Unlike Malati, that girl I knew in high school. She wouldn’t dare interrupt my sleep even after her death. Dough beaten and kneaded and rolled flat, fluffed up with hot air, that gives up its ghost upon a sigh when taken off the flames. Now that’s a place for softness-a chapati. You need a hard hand to deal with it, be it a suspect under interrogation or your wife who forgot salt in the curry or baked your chapatis too hard. I wish everyone outside my office would also understand what I know as the truth, that this world is a hard place. It might be a tuft of hair that’s supposed to protect my energies hidden under my uniform cap, but it also reminds me of my role as a leader in society. I’m a Brahmin, upper-caste, man-it’s my role to keep society in line, so everyone follows the rules. I’ve heard it whispered in corridors by juniors and colleagues alike: Inspector Desai is a hard man to cross. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m not one for softness.
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