The Cyanide Killers of Tenali

THE JOY OF FAITH is alive on every face, in the ecstasy of eyes, in the rhythm of hands, in the shared music of Konkani bhajans praising Lord Ganesha at the afternoon aarti ceremony in the beautifully scenic and cheerfully warm Goan home of our friends Gauri and Atul Kane. It is a family celebration: the priest is at home, relatives play the ghumot, a clay vessel drum that is one of Goa’s oldest percussion instruments, and the dholak with infectious enthusiasm and impressive skill, as all together seek the blessings of the formidable elephant god with a quiet twinkle above his trunk on his birthday, praying for benevolence from this deity of wisdom and fortune for yet another year in life’s complex journey.

It is, of course, raining. It always rains in Goa on the Lord’s birthday. Cascading grey falls upon the lush green of plants, trees and the exotic wild grass that fills the marshy banks between the verandah of our home in Ucassaim where I sit at my desk and the little river that expands or narrows upon dictation from the skies. Occasional gusts sweep through which turn the slanting raindrops into glistening dots of mist spray around my computer and notepads and books; we are sheltered above but open to nature’s gifts in front and on a side. When the sun returns in a while maybe the monitor lizard with a heavy tail longer than the slim body will also pass by as it did this morning, never more than a couple of feet from my legs, although it once came very close to investigate my reaction to its presence. Its pace is too fast for creep and too slow for run, as it heads towards the coconut tree to my left. It will clamber up to the roof for a proper sunbath. Its home is in the long grass; its leisure is on the rooftop. Life is good.

Wild life is never wild if you let it live. Animals have no vested interest in a quarrel, let alone war. Fear makes them fearsome. We provoke that fear. There are accidents. But exceptions prove the rule.

The rains will go after visarjan, the farewell immersion as joyful as the welcome aarti was beseeching. The season will change, not once but twice. October will be sultry for Indians but delightful for tourists from the lands dark with winter for nine months of the year. They will arrive in charter loads that land in and leave from Goa without interfering with the rest of India. From November the calm of a cooler sun will bring the temperature down in graded degrees. There will be gasps if it falls below 20 degrees Celsius in December, but only laughter from visitors who treat ice cream as a hot drink since it is minus 30 degrees in the open. Do the math. Ice cream is 30 degrees hotter than the December air in their country. Goa’s beaches will be soaked in both sun and sea. Hotels and airlines will raise their tariffs and blame avarice on something deceptive called dynamic pricing. The exquisite churches of Goa will be emblazoned by the light of nativity and luminosity of a heavenly messiah born to a virgin mother in a stable to save the world. Cathedrals will echo with choirs praising the Lord. Christmas will be here.

The joy and ecstasy of religion will once again be with us.

RELIGION IS NOT a mystery. It is logical. Religion is the only insurance that man has for existential insecurity. God is the answer to the unknown, the deity of life after death. The only mystery is human: Why are we tempted to turn our chosen God into a partisan in this life? God is the creator of the universe, not the father of a nation or a clan. The cynicism of man has recreated God into the chief of a faction of the human race.

Could anything be a greater sin than such apostasy?

LOGIC EXPLAINS THE mundane as much as the divine. In their private moments publishers wonder why they can’t print enough books on religion but an internationally acknowledged bestselling genre like crime fiction struggles to find a market in India. The answer is not complicated. Indians do not need Agatha Christie. They read newspapers. They read stories about the Cyanide Ladies of Andhra Pradesh.

In the first week of September our newspapers carried the remarkable story of the Cyanide Killers of Tenali, the home base of feminine criminals of exceptional intrepidity and victims of considerable wealth. Three women, Gulra Ramanamma, 60, Munagappa Rajini, 40, and Madiyala Venkateshwari, 32, were arrested for killing at least four people with cyanide-laced drinks before robbing the dead of jewels and other valuables. If that is not a thriller then I have read my shelfful of Agatha Christie—Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple—Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett in vain.

I have not seen photographs of these three ladies of Tenali, but imagination has already begun its sketch-work. The scene is set as the spiders invite the naïve fly into their parlour. A smiling grandmother befriending the target with elderly charm, offering advice on how to cure a cold with that antiseptic created by God, turmeric, mixed with the divine gift of cow’s milk (add honey for taste). The mature middle-aged mother, friendly and reassuring, knowledgeable about the ways of the world, giving gentle advice on how to evade the spin-artists and deception-specialists who prey on innocents. The chatty 32-year-old, adding panache to the carefully crafted bonhomie, luring the target with craft and intelligence. The leader is of course grandma, asserting rights of age and experience; she also takes 40 per cent of the take, leaving her partners with 30 per cent each. They do things with care. They select their target after serious examination of the odds. They do not want too intelligent a prey. This is real-life drama, not some silly fiction. They check the worthiness of their plans while the ploy is in progress. If anything goes wrong, they drop the target and move to another potential victim. Murder is scientific. It is both the easiest and most difficult of crimes; if done in a hurry, you can only repent in the leisure of a prison.

Okay: artistic licence is often nothing but literary larceny, but the descriptions ring true in my imagination. They explain the conscious age difference of the Gang of Three. Each age has a different role. Police have told us about their careful plans. They began wooing one victim in the last week of June and committed the cyanide murder only in August. The modus operandi was worthy of the publishing industry. Make friends, choose a venue suitable for an alibi, invite the fly into your parlour only when you are certain the invitation will be accepted, offer a friendly soft drink laced with not-so-friendly cyanide, and, as the English say, Bob’s your uncle.

Enough material then for a good reporter to turn into a true-life bestseller, naturally with the occasional embellishment. The title writes itself. The Cyanide Killers of Tenali. Simple is best, as Agatha Christie told us. Hercule Poirot described himself as old-fashioned because he believed that the most obvious suspect was most likely to be the actual murderer, although he always took the long road to the end since he did not want the tales to become a short story. Next step: television serial. Handsome royalties for the reporter, or at least enough to tide over requirements from the friendly victual shop till the next juicy crime. Who said that crime does not pay? It may not pay the criminal enough or always, but it certainly pays the multilevel industry around crime.

About The Author

MJ Akbar

MJ Akbar is the author of, among several titles, Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan. His latest book is Gandhi: A Life in Three Campaigns

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