The Murder

On Easter Day last year, most people (including me) in our town woke up to hear that Jayan had murdered a man. To begin with, it has to be said that many of us wasn't particularly shocked with the news. Maybe it was because we felt Jayan personified a man who would kill another man just for the sake of it.

"Jayan, he is as dark as the hair on my armpit" Johnson chettan, my nosy neighbour pointed out.

"He is a fucking Maoist" said Ravi chettan (owner, chef and waiter of 'Ravi's High Range Tea Shop') while he handed a glass of tea to Comrade Valsan.

Valsan, sipping his favorite morning tea and reading the report in Desabhimani stated the most obvious of all reasons, "He is a low caste scum!"

These conversations continued inside homes, between school benches, under bus waiting shelters and in toddy shops. Everyone who remotely knew Jayan seemed to have a very deep and thorough understanding of his motives - everyone was sure he did it and everyone was disappointed it took him so long to have blood on his hands.

Jayan was indeed considered by many as a person who was born with a desire to cause havoc. I have heard numerous fables of him which details his misadventures, his yearning to spend hours drinking locally brewed alcohol or toddy and his voyeur for violence at the smallest of stimuli. I must say that in our locale, most of us grew up knowing what Jayan was capable of. So it wasn't much of a surprise that this final piece was added to his jigsawed life. Yet some people like me, we thought this was just a beginning.

***

Weeks later, when Jayan was granted bail, he came to my home asking for money. Yes, I didn't give his full wage amidst the issue, but then I had no real intention to give money to a murderer. He would buy toddy and kill someone again, I presumed.

"Sir, I have my wife and daughter to feed. Do you want them to be prostitutes?" Jayan begged.

I wanted to let him know that if his daughter wants to be a prostitute, she can start with me. I had to control myself from spitting it out because that wasn't proper etiquette for a person owning land like me. So I refused his request saying that it wasn't my concern.

To be frank, I always thought of Jayan as a committed employee. When his co-workers took siestas, Jayan would cut weed (which was usually done by older womenfolk). When others would take eternities to finish food or tea during work hours, Jayan would get it over in minutes, he never spoke to his co-workers, he never laughed or joked about anything at all. It is funny how people like him were tailor-made for physical work but could never live a life of humanity. I used to think that it was because they were born low, survive that low and become low in the process, that it was their way of life.

***

Contractor Jaison came to me with Comrade Valsan a week after Jayan came begging. They sat on my new couch as if they were sitting on a bench in a park. They folded their dirty legs criss-cross so that both their calves can experience harmony when it sinks into cushion. I hated it. I mean, I would've done the same thing if it were an inexpensive couch in one of their homes, but mine was costly.

"You know Jaison sir, right?" Valsan asked.

"Tell me one businessman in this town who don't know him, Valsan chhetta" I smiled and shook Jaison's hand.

The conversation which followed mostly centered on Jaison's need to sell his tea estate near the border and leave our place for good.

"You see Anand" he said while changing his sitting position and thankfully dropping his legs from my couch "I am too busy taking up Government contracts that I have no time to look after that shit hole"

He laughed a little when he told 'shit hole' but seeing our lack of interest stopped and continued "Besides, I don't trust no fucker here, even my brother's son. So I have no option but to sell it. And Valsan here says you maybe interested."

I was in fact interested in the plot but knowing how these deals worked, I expressed how profitless it would be if I took it up. "Besides" I remembered "It is where that Jayan lives. It is where he killed your brother, the case will surely cause me problems."

Hearing this Jaison laughed again, "Jayan! That lowborn scumbag!" he shouted. "He is an idiot, an absolute idiot!"

Jaison put a small break in his speech, possibly for us to give our comment about the statement. But Valsan, me and surely the entire town was tired and no longer interested in the murder or in Jayan, so we didn't add anything.

Jaison continued eventually, "That asshole! He comes drunk to threaten my brother. He had the guts to say in front of our family that me and my brother were perverts, that we were troubling his wife and daughter! That fucker!" Nerves in his temples were now standing up.

"He is a weak guy though. And a fool!" he shouted "He called the police himself that night, saying he murdered my brother. The fool! Saying he killed because my brother tied him up and beat his daughter. I mean, if it was me, I would've hid the body and fled away!"

"So you think if I buy the estate the police or Jayan wouldn't be a trouble? Still too risky for me."

"Boy, you think Jayan will be out for long? He doesn't have money to fight the case, he will go back to where he belongs my friend." Jaison said with confidence.

"But then he did it in self-defence, he has an argument there. I don't want trouble if I'm to buy the estate."

"Dear friend" Jaison stood up from the couch, came up and sat on the teapoy in front of me to make his point careful and clear, "This case is not a problem" he said, now stressing on each word to make it sound perfect "We.. have.. money.., we.. have.. power.. and besides this fucker put a wooden stick in my brother's head for Christ's sake!"

"You may be right" I said "But I can take your estate only if you remove Jayan's family from the property and give me a 10% discount on market value"

Jaison shifted back towards the couch and thought for a long time. He smiled and said we have a deal.

***

Tomorrow is my first Easter in the new estate. And it is only obvious that I think about what happened here a year back. I look towards the partially destroyed outhouse which used to be Jayan's home. I see Contractor Jaison and his brother James coming in the dark, holding a wooden stick. I see Jayan trying to stop them in panic and getting beaten hard, repeatedly - on his torso, chest and back. I see his daughter and wife coming out and getting assaulted. I see Jayan struggling to stop the stick pouncing on him again and again. I see him in anger, I see him getting hold of the stick and in pure drunken rage beating up James. I see Jaison running for his own safety.

Tomorrow morning I need to go to Ravi chettan's Tea Shop. I need to tell them, tell that pathetic Johnson and everyone else that Jayan didn't murder James because he was a Maoist or a drunkard. He murdered Jaison because some people are born to kill, born to be murderers and they know or can be nothing else. It is, after all, their way of life.