topics: |  fiction | india | expat

This is the book that launched Vish Puri, the very Indian (and very Punjabi) detective. It is as much a book about the incongruities of India seen through western eyes, as it is a mystery novel.

These foibles of India, as well as the detective plot, built up a cult following in UK, USA and Canada, the three countries where it was published. Critics raved about it, calling it "a highly readable introduction to [India] for newcomers, [...] with a clownish Punjabi Sherlock Holmes." The Guardian; "the ordinary cases that come his way are no less revealing of his country’s discreet vices and not-so-discreet corruption."NY Times; "India, captured in all its pungent, vivid glory, fascinates almost as much as the crime itself." EW.com

The story has elments that are political. Noting that the story focused on corruption in Indian life, the Telegraph (UK) notes that "there is an edge of anger to the book," Crime-reviews

Not published in India?

Interestingly, though India is a big destination for most English books
these days, this work seems to have not published in India - the author's
book site lists publishers in US, UK and Canada.  
With less of a publisher push, the book was less noticed in India for
several years. 

% 

Even young females are going in for premarital affairs, extramarital affairs : Puri's letter to the Editor...

Part of the reason why it wasn't published here may be because some of the remarks may not go down well with Indian readers, such as the semi-comical boasts about Chanakya's dictum on detective skills, and how it antedates Sherlock Holmes by many centuries. Also, perhaps the publishers were worried about the very negative depiction of a Rishikesh godman (in the followup book). Perhaps the ban on Wendy Doniger's "The Hindus: An Alternative History" in 2009 didn't help.

The underbelly of India

All sorts of oddball Indian fascinations make up some of the key interests
for British expat author Tarquin Hall, who has lived in Delhi, on and off,
for close to two decades.

Hall started his stint as India chief for Associated Press, but then
he met his journalist wife, who hails from a "staunch" punjabi family.
The son-in-law perspective has given him an insider's view into the mores
of Punjabi life, which are recounted with gusto in the character of Vish
Puri, his indomitable Mummy-ji, wife Rumpi and the many family members.

This opening salvo was followed by The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing
(2010), and The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken (2012).  I got to hear
of the series in 2014, and gulped it all down within months.

Super-sleuth Punjabi : Vish Puri

Vish Puri is the shortened, anglicized version of Vishwas Puri.  Vish dislikes
people who call him by his full name (often sales agents on the phone).

In a 2015 interview to Aasheesh Sharma of Hindustan Times (Brunch), 
Hall said of Vish Puri: 

	Vish is a composite character, an amalgam of various Punjabi men I’ve
	met over the years. A lot of the nuances of his character are drawn
	from my wife’s family. She comes from a staunch Punjabi family and
	her uncles are a lot like that. They like to talk about themselves
	and are very fond of their food and pegs. They can be pompous and
	status-conscious. But in the end, they are very decent.

Elsewhere, Hall has underlined the similarities with his in-laws: 

	Vish just came to me as he is. My wife’s uncles are all like
	that. One of them is a high court lawyer in Jaipur, physically he’s
	exactly Vish puri, proud, a family man. 

	Many people have said to me too how much Vish reminds them of their
	uncle, their dad, he’s familiar.
		- interview at indiaphile

here is an image of Vish Puri and his Delhi locale... (adapted from kugantharan.com)

	
	Vish Puri has a preference for the many-pocketed "safari suit" to
	house his punjabi corpulence.  He is fond of tweed Sandown caps
	(imported from Bates of Jermyn Street in Piccadilly), and
	prescription aviator sunglasses.  He looks after his "handlebar
	moustache" with Wacky Tacky wax, duly softened with a hairdryer.

Other characters

wife Rumpi, [sleeps in adjacent single bed)
They have three daughters.. 

driver: Handbrake [often acts as an auto-rickshaw driver and picks up
		street gossip.]
office-boy: Door Stop
assistants : 	Tubelight - adept at cracking locks
		Flush : had a flush toilet in his haryana village home -
			electronics whiz - had been in Indian Intelligence;
			placed a bug in the Pak ambassador's dentures
		Facecream : Good looking young nepali woman, can act as
	            	prostitute or servant; martial arts trained.

Sleuth extraordinaire : Mummy-ji

Perhaps the most intriguing character in the story is Puri's mother,
"Mummy-ji",  who turns out to be a sophisticated detective on her own
solving subsidiary mysteries using her own resources.

Mummy-ji fancies her as a detective because she believes she had learned
some tricks of the trade from Puri's late father who was a policeman, and
by the rather convoluted logic that she was once the principal of a major
Delhi school.

When an assassin shoots at Puri and he is clueless about the potential
assassin, Mummy-ji takes up the case since "This shooting person must be
found and I’ve little else to do."  She weathers on despite Puri's
disapproval, since "Everyone else is being negligent in this matter. Some
action is required."  She stakes out a police station for long hours,
fortified by a thermos of tea and homemade samosas, and eavesdrops on
conversations by turning up her hearing aid till it's painful... She even
has some resourceful friends including someone who can look up
numberplates...

Most impressively, Mummy-ji conducts her investigations under the severe
handicap of having to hide it from her sons.  

