The Case of the Love Commandos Read Online Free PDF Page A

situation is a grave one. A young man’s life hangs in the balance.”
    She could tell that he was speaking the truth. Chubby might have lied consistently about his calorie consumption, but he never exaggerated about the nature of his work.
    “Such a pity,” she said. “I can’t remember the last time we got away. I was hoping we’d perform the darshan together. At least promise me you’ll take a few days once it is all over.”
    The train gave a jolt.
    “Absolutely, my dear,” he called back to her as he started back down the aisle. “I’ve been invited to lecture at Pune, actually.”
    “No, Chubby! None of your conferences! I want to go to Singapore or some such place.”
    “Yes, my dear!”
    Puri soon found his way blocked by a man coming in the opposite direction. The stranger was his girth twin. Neither of them could pass without the other backing up.
    “I would be alighting the train,” explained the detective, who could feel it moving.
    But the man didn’t give ground; instead, he turned side-on and the detective was left with no choice but to do the same.
    The two men’s stomachs pressed together like a couple of beach balls. For a moment, Puri felt like he was going to get stuck.
    “Seems we’re both expecting!” joked the stranger, whose breath reeked of garlic.
    Puri responded with an awkward, perfunctory smile and then let out a loud yelp as his toes were crushed underfoot.
    “Was that your foot? Clumsy of me! So sorry!” apologized the stranger.
    Struggling free, the detective limped to the door and managed to step down onto the platform without causing himself further injury.
    “Bloody fool needs to go on a diet,” he muttered to himself as he watched the Jammu Express pull away.
    Rajnath, otherwise known by Puri as “Magician Ticket Wallah,” was waiting for the detective on Platform 3. Once again he’d achieved the miraculous at short notice and secured Puri a berth in a first-class, air-conditioned compartment on the next train to Lucknow.
    Puri didn’t ask how he’d done it and preferred not to know. He simply took the ticket, thrust it into his pocket and, having thanked Rajnath, sent him on his way. With some twenty minutes to spare before his train departed, the detective then headed to the platform dhaba and, as the coolie waited with his bag, ordered a couple of samosas and a cup of chai. What with the storm and the rush to see Rumpi off, this was the first opportunity he’d found to reflect on Facecream’s phone call.
    His Nepali operative had always been an enigma. Details about her past remained few and far between, even after years of unremitting service. But the revelation that she’d become involved with the so-called Love Commandos had come as a shock. Puri had read about the organization in the papers and considered it to be something of a joke. He also disapproved of its work. Love was all well and good, but when it came to marriage, the approval of elders wassacrosanct in his book. It was not just about a girl marrying a boy; on the day of her shaadi, a bride became a part of her husband’s family. If she hailed from another community or a totally different caste with a conflicting set of values and habits, what then?
    His own marriage had been arranged and it had worked because he and Rumpi shared similar backgrounds and their families had got along from the start.
    “Our mutual affection and devotion for one another grew over time rather than with so much groping in the back of a cinema hall,” he’d written recently in a letter on the subject of “premarital relations” to the honorable editor of the
Times of India
. “So much of hormones going unchecked are like genies out of the bottle.”
    Still, Facecream had never asked for his help before and he wasn’t about to turn her down. The details were these: A young male Dalit student called Ram had been abducted from the Love Commando safe house. His girlfriend’s father, a notorious Thakur by the