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V Gangadhar

The case of the poetic detective

My favourite crime novelist, P D James, has come out with yet another best seller and I am eagerly awaiting for the arrival of the book to India. At the same time, I am not surprised that my admiration for James is not shared by some of my friends. One of them returned her book to me, saying, "Yaar, next time you send me such a book, fix up an appointment with your psychiatrist. The characters and the plot are so complicated."

James' novels have their fill of murders, undesirable characters and unusual happenings. But there is nothing simple about them. Many of the characters appear to be mentally disturbed. Villains are not mere villains, but personified evil. This was quite different from the crime novels I had read in my younger days. Of course, they also dealt with violent deaths and murder. But the motives were simpler -- greed, jealousy, passion, revenge and so on. One did not need help from a psychiatrist to understand the characters of these novels.

In today's crime novels, the heroes, whether they are private detectives or Scotland Yard inspectors, are shadowed by feelings of failure and guilt. Some of the crimes are not solved because of their complexity. Compared to them, the detectives of the earlier days were simply brilliant. And a lot more simple.

Criminal lawyer Perry Mason demanded a lot from Paul Drake, the private detective who worked for him. "Paul, I want all inside information on the Santa Monia millionaire, Robert Hughes, and his former wives. Some 20 years ago, there was a scandal in their family which revolved around a hit-and-run accident. Find out all Hughes' financial transactions during these last eight months. It is possible that he was being blackmailed and get me details of this, too. Oh, I also want some information on a blue Dodge coupe, with its rear fender dented and a Los Angeles number plate. Find out from your police friends in Los Angeles details about the murder which was committed on board Hughes' yacht and get details of the high and low tides in the sea where the yacht was moored. Get me all the information by tomorrow evening."

Well, Paul Drake got all the information and Mason managed to win yet another murder case. But according to me, the real hero of the Perry Mason novels was not the lawyer, but the detective. But for him, Mason would not have got any of the vital information needed to win the case.

The same was the case with Hercules Poirot, Miss Marple, Slim Callaghan, Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn, Rex Stout and so on. They were never caught napping and always nabbed their criminals. But, in today's crime fiction, Chief Inspector Adam Dalgelish, a P D James creation, as assailed by self-doubt and even wrote poetry! Can you imagine Sherlock Holmes writing poetry?

There are also some "budding" crime fiction writers in India, but I do not think they are any good. The main reason is that detectives can never operate effectively in modern India. Try tailing someone, for instance. The gimlet-eyed detective rushes out of the building, jumps into a waiting cab and snaps at the driver, "Follow that red Maruti van which is turning left and going towards Shahid Pranlal Chapotkar Jambhekar Marg." Ninety-nine times out of 100, the cab driver will say, "Saab, gadi nahin jayaga". There goes your detective.

The Indian crime writer does not have enough interesting case histories to base his plots. Of course, Bombay, Delhi and other cities have their quota of murders, but these are committed because of poverty, anger and frustration. People kill each other over a cup of tea, over not returning a loan of Rs 5 or even over instances of eve teasing. Most such crimes, at least in Bombay, are solved within no time. There was no imagination, subtlety or mystery in these murders. Under such circumstance, what can the poor crime writer do?

Before I started reading the Sexton Blake thrillers during my teens, I was also familiar with detective fiction in Tamil. My favourite private detective was a bloke named Shanker Lal. He was created by the writer, Tamil Vanan, who was also the editor of a children's magazine called Kalkandu. Vanan was an expert in leading you towards a thrilling climax, before letting you down with a thump. And he did this again and again.

The libraries in the small towns we lived in were provided with Tamil crime novels. I remember reading, Manjal Araiyain Marmam (Mystery of the Yellow Room), Ratta Sottu (blood Drops) and, of course, the most famous of them all, Digambara Samiyar. The hero in this book was a sanyasi who had taken an oath to fight crime. He would assume different disguises which were difficult to keep track of; no villain escaped his clutches.

The books were pure fantasy. But I was only eight or nine then, and did not need the help of a psychiatrist to follow them. No detective in those books wrote poetry or doubted his ability while pursuing a murder. I guess, the writers of yore were several steps ahead of P D James!

Illustration: Dominic Xavier