Chapter 16 A Date with the Devil

• When  Arunava reached the state sponsored home for the mentally retarded in Vasant Bihar, riding straight from New Delhi airport, it was already 8:00 PM. The home had closed for visitors and he had a tough time getting inside, despite his credentials. He knew he won't get any help from his boss, so didn't call him. From the beginning he didn't approve of his getting involved in the case. And now after the terrible accident he had grown more cynical. He knew he had to solve it quickly or he'd be taken out of it soon. His boss didn't say it directly, but his penetrating gaze told him he was aware of the turmoil going on in his heart. And Arunava didn't like that. 'Do your job diligently without getting yourself involved personally. You have to get detached emotionally and look at a case from an impartial angle. Only then will you be able to pick up the loose ends'. 
• 'The way to get close to an offender is by trying to think like him without letting ourselves get carried away. It is much like luring and trapping a wild animal who had strayed into your neighbourhood. Remember our job is to nab a person committing crimes, not to punish or avenge him of his sins. That job is left for the court to decide'. Arunava remembered the long lecture he gave him the first day he joined the police station. Why does a boss always think his subordinates to be like little, unruly children who needed to be mentored everytime? The O.C. serving Saltlec P.S. where Arunava worked was amost double his age. Why does he feel that Arunava would always falter and make mistakes  .. only because he was younger? Moreover did being his boss give him the right to poke his nose into his every affair? 
• The smell of dust and dampness overtook him the moment he entered the decrepit building. Even during the day the halls and corridors were shrouded in darkness. The most pitiable condition was of the cells. Each one was crammed by at least two to three inmates and their cries echoed between walls. A stench of rotten faeces was wafting out from these rooms. The violent inmates were confined singly in special chambers where even the faintest rays of sunlight failed to penetrate. The less harmful ones were allowed to loiter inside a huge courtyard, secured by iron fences all around. The attendants went inside through specially secured doors to give them food and water. To an outsider they appeared like caged animals, busy with their antics, oblivious of the world outside.