Seated in the middle of the three chairs Swagata had laid out specially for them, Mr Reddy, in a belligerent voice that seemed slightly at odds with the seriousness of his piercing eyes and his thick moustache, introduced to the gathering his wife and her nephew, who sat on either side of him.

Mrs Reddy was a plain-looking woman, both in appearance and in her choice of clothing. Her best features were definitely her cheekbones, which were high and strong, but her eyes were too small for her face. Her lips, too, being neither too thin nor too full to be noticeable, faded away into the background.

Her voice, though, had a husky tinge to it that made it strangely appealing. “He is my first cousin’s son,” she said, smiling at everyone in the room.

The boy sitting to Mr Reddy’s left joined his palms together and said ‘Namastey’. Normally it would have seemed strange to receive such a greeting from such a young man, but somehow, it fit well with his appearance. The spotless white kurta, the dhoti tied neatly between the legs, the reddish-brown chappals with toe-rings in them, the straight line of tilak on the forehead, the sun-burnt complexion, the strong, steady hands, the wide-eyed innocence in the eyes, the lines of age that appeared on his otherwise youthful face – all hinted at a person who had spent a large portion of his life in a rural setting.

All of them – Swagata and Gangadhar Das, Ashwati and Aakash Jaitley, and Suresh Velayudhan, who was sitting in the corner seat – said their hellos in a chorus.

Shravan didn’t seem to hear them, because the clock on the right hand side wall caught his attention. He looked at his aunt, started to say something, and then, abruptly, he turned back to face Gangahdar and said, “Does that clock strike every hour?” He spoke English in a slow, deliberate, cultured manner.

Gangadhar said, “No, those clocks are out of date. Nobody but antique collectors use those now.”

“We have a clock in Mallavaram – the village I come from. It was my grandfather who got it built.” His nostrils expanded in pride. “There are four dials facing different directions so that everyone can look at it.” His hands waved about animatedly. “As kids, we – my sister and I – used to wake up and sleep to the clock’s strikes. My father was very particular that we woke up early everyday and studied for two hours. He used to say it’s the brahma-muhurtam – the time when your mind is at its clearest.”

He paused and looked around. “My father was very strict. If we were not in bed by nine-thirty or if we were not up and studying by four-thirty, all hell would break loose.”

Mrs Reddy said, “His father is the Sarpanch of the village.”

“And what do you do, Shravan?” Swagata asked.

The boy appeared to be relaxing a little. “I finished my twelfth last year. I wanted to do a degree after that, but my father asked me to come back to the village to become a Sarpanch myself.”

Aakash said, “Can you become a Sarpanch without any formal training?”

Shravan started to nod, but stopped and scratched his head. “Well, in our village you can. In fact, the people expect that. Because my father is a Sarpanch, they expect me to become a Sarpanch too.” He paused and frowned thoughtfully. “We do that with everyone, actually. Carpenters’ sons are expected to be carpenters, farmers’ sons are expected to be farmers.” He made a gesture with his hand.

Aakash grinned. “Oh it happens in the cities too. Probably not to the same extent, but it does happen.”

“But what do you want to do, Shravan?” Swagata asked. “Do you like being a Sarpanch?”

“Of course. What is not to like? Just that I wanted to finish my studies first. But my father knows best.” He pursed his lips and shrugged.

Ashwati said, “The only knowledge I have of a Sarpanch comes from movies and books. They’re usually settling disputes, aren’t they?”

Shravan nodded. “They do that too, but not just that. They look after the people of the village in every manner. If someone steals someone’s chickens, for example, and punishment has to be given,” – and here the boy stopped to frown in thought – “or if new people come to the village and a party is to be organised to welcome them, or conducting celebrations for festivals.” He spread his hands. “Anything and everything going on in the village usually happens only after the Sarpanch has said yes.”

“But surely the main job of a Sarpanch is to maintain law and order in the village?” Gangadhar said. “My grandfather used to be one.”

“Yes,” Shravan admitted. “But it’s not like they show in the movies or stories. In movies, the Sarpanch always solves the cases to everyone’s satisfaction.” His face dimmed again, and he became lost in thought. His lips moved soundlessly, and at the end he shook his head, as if in despair.

Aakash said slowly, “Is something bothering you?”

“Oh,” Shravan said. He looked at his aunt and uncle and looked back at Aakash. “Oh,” he said again. “I don’t know if I should be telling you about my troubles.”

