Six Suspects (53 page)

I suppose I can take some pride in carrying out the perfect
murder. No one has any inkling about what I have done – neither
my wife, nor my colleagues at the newspaper. I still go to the office
at the usual time and stay late. I share a meal with the other
reporters during the lunch hour, laugh at their corny jokes, join in
their silly discussions on politics and promotions. Their petty
gossiping and shallow concerns nauseate me. Their smugness and
complacency amaze me. Am I the only one with a sense of what
it means to be a committed investigative journalist? Am I the only
man with a mission?

I know I plough a lonely furrow. But I shall soldier on. Because
there is still a lot of filth out there. I am still listening to phone
conversations which make my blood boil and start a buzzing in
my brain.

And even murder can become addictive.

This was a difficult book to write, and not just because it was my
second one. The very ambition of the novel – to tell the interlocking
stories of six disparate lives in a tightly schematic space –
made it a daunting enterprise. That I was able to reach this page
owes a lot to the generous support of my friends and colleagues
and the patience of my family – my wife Aparna, to whom this
book is dedicated, and my sons Aditya and Varun.

Jane Lawson, my editor on
Q & A
, and Peter Buckman, my
agent, were early and enthusiastic supporters of the concept and
encouraged me to go on. Thereafter it was my new editor Rochelle
Venables (Jane having happily pushed off on maternity leave) and
the team at Transworld who shepherded the project with
admirable vigour and commitment. I must thank Kate Samano, in
particular, for her meticulous copyediting.

Even though Eketi is an entirely fictional character, my
research on the Onge tribe was aided greatly by Madhusree
Mukerjee's lucid book
The Land of the Naked People: Encounters
with Stone Age Islanders
(Penguin India, 2003). Vishvajit Pandya's
ethnographical inquiry into Andamanese rituals and customs
(
Above the Forest
, OUP, 1993) and Badal Kumar Basu's study
The
Onge
(Seagull Books, 1990) were also useful sources of
information. For those wishing to explore this subject further, I
would wholeheartedly recommend George Weber's website
(www.andaman.org), a veritable treasure trove of information on
the tribes of the Andaman.

I am indebted to my colleagues Navdeep Suri and J. S. Parmar
for many valuable suggestions. I also wish to place on record my
thanks to Damon Galgut, Chris Copass, Avinash Mohnany, Manoj
Malaviya, Sarvagya Ram Mishra, Captain Subhash Gouniyal, R. K.
Rathi, Lopa Banerjee, Uma Dhyani, Rati Bhan Tripathi, Vakil
Ramdas and Roland Galahargue. Google, as always, was an
invaluable tool.

Finally, I must record my gratitude to the wonderful people of
South Africa, the fertile ground where this novel took shape on
weekends and holidays.