The Neighbour: There is a killer in your midst....but he does not know it

By Rahul Phondke

"I could not put this book down" - Tuhin Parikh, (friend of the Authors who has Tennis elbow)

"An absolutely hilarious book" - The New York Times newsagent.

"It had me on the edge of the seat...(sigh) it's time I buy a new seat" - A random individual

Karan and Gautam are two friends sharing an apartment and a chalk and cheese relationship. Things start taking a strange turn when their new neighbour's strange habits raise eyebrows, temperatures and curiosity levels. Is their new neighbour really someone whom he claims to be? Why is he never seen? Who are the "Made in China" Al Capones who visit him? Does he have a past he needs to hide? As Karan and Gautam plunge further into the search along with Priya, the plot thickens with more twists and turns than a Rubik's cube and heads towards an amazing climax.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notion Press
• Release date: Apr 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9789384878108

Book preview

The Neighbour

There is a killer in your midst....but he doesn't know it

Rahul Phondke

Notion Press

5 Muthu Kalathy Street, Triplicane,

Chennai - 600 005

First Published by Notion Press 2015

Copyright © Rahul Phondke 2015

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 978-93-84878-10-8

This book has been published in good faith that the work of the author is original. All efforts have been taken to make the material error-free. However, the author and the publisher disclaim the responsibility.

No part of this book may be used, reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Dedicated to the 2 ladies in my life,

my darling wife Tanuja and daughter Sara

PREFACE

Dear Reader,

Many readers of my Funnybone column might wonder, what possessed me to write a book. After all, a pinch hitter is not a grafter, a sprinter does not run marathons and an Arnab Goswami does not whisper.

Over the years, many readers of different dispositions of the Funnybone column had urged me to try out the longer format (Hey Rahul, we urge you to try the longer format were their exact words.) At the same time, online publishing gained in adoption till it pretty much became the Viagra of authors with performance anxiety.

I had originally thought about doing a humour fiction novel in 2005 but if mere thoughts could have resulted in happy outcomes, mankind could have got rid of famines, social inequity and Arnab Goswami. I finally got down to doing it in 2013. It required a lot of efforts, focus, hard work and beer. Actually, on second thoughts, it was mostly beer.

I would also like to make it clear that I did not write this book to question the existence of God or the meaning of life. In order to do that, you need a long beard, an unpronounceable Russian last name and a perverse obsession to make lives of several high school students miserable, by asking them to write critical analyses of your books. This book was written with a simple mission of entertainment not of education, to go for the gut and not for the glory and to go for the feel and not for the thought.

I would like to thank the efforts of Tuhin Parikh, Niranjan Limaye and Nirmal Palaparthi for reading through the manuscript without burning it midway and the tireless efforts of the amazing Vivek Kulkarni, who produced the brilliant cover design.

If the readers enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it, then do let me know at [e-mail], because I believe someone has said, The nation wants to know

Happy Reading

Rahul

PROLOGUE

Babloo Hatoda sat at the cornermost table of the dhaba. Panting heavily, he was trying to put on a casual front but was not really succeeding, on account of the perspiration. Sweat was still dribbling down his temples and his back, although the dry, cold December night was making it disappear reasonably fast. His trousers also bore numerous marks, stains and scratches. Dressed in khaki trousers, that were too short for his tall frame, he was sitting in the dark corner of Appa’s Speshul Restorent off the Nasik – Pune highway. He hoped Appa’s cooking was better than his English. It was one of those highway establishments, which claimed to serve Punjabi, Chinese and Malvani cuisines, but by the same chef. Babloo was, at that moment, looking down at the menu scribbled on the wall in a blue chalk, which amongst other things, boasted a Nudel Samosa.

Still heaving, he brought the glass of the hot tea close and held the issue of the The Times of India closer. This made less of him visible. His associates had taken off in independent directions already. He would not hear from them for an indefinite period. Those were his instructions. He unfolded the newspaper. The headlines were of match fixing scandals in cricket, the involvement of leading South African cricketers and the extent of money that was being bet in the underground bookie markets. On the same page, were also headlines about the Kargil coffin scandal. Babloo wondered why there was no attention on any of these crimes.

