SANTOSH SAT AT home, watching the news but not really watching it. His bottle of whisky—as talismanic to him as his cane—rested on the upside-down box in front of him, still bearing Jack’s soap mark; his cane leaned against the threadbare sofa on which he rested, not so much sitting as slumped, and, as ever, he was lost in thought.
This case. It was most…perplexing. Everything seemed to add up and yet there were so many unanswered questions.
The news was almost over, and though there had been much coverage of Kumar’s apparent suicide and the day’s funeral there was still no word of the bodies found at Greater Kailash.
“People are dying, but nobody seems to care,” Santosh said to the room. A chill wind that rattled the window and the sound of distant Delhi traffic were the only replies.
Sighing, his eyes went back to the screen, where the news had ended and Ajoy Guha’s Carrot and Stick was just starting. There sat Ajoy Guha, looking exactly as he had at the press briefing the other day, while the topic scrolling at the bottom of the screen was “INDIA’S HEALTH CARE SECTOR: BOOM OR DOOM?” The camera panned across Guha’s guests—and suddenly Santosh was sitting up straight.
One of them was Dr. Pankaj Arora, the chief surgeon of the Delhi Memorial Hospital. He was joined by Samir Patel, the chairman of Surgiquip, and Jai Thakkar, the CEO of a large insurance company called ResQ.
“Well, how about that?” Santosh said to himself, reaching for his phone and scrolling to Nisha’s number. “Nisha?”
“Yes, boss.” He could hear Maya playing in the background.
“Are you watching Carrot and Stick?”
“I could be.”
“Put it on if you don’t mind.”
Moments later she came back. “You do realize I’ve had to turn off cartoons for this?”
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t important. Please pass my apologies to Maya. I’ll make it up to her.”
“She says she wants to see that fancy sword you keep in your cane.”
“Tell her it’s a deal.”
“Okay, well, back to the matter at hand. Who am I looking at?”
“The one on the left with the slicked-back hair.”
“Oh my God, that’s Arora.”
“The very same. Next to him is Samir Patel, chairman of Surgiquip.”
“Dodgy dealer, friend of Chopra.”
“Allegedly.”
“And the third guy?”
“That’s Jai Thakkar, the CEO of a large insurance company called ResQ.”
They stayed on the line and watched as Guha fired questions at his guests. Santosh wondered whether this was an Ajoy Guha program at all. No one seemed to be shouting or fighting.
Arora was speaking. “We make the erroneous assumption that health care is an industry,” he said pompously. “Ultimately, health care is a humanitarian service. Our objective must necessarily be to provide the healing touch to millions of Indians.”
Thakkar interjected in a high-pitched nasal voice: “But how will that ever happen if we do not have world-class hospitals and infrastructure? Spending on health care is just about five percent of India’s GDP. That’s abysmally low. We have a system that is patchy, with underfunded and overcrowded hospitals and clinics, and woefully inadequate rural coverage. It is only private participation that can overcome these limitations.”
And thus allow your private corporations to make millions, thought Santosh.
“Would you agree with that view, Mr. Patel?” asked Guha.
“We at Surgiquip have been working hand in hand with the government to upgrade Indian health care infrastructure,” said Patel. A ruby-encrusted Marte Omas pen sparkled in his shirt pocket.
Guha rolled the lozenge in his mouth, getting ready for the kill. “When you say you have been working ‘hand in hand’ with the government, are you referring to the fact that the late Health Minister, Kumar, was an investor in Surgiquip?” he asked.
Santosh was suddenly all ears. He hadn’t seen that coming. Guha was famous for throwing curveballs.
Patel’s startled expression was captured on camera as he absorbed the revelation. The vermillion mark on his forehead seemed to levitate as his eyebrows traveled north. He had no option but to answer. “That is a preposterous insinuation,” he replied.
“So are you denying his involvement in your company?” asked Guha.
“Nikhil Kumar and I were on the same page regarding the need to upgrade and improve our creaking medical infrastructure. Our relationship was entirely based on that common objective.”
“You’ve still not answered my question,” said Guha, staring into Patel’s eyes like a criminal lawyer. “Were you business partners?”
“This program was meant to discuss the overall condition of the Indian health care sector, not one specific company,” said Patel, his face reddening with anger at the persistent line of questioning by Guha.
“The nation wants to know whether the Health Minister could have been killed as part of a deeper conspiracy in the health care sector,” said Guha. “That’s why I must ask you yet again whether you were partners.”
“It is evident to me that this is about you scoring a few cheap debating points in your quest for ratings,” said Patel. “I shall not dignify the question by answering it.”
“Did you have a falling-out with the Health Minister that eventually resulted in his death?” asked Guha, his fist bobbing up and down as he slammed the desk.
“You will hear from my lawyers when I sue you for libel!” shouted Patel, as Arora and Thakkar looked on. Thakkar seemed relieved that he was not in the firing line. Arora watched the scene with a steely hardness in his eyes. Patel stood up. Thakkar shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“Where are you going, Mr. Patel?” asked Guha. “The show is not yet concluded.”
Patel ripped off his collar microphone. “You’re right, Mr. Guha. The show isn’t over yet,” he said as he stormed out of the studio.
“Nisha,” said Santosh, switching off the TV at the same time, “could you pick me up tomorrow? I’d like to pay Greater Kailash a visit.”
“Had a brainwave, boss?”
“We’ll see. Nice and early, please.”
He ended the call, about to return to his thoughts when something occurred to him: for the first time in as long as he could remember, he had not felt tempted by the bottle.