Aakash smiled at the boy. “You don’t need to think you will be burdening us. If there is something that is bothering you, we would be glad to hear it, and maybe help out if we can.” After a pause, he added, “Unless it is something you cannot share with us.”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that.” The boy bent his head and considered for a moment. Then he said, “It happened a week ago in Mallavaram. My father said I should start accompanying him to the hearing, so I went with him. After hearing all the witnesses, he turned to me and asked me what I thought.”

“Was he testing you?”

Shravan shook his head. “I thought he was at first, but later I realized he was as confused as I was – and am.”

Gangadhar leant on his chair’s arm-rest. Smiling thinly, he said, “Well, I guess we will have to hear about it then. Will you tell us the whole story?”

Shravan sat up in his chair and rested his palms on his thighs. But just as he was about to say something, Swagata interrupted him in her gentle manner and said, “Shravan, before you start, maybe we should eat? Your aunt and uncle must be feeling hungry.” And as if voicing unflinching support for her, the whistle on the rice cooker made itself heard from the other room.

*

Like always, conversation during dinner had been light and patchy. Shravan paid suitably courteous compliments to Swagata’s potato bhaath, Mr Reddy regaled everyone with stories of his college adventures, Mrs Reddy gave Ashwati a basic lesson in pottery, and Suresh Velayudhan kept silent. Like always.

But now, with everyone back in their respective positions in the living room – with the exception of Mr Reddy and Shravan, who had exchanged places – the mood turned sombre again. Everyone fell silent, and Shravan, detecting the cue, cleared his throat and began in his slow, thoughtful manner:

“You know, in movies and stories, the clues are always so – so – ordered. Everything falls into place, everything happens for a reason, and the detective, at the end, pieces everything into a nice, fully formed picture. There are no troubling details, there are no conflicting testimonies – everything that happens helps the detective along to the solution. Everything happens for a reason.

“But it’s not the case in real life. It might be that detectives in fiction are more intelligent than real life ones, but more than that, it is just the real life is a lot less dramatic. Things are usually either too simple or too complex.” He stopped, in the manner of someone unsure of what he had just said. “At least in my experience,” he added, glancing around the room.

He chewed the inside of his lip for a second. “Anyway,” he continued, “a week ago, one of the carpenters of our village, Satyam, came to my father and complained that his chickens got stolen and demanded justice. He saw the thief with his own two eyes taking his chickens away in a tonga. That day he was working all morning from around 9’o clock to 1’o clock, his usual lunch time. At 1’o clock, he sat down to have lunch when he heard the sound of a whiplash. He ran in the direction of the barn where the chickens are kept, and he was just in time to see the thief ride away with a basket of chickens.

“He showed my father the barn, and sure enough, there is evidence of a break in. It’s a mud barn, so it doesn’t take much to dig a hole in one of its walls. Also, the thief, Sangayya, is the village blackguard, and he has a long history of petty thefts and fights. In contrast, Satyam is one of the most respected people in the village. He has very friendly relationships with almost everyone in the village, but like most of the villagers, he has a problem with Sangayya. The two of them have been known to quarrel at every available opportunity. They’ve even fought physically with one another on occasion.

“There were no other witnesses, but given the reputations of the two people involved, it seemed to be a simple enough case.”

“There is a ‘but’, isn’t there?” Aakash said.

Shravan nodded. “Yes. Sangayya has an alibi. At 1’o clock on that day, he was at home, and his neighbour, Shivam, remembers talking to him for at least ten minutes. Now Shivam Uncle is one of the village elders, and he regularly helps my father in his duties. He said that on that day, he woke up from his afternoon siesta early because he had an upset stomach. He always sleeps from noon to around 2:00 in the afternoon, but on this day, his sleep got interrupted because he had to visit the toilet, and this was at 1:00. And just as he was coming out of the toilet, he saw Sangayya lazing about in his easy chair outside his home. They had a conversation about the rains and what not – just normal village talk, I suppose – for at least ten minutes. The conversation broke up eventually, and Shivam went back to his siesta. He woke up again at 2’o clock, at his usual time.

“So according to Sangayya, he couldn’t have been stealing Satyam’s chickens at 1’o clock because at that time, he was at outside his home smoking a beedi. And of course, Shivam Uncle testified that yes, it was true.”

Aakash said, “So it’s a false accusation. Simple enough.”

“It would have been,” Shravan said. “But Shivam Uncle has a soft corner for Sangayya, as everyone in the village knows. Sangayya had once saved Shivam Uncle’s granddaughter from drowning in the river.”

