Keri felt her stomach churn as the laborers dug up the corpse from under the Banyan tree. “It’s a woman!” one of the man shouted over, his voice muffled by the handkerchief he held up over his nose and mouth to hold back the stench which was too overwhelming anyways. Though the body was rotten beyond recognition, one could tell that it was a lady because her hair was long and she wore a bright floral dress. Keri felt her heart sink and her hands tremble- so much for her plans to build a temple under the holy Banyan tree- a site tainted with blood of an innocent woman brutally murdered and shrouded with earth in the most clandestine manner.

The village folks had all gathered there by now and soon enough, the cops too rushed to the scene. The fresh rural air now bore a putrid odor of decaying flesh but that did not deter more and more curiosity sated people from gathering there. “Who was the first one to discover the corpse?” the inspector interrogated. A youngish laborer meekly stepped forward and looked the inspector in the eye.
“Why were you digging up this place?” The laborer, too scared to speak, just pointed in Keri’s direction.
“Yes Ma’am, do you have anything to say?”
“Sir, I just wanted to build a small temple for the villagers. All of us pitched in for it. You can ask the villagers if you want…and …and we all collectively decided to build it under this tree…it’s a very old and holy tree…” Keri’s voice trailed off as the inspector looked away from her and glanced at the villagers- all of whom were nodding in agreement.
Inspector Garud was now looking up to the magnificent Banyan Tree. “It must be more that five hundred years old” he thought to himself as he scanned the trunk which was about as wide as his own office and the huge canopy was supported by hanging roots such that they seemed to form a huge shaded hall within.
“Hmmm…” the inspector muttered and ordered his constables to pack up the body for post-mortem and further investigation.
“You...lady! You will have to come along with me”, he beckoned Keri. “Just a few routine questions… Nothing to worry…”
“But I have two small children in the house Sir and there is nobody else to take care of them!”
Inspector looked at the thirty-something woman, impeccably dressed and adorned with jewellery. “Where is your husband?” he asked
“He’s been out for months Sir, no news of him”, Keri hung her head in remorse.
“It won’t take very long. Get into the jeep” the inspector held the door open and ordered her in.
The constables went about their job interrogating the villagers and looking for any possible witnesses.

“So this murder has no witness!” said Inspector Garud with a sigh, as he came to realize the helplessness of his situation.
“Not a soul sir. Nobody even seems to know anything about the girl” replied Sub-Inspector Khan, “the post mortems reports are here sir.”
Garud flipped through the file absorbing every small bit of information that he could gather from it. “Twenty year old, female, murdered two months ago, name unknown, cracked skull…” he mumbled to himself.
“Sir it looks like the Banyan Tree is the only witness to this murder”, Khan said in a serious tone.
“Keep your jokes to yourself Khan. Its not even funny!”
“Sir, I’ve been talking to plants all my life and believe me, they do talk back!”
“Please shut-up and leave me alone. I have enough things to bother about which are more important that your “talking plants!”
“Plants are living beings too sir, they communicate in their own way” insisted the constable, “my brother is a botanist at the botanical research center sir, and he is writing a thesis on plant communication”
“Really?” the scientific prop had grabbed his attention and he was now trying to open himself to the idea of “talking to the tree” about the murder. “How is it done? I mean….the talking to the plants thing…”
“Sir, plants do not talk in an obvious way like we do…they just communicate feelings through their aura…allow me to explain. For example, if a tree is well nourished and watered, it feels happy and its aura is calm and peaceful but if someone begins to chop off its branches, the pain and trauma can be detected in its aura”
“And how exactly does one detect the aura?” Garud was now sitting upright and trying hard to maintain that look of indifference in his eyes as he felt increasingly carried away by this unique concept.
“The research center has developed a machine called the “aura- detector”. It can identify the changes taking place and gauge the intensity and nature of the “feeling”. It looks like our regular ECG machine and work on a similar principle. The scientists can read the graph and decipher the plant’s message”.
“Interesting! I would like to meet your brother. But make sure you brief him about the murder case before you get him here.”
“Sure sir”.
Inspector Garud wondered it he was being stupid in his decision to call upon a scientist who “talked to plants” as he waited for the man. Even if the tree did help them identify the murderer, who would believe it?