Vish can recognize the symptoms when Mummy-ji starts mumbling or becomes
evasive.  If he calls her while she is "on the case", she uses her
battery-powered fan to create an impression of a poor connection while
giving evasive answers.

Excerpts

[opening passage]
Vish Puri, founder and managing director of Most Private Investigators Ltd.,
sat alone in a room in a guesthouse in Defence Colony, south Delhi, devouring
a dozen green chilli pakoras from a greasy takeaway box.

Puri was supposed to be keeping off the fried foods and Indian desserts he so
loved. Dr Mohan had ‘intimated’ to him at his last check-up that he could no
longer afford to indulge himself with the usual Punjabi staples.

‘Blood pressure is up, so chance of heart attack and diabetes is there. Don’t
do obesity,’ he’d advised.

Puri considered the doctor’s stern warning as he sank his teeth into another
hot, crispy pakora and his taste buds thrilled to the tang of salty batter,
fiery chilli and the tangy red chutney in which he had drowned the illicit
snack. He derived a perverse sense of satisfaction from defying Dr Mohan’s
orders.

Still, the fifty-one-year-old detective shuddered to think what his wife
would say if she found out he was eating between meals — especially ‘outside’
food...

Keeping this in mind, he was careful not to get any incriminating grease
spots on his clothes. 
[Afterwards, he] checked beneath his manicured nails and between his teeth
for any telltale residue. Finally he popped some sonf into his mouth to
freshen his breath.

Defence Colony

Most of the families in Defence Colony were Punjabi and had arrived in New
Delhi as refugees following the catastrophic partition of the Indian
subcontinent in 1947. As their affluence and numbers had grown over the
decades, they had built cubist cement villas surrounded by high perimeter
walls and imposing wrought iron gates.

Each of these mini-fiefdoms employed an entire company of servants. The
residents of number 76, D Block, the house that Puri was watching, retained
the services of no fewer than seven full-time people — two drivers, a cook, a
cleaner-cum-laundry-maid, a bearer and two security guards. Three of these
employees were ‘live-in’ and shared the barsaati on the roof. The overnight
security guard slept in the sentry box positioned outside the front gate...
The family also relied on a part-time dishwasher, a sweeper, a gardener and
the local pressing-wallah who had a stand under the neem tree down the street
where he applied a heavy iron filled with hot coals to a dizzying assortment
of garments, including silk saris, cotton salwars and denim jeans.

From the vantage point in the room Puri had rented, he could see the
dark-skinned cleaner-cum-laundry-maid on the roof of number 76, hanging
underwear on the washing line. The mali was on the first-floor balcony
watering the potted plants. The sweeper was using up gallons of precious
water hosing down the marble forecourt. And, out in the street, the cook was
inspecting the green chillis being sold by a local costermonger who pushed a
wooden cart through the neighbourhood, periodically calling out,
"Subzi-wallah!"

[A glossary at the end tells you that "subzi-wallah" = vegetable seller.

---

[Vish Puri frequently writes to "letter to the Editor" in The Times of
India] : 
Even young females are going in for premarital affairs, extramarital
affairs — even extra extramarital affairs. So much infidelity is there that
many marriages are getting over.”

...

American influence was to blame with its emphasis on materialism,
individuality and lack of family values.

“All of a sudden, young Indians are adopting the habits of goras, white
people.”

Sixty years after Gandhi-ji sent them packing, Mother India was, being
conquered by outsiders again.


---

... in the past ten years, Puri had watched [Delhi] the city race off in
all directions, spreading east and south, with more roads, cars, malls and
apartment blocks springing up each day. The dizzying prosperity attracted
millions of uneducated and unskilled villagers into the capital from
impoverished states across north India.

With the population explosion—now 16 million and rising—came a dramatic
increase in crime. The vast conglomeration of Old Delhi, New Delhi and its
many suburbs had been officially renamed the National Capital Region—or the
“National Crime Region,” as most newspapers wrote mockingly.


---

'But what to do?' Puri said to Elizabeth Rani, his loyal secretary..  'I tell
you, Madam Rani, it's a good thing Sanjay Singla came to me.' he added.
'Just think of the bother I have saved him.  That bloody Ramesh Goel would
have made off with a fortune.'

Elizabeth Rani, a stolid widow whose husband had been killed in a traffic
accident in 1987 leaving her with three children to provide for, did not have
a head for mysteries, and often found herself lost in all the ins and outs of
his many investigations... 11  
["his many..." : complex long-distance anaphora]

Gymkhana Club

Sign put up by the secretary of Gymkhana Club.  It was blemished with
whitener in no fewer than five places:

    THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SHIRT AND A BUSH SHIRT IS CLARIFIED AS UNDER.
    UNLIKE A SHIRT THE DESIGN OF THE UPPER PORTION OF A BUSH SHIRT IS LIKE
    THAT OF A SAFARI.

