Randor Guy

Randor Guy is a noted Indian writer, filmmaker and TV producer. He is a film historian and crime writer whose work has been published in many languages including English not only in India but also in Sri Lanka, Singapore, United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. He is the author of several best sellers: Star Light Star Bright, about the history of cinema; Murder for Pleasure, and Madhuri Oru Maadhri. He has won numerous awards for his contributions to Indian cinema history such as the Gnana Kala Bharathi, the Value Arts Foundation Award, the Inturi Award, Gnana Samudra, and RajTV Gold Coin Award. He has worked