Vimla: The Everyday Indian Woman & Murder Most Foul

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The day before, as night tiptoed out of the house and the grey of the sky grew lighter, the doorbell had rung. It was Vimla who had answered the bell as all the others had stirred awake, opening the door to find an old, physically challenged Sardar who had asked for Doctor Saab.

Which Doctor Saab', Vimla had enquired.

Her physician brother who was visiting was called Doctor Saab, her bureaucrat husband with a PhD was also called a Doctor Saab. Londonwale Doctor Saab. As Vimla had gone into the house to call her brother, the mysterious old man had left.

It is in the anguished voice of a distraught wife that this story of how an ordinary Indian woman, completely unprepared for such a sudden death, is forced to reconcile with the official verdict - that her husband was just one of the many such collateral damages of divisive politics.

When it's your only daughter getting married, the preparations for the wedding are not really half-measured. Especially not so when the bride's father is the Chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Pricing. As an Indian bureaucrat in the 1990s, Devendra Singh Tyagi had risen to the top and was one of the highest-ranking officials in the bureaucracy. His name commanded great respect in both the government and academic circles; and he was loved and revered by his friends and family. Ask anyone about Tyagiji and you would be hard- pressed to find someone who would criticise him for either his work or his person. Not only his friends and family, but society is still wondering who could have wanted him dead?

Vimla Tyagi's story is that of a good daughter, supportive wife and conscientious mother - the even tenor of whose life is suddenly turned upside down by the muder of her husband, on their daughter's wedding day. Why was he killed? Did he have secret enemies? Vimla still does not know who killed him.

The 1990s was one of the century's most turbulent decades for India Separatist threats from groups like the LTTE, Khalistanis. the Hizbul in J&K, and the armed insurgents of the north-east all besieged the PV Narasimha Rao government. In this setting. when a popular bureaucrat is gunned down in broad daylight and nobody knows why, one is likely to think, this can happen to anyone, even you and me. This is why Vitasta brings you the story of Vimla: The Everyday Indian Woman & Murder Most Foul.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages