Baptism by Fire: Outdoor in Indore

By Saumya Chaki

Baptism by Fire is a collection of five investigative stories of an enterprising new-age detective duo – Samrat Sanyal and Aveek Gupta. Samrat is an ex-government sleuth turned private eye, while Aveek is cyber-security professional turned detective.
Set in different locales, our new age detective duo crack some complex and nerve-wracking cases. From being called upon to solve the disappearance of a labour leader in the tea gardens near Darjeeling to the mysterious death of a regular hiker in the Table Mountains of Cape Town, or searching for a missing island in the exotic Andaman and Nicobar, to investigating the murder of a management school student – they’ve done it all.
Outdoor in Indore is centered around a film unit shooting a documentary in the outskirts of Indore. An attempted murder brings the shooting to an untimely halt. The detective duo, along with Inspector Mathur, must make sense from the maze of incidents which includes a brush with the poppy mafia of the state.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Srishti Publishers
• Release date: Aug 9, 2018

Book preview

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Acknowledgements

Baptism by Fire is my debut into fiction. Writing is a journey that I embarked on in 2014, when I worked on my debut book A Journey Through 100 Years of Indian Cinema, a quiz book on the centenary journey of Indian Cinema.

I have been toying with the idea of writing fiction for some time and this is truly my ‘Baptism by Fire’. I would like to thank my friends who believed in my writing and encouraged me to write. My mother, sister and daughter have been a source of constant encouragement for me to venture into investigative fiction. They kept pushing me and I finally started to write the first story of this book ‘Darjeeling Days, Darjeeling Nights’ in the summer of 2016. Around 55,000 words later, and two years hence, is the finished product that has been a roller coaster ride.

Having read detective fiction from the likes of Sherlock Holmes to Miss Marple to our desi Feluda and Byomkesh, I felt there is a need for new-age sleuths who the younger generation can connect to. This is my humble effort to create a new-age detective duo of Samrat Sanyal and Aveek Gupta, who work tirelessly from the tea gardens of Darjeeling in Bengal to the windy cliffs of Devil’s Peak on the Table Mountains in Cape Town.

Writing is a creative process that requires a lot of freshness and energy and given my work and travel commitments, it has been a constant challenge to complete what I started two years back! The journey has been worth it as I have learned about myself and my writing in the process.

I would like to thank Arup Bose and the editorial team, including Stuti and Neha at Srishti Publishers & Distributors, for having faith in my writing and providing valuable feedback and suggestions. We are truly a team that brings Baptism by Fire to you, the reader. Last but not the least, I would like to thank my cover designer, Wasim Helal for producing a fascinating cover that reflects the pace and energy of the book.

Hope you enjoy the journey of reading this book. Trust me, there is more to come.

Saumya Chaki

July 2018

Introduction

He has a piercing glance and an elephant’s memory. If you saw him in a public place, he would stand out in a crowd. He was born as Samrat Sanyal. Standing at over six feet, his lean frame made him look taller. We studied Geology in college together (Presidency College, Kolkata) and became good friends. Little did we know what life had in store for us. Samrat was talented and excelled in college at both academics and sports. He was a natural leader, when it came to organising student activities or the annual excursions. What set him apart from an early age, was his voracious reading and keen sense of observation about almost everything around him.

Samrat joined the Central Bureau of Investigation after completing his master’s degree in Geology. I went to study computer applications as my master major. After completing my masters, I joined IT Security Consultants, a security consulting firm and moved to the US.

Ten years later we met at our annual alumni steamer party. We connected and promised to