Chapter 2

Hari entered his company the next morning, to face a group of mourners. Many of the senior staff came up with dialogues like, "Sharda was such a nice woman, who expected her to die this early? Feel very sad for her.", and "Sharda had been such a good person to all of us. Wish she hadn't been killed this brutally.". Much of the younger staff came up to him, and also told their condolences, even if not this heart-felt. Then came up Meera, the girl in Hari's life. Meera had been working with The K.I Vests and Briefs for more than 4 years now. She had done her schooling with Hari, where he had developed a fetish for her. Post college, he offered her a job in his company, when her family was suffering huge loan problems. After all those problems had been taken care of, thanks to Hari's help, Meera slowly started falling for Hari. Then, one evening at the Cookie Man at Spencers', Hari had proposed to her in a unique way. He had talked of his love to her, in the biscuits she ate. Each of them had a message, and eating each of them was recognition. Highly impressed, she accepted his proposal. Now, she came upto Hari, and with no words coming from her over-choked-with-sorrow throat, she just patted his right hand, and gave him a warm hug.

Then, Hari moved to his cabin, where he found Raju weeping. Raju had been the only person who had been with the K.I industry right from initiation. He had been Krishnamurthy Iyer's right hand, and now with his death, was serving his son. He told Hari, "Amma was such a fine person. Wish god hadn't given her such a cruel death.", and started wailing loudly. It took Hari quite an effort to console him, and slowly settled to do his work.

Mr.Neelakanta Brahmachari was a supercop, the Assistant Commisioner of Police, Chennai city. A perfect mix of brain and brawn, he could give Alex Pandian of Moondru Mugam, or the Sathyamoorthy of Pokkiri, a run for their money. A king of encounters, and of chase hit games, and of car chases, and what not, he could do anything his mind wanted him to. Gravity-defying sequences at times obtained meaning with this supercop in the city of Chennai. But, he knew this wasn't any easy case to crack, especially because, the only clue he had was an arrow, without any fingerprints, but with only DNP written on it. He met up with the Hari, who promised him unswerving support in this case to help him track down his mother.

Meera went home in the evening. She lived in the Parthasarathy temple Agraharam street in Triplicane with her extremely orthodox parents. They asked her to have a full head wash before entering her home, as she carried with her the 'theetu' of having moved about with a person, whose direct relative had just passed away. 'Theethu' refers to the bad elements surrounding a person. Her parents, like the innumerable times in the past, started asking her to shift her interests from the 'good-for-nothing' Hari, and get married to a boy of their choice. More so, Hari was 'good-for-nothing' because he wasn't Iyengar, and thus he didn't qualify to marry their daughter. A valid explanation in those days, but the generation Meera belonged to, the logic flew right out of the window. She often said, "To that Meera, her lord Krishna, her Hari, and similarly to this Meera, her Hari too!!" So simple and unflawed her logic was, or atleast she thought so!!

Hari had a call the next morning at office. The person speaking, introduced himself as one Mr.John Fleming. He told Hari that Sharda had taught him English for four years, right from the time he took to 9th grade, around 11 years ago. He also told Hari that he was very pained by the misfortune which befell Mrs.Sharda, and he wanted to help crack her murder. When asked by Hari in which way he could help, he said he wanted a private meeting with Hari. Hari finally relented for one, and sat in his cabin, smoking his cigarette waiting for Mr.Fleming to come.