Osmania Biscuit XII part I: The Introduction

OK.

As I was preparing to study for the "slip test" the next day, the power went off. After about half an hour, our neighbours got it back, but not us.. it was always our phase that had the problem. After a while, we were getting nervous about it... we were thinking about calling dawood miyan, the aged technician who had acquired unimaginable fame in fixing house-wiring problems, when suddenly Lingam barged in (almost Kramer Style, because the door was already open... come to think of it, we never used to close the doors even when there was a mosquito problem) and told us the problem was with the whole phase and a large part of Sripuram and Prashanth nagar colonies had no power, and left again. We felt relieved at this news.

An hour passed. Then, suddenly it seemed power was back.. but no! only low voltage-- that characteristic slow poison that gets to ones nerves... one is never sure when the power would be back, though one indication is that just before it comes back to normal (that "just before" can range from 5 minutes to 57 minutes), the power goes off completely.

And so, there we were, with my grand-mother inquiring about a stout, short woman on the road and my mother telling her she was the one whose daughter had eloped with some mudaliar whose childhood friend worked with her collegue Nayab-un-nisa when she used to work in Chevella (It is close to the now famous Chilukur temple). My grandmother revelled at this information, and a halo of epiphany enveloped her and its light spread through the mists of the smoke spewed by the 'Mosquito repellant van', falling on the silhouette of a man walking toward us.. the man we know as Lingam Yadav.

He looked rather excited as if he had stepped on something hot. It seemed he had some valuable information with him and he seemd compelled to share it with me. As usual, I was generous, ready to accept any bit of information given to me. He said something, but it was inaudible because of the high-decibel noise of the Mosquito repellant van .

"what?"
"they killed the fifth one also."
"Which fifth one?"
"Arre!! The fifth of the six killers of the famous don (and MLA) of MBNR (that's short for Mahaboobnagar) Erra Satyam!! I told you right?"
"Oh! yes, yes."
"So, only one of the six is remaining... I think I know who it is."

Apparently, Lingam had a more than a little to do with Erra Satyam and his killers, and he sat down to tell the whole tale, which is no doubt totally baseless, but then, he took out his Osmania Biscuit packet and started nibbling at one, which always means whatever he says is absolutely right. So we braced ourselves for yet another Lingam tale.