ANONYMOUS

Ring Ring Ring Ring

The havaldar picks up and initiates the conversation — ’’Hello. Byculla Police Station’’

A gruff muffled voice is heard — ’’Hello!!’’

Havaldar — ’’Hello Boliye!!’’

Anonymous gruff muffled voice — ’’Hello Main Inspector Rajesh se baat karna chahta hoon’’

Havaldar — ’’Hello woh nahi hai. Kaun Bol raha hai’’

Reply from the anonymous voice - ’’Ek bomb phatne wali ki khabar hai. Inspector saheb Kab ayenge’’

Havaldar — ’’Char bajee. Aap kaun bol rahe hai’’

CLICK -- The phone goes dead with just a burrrrr sound in havaldar's earpiece.

It was just 10 am this Tuesday as Havaldar Naik banged back the receiver on the cradle of the dialling base of the black crafted rotary telephone at the police station.

It was a lazy summer of 1970 when the Bombay heat would soon start getting all its inhabitants in a sweltering sweat.

At this police station, it was a quiet morning and there was not much activity as yet.

The only activity of significance was this call.

However, the way it ended it would have to be someone playing pranks.

It must be an ANONYMOUS CRANK CALL !!

Senior Inspector Rajesh Verma had not yet come in.

He had to attend some robbery investigations in the neighbouring Mazagaon high rises and would come to the station straight from there.

Havaldar Naik who was quite senior and on his way to retirement was managing his phone calls.

These were the days way before cellular or mobile phones had been introduced and the only point of phone contact was through Graham Bell’s invention the instruments devised by Almon Brown Strowger and slightly modernised to its present version.

Most of the instruments used this base having a rotary wheel on which numbers were mentioned with a cradle to hold the cable connected handset comprising of the earpiece and the mouthpiece.

To use this phone the handset had to be picked up from the cradle and the telephone number sequence had to be dialled one by one on the rotary dial.

On a connection being made the caller would hear from his earpiece the phone ring at the other end and when the receiver picked up the phone and answered, the conversation could be heard by both parties from their respective earpieces.

The phone call greeting ‘Hello’ initiated and propagated by Thomas Alva Edison in telephone conversations had stuck to this day.

Public telephone booths were set up around the city to facilitate people to make phone calls using coins to operate these paying machine boxes.

Coins had to be dropped into a slot to get a dial tone and initiate the call.

It was time operated so coins had to be kept being dropped into the slot to extend the phone conversations as and when prompted by blips.

By the sound of the call, he had received Havaldar Naik knew that this anonymous crank call was from a phone booth.

At 3.30 pm the phat phat sound of Inspector Rajesh’s sparkling black and silver Rajdoot cruised into the police station chowk.

Tilting it at an angle and supporting it on the balanced cranked out legs Inspector Rajesh cut out the ignition and withdrew his key.

As he strode out of the bike, briskly walked up the stairs and into his cabin, it was choreographed with heel clicks, verbal ‘Salam’ and salutes from juniors.

Pushing open his offices wooden slatted swinging half-sized two doors he burst into his room and approached the glass sheet covered wooden desk and his solid wooden chair.

The ceiling fan whirred noisily as its three arms tried desperately to provide some solace to the heat.

Pulling out his handkerchief he mopped his brow and sat down placing his cap on his desk.

Flicking off his Ray-Bans he moved them to perch balanced on his brylcreamed hair.

Young and smartly dressed in his crisply ironed khaki uniform his police authority oozed out of his aura.

The chaiwala from the neighbouring Udipi Hindu Hotel brought in cutting chai cradling four of these glasses on a mesh hand carrier.

Pulling out one of these glasses from the holder he placed the steaming hot chai on

the Inspectors table.

Pulling out his pocket diary he obtained a scribbled signature from Havaldar Naik ledgering this tea sale.

Havaldar Naik approached him with a kadak salute started briefing him and updating him of the morning activities.

Between sipping his chai an inbuilt alarm clicked in his brain when Naik mentioned the anonymous crank call and the word ‘bomb’

As the wall clock nestling between photographs of Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi struck four the phone on Inspectors desk rang.

Picking up the handset hear a clink of a public booth call on his earpiece he roared out

‘’Hello. Byculla Police Station Inspector Rajesh’’

The muffled sound at the other end was sceptical and enquired — ‘’Yeh inspector Rajesh he hai ?’’

When he got the assurance he started speaking and in the same muffled voice which Rajesh assessed was due to a handkerchief being used over the mouthpiece mentioned that a bomb was to go off in the nearby popular temple at this evening 6 pm pooja and Maha Aarthi.

When prodded on he refused to give his name but mentioned that Seth Kanhaiyalal was involved and it was being done to stir up communal tensions.

As he tried to probe further the anonymous caller mentioned a coconut and abruptly cut off the line and Inspector Rajesh was left with a burrrrr on the end of his earpiece.

Contemplating the information Inspector Rajesh had a hunch that it could be genuine information.

