Playing Detective

You can never truly know anybody inside out, but if you really want to and can’t on your own, you can ask Rajani Pandit for help. Completing her silver jubilee as a detective, she has a lot to share, though she really can’t…

- Rahul Paul

"Would you like some water?” she asked politely as I entered and when I answered affirmatively, she went inside and got a glass for me herself. She noticed the expression on my face regarding the absence of any help and said, “I don’t have domestic help. We do all our work here, play recordings and discuss findings, so there is a fear of leak and they could be easily bought with money.” I was taken aback by her precautionary measures and asked her about this dire need for privacy, to which she said, “When people’s lives are dependent on something, extra precaution has to be taken.” This level of commitment must come from a complete obsession with your profession, which has made her marry her work instead of a person and stopped her from having a social life.

However, Rajani claims that she was never into deduction and didn’t grow up reading or watching any detective stories, until a particular incident in college. “A known girl in the college had fallen into bad company and was getting exploited. When she wouldn’t listen to reason, I got in touch with her father and got him to see for himself. Her father said, ‘You are a spy’ and that gave me a new identity to see myself in,” she recollected.