on the traffic island, he stepped straight into the flow and marched right through, holding up a hand to ward off the oncoming cars and buses, apparently oblivious to their screeching brakes and blaring horns.

The pavement on the other side was jammed with pedestrians. Murugan was almost swept off his feet by the onrush of people heading towards Harish Mukherjee Road and P. G. Hospital. No sooner had he managed to fall in step with the crowd than he heard a voice calling out to him. He came to a sudden halt only to find himself pushed ahead by the relentless flow of pedestrians.

He threw a quick glance over his shoulder as he was propelled forward. He heard the shout again: 'Hey, mister, where you going?' Sure enough, bobbing up and down in the torrent of people behind him was the head of a gaptoothed, emaciated boy – a tout of some indeterminate kind, who had accosted him earlier in the day, right outside his guest house.

Murugan quickened his pace and the boy shouted again, at the top of his voice: 'Wait, mister; where you are going?' He was wearing a discoloured T-shirt with a print of a palm-fringed sea and the words pattaya beach. Murugan was dismayed to see him again, so close behind: it had taken him the better part of an hour to shake him off earlier.

Murugan fought his way to the wall that flanked the pavement, and waited for the boy to catch up. 'Listen, friend,' he said, first in his half-remembered Bengali and then in Hindi. 'Stop walking behind me: you're not going to get anything out of me.'

The boy bared his teeth in a smile. 'Change dollar?' he said. 'Good rate.'

Murugan exploded. 'Don't you get it?' he shouted. 'How many ways do you want me to say it: no, na, nahin, nyet, nothing, nix. I don't want to change dollars, and if I did you'd be the last person on the planet I'd go to.'

Reaching into his pocket he pushed a handful of coins into the boy's hand. 'That's all you're going to get from me,' he said. 'So take it and shove off.'

He ducked quickly back into the crowd, leaving the boy staring at a palmful of coins. He was at the corner of Harish Mukherjee Road now. Ducking down, Murugan turned the corner and pushed himself flat against the wall. Hidden by the fast-moving crowd, he watched his pursuer running off in the other direction; he saw him looking around, scanning the street. Then the boy broke away and plunged straight into the traffic, racing towards the Victoria Memorial, in the distance.

'And good night to you too,' Murugan said, stepping back into the crowd.

The crowd thinned out after the corner. The red-brick buildings of P. G. Hospital were on his left, well behind the shoulder-high perimeter wall and the narrow ditch that ran along it. He slowed his pace, watching the wall for the memorial arch.

Then suddenly there it was, across the ditch, momentarily spotlighted by the headlights of a passing truck: an arch framing a rusted iron gate. At the apex was a medallion, with Ronald Ross's bearded head in profile. Under it, to the right, was an inscription: In the small laboratory seventy yards to the southeast of this gate Surgeon-Major Ronald Ross I.M.S. in 1898 discovered the manner in which malaria is conveyed by mosquitoes. On the left, carved in marble, were three verses of Ross's poem, 'In Exile'.

Murugan ran his eyes over the familiar lines:

This day relenting God

Hath placed within my hand

A wondrous thing; and God

Be praised. At His command,

Seeking His secret deeds

With tears and toiling breath,

I find thy cunning seeds,

O million-murdering Death.

I know this little thing

A myriad men will save.

O death where is thy sting?

Thy victory O grave?

Ronald Ross

Murugan began to laugh. Turning around he spread his arms out and began to declaim, from the same poem, in a deep, gleefully stentorian voice:

'Half stunned I look around

And see a land of death

Dead bones that walk the ground

And dead bones underneath;

A race of wretches caught,

Between the palms of need

And rubbed to utter naught,

The chaff of human seed.'

He was stopped by the sound of hand-claps from the other side of the wide street. 'Very good, mister,' a voice called out.

Murugan dropped his arms and peered into the treeshaded darkness on the far side of the road. He caught a glimpse of a printed T-shirt and a grinning, gap-toothed face.

'Are you following me, chaff of human seed?' he shouted, cupping his hands. 'Why? Why, what's in it for you?'

The boy replied with a wave and darted into the traffic. Murugan spotted a truck rumbling towards him, from the direction of the Race Course. He waited until the truck drew alongside, blocking him from the boy's view. Then he turned, pulled himself over the wall and dropped down on the far side of the arch.

His feet landed in something soft and yielding. At first he thought it was mud; he could feel the dampness soaking through the soft leather of his new loafers. A moment later the smell hit him. 'Shit,' he said, under his breath, looking around.

He was in a narrow, overgrown stretch of wasteland at the back of the hospital's main buildings'. Facing him were a few nondescript outhouses and a small cement structure that housed a water-pump. In the reflected light from the hospital's wards, towering above, Murugan could see a pack of dogs scavenging in an open refuse dump close by. Shading his eyes he peered into the shadows: there was no one in sight except for an old man, squatting against the wall, some distance away, washing his buttocks. Heaps of broken masonry lay in front of him. Scattered among them were neat piles of turds, ashen in the reflected light of the neon street lamps.

Murugan clamped a hand over his nose and flattened himself against the wall. He heard footsteps approaching at a run, on the other side; they stopped, receded, came back again. He heard the boy muttering to himself then walking off, in a hurry.

Breathing again Murugan began to move sideways, bracing himself against the wall with his open hands. Pushing along the wall, his left hand chanced upon the rim of an opening in the rough brick surface. Murugan leaned over to take a look and discovered that the opening was actually a little alcove: or rather, a gap where a few bricks had been removed from the back of the memorial arch.

He thrust his hand gingerly inside. It brushed against something; a small object. His fingers closed on it and he pulled it out. It was a little clay figurine.

Murugan held the figurine out at arm's length, into the dim glow of the distant street lamp. The figure was made of painted clay, and it was small enough to fit quite easily into the palm of his hand. It reminded him of the little images of gods his mother had carried with her on their travels.

The central part of the figurine was a simple, semicircular mound, crudely modelled and featureless except for two large stylized eyes, painted in stark blacks and whites, on the baked clay. They gave Murugan a momentary start; they appeared luminous in the dim neon glow, staring directly up at him, out of his open palm. They seemed to fix upon his eyes, holding his gaze; he had to blink before he could look away.