“Ah,” Aakash said.

“Also, for better or for worse, we had another witness. This man is a family friend of ours who lives in the next village. He knows almost everyone in our village, and he is a frequent visitor. On this day, he happened to be in our village at around the same time. When he came to hear about Satyam’s accusation, he immediately jumped to support Sangayya by giving his version of events.

“Apparently he came to the edge of the city by bus, and when he was covering the distance between the outskirts and our house on foot, he noticed that under the Banyan, Sangayya and his tonga were parked. Wondering if he would be willing to give him a ride, he walked over and found Sangayya counting some money. When Sangayya saw Sundaram Uncle, he hurriedly tied it up a knot, mumbled something about people always paying him less for rides, and rode Sundaram Uncle to his temporary hut in our village. Sundaram Uncle paid Sangayya for the ride, gave him a tip, went to his hut and immediately fell asleep because he was tired from the journey. The time this happened was also at 1’o clock.”

“Says who?” Gangadhar asked.

“Says Sundaram uncle. Now needless to say, he doesn’t have any interests in protecting Sangayya, and as such, he is a very honest person. We’ve known him for years now.”

“What about Satyam and Sangayya?” Ashwati asked.

“There is no love lost between them. People – and I include my father in this – say they were very good friends as children. They were of the same age, went to the same school (there is only one in the village), and spent most of their childhoods together. But somehow, and no one knows the main reason, they fell apart. All I know is that now, not one month passes without some incident involving them both. It is very uncharacteristic of Satyam, because with all other people he is the absolute paragon of patience and humility, but a mere mention of Sangayya pushes him over the edge. I wonder what it is that Sangayya had done to bother him so.”

Gangadhar leant back and folded his hands. “So the only neutral witness in all this is Sundaram?”

“Yes,” Shravan said with finality, but in a moment, a shade appeared across his face. “Although,” he said, “Sundaram Uncle imports a lot of goods from his village to mine – and the other way – and because the volumes are not that big, he uses Sangayya and his tonga for his purposes. In fact, it will be safe to say that if it were not for Sundaram Uncle, Sangayya would find it very hard to get by just on his tonga-running.”

Swagata said, “How long has Sundaram been doing this importing-exporting?”

“Oh, for long enough – about ten years now. Wait, he started when I was in eighth, so it must have been closer to five years.”

“Why does he do that business? Surely, your village is self-sufficient in terms of food?” Aakash asked.

“It is, but our farming lacks variety. As a tradition, we’ve only produced rice and groundnuts in abundance. When we have to buy something else, we buy it at our local fair every week, which, according to Sundaram Uncle, is over-priced. He proposed that we should trade between our villages so that we can work for mutual benefit and get commodities for a lower price.”

Gangadhar raised an eye-brow. “What about things that neither of you produce?”

Shravan shrugged. “We buy them at the fairs.” With a smile, he added, “At least we get chillies and pulses for a low price.”

“So even Sundaram has a connection with Sangayya,” Ashwati said.

“Yes,” Shravan said, “yes he does. You know, it’s funny, because I didn’t notice this until now. They do have a connection. And an important one too. For instance, Sundaram Uncle is important to Sangayya, because he is his main source of income, but Sangayya is also important to Sundaram Uncle, because he is a cheap and easy labourer. So he does have a motive for protecting him. He could be.”

“I suppose it is to be expected,” Gangadhar said, linking his hands behind his head. “In a small village, everyone knows everyone, and everyone has a history with everyone else.”

Shravan started to nod, smiling, and then lost himself in thought again. “You know, that reminds me, Sangayya and our family have had a history too. My father and he went to the same school as well, you see, and my father is a little – er – discriminating.”

“Oh,” Swagata said.

“It’s nothing too serious,” Shravan added hurriedly. “But he is the sort of man who likes to ‘know his place’ in life, and he’s always looked down on Sangayya, right from the start. Not in a serious way, but in little ways, you know.

“And Sangayya being Sangayya, has always been cold to my father. My personal experience with him is very limited, but I know enough to know that he’s no great friend of my father’s. So you see, there is also my father’s prejudice against Sangayya to be taken into account.”

Swagata sighed and said, “So in effect, you have three witnesses who say they’ve seen a person in different places at the same time, and you want to know which one of them is telling the truth. Why don’t you just strike the case off on the grounds of insufficient evidence?”