He sighed and breathed in deeply the cold night air. That seemed to fill him up with hope. He peered over the top edge of the newspaper and stiffened as 2 people in plain city clothes approached the eponymous Appa Pradhan. Appa was sitting behind the till. Bundled up in shawls, headcaps and sweaters, he looked like a pumped up sheep, which had spent larger part of its childhood in buffet restaurants. The two picked up a pack of cigarettes from behind Appa and chatted him up. Babloo recognized them as government officials alright. Their plain clothes did not really fool anyone. There was a distinct but somewhat amorphous sarkari patina that crawled all over oneself, once someone spent more than 3 years in public service. After what seemed an eternity, they got back on their two wheelers and left in the direction of Pune without paying for the cigarettes. Babloo exhaled. He could not stay here for long.

In the distance, he could hear the infrequent wail of police vehicles. He could catch his breath a bit easily now but could not afford to relax. The shirt had stopped sticking to his back. He looked around him. The people around him were not giving him any special attention. Perhaps, he was imagining things. He gulped up his tea and reached into his pocket to take out the money, which was passed to him. He recounted it. The idiots had managed only five thousand rupees, instead of the fifty thousand, which he had requested. He had to be careful about the money, atleast for some time. He put a fiver under his cup of masala chai and got up.

The Ranjewadi char rasta was about half a kilometer away in the direction of Nasik. He lit his cigarette and started walking towards it. There was no other person walking down, although there was the occasional flow of vehicular traffic. He had to decide about his next steps, his next days and life in general. Several thoughts were crowding together in his mind, pushing each other over. He could not afford to surface anytime soon. He also had to stay away from his associates as well. He did not really trust any one of them. It must have been one of them, who must have squealed to the Police. He quickened his pace. He realized that it also kept him warm. He found himself turning his head away as vehicles passed him on the road.

He paused, as the increased hubbub of the traffic announced the arrival of the char rasta. He had reached an important juncture. He threw the cigarette down, which still had 2-3 good puffs left in it and stamped it out. Babloo looked around and sighed. He had to choose a path. He had to run. Babloo chose and he ran.

Contents

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

Prologue

1. How it All Began

2. How it All Continued

3. The New Kid on the Block

4. Doctor ..Doctor

5. The Wheel’s in Turn

6. The Female of the Species

7. Here Comes the Hammer

8. An Accidental Meeting

9. There’s Something Strange in the Neighbourhood

10. Enemy at 12 o’clock

11. The Sighting

12. The Warning

13. Eggs …Fried Please

14. The Beginning of the End

15. The End

16. The End…No really, this time we mean it

Epilogue

1

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

At first glance, the casual observer could have been forgiven for overlooking Rose Apartments and being completely unaware of its presence. A once pretty building, which stood bravely with the fortitude of an over the hill movie star in a neighbourhood of redeveloped starlets. It was pretty much an unremarkable building, not too different from its residents.

You had Mr D’Souza on the first floor. A retired Air India pilot who had recently entered widowhood. When not smoking his pipe, he indulged in his favourite hobby of screaming his head off at the cricket playing squads, who used Rose Apartments’ s lawn patch as an improvised cricket ground. There was Mr Keskar on the fourth floor, who along with his wife and dog, were patiently hanging around for a building developer to come around and make an offer. Mr Ajwani, on the 5th floor, had retired from the directorship of National Institute of Virology and gone on the path of spiritualism, of which he never forgot to remind his IIT graduate son, whenever he flew back from the US. The building was mostly occupied by widows, aged couples, elderly spinsters or singles. Ofcourse, there were the mandatory few vacant flats, which were locked out by émigré owners, whose last memory of Mumbai from the early 90s, was one that of recalcitrant tenants, who ended up becoming the owners by force. In short, no outlandish owners or loutish tenants … something you could not say of Mumbai.

It was in this Rose Apartments on the 2nd floor, Gautam Gokhale was living in and living a life even more ordinary than what Amol Palekar’s characters lived.

