The Guest

Vaiyavan is the nom de plume of MSP Murugesan. Born in 1936, he did sundry jobs before obtaining postgraduate degrees by correspondence and then served as an English and Tamil teacher till his retirement in 1996. His writing career began in 1956. Multifaceted and prolific, he has to his credit a long list of short story collections, novels, plays, literary essays, poems and children’s stories. He has won several awards including Tamil Nadu government awards for best book on culture (1982) and best science book (1992) and the Malcolm Adiseshiah award for active participation in neo-literacy activities (1996). In his short stories and novels, Vaiyavan revels in a zest for life. Humaneness is the hallmark of his work, as the pain and pleasure, trials and tribulations of people in different rungs of society are described in minute detail. —CGR

- Vaiyavan

IT WAS 10 O’CLOCK AT night when Rajangam came to Thimmampettai in search of his quarry, Nandagopal. Five feet eleven inches tall, with a pea-sized mole on his left eyebrow, Nandagopal was a man capable of running deftly, weaving in and out of obstacles, and shaking off his pursuers.

Rajangam, a CB-CID official, who had been tracking Nandagopal through Kovalam, Pondicherry and Bengaluru for 15 days, had received a tip-off that the man had gone to Thimmampettai. He had now come there in hot pursuit.

Warrants of arrest for Nandagopal in four cases were pending in judicial courts. For a man declared a ‘terrorist’. They related to the torching of a police station, a bomb blast that destroyed an electric transformer, sabotage of a railway track, and making country bombs.

Rajangam would turn 40 in January. He had never got the promotion he had been expecting for the past few years—if he got it, he wouldn’t need to do any more footwork. He could work from an air-conditioned room in an office and use the department car. He need only order his subordinates to do the dirty work.

But till his service ended and he retired, this unravelling of crimes and catching of criminals would never cease. For people never get tired of climbing the social ladder and accumulating wealth, they keep committing heinous acts. So he would forever be turning the pages of the crime register and hunting down wrongdoers.

What was happening to this country?

Why were criminals bombing places?