I met him in the hospital. He was recovering from a failed suicide attempt. The cause of failure was the ceiling fan from which he had intended to hang himself. Courtesy lack of maintenance in Government Offices, the fan broke off from the ceiling, at the nick of time, saving a life - his life. The hilarity of the situation was overshadowed by the suddenness of the offence.
Why him? An honest, upfront, industrious public servant. His stern pecfectionism had earned him the homegrown nickname Kadak Singh(The Unbending One)!
Fortunately, he was not into depression as it happens so often consequent to such failures. Rather, the quirky joviality at finding himself indispensable to this mortal world was indeed peculiar and bewildering for those who knew him to be a no-nonsense guy.
Yet.
He suffered. Doctors said it was Retrograde Amnesia or selective memory, most probably, on account of the fall. He could not recognise his elder daughter but remembered having a five year old son who was now seventeen actually! However he failed to forget his boss and mentor, Mr. Tyagi.
He had visitors - colleagues, peers and superiors from the Department of Financial Crimes, his elder daughter, his girlfriend, his subordinate. He heard their side of the story that led him to the ICU. He was sceptical. Piecing together his past, making memories, seiving out the relevant from the junk and soliloquising what could actually have been in front of a singular audience - Sister Mimi Kannan, whose first name matched his wife’s. She died in a freak accident years back. It was embedded in his memory!
Sister kannan nursed him day and night, spectated the way everyone wanted to make him believe what actually went wrong, quietly fact checked their statements and loudly cribbed how she wanted a change from the present assignment. His subordinate was convinced that he was too much of a perfectionist to even fail in an attempt to take his own life!
So what provoked him to such a drastic step? Finding his daughter in a compromised state in a sleazy joint or vice versa? If that was not the trigger there was only one another possibility left.murder.
Someone wanted him out of the way. The suicide was just a guise.
Why? Had he identified the mastermind behind the financial scam he was investigating?
If yes, it would also mean that those who wanted him out of their way would try once again?
The danger was not yet over.
And when they did who came to his rescue?
Of course! The surprisingly agile, quick and strong Sister kannan! Who perpetually regretted being on such a dangerous mission.
It didn’t take him long to complete the jigsaw puzzle. Threading through the disconnects of the fragmented versions supplied by his visitors for his auditory and recollective benefit.
His concluding statement, "The nation runs in the hands of a fistful of honest public servants", a merciless pronouncement of all that was wrong stitched with the forgettable, marginalized rights in the fabric of contemporary society.
Was he one of the minority?
Wasn’t I one with him?
That’s it.
A partially disjointed narration ensuring pride in a few of us for being truly us.
Happy to draw a line at this juncture without much ado.
Trivia: Pankaj Tripathi as A. K or Arun Kumar Srivastav aka Kadak Singh sleep walks through the role. Parvathy Thiruvottu as Sister Kannan, undoubtledly, makes us aware what craft is all about. So does the suave Dilip Shankar as Mr, Tyagi.
One small advice to Director, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury - a thriller needs to be as much lapse-free as possible!
Epilogue: In brief, knowing Mr. Kadak Singh was a pleasure and a hope raiser.
Its futile to dwell whether it was truly an amnesaic lead to the truth.
The answer is hidden somewhere in Kadak Singh’s cerebral maze decipherable perhaps only by Sister Kannan.
Its really incredible that noone else, even the closest to him, suspected otherwise!
I don’t know whether he will ever de-mystify the narrative.
If I were him, I won’t.
More so when life is blossoming into something unexpectedly fragranceful with new memories. The truth of today is far sweeter than the bitternesses of the past and the doubts located somewhere in the future.
Honestly!