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Tarquin Hall

The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

One

Ensconced on the backseat of his Ambassador with the windows rolled up and the air-conditioning working full blast, Vish Puri kept a wary eye on the crack in the car’s windscreen. It had started off as a chink – the work of a loose stone shot from the wheels of a speeding truck on Mathura Road that afternoon. But despite the sticky tape fixed to the glass like a bandage, the fissure was beginning to spread.

Delhi’s infernal heat pressed down on the windscreen, trying to exploit its weakness, determined to conquer the defiant pocket of cool air within. The detective imagined what it must feel like to be a deep-sea explorer, listening to your tiny craft creaking under thousands of tons of pressure.

That Monday in early June, the top temperature in the capital had been 44 Celsius, or 111 Fahrenheit – so hot, the tarmac on the roads had grown pliable and sticky like licorice. So hot that even now, an hour after darkness had fallen, the air felt like fire in the lungs.

Nothing dampened the frenetic spirit of Delhi’s rush hour, however. Everywhere Puri looked, thousands upon thousands of people were making their way through the heat, the roar of the traffic, and the belching fumes illuminated in the headlights. Laborers, servants, and students crowded into non-air-conditioned buses; bicyclists in sweat-soaked shirts strained against their pedals; families of three, four, even five rode on scooters, mothers sitting sidesaddle, infants in their laps and older children sandwiched in between.

As Puri watched countless faces slick and shiny with sweat, eyes blinking in the pollution, lips parched with thirst, he was struck by how stoically ‘Dilli wallahs’, as Delhiites were known, went about their lives, seemingly resigned to the capital’s harsh and, for most, worsening conditions.

Part of him admired their resilience, their surprising good humor in the face of such grinding adversity; but he also mourned humanity’s capacity to adjust to any conditions and perceive them as normal.

“The survival instinct is both blessing and curse, also,” was how he put it.

For his part, the detective had grown accustomed to air-conditioning. Without it, dressed in his trademark safari suits and Sandown caps, he fared badly. At the height of summer, he stayed inside as much as possible. When venturing out was unavoidable, Handbrake, his driver, had to walk next to him with an umbrella to ensure that his employer remained in the shade. Puri had also invested in a small battery-powered hand fan. But in temperatures like these it had the opposite effect for which it was intended – like putting your face in front of an exhaust vent.