Pakirappa and Senan walked down the hill and took the road to Aniyoor junction, where existed a grocery of necessary food items, a greengrocery with a few locally available vegetables, a small hotel with two or three wooden benches, and a barber shop with two wooden chairs. Two buses used to shuttle twice daily from Mangalore to Devagiri, crossing the Aniyoor junction. The massive bridge over the river, which ran down the hills and through the gorges, connected Aniyoor to Devagiri.
There was a post office, a healthcare clinic with a nurse, and a bus waiting shed inhabited by stray dogs. Senan felt he had traveled back fifty years whenever he visited there.
It had been their weekly journey to buy the essential purchases on Sunday morning. They used to go to the Junction once a week on Saturday evenings before Senan arrived. Dhani shifted it to Sunday morning since the violent activities of laborers, and the struggle between laborers and natives took place mostly on Saturday evenings at Bairavan's Toddy Shop.
Since no other laborer accompanied them, Senan assumed that Pakirappa would reveal something about Neenkaraja. On the other hand, Pakirappa was silent. Senan was confident that Pakirappa had some inner commotion taking Neenkaraja since Pakirappa had been smoking continuously after Senan talked about Neenkaraja's possible death. Furthermore, Pakirappa inhaled the smoke and puffed air into the beedi quickly and forcefully, as if he was preoccupied with something.
Pakirappa added, 'Every scheming starts here,' as they passed the Toddy Shop on their way to Aniyoor Junction.
Senan turned back as soon as he said it, capturing a vivid image of it that was blocked by Pakirappa. He acted as if he was saving Senan from some unknown imminent peril.
A hut-like structure with a thatched roof paved with woven coconut leaves. To prevent easy access to the shop, a small board was suspended from a tree in front of it with the words Toddy Shop.
Pakirappa said, 'The attempt to murder Lokesh was the most recent. He had a narrow escape from the murder.'
Senan was perplexed to hear it. Pakirappa had winked at him to keep it confidential. Senan walked beside him, many dubious heavy clouds hovering over his head. Senan realized that the mysterious funeral procession of Neenkaraja he observed among the clouds in the sky had a deep grave somewhere underground in the forest. He was speechless and unable to contain the thought. He resolved to discover what had happened to Neenkaraja.
'Actually, what happened to Neenkaraja?' Senan asked directly to Pakirappa gathering all the courage. For a fraction of a second, he noticed tremors in Pakirappa's expressions as he tried to conceal something he knew.
'Do you have any idea what happened to Neenkaraja?' Senan repeated it.
'His name was Lingaraja. Many laborers from Northern Karnataka have the same name. To distinguish between them, some are called Neenkaraja, some Lingaraja, and others Linga. He was called Neenkaraja.'
While walking ahead, Senan turned back and looked at the Toddy Shop. Again, Pakirappa asked him not to send a glance there if he wanted a peaceful life.
'When I arrived here, I was a visitor there. Later, I found that it'd turn dangerous for me, and I would be involved in such cases.'
'Has anyone been sentenced to prison from here?' Senan asked.
Pakirappa did not reply. Senan thought that men like Mayavan, Sreeny, and Siddhavan were sent to jail for being convicted in such cases. Two of them were natives, while Sreeny hailed from Kerala, years ago.
Meanwhile, one of his slippers kept falling off his feet. This time, it bothered him greatly. So he seized it and furiously flung it away. He had no issue going without slippers because he used to be a vendor in his village.
They were at the Aniyoor Junction. There had been a few men here and there, and whenever someone entered the premises, everyone looked at them. While entering a small tea shop, again Senan mentioned Neenkaraja. Pakirappa gave him a death stare for a long time, which signaled something serious about it.
(to be continued)
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Invincible Naga
Mystery / ThrillerSenan had strange encounters with snakes, both in dreams and real life, when he was employed as a laborer in a vast farmland in the deep woods in a remote village in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, South India. Later, he finds that the snake had bee...
