(These notes were randomly jotted between November 1987 and May 1988, when one of my periodic crises had rendered me practically destitute, without office, without work, without the perks that go with the office. The point to appreciate is that I had lots of leisure. In those pre word processor days, writing was a heroic task and needed great determination and lots of leisure. But I could proceed no further than forty or forty five handwritten foolscap pages, because in June 1988, I was posted to the CID and assigned the investigation of cases registered against the members of so called “Cooperative Mafia”. The many cases that we launched against influential political figures as well as high profile IAS officers left me no time for anything else for quite some time. It put an end to this project.

I must put in the all important caveat. I deliberately approached the subject in an elliptical, non linear fashion for fear of exposing the identity of the persons concerned. Adequate precaution was also necessary because identification of the characters due to some coincidence or chance resemblance could seriously expose me to the danger of personal harm; if not actually murder, the loss of a few limbs was a distinct possibility. I’ll tell you why; one of my closest friends threatened to shoot me should I dare to immortalize him or his father in law- a senior police officer himself- in my ephemeral memoir which was certainly not going to see the light of the day.