Yes, he did get a lot of crank calls and some anonymous tips.

It was he who had to take this intel, digest it and assess the action.

The fact that the person had called twice from a phone booth and given this information specifically to him in a very assuring tone gave it some credibility.

He decided to get more details.

Using his network he found out that a Maha Aarthi was being held at the neighbouring temple.

It was a very old temple and had many disciples who would come in daily to perform a pooja.

This evening a Pooja was being organised culminating in a big grand Aarthi followed by temple food being served.

The local Jesuit from the nearby church Father Agnel had also gratefully accepted the invitation to attend this function.

Father Agnel was on a course of trying to bind various communities and improve communal harmony.

———///———-

Seth Kanhaiyalal was a local politician and was trying very hard to gain votes for the upcoming elections.

Since his last defeat to his rival Muslim and Christian candidates he felt he had to claw back many of the voters who had voted for the other religious leaders.

These leaders had done a lot of good social work in the deprived sections of the area and gaining their confidence and votes managed to defeat the crook Seth Kanhaiyalal.

Since then he had tried to use everything in his books to hit below the belt and gain back his lost voters.

He realised people were easily swayed by religion and if communal disharmony was created he could gain voters from this.

Keeping this in mind he had planned for a bomb to go off at the Maha Aarthi.

A crude bomb which did have some explosive impact and the huge aural effect would be designed in the form of a coconut. This would avoid suspicion and gain proximity to the deity sanctum.

Once Father Agnel handed the fruit, flower, agarbatti coconut thali the coconut shaped bomb would be exchanged for the real coconut by one of Seth Kanhaiyalal’s cronies (pretending to be a helper at the temple) at the inner sanctum.

The short agarbatti lit on this thali would be connected to the fuse of the coconut bomb and as the agarbatti smouldered and moved towards the base of the stick it would come in contact with the fuse in the coconut bomb giving the crony time to escape before the bomb went off.

The Jesuits thali would be identified as the cause of the bomb.

This would lead to mayhem more than death and fingers could then be pointed out that the Jesuit had planned this.

This in turn would lead to communal unrest targeting other communities and in this way polarise his vote bank.

The stage was set for this evening.

———-////————-

Dhondu was Seth Kanhaiyalal’s man.

He used to do errands at the house and his office.

This way he earned money.

He used to spend a lot of his other time helping out in the local temple.

He never liked The Sethji but for the sake of survival had recently taken on this job.

He had been called early this morning to Sethji’s house.

Once there he was surprised to be briefed by Sethji himself.

He was being assigned a job during the pooja this evening at the local temple.

He would be given a coconut and he would need to exchange this in one of the Thalis.

The coconut would be a bomb-shaped on the form of a coconut.

He had to move out of the sanctum as soon as this was done.

Other details would be given later.

He had no option but to agree.

Putting two and two together he realised Father Agnel who was attending this evening was being made a scapegoat.

The bigger repercussion would be communal disharmony.

His conscience was not comfortable.

He had to do something.

Father Agnel was a great human being and had helped his younger brother get admission into an English medium school a few years back when the boy was just loitering and up to no good in his life.

He had steered his brother's life.

Other families had also been helped by Jesuit in their days of need.

He had heard of the efficiency of Inspector Rajesh at the local Byculla police station.

Probably he could help.

He would have to make an anonymous call to him giving him as much information he knew.

Gathering some change for the phone call he had gone to the local phone booth near the English school.

Looking around to make sure nobody could hear him and covering the mouthpiece with a handkerchief to disguise his voice he had made the call at 10 am

Disappointed that Inspector was not there he did not divulge more than required information to the Havaldar.

He would call again at 4 pm.

The mention of a bomb should intrigue the Inspector to take his call at 4 pm

———///———-

Inspector Rajesh reached the temple at 5.30 pm when the doors opened for the evening Aarthi.

There was a huge queue of around 40 odd disciples.

Most of them had offerings for the Lord.

Few of them had brought coconuts.

Father Agnel was there with some of the local big wigs.

He had an offering thali in his hand.

This had a coconut.

Rajesh spoke to the trustees and requested that all offerings would be inspected by him before it went to the inner sanctum.

The bomb maker who arrived at the temple with the coconut bomb saw the police and panicked.

The bomb was discarded by the maker outside the temple premises.

Because of this Dhondu did not get the coconut. He was satisfied and happy that he did not have to carry out this sinful act.

The Maha Aarthi went off very well and the locals were also impressed that Father Agnel had attended this prayer ceremony.

Communal harmony was building up even stronger and Seth Kanhaiyalal’s plan was foiled.

As Inspector Rajesh inspected the temple premises he stumbled across the discarded crude coconut bomb.

It all fell in place and Seth Kanhaiyalal was implicated the next day.

He denied it but realised that his bag of dirty tricks would not work henceforth.

Dhondu slept well that night as the realisation came that he had prevented a community from splitting.

An anonymous phone call had saved the day.