Jailbird

The wannabe criminal

A familiar and very enthusiastic voice greeted Rudra as he entered the police station. Hearing that voice meant another frustrating day awaited him. Rudra already was having a bad day. The case he was investigating was not moving anywhere. The voice belonged to Ravi. He was known in Rudra’s circle as a wannabe carrier criminal. He surrenders himself at the police station after every crime he allegedly commits. He even gives what he calls proof. But in all cases till that day no case had any merit.

On that day Rudra decided he was going to put an end to Ravi’s stupidity. It was not like he hadn’t tried before. He once even sent Ravi to a psychiatrist with no results. Rudra was determined that day. It was going to be different on that fateful day. So, Rudra called Ravi to his room and started asking him questions with a cup of coffee in front of them.

“So, tell me what was the first crime you allegedly committed? “, asked Rudra.

Ravi tried to joggle his mind to recollect what it was and why.

The crimes in the past  

One morning Ravi saw a post on X (formerly Twitter) which caught his attention. A person had made a vulgar comment on one heroine’s timeline. After that tweet, the state police arrested the man and kept him in jail for two weeks. Ravi took a leaf from that news and made a post on X. He went and commented on a similar line under a heroine’s tweet. “Kut*i K*mini”.

Rudra asked again, “What was the crime?”

“I commented under a heroine's tweet”, Ravi replied.

“And?”

“She used it as her movie title and gave me credit”, said Ravi.

As Ravi was completing to talk about the case the constable came with all the various case files of Ravi. Rudra started to go through them.

Ravi committed many other crimes unsuccessfully. He created a fake NGO and tried to collect money. He named the NGO, “People Acting in Kind for World”. In short PAKWorld. On the first day, a big central intelligence organization from the east sent so much money that the account got blacklisted. There was a blacklist notification from Interpol on his mobile phone. Ravi thought he had succeeded and ran to Rudra to get arrested. Before he reached the station the agency found the mistake and erased any sign of the blacklist. They made the whole money legit with some crazy back-dated transactions. Ravi got overwhelmed by the NGO and the money in it. So, he handed them to the real criminals who could handle them, an old political party which was working for farmers and labourers. Their party flag reflected the symbols of these hardworking people too. The next few days many of the party members' kids went to foreign universities to study. People were really acting kind to those kids in the world.

Ravi then tried other ways. He did not pay electricity bills for many months. The bill crossed lakhs. What he did not realize was that the election was nearing, and the wannabe CM announced free electricity. The CM candidate from the People’s Party asked all the people not to pay bills and he was going to wave them off after getting elected.

Ravi tried defrauding a loan agent. He gave all the wrong documents and took a loan to construct a house for three crores. He defaulted for six months hoping they were going to arrest him after that. He even had a big fight with the agent who came to collect the money. The bank decided it was going to sell the property in an auction. The property value multiplied many folds, the bank returned a substantial amount to Ravi.

The Biggest Crime

After finishing reading some of the adventures of Ravi there was relief on the face of Rudra. He forgot all the pressure from the unsolved case for a while. Rudra was sure that Ravi came that day after one more unsuccessful attempt at a crime. He wanted to quickly know what funny way the crime was going to end. So, he asked Ravi, “Tell me what you did this time?”.

“I, I..”, Ravi was hesitating to tell. It was not normal for Ravi; he was ready to blurt out all the details of the crime.

Rudra too felt a little odd. But he did not consider it a big thing. He again asked, “What?”

“I murdered my wife”, said Ravi.

“What?”, asked a surprised Rudra.

“Yes, I murdered my wife”, replied Ravi.

“Tell me what happened and how”, asked Rudra.

Ravi started telling his story, “All these days I committed crimes hoping I would be arrested. But it did not work out.”

“But why do you want to get arrested and go to jail?”

“Many, many years ago my wife went out for a school get-together for two days. That was the last time I had any kind of freedom at my house. After that, I must wake up when my wife tells me. Bath when she tells, cook what she asks, eat when she okays.”

Before Ravi could continue Rudra interrupted and said, “You could have sent her to her parents' or siblings' house for a while”.

“I tried that. One day I called my father-in-law and asked why they were not inviting us to their home after marriage. I asked him directly, don’t you miss your daughter? In reply, my FIL laughed for a long time. After he settled down, he said, who wants to have a dictator at home.”

Rudra gave a puzzled look to Ravi.

Rudra continued, “I tried her brothers, sisters, and friends. The responses from them had all flavours. Anger, surprise, to plain right disgust. I tried some of her friends. One of her friends sent me a coupon to a psychiatrist who works on a suicide helpline. The next thing I tried was to take an office trip.”

“What happened with that?”, asked Rudra.

“Before I answer that, I need to tell you some story. My wife was the owner of the company I was working in. I fell in love with her when I saw the outstanding powers of decision and control over everything in the company. “

“Seriously, a love marriage”, exclaimed Rudra.

“Yes. I should have understood when my FIL asked me so many times if, I was sure. I thought he was only worried about the money gap between us. I got to know the real reason very late”, said Ravi.

“So, what you did?”, asked Rudra.

“Well, I tried to kill her last night in her sleep. Had a knife sharpened etc. But I could not go through it. So, I did the next best thing. Went to some fifteen different medical stores, brought her sleeping tablets in bulk and mixed and gave it to her”, said Ravi.

“You idiot. All these days we thought you were doing these to be in the limelight. This is just plain right stupid. What kind of life you are going to have after killing your wife?”

“A free one”, replied Ravi.

That was when Ravi heard a familiar tone, “Dear”.

Ravi turned around in surprise to see if the voice belonged to who he thought it was. It was her. It was his wife.

“How long I must search for you? Come, let us go home. My friends from the club are coming home today. I told them you are an expert in making chilly gobi, and paneer tikka. You should go and buy all the ingredients and get all ready in the next two hours and arrange the table to welcome them.”

PS: Rudra saw Ravi a week later in the supermarket. Rudra asked Ravi in curiosity about what happened that day. Did you find out?

“I went to her doctor and explained everything. Gave him the medicine strips. He told me that in a full box of medicine, the pharmaceutical companies add a ten per cent placebo capsule to save money. I went to so many stores and got singles and twos. Only ten of the fifty I brought turned out real. For any other human being, it would have been enough. But my wife seems to have a very heavy resistance, her body is made special. Next time, the doctor said he would help. Hoping for the best”, said Ravi.

P.S.P.S: Based on true rumors and crime stories.