[Preliminary Note from Dr Vatsan:
These are records of some of the cases handled by my illustrious friend and colleague, the consulting detective Om Prakash, known to an admiring public as ‘Chalak’ Om on account of his astuteness and acumen in uncovering mysteries. Since he specialised in cases relating to fraud, bribery, corruption, chicanery and all manner of sharp practice, ministers and bureaucrats and the police were not always his best friends, though it is amazing how often they consulted him. This they did whenever they thought he might be of help in uncovering evidence that could fix their political or professional rivals.]
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It was often remarked by even the foremost experts in the field of forensic crime that when it comes to the challenge posed by that category of offence which is constituted by seemingly insoluble mysteries, the final court of appeal was always Mr ‘Chalak’ Om.
When the official police force, and criminal detective agencies (private or public), had drawn a blank and admitted to bafflement over a case, it was customary to turn to Om for what was commonly acknowledged as the last and only source of assistance left in the matter of shining a light on the dark shrouds of mystery in which the case was enveloped. A corollary view was that if there was something one could get past ‘Chalak’ Om, it must be something one could get past anyone else. In the account that follows I present two examples of this proposition.
It was the year ’19 in which the circumstances narrated here occurred. On the closing morning of one of the severest January winters which the capital city had witnessed in a long time, our landlady had just cleared away the remnants of our breakfast, Om had lighted up the first of the Langar Chhap bidi stubs he had smoked the previous night, and I had opened the latest issue of the Vyapam Journal of Medical Malpractice, when we heard the sound of steps upon the stair, followed by a peal on the doorbell of our humble abode at b122 Bekar Street.
I opened the door to admit three gentlemen with bald heads, dark glasses on their noses, and mufflers concealing the lower halves of their respective faces. It was revealed in a moment that our visitors were the Union Minister of Unlawful Activities and two of his Departmental Chiefs—the Chief of the Bureau of Unaccounted Wealth (BUW) and the Chief of the Directorate of Dodgy Statistics (DDS). We were informed that they did not wish to be known to be consulting ‘Chalak’ Om, and were consequently travelling incognito in their unobtrusive disguise of skull-caps, dark goggles and layers of muffler.
The BUW Chief wished to know what Om made of the recently conducted demonetisation exercise, while the DDS Chief wondered what Om made of the government’s promise to double farmer incomes in five years. These struck me as somewhat odd questions to address to a consulting detective. Om, however, was at his charming best, and in a matter of a few minutes, he had managed to get rid of our visitors through a bland mixture of non-committal views, inconsequential suggestions, and diversionary conversation.
When our visitors had departed, I said: “What was all that about, Om?”
Om allowed himself a hearty chuckle before responding: “The fellows were here to pick my brain and to test the water, my dear Vatsan. They wished to employ me as a guinea-pig for judging the outcome of how well they might have succeeded in bluffing the world at large with their promises of mopping up black money through demonetisation and relieving agrarian distress by doubling farmer incomes.”
Also Read: The full set of ‘Chalak’ Om’s adventures by Athur Kannan Thayyil
“Speaking of demonetisation,” said I, “is there any aspect of that phenomenon to which you might wish to draw my attention?”
“To the curious aspect of the missing 1000 and 500 rupee currency notes.”
“But, if I have got it right, the value of these currency notes in circulation was estimated at Rs.15.41 lakh crore before demonetisation, and something like Rs.15.31lakh crore was returned in less than two years after demonetisation: there are no missing currency notes to speak of!”
“That,” remarked Om, “is the curious aspect.”
“But how does one explain it?”
“Ah! There’s the wonder of it! All of the black money held in the denominations in question has been laundered and re-injected into the system. Behind the ‘purification’ is a single criminal master-mind—I call him the Chandragupta of Crime—who presides like a great big malevolent spider at the centre of a web over countless criss-crossing networks of deceit, intrigue, treachery, violence and sharp practice. There is not a havala deal, not a case of over-invoicing of imports or under-invoicing of exports, not a shady transaction in real estate or mining or education, not an illicit off-shore expatriation of funds—not a single one of these activities of which he is unaware or in which, indeed, he is uninvolved. He uses the powers-that-be, even as they use him, in a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit and favour.”
“Who is this man, Om?”
“His name is Raj Tungesh Maurya, or Professor Maurya, R. T., as he calls himself. He is a brilliant scientist, a former Professor of Mathematical Anatomy, who wrote a tract titled the Schematics of an Adenoid, and whose work on the Trinomial Theorem enjoyed a substantial sub-continental vogue. It is not without reason that the Ministry of Unlawful Activities is interested in divining what, if anything, I know of Maurya, R. T. What the fellows are ignorant of is that I am hard upon the tracks of this consummate villain, and it is only a matter of time before he falls into my grasp.” Om had a faraway look in his eyes; and I was not to know until later that his plans would find their culmination in an event I have recorded elsewhere under the heading of ‘The Adventure of the Final Problem’.
“As for the other question, Om,” said I. “How will they double farmer incomes?”
“They won’t. They have hired economeretricians—as Martin Gardner would call them—who will do the job for them by massaging the data and employing advanced Economicstricks techniques of manipulation. That is how they have estimated the figures on growth of per capita income, and how one of them has inflated the economy’s net employment figures.”
“But still: doubling farmer incomes! How can that possibly be accomplished?”
“Do not forget that the guiding light in these matters—Maurya, R. T.—is a mathematician. Farmer incomes will be doubled by subjecting them to a positive homogeneous linear transformation.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning multiplying the agricultural income data by two. Now I suggest we do that to a glass of rum from this bottle of Export Quality alcohol which I have succeeded in—ah—abstracting from the capacious overcoat pocket of the BUW Chief who doubtless receives regular consignments of the stuff from some Liquor Baron or other. Will you do the honours, Vatsan?”
“With pleasure, my dear Om, with pleasure!”
We clinked our glasses, and ‘Chalak’ Om rounded off the evening with an impromptu little rendering on his fiddle of a favourite tune from—appropriately enough—that old and well-loved film Shri 420. There are those who might call him anti-national, but he is as wholly Indian at heart as anybody could possibly wish.
The author sometimes writes under the name of S. Subramanian.