08 December, 2019

#SpecialFeature :: Read an #Excerpt from A Marketplace for Murder by @DebleenaR

*** Special Feature - December 2019 ***
About the Book:

Is murder of human body the only kind of murder? What about murder of a dream? Or, murder of identity? This who and whydunit crime thriller explores the three questions through the unravelling of a web of lies, murder and deceit that threaten to bring crime very close home for Leena, a business journalist. The alternating first person voice of the unknown killer and third person narrative takes the story across a modern-day Bangalore and a strange discovery at an archaeological expedition with characters you would have seen around you. One of them, of course, is not who they seem to be.

Book Links:
Goodreads * Amazon

Black ink seemed to have leaked from his old notebook and spread all around him. Even the fireflies had stayed away tonight. He was just returning home after an entire day spent in the parched fields; his small, lean, body parched with thirst and hunger. As he walked, he was trying to remember the song his mother used to sing to him frequently.

The melody and her low voice had reminded him of the sea. And somehow, though he found the song beautiful, he had also found it sad. It was not a song one could forget easily. He stopped abruptly when he saw an orange glow of light leaping into the sky. It stretched against the darkness. Only after a minute of mute admiration did he realize it was unnatural. There was something wrong.

He ran towards his house as fast as his bony, tired legs could carry him. He was still quite some distance away when he saw the men with the sticks silently walking towards his mother. And he saw his mother, her whole face contorted, looking around for any signs of escape. He knew that look on her face. He didn’t know what it meant. He had first seen it on his mother’s face when she told him there was no money to send him to school anymore. And that his father was not coming back, just not coming back home anymore. It was the look he hated to see on his mother’s face. The look that meant the end of her smile. And end of her songs.

He tried running towards her but his legs refused to move. He tried to shout; his mouth seemed to be choking with the ashes from the orange flame. And before he could even realize what was happening, his mother ran back inside their blazing house, burning every inch of his childhood. Thick, dark tears were pouring down his face onto his torn shirt by now. The men started running towards the house. They drew back looking at the fury of the fire. One of them ran to get a bucket to douse the flames but the angry hiss of the orange glow ignored his pathetic attempts and glared angrily at him.

Some instinct told him to turn back. To run. To keep running. Before the men turned back and saw him. There was nothing left. Not even his books. Not even his mother’s forgotten smile and songs. Not even a single whisper of their old life. And it was in that moment that he remembered the song his mother had been singing, “Amai dubai li re, amai bhashai li re.” It was the song of a sailor who was rushing through the turbulent sea in a broken boat, searching for the shore. He ran. Sometime over the next weeks, as he lost all sense of time and place, boarding multiple trains and buses with no destination in mind, he had found himself placed in an orphanage. A small, dirty orphanage with a dozen other kids of varying ages. His most clear memory from those days was one of hunger. Hunger that seemed to be always lurking behind their dirt-streaked faces and their torn clothes. Hunger that he tried to swallow and gulp, choking over his empty spit.

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