The Killing !

 

The Killing

Narayanan called his daughter on phone. He was agitated .He had been reading the   local newspaper. A man had been found murdered  in his own house . The house was in the crowded Srirampuram the same locality where Sudha and her husband Krishna lived.

And that precisely was the reason for Narayanan’s anxiousness .Shockingly the murder had happened during daytime when the man was supposedly alone at home.  Narayanan knew that Sudha too was always alone at her home after Krishna left for his office.

 

Narayanan gave Sudha a long sermon about employing a security guard for her house. He was insistent they they employ an old man preferably from his own ancestral village who could also be asked to attend house work  and tend the small garden . Such a utility man   would be around the house all day especially when her kid and husband were away at their office  and school.

 

Sudha assured her father that she would discuss with her husband and advised him not to panic.

 

When Krishna came home that evening , Sudha told him about her  father’s worried call. Krishna too was perturbed about a man being murdered in their own safe locality. They decided to a find some one to work in their house so that sudha was never alone at home.

At the Dinner table Krishna  gave her a long stern lecture about how careless she was about locking the front and rear doors of the house and about being safe.

 

“You should learn how to be careful …You need to think of  how to safeguard yourself.”

 

Next morning Sudha  waited anxiously  for the Newspaper to be delivered  which would definitely carry extensive details of the crime.

She  impatiently glanced through the News  paper to read the reports .

 

She found it at the bottom half of the Third page . In bold headlines.

 

The case had been solved and the murderer arrested. She smiled to herself thinking of all the advice her nervous father had given her and the well-meaning admonition delivered by Krishna.

 

The instant Krishna returned from work that evening Sudha thrust the News paper   in her husband’s hands and giggled mischievously.

She began to taunt him.

 

“How many watchmen shall we employ? One each for either of  us and one for the house? Or do you want all for yourself?”

 

“I really need to learn how to be safe…I  have to know how to protect myself ”she grinned

 

Krishna  read the news and stood mortified. He did not know what to say.

 

Yes, a man had been murdered in broad daylight in his own home in their Srirampuram locality the newspaper reported. But the murderer was not a stranger or burglar or   intruder.

 

It was the dead man’s   WIFE   !!

In her confession the Woman told Police that the man promised to gift her pair of Gold bangles for  Ugaadi last year but had not kept his promise till this Makara Sankranti.

 

Instantly Both Sudha & Krishna began laughing uncontrollably.

        

 

 

P.S: The story was narrated to me by a friend last evening. Found it fit to be shared.

         The Names and locations  mentioned are  fictitious  for obvious reasons.