Shravan said, “I could, but I would like to know which two of these three are lying. It will help me form my own opinions of them. As Sarpanch, it will help me in the future. An advantage a Sarpanch has is that over the course of his life, he is passing judgment on characters he lives with everyday. So they are all people he knows. I want to start knowing my people too.”

Aakash bit his lower lip and narrowed his eyes. “You could argue that’s actually a disadvantage, because the Sarpanch, by passing judgment on people he knows, is allowing himself to be affected by prejudice.”

“Not prejudice,” Shravan said. “Knowledge. There is a subtle difference. If there are two people, one of whom you know to be a compulsive liar from previous experience, and the other to be the opposite, and it comes to one man’s word against the other, a judge who doesn’t know them will strike it off as insufficient evidence, but in a village, a Sarpanch would rule in favour of the truth-teller, though he would take care to reduce the punishment. That is the advantage of knowing the people you’re passing judgment on.”

Ashwati shook her head. “But that’s not justice.”

Shravan shrugged and said stubbornly, “Either way, I still want to know which one of them is speaking the truth.”

“Well,” Gangadhar said, “first of all, have the chickens been found yet?”

Shravan looked blankly at Gangadhar. “No, they haven’t. But Satyam could easily have cooked himself a feast that night, assuming he did it just to get his own back against Sangayya.”

“Or Sangayya could have sold them off,” Aakash remarked.

Gangadhar pursed his lips. “How far are these three places from one another, approximately?”

Shravan looked away into the distance. “Let me see. Sangayya’s house is a twenty minute walk from Satyam’s, and the banyan tree under which Sundaram Uncle saw Sangayya is about the same – from Sangayya’s house.”

“And from Satyam’s house?”

“Uh, about the same, actually. They form a sort of a crude triangle.”

Gangadhar said, “Okay, so twenty minutes between the three locations by walk. What is it by tonga? About ten minutes?”

“Yes, about that.”

“So is it possible,” Gangadhar said, “that the individual watches of the three people were off by a few minutes? Say when Satyam saw Sangayya drive away from his barn, he thought it was 1’o clock, but it was actually 1:10. And if Shivam’s watch turns out to be ten minutes slow, then at the time Shivam finished his ten minute talk and went back to sleep, it was actually 12:50, which would give Sangayya enough time to go to Satyam’s place, steal the chickens and take them to the outskirts of the village. It would be 1:10 now. And in say ten minutes, Sangayya sells the chickens to someone prearranged for the purpose, and collects his money, which he is counting just as Sundaram arrives, and he thinks it is 1:00 according to his watch, which is again slow. So it is actually 1: something or the other.” He paused and took a deep breath. “You guys know what I mean?”

Aakash nodded, rubbing his chin. “Definitely possible, but three watches out of sync? Isn’t that too much of a coincidence?”

“Wait, wait,” Shravan said, “before we go further with this, all three of them got their times from one clock.”

Gangadhar looked at him and said simply, “Huh?”

“Yes, not many people in our village own watches or clocks. All of them get their times from the clock in the centre of the village. As I said, my grandfather got it built. Four clocks on all four sides so that you can see from all sides.” He paused and said defiantly, “The pride of our village.”

Swagata leant forward. “Okay, now let’s think about this logically. There was only one clock, so synchronization could not have been a problem. Two of those people are definitely lying, either to slander or to protect Sangayya. There are no other witnesses. Can we come up with any more information on who is more likely to be lying?”

“I think Shivam could be lying,” Ashwati ventured, “though not deliberately. Because he was sleeping at the time, and he was ill too, and he went straight back to sleep after the ten minute conversation he had with Sangayya. Of the three, I would say his evidence is the weakest.”

Swagata nodded and said, “Good. What about the other two?”

“Well, between the other two, the fact that Sundaram is bending over backwards to protect Sangayya suggests to me that Sangayya has done something that needs protecting. Also, Satyam has got evidence to prove it – his barn has been broken into and his chickens are missing. No matter how much animosity there is between two people, they don’t wreck their own houses just to slander each other.”

Aakash intervened. “Sound logic, but only in hindsight. You reached that conclusion because you started off with the assumption that Satyam is speaking the truth. But say Satyam plotted the whole thing just to frame Sangayya. He picked a time when he knows the village would be dead; i.e. there would be no witnesses. He knows that when it comes to his word against Sangayya, the Sarpanch and the whole village will take his side. So he employs his morning – which he says he spent working – to carve a hole out of his barn. Just by his ill fortune, Sundaram happened to pass by at the time he chose and meet Sangayya, who is whiling his time away on the outskirts of the village counting his loose change.”