Gautam’s life was pretty much in character with the character of Rose apartments. Grey, stable and uninteresting. He stayed at 02-01 Rose apartments, one of the 2 flats on the floor. His flat was spacious by Mumbai standards but by most POW camp standards, was just unacceptably cramped.

His room was gracious enough to permit the presence of a single bed. A cupboard stood on the side against the opposite wall. When opened, the doors came perilously close to the bed’s toe end. Somehow, Gautam had managed to squeeze in a table and a chair next to his bed, where he often worked on his laptop, when at home. One door led to a small balcony, another disappearing structural feature, which was all too common in the Mumbai constructions of the 1970s. Another door led to the corridor.

A short corridor outside led to the main door. It was a walk that could be accomplished in a stride, if you were 16 feet tall, and may be 4 strides if you were 5 feet. A Cozy 2 bedroom apartment with a nice view and adequate storage space was what he remembered, the broker’s web ad said. Mumbai did not give you much coziness in 700 sq feet. 2 tiny bedrooms, a smallish living room plus a doghouse of a kitchen basically made up the apartment. In enough places, the paint was peeling off under repeated hammering of the Mumbai rains. The balcony, as all respectable Mumbai flats are, was enclosed with a cast iron grill, so as to extend the living room space. The grill played host to some money plants which Gautam watered and Karan drowned in smoke. The adequate storage space was taken by a storage loft tank which was old enough to be carbon dated to ascertain its age. As a result, bulk of the stuff (including Karan’s suitcases) had ended up under Gautam’s bed as his roommate preferred sleeping on the floor.

It was in this Universe in a can city called Mumbai, Gautam Gokhale was getting by on his days. Today was no different.

BEEP….BEEP…..BEEP ….5:45 AM, blinked the digital Phillips Alarm radio that was the hot thing to own in 1988…… except that now it was 2015.

Saale, meri aaji ne diya hain, was Gautam’s defense. The reality was, after making a great many calculations, Gautam realized, that the money looked best in his savings bank account rather than having a decent modern bed time clock. The same calculations also showed him, that ironing your own clothes was better than giving them to Arvind Dhobi. All and all, he was quite the calculating man but not the sort you would think. The only role that his nani had played in the presence of that alarm radio was, that she had given that in dowry to Gautam’s mother.

A leaden, probing left hand tried to reach for the snooze button, while in an alternate universe, Gautam Gokhale tried feverishly to hold on to his rapidly fading Brazilian bikini babe, who was dissipating into a white fog taking her top off. Luckily the alarm stopped ringing on its own and Gautam focused on things Brazilian. He had nearly convinced her in taking a solid form, when the alarm went off again,

"BEEP…BEEP….BEEP…..Abe chutiye, alarm band kar saale"...followed by the unmistakable sound, of a sports sneaker introducing itself to the door of Gautam’s room with a speed normally associated with space satellites.

That would have to be the standard 5:50 alarm sponsored by Karan Khanduja …. Gautam’s flat mate. Karan believed, that there was no problem in the world that could not be solved, if people would only bother to use the appropriate decibel level of addressing, instead of proper punctuation.

After agreeing to meet his dream lady the next morning, Gautam woke up rubbing his eyes and fumbled his way to the alarm clock, to switch it off. Originally, he was to keep it on a table, which was to be out of reach from his bed so that he was forced to get up and walk to it, to switch it off. This was his Aai’s advice. His Pune bred Aai probably had not considered the average size of a 25 year old working bachelor’s Mumbai flat, which normally would be so tiny that even bacteria would have had to squeeze in sideways to find their way in. Well, atleast that’s how Sejal Parikh, their 55 year old landlady used to get in. If Gautam really had to keep his clock out of reach, he would have had to keep it in Karan’s room, which would have been great as that would have woken up Karan first, and then the neighbourhood.