The morning sun dawned and a frail, slouching bespectacled man walked into the police station- with a huge backpack and a weird –looking set of machinery cradled in his arms like a new-born baby. “What have we here?” asked Garud brimming with enthusiasm.
“That’s my brother Asif “, Khan butted it before the man could speak for himself, “and he’s got the entire set of equipment with him.”
“So, how are you going to convince me about this”, Garud addressed the unsuspecting scientist in a challenging tone.
Beckoning the inspector to follow him, the scientist led him on till they reached the Banyan Tree. Without speaking a word during the demonstration, he unraveled queer and mysterious looking tools from his bag and began tacking electromagnetic receptors onto various “points” on the tree. Five receptors on the nearest leaves, a few on the hanging roots and five on the trunk- the inspector just stared on in disbelief while he was at it. He then plugged all of them into a box like instrument with colorful switches and a large screen which suddenly sprang to life as soon as its connection with the tree was established. The instrument buzzed, beeped and the screen showed an array of patterns and colors as though it was some signal from an alien spaceship. After a couple of minutes, the noise and disturbance mellowed down and gave way to a neat, sine-wave curve. “That is the tree’s ‘heartbeat’”, Asif spoke for the first time in hours. Just then, a bird perched upon a branch and hopped its way into a crevice in the trunk. The crack exuded tweets and titters and the curve danced over its high crests and deep troughs. “See, the tree is happy to see his feathered friend”, said Asif with a genuine and deep passion in his eyes. To prove his point further, the botanist repeatedly stabbed the trunk with a pen-knife. A gaping inspector witnessed the change in the graph as it plummeted to an astounding low- so much so that it began to look like a stand of curly hair. Asif gave the officer a knowing look. “Inspector, can you have the victim’s body wheeled in here for a short while”. The inspector just nodded in speechlessness and made a phone call.

A stretcher was brought to the scene within an hour with a plastic-wrapped corpse on it. As if to carry forward a tradition of nosy curiosity, the villagers had gathered around by then and were talking in hushed voices. Soon enough, the silence was broken by a screeching, beeping instrument with a frantic graph gone awry. Garud turned his gaze at Asif , who now had a strange possessed look in his eyes. “The tree is disturbed! It remembers the traumatic experience of witnessing a cold blooded murder!”
“But how will that help us nab the killer?” questioned Garud flatly.
“We will have to parade all the villagers in front of the tree one by one. The person who elicits a similar response is likely to be the killer!” Asif whispered into the officer’s ear so that not a soul could overhear him.
The body was taken away and the villagers were called closer. Being the owner of the land, a perturbed Keri was called upon too. With so many people surrounding it, the tree’s response was now as frantic as ever.
With each person coming closer, the graph would assume the same zigzag pattern and the buzzes and beeps would get louder and louder. “I don’t think this is working Asif, all of them couldn’t have committed the murder!”
“Something seems to be wrong Inspector, give me a while”. Asif reassured that all the wires and connections were in place but even with the villagers standing far away, the chagrin would not stop.
“Somebody please get me a glass of water”, Asif called out as his troubleshooting attempts went in vain under the sweltering summer sun.
Keri volunteered and walked away to a hand-pump nearby. The noise stopped and the graph was back to its tranquil state. The Inspector thanked Asif and asked him to pack up his stuff. “Please give me one last chance”, pleaded the botanist desperately, “I am sure I can convince you”.
“You have more than convinced me Asif, I have found the killer!”
Garud dragged Keri into the car and without a word, drove her down to the interrogation cell. It did not take long for the village woman to regurgitate the truth out. After a round of rigorous questioning, she blurted out, “She was my husband’s mistress sir, and she used him for money. We had to get rid of her. every now and then she would come with a new-strategy to blackmail him. We both killed her under the Banyan Tree…I hit her with a shovel on the head. He said he would dispose off the body and sent me home. I did not know that he buried her right here!”
Inspector Garud just shook his tired head in disbelief. A Banyan Tree had helped him solve a murder mystery! It was certainly too much to take but from now on, he would treat plants with a new-found respect.

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