Gangadhar said, “Or whiling his time away in front of his house, if we take Shivam’s version to be true.”

Ashwati said, “But why would Sundaram give evidence to protect Sangayya if Shivam has already produced an alibi?”

“Maybe he didn’t know. In his eagerness to protect Sangayya and his tonga, maybe he blurted out his version of the alibi before he had the chance to know that Sangayya already had one.”

“What if all of them are lying?” Swagata said after a pause. “Yes, all of them. It’s possible too, isn’t it? Satyam didn’t see Sangayya drive off his barn at all, Shivam didn’t see Sangayya outside his house at 1:00, and Sundaram didn’t meet him at 1:00 either. They’re all lying.”

“What for?” Gangadhar asked.

“Satyam to frame Sangayya as revenge for some previous slight, Shivam and Sundaram to protect him. Shivam and Sundaram, as you said, probably put in their evidences independently, not knowing that the other would do it. Each one of them must be wishing they hadn’t been so eager.”

Shravan adjusted his hair and sighed loudly. “Oh my god.”

Gangadhar agreed. “Oh my god, indeed.”

Ashwati said, “I guess there is no way to solve this. I propose a vote. We all cast our votes and the highest tally wins.”

“That’s no way to solve a puzzle,” Gangadar said in irritation.

“But what other way is there?”

“See,” Shravan said. “This is what I meant when I said real life is not like fiction. In fiction, there will probably be an extra witness, an extra clue, horse hooves around the barn, or dust on Sangayya’s clothes – something! – that would lead us on. But here, there is nothing.”

The steady ticking of the clock accurately measured the two minutes of silence that spread across the room. Just as the minutes hand nestled into position over the twelve to signal 9’o clock, Suresh Velayudhan twisted his body with a groan of effort to the edge of his chair and blinked from over his glasses, looking at Shravan. In a deliberately whispery voice, he said, “Shravan, I think there is something to lead us on here.”

Shravan’s eyes widened, half in curiosity and half in excitement. “What?”

“This clock you mentioned,” Velayudhan said, removing his glasses and twisting its legs with his puffy fingers. “The clock you said everyone in the village use to keep their times.”

“Yes?”

“You said the tower has four clocks so that it can be seen from all sides.”

“Yes.”

“But that doesn’t mean it is visible from all parts of the village, is it? I suspect topography wouldn’t allow for it. Trees, huts, uneven landscape – it is hardly likely to suppose that the clock-tower is visible from all parts of the village to everyone at all times. Am I right?”

Shravan eyed Velayudhan as though he was stating the obvious. “Yes,” he said.

Velayudhan turned to the room and said, “I think this is a very important point. Even though the clock was built so that it would be visible from all sides, you still have to be within viewing distance to be able to see it. And if Shravan’s village is anything like any village I’ve been to, it is impossible for the clock tower to be in the line of sight of everyone in the village. The topography simply wouldn’t allow for it.”

Shravan started to say something, but Velayudhan nodded him into silence. He continued, “Shravan told us at the start that the clock in the village strikes on the hour. I suspect that if that is true, the people of the village would have long fallen into the habit of listening to the strikes of the clock to set their times instead of looking at it. Is that true, Shravan?”

Shravan nodded. “Yes.”

With a cursory nod in Shravan’s direction, Velayudhan said, “Now that opens up another possibility. So far we only talked of which two of the three people were lying, because their testimonies were frankly mutually exclusive. And Swagataji advanced an interesting theory in itself – that all three of them were lying. Now I forward another hypothesis – that all three of them are speaking the truth.”

Ashwati said, “How is that possible?”

“Well, let’s first examine what Shivam had to say. He sleeps from 12-2 everyday as a matter of habit, but on this day, he woke up because he had to visit the bathroom owing to an upset stomach. He says it was 1’o clock then, because in all probability, he heard the clock strike one.

“But is it not possible that Shivam had actually heard the clock strike once and not one? Grandfather clocks strike once every half hour in addition to the hourly striking. Is it not possible that Shivam had only slept for half an hour, and when he woke up, he heard the clock strike once – at 12:30 – and assumed it was one-o-clock?”

It was a rhetorical question, and none of the people present attempted to answer it. Only Gangadhar said, in a mildly reproving tone, “Not all grandfather clocks strike on the half-hour.”

