The Krishna Key

Anil was sitting in his Jaipur house. He was examining a seal under the only lamp ‘on’ in his room. Anil Varshney was an archeologist under the excavation and examination department of Jaipur Archeological Branch. They had found a baseplate with four seals of the same kind. These seals were in square shape and had a very strange animal on them. The animal had three heads: one of a goat, second one of a cow and the third one of a bullock. All four seals had exactly the same animal carved on them. All the seals were fitted onto the baseplate with carved square notches to hold them. Anil had observed one common thing in them. All of them had small square blocks which were also carved in the baseplate.

Probably it was to fit the seals in the baseplate tightly. Anil was studying the seal so carefully that he did not realize that his main door was open and somebody had entered the room very quietly.

Now Anil heard the soft breathing of a man behind him and looked behind alarmed but then it was too late. Events took place at a very quick pace. The man pressed a handkerchief soaked in chloroform and Anil lay unconscious on the floor. Now the man dragged Anil and stacked him against the wall in a sitting position, removed a ‘Ron Morton’ scalpel from his kit and stabbed it in his left foot and Anil’s blood gushed out with great pressure. The man took out a paint brush from his kit, dipped it in the pool of blood and wrote a mantra on the wall behind the almost dead Anil Varshney. It was a mantra that only the devotees of ‘Krishna’ knew .Now the man had to hurry as it was almost dawn. He packed his kit, took the seal which Anil was studying and the baseplate and went away in his Mercedes Benz car parked outside the gate.

In the car, he noticed that there was only one seal out of the four, Where were the other three seals? He could not go back now as it was already 7 in the morning. It was the time of delivery of milk at Anil’s house. The milk man as usual, refilled the glass bottle at the main went to the other houses to deliver milk. In a hurry, he did not notice that the main door was not latched from inside.

It was 9 o’ clock, Anil’s time to go the office. As usual his best friend Ravi Malhotra ,had come to pick him up. Ravi and Anil were best friends since their college. They both had their offices in the same area. Ravi was a teacher or rather a professor in the Janardhan Rai Nagar Rajasthan Vidyapeeth University. When Ravi saw the door open, he was confused. He saw the filled milk bottle which meant that the milkman had arrived before him. He quickly ran into Anil’s study and what he saw was shocking. His best friend had bled to death. He ran away to inform Anil’s family which lived in Delhi. After he went, Anil’s maid arrived and as usual she came inside, went to the kitchen and started making Anil’s tiffin. After finishing she went into Anil’s study and what she saw! Her employer was dead! Quickly she dialed the police.

The police arrived in 10 mins. Sub- inspector Radhika Singh and her right hand Vivek Rathore were the in charge of this case. Radhika was a very intelligent woman. She always carried some almonds in her pocket and her counting beads. Whenever she had to concentrate on her case, she took out the beads and took the name of ‘Hari’. She started counting the beads and saw the dead body in front of her. She was a pure devotee of Krishna and so she knew the mantra that was written on the wall. She saw the scalpel with ‘RM’ carved on it. She observed that Anil was killed in the same way as Krishna was killed. Radhika asked the maid about who had come there before her. She told that she had seen Ravi Malhotra who was running when she saw him. Radhika asked, “ Who is Ravi?”. The maid told her, how close they were to each other. Ravi saw Anil as his brother and he could not do this. But Radhika suspected Ravi for Anil’s murder.

The man who had noticed that the other three seals were missing, came to know something very important. Anil had given the rest three seals to three of his best friends. Now he had to only find out which three friends and then his mission would be completed.

Radhika was sitting on her office desk and thinking about the Anil Varshney murder case. Just then, she remembered a very important detail that she had almost forgotten. The scalpel in Varshney’s left foot had something carved on it. ‘RM’ these could be the initials of Anil’s so-called best friend, Ravi Malhotra. Today she had called Ravi in the police station for examination of the suspect. Radhika had no proof that the initials were of Ravi only and so she had to leave him.

Ravi had a new student in his batch, Tarak Sharma. HE sat on the last bench of the classroom. Ravi started his class. Today very less students had come and so he did not teach them today and started sharing what was in his mind for so long. He told everyone that his best friend had expired . Now Tarak asked if he had some more friends like Anil. Ravi started his story,” I, Anil, Raja and Nikhil were very close friends. We were friends from our school years. We all had only one interest, Archeology. Then Anil was hired for a job in the Jaipur Archeological department. Raja does a research of some religious places and things. Nikhil does a research about underwater finds and is always on the Gujarat coast in his ship with his team.” Tarak was gaining more interested and he wanted to know more. “ One day , Anil found a baseplate and 4 seals of the same kind.” Ravi continued. Tarak wanted more details of the location of the seals. “ He gave one to me, one to Raja, one to Nikhil and one was with him. When Anil died,both, his seal and baseplate were missing.” The bell rang and the college was over and all the students left the class. Tarak was reading the notes that he had written about the current location of the seals.

Rajaram was in his laboratory doing some research. Rajaram Goswami was a researcher and did research about the mysteries of religious myths, temples and stories. He had a big office and he had appointed a secretary, Ms. Rosy. Rajaram was doing was doing his research in his laboratory when he heard his secretary shriek loudly. The man quickly pressed a chloroform napkin on Rajaram’s mouth and in an instant he fell unconscious. The man killed Rajaram the same way he had killed Varshney. The same mantra, the ‘RM’ scalpel, the puddle of blood and the scalpel in the left foot. Rajaram had kept his seal in a drawer that was luckily open and it became easy for him to take it. The man left the scene and went to the airport and booked a ticket for a flight to Gujarat.

Radhika Singh, Vivek Rathore and Ravi Malhotra arrived at the lab and observed the scene. It was exactly the same as in the Varshney case. Now Radhika was really frustrated by the killer. She asked Ravi to check if some important thing or document was taken. Ravi found out that Rajaram’s seal was also taken away by the killer. Ravi was really very sad for he had lost two of his best friends.

The man knew the location of his third target- Nikhil Bhojaraj. He landed on the Gujarat airport and took for the Gujrat coast. There he found the research ship and then finally Nikhil’s room. Nikhil Bhojaraj was a researcher who studied underwater remains of a building which he and his team had found. The man went into his room and killed him in his style and took away the seals that was lying on the table. He had only one seal left now which was with Ravi Malhotra.

On the day when Ravi got the news that his last living friend was also murdered and there were no witnesses and no proofs. Ravi decided to suicide as he could not bear the death of his friends. That night when the man went to kill Ravi and take away the seal, he saw that Ravi had already died. His work had been lessened now he only had to find the seal. He then searched it and got it in the drawer of one of the tables in the room. Now he had all the four seals and the baseplate in his hands. He remembered the day when his father had given it to him.

His father was very sick and about to die when he had said “Tarak, my son, I don’t have any money or property to give to you before I die but I do have one thing”. He took out a thing wrapped with a cloth and gave it to him saying, “This is a baseplate which has four seals of the same kind. Or family has preserved it from generations. These seals were used in Mathura. Please keep it with you and preserve it.” He had lost his only living relative. He had somehow travelled to Mumbai and he did not know what to do and thus he sat there on the station. A man found him, took him home and h a company helped him with his education and now he had a company in partnership with the man. Then one day learned that his baseplate and seals were sold away to someone by the man. He started searching for the seals and the baseplate but in vain. Tarak was now in the present and again had the seals in his hands.

The case was closed as the only suspected victim had committed suicide. Radhika Singh was given promotion and she was happy. Tarak Sharma had completed his mission successfully. Ravi had left for his heavenly abode to reunite with his pals. May their souls rest in peace………