This made instant sense to Puri. 22 

[This notice is verbatim from a real notice that Hall had photographed in
2006: 
img/hall_gymkhana-club-notice
	(image from http://tarquinhall.com/tag/gymkhana-club/, where Hall
	 confesses : "I’m still not quite clear what a Bush shirt is.")
]


[...]

from your Law Society of India monogram, I deducted that you are a
lawyer. 27


(perhaps Hall is referring to this monogram of the Indian Bar Association). 

...
first they tried to buy me.  but I am not a bowler to do ball tampering. 29

[water supply comes at 06.30 - an anomalous alarm as it drips into the
bucket.  bedside light doesn't come on.  plugged in mosquito repellent is
not glowing -->  load shedding in Sector 4.

A .32 IOF pistol - a copy of the .32 Colt made by the Indian Ordinance
Factory. 35 



[the detective] ate with his hands, as did the rest of the family when at
home. This was a convention he prided himself on; Indians were supposed to
eat that way.  Somehow a meal never seemed as satisfying with
cutlery. Feeling the food between your fingers was an altogether more
intimate experience. 128 


---


A source inside the Chief Prosecutor’s Office (one of his uncle’s daughter’s
husband’s brothers) told him that the arresting police officer was called
Rajendra Singh Shekhawat. 141 

Puri on Astrology

Puri considered himself a spiritual man, but in keeping with his father’s
belief system, he was not superstitious. To his mind, astrology was so much
mumbo jumbo and had an adverse effect on people’s thinking. 198

Indian Serials : Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki

one of India’s most popular soaps... 

Set in the home of a respectable industrialist family, the serial nonetheless
featured shocking twists and turns with extramarital affairs, murders,
conspiracies and kidnappings.

In the latest development, the main daughter-in-law had had a face-change
operation and turned up as the wife of another man. But Monica said this was
because the actress playing her had been fired after demanding a salary
increase.


“People look to me for help. Who else they can turn to? The cops? When the
director general, Central Reserve Force, is getting his journalist lover
stabbed and throttled to death? Do you know in NOIDA, where gangsters are
nightly holding up commuters with country-made weapons, the constabulary’s
phones are cut off through nonpayment of bills? 267 

The first rule of detection

Puri smiled. “Ah yes, the first rule,” replied the detective. “It is quite
simple, actually. Always make sure you have a good aloo parantha for
breakfast. Thinking requires a full stomach. Now you’d better be off.” 

Other reviews

Down and out in Delhi: The Guardian

Hirsh Sawnhey in The Guardian, 2009 July

Contemporary Delhi used to be ignored by authors, who tended to write about
the city's glorious past or about other Indian locales. But this aversion to
the Indian capital seems to be waning. Novelists such as Aravind Adiga, and a
slew of talented writers still unknown outside India, are painting artful
portraits of present-day city life. Most recently, Sam Miller and Tarquin
Hall, both experienced British reporters, have published books that attempt
to decode this confounding megalopolis, an ever-expanding urban corridor in
which the 21st century's ambitions and nightmares seem to thrive side by
side.
[combines with a review of Sam Miller - Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity]

Hall's novel The Case of the Missing Servant centers on Vish Puri, a clownish
Punjabi Sherlock Holmes who bemoans the Americanisation of his country while
living in a quasi-American Delhi suburb. Puri's humdrum days of digging dirt
on candidates for arranged marriage are interrupted by a murder case. A
maidservant named Mary has gone missing, and lawyer Ajay Khasliwal, a patriot
who yearns for his country to be a superpower, has been accused of
impregnating the young woman, a migrant labourer from the tribal hinterlands,
and then disposing of her body.

Khasliwal, however, claims he's been framed. Over whiskey and chili cheese
toasts at the Gymkhana Club, he explains that he's been trying to bring
"inept local and national authorities to account" and, as a result, a
"conspiracy of interests" is out to get him. Puri traipses between Delhi and
Rajasthan trying to prove the attorney's innocence, unearthing the "endemic
corruption" that is "severely hampering the country's development", as well
as the shady ways of progress-wary purists.

Hall has woven his impressive knowledge of India into a tautly constructed
novel that is a highly readable introduction to the country for
newcomers. His portrait of Delhi's middle classes is complex, and he
understands that urban growth is often "built on the backs" of the rural
poor. But his insistence on eliciting laughs by making fun of Indian English
is tiresome, and his generalisations about Indian culture are at times
off-key. The inclusion of even one non-Indian character would have infused
the book with a note of redemptive honesty, but the author has shied away
from confronting his ambiguous relationship with Delhi.

Review by L. J. Roberts

		http://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=13398

It is fascinating to look at an entirely different culture. One forgets how
old a civilization is India yet it a culture in transition. There is a bit of
a moral and/or cautionary tale for Westerners here. The gap between the
wealthy and the poor is huge. The old jobs for the individual and the poor
are disappearing. The Indian court and justice system is a shamble. Bribery
is the way in which much gets done. “How can India reach superpower status
with all the corruption around.”

Yet Puri also observes that Krishna stated “The discharge of one’s moral
duty supersedes all other pursuits, whether spiritual or material.”.

The three mysteries within the story are very well done. There is nothing
obvious about them and the investigation is done through following the clues
and investigative procedure, which I like, and the writing is first rate.