Stopping Shravan – who sat up immediately as if to say something – with a raised palm, Velayudhan said, “But this one does. Shravan and his sister, remember, woke up and slept on the clock’s strikes at four-thirty and nine-thirty. How would they do it if it didn’t strike on the half-hour?”

Shravan nodded, as if in confirmation, and Gangadhar fell back into thoughtful silence.

Velayudhan went on. “Notice that Shivam went to sleep right after he talked to Sangayya, after a ten-minute chat at around 12:40, he would have done so before the clock struck one at 1’o clock. If he had stayed awake, he would have heard the 1’o clock strike and realized that the first strike had been for 12:30. But he wasn’t. He went back to sleep at 12:40.

“While Shivam was affected in his perception of time because of his sleep habits and his ill health, Sundaram was affected similarly because of the fact that he was at that time just entering the village. Suppose, for instance, that when Sundaram entered the village and saw Sangayya counting his money – money he probably got from selling Satyam’s chickens to a pre-arranged buyer – it was actually 1:30 PM, and the clock, again, struck once. Sundaram, because he had not heard the 12:30 and 1:00 PM strikes, couldn’t orient himself and assumed, understandably again, that the clock was striking one and not once. Also notice, that Sundaram had gone to sleep immediately after he reached his hut, so he didn’t hear the 2’o clock, which if he had, he would have been able to realize that the first strike he heard was for 1:30 and not for 1:00”

Velayudhan paused, licked his lips and smiled. “Now Satyam – Satyam is the only one among the three who was not handicapped in any way in his perception of time. He was working from 9:00 to 1:00. So he would have heard the clock strike nine, then ten, then eleven, then twelve, then once at 12:30, and then once at 1:00. It was at that moment that he saw Sangayya steal his chickens, and then he would have heard the clock strike 1:30 half an hour later, so he was perfectly placed, of the three, to orient himself correctly.

“That’s why I am inclined to believe the sequence of events as they happened on that day is this: Shivam wakes up at 12:30, has a conversation with Sangayya for ten minutes, and goes back to sleep at 12:40. Sangayya takes his tonga to Satyam’s barn and steals the chickens at 1:00, not knowing Satyam was on his lunch break and has seen him drive away. At 1:10, Sangayya is at the outskirts of the village, ready to hand over the chickens to someone for a price. At 1:30, while he is sitting down to count his money, he unexpectedly runs into his employer, Sundaram, whom he drives to his hut, and at around 1:45, Sundaram goes to sleep, just in time to miss the 2’o clock strike.”

Shravan, who had been punctuating Velayudhan’s monologue with chortles of excitement, sat up erect in his chair and clapped his hands gleefully. “Excellent! This is just like a movie – everything falling into place!”

“Not quite,” Aakash said. “I wonder if we’re not giving Sangayya too much credit here. Are you saying he planned all of this – Shivam’s illness, Sundaram’s visit to the village – all this for a bunch of chickens?”

Velayudhan said, “I don’t think he did. If he is as much of a blackguard Shravan said he was, I don’t think he would care so much. I think he was just going to drive in and take off with the chickens. I don’t think he foresaw anyone coming forward with an alibi. But when Shivam offered an alibi, it would have been foolish of him to reject it, coming as it was from such a well-respected man. It was just unlucky for him that Sundaram and Shivam both gave conflicting alibis, because otherwise, we would all have dismissed Satyam’s allegations as false.”

“Well,” Shravan said, flushing, “I will tell this to my father when I get back. I am sure Sangayya will get punished. I am sure it must have happened just as you explained it.” He closed his right hand in a fist and punched his left palm. “Yes, I am sure!”

Valyudhan raised a cautionary hand. “But we don’t have any evidence, Shravan. All I have given is another possible answer. Given the facts, it’s neither more correct or more incorrect than the other ones my friends have forwarded.”

“No, I know these people. What you said fits – with everything, and everyone. I will talk to my father about this.” Shravan’s face turned a faint shade of red. “You don’t mind – if I – if I –” His gaze turned to meet his aunt’s, and he fidgeted on his seat.

Valyudhan leant back and showered the boy with a saintly smile. “No,” he said, “I don’t. I wouldn’t have been able to give you my version of what happened if I had not had the benefit of my friends here.” His glance broke off for a moment, and his head swayed in a crude circle. “So the solution doesn’t belong to any one of us. It is as much yours as it is mine.”