Dragging in the issue of The Economic Times (He insisted on subscribing to it from the common household expense account after promising Karan that he could have 2 packs of Gold Flake in return. Karan, as a matter of discipline, did not subscribe to any publication, which did not value nude models as a part of the editorial content),

Gautam scanned through the news, while his kettle of water slowly made its way to boiling point on the cooking range. He had the remarkable ability to devour mountains of business news text without really understanding a thing. As a self-taught investor and financial analyst, Gautam had the uncanny knack to make the correct calls on stocks, which he never bought.

Statements like, I told you, you should have bought CIPLA at 400 and NTPC at 350. You would have made 140 % ROI etc were dished out regularly to Karan. Karan obviously understood his flat mate too well to know, that Gogo (that was the compromised nickname accepted by Gautam after reacting vehemently and violently, in that order to the first 2 suggestions of Supandi and Goo- khaa–le) must not have invested even a paisa of his own ICICI bank account in to these scrips. Although Gogo could talk a good investment, he could never really make the macho leap of faith to super investordom and remained an investing eunuch. His trading account which he had opened with great gusto and even donned a suit to impress the ICICIDirect officer, was as active as a hibernating sloth bear.

Having finished off the paper and his tea, he embarked on his morning jog. This was achieved by walking in parts, to avoid the mongrels having chase him. He entered the gates of Rose Apartments past the drunk (or possibly dead…or both) form of Lingam, the watchman, into his 2nd floor apartment. After having had a quick bath and ironed his shirt, he clambered down to catch the bus to Bandra station. That’s how Gogo’s day usually began …as did the months and the years

TAA….TAAA….TAAA...TATYATATAAAAN, the strains of Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple filled up 02-01 Rose Apartments. That would have to be the morning alarm for Karan Khanduja. Not a regular alarm… mind you, but his mobile ring tone. It would have to be one of his work colleagues calling in, to make sure that Karan had completed his assignment that was due to be presented to the client. That would be typically half an hour before the Monday morning meetings. This time slot in Karan’s life, was already taken up by the task of drawing maps on his pillows with his drool. After his phone registered the mandatory missed call, a leaden hand groped around and answered the second call,

Karan, this is Manjit here. Where the fuck, are you man? The meeting starts off in 30 minutes and I need your storyboard presentation.

Manjit Tandon, Karan’s boss, who headed the creative team at Tantalus Media, had the remarkable gift of sounding urgent and important in everything he did or said. This was his way of compensating for ignorance. Like all guys who occupy top posts laterally, instead of growing through the ranks, Manjit too combined ignorance and power in a deadly mix.However, being the son of one of the two shareholders, (Sarbjit Tandon and Subrajit Talukdar were the dynamic duo who started the firm in the good old friends days and now passionately suspected each other of everything) automatically helped lend importance to whatever he said. Although only 5 years elder to Karan, he was way more senior in his ignorance about his job. Manjit Tandon had the special talent that comes automatically to the only sons of all Indian business patriarchs. A talent bordering on the near genius like gift, to turn all business proposals he touched, into a yellow organic solid. A veritable King Midas in reverse.

Relying on Karan irritated Manjit in no small measure. He however was a Tandon, small measures were never meant for him. Manjit’s hoarse voice nudged Karan out of his sleep. There was no denying that the Monday morning meetings were in fact important. A fact that could be ascertained by Karan, who was already half way into his trousers, even before he began replying

Manjit man, I am almost there. In fact I am just a traffic light away and replaced the full stop by zipping up his trousers.

KARAN, you fucking idiot, don’t try those stupid things with me. I can hear a TV set in the background. You better be here in 30 minutes with the presentation or else you don’t need to come in from tomorrow

"Maan (this was short for Manjit and commonly used by Karan to get out of trouble on bad days, which by definition was, any day of the week spelt with a vowel in it), main aaa rahaan hoon yaar. Have I ever let you down?", replied Karan, partly distracted by trying to look around to lock down the TV set which Manjit could apparently hear. There was none.

Let’s not go there. Karan, if you screw up today I will see to it that there is not a single fucking ad company in Mumbai which will take you in

"Don’t worry Maan. Chill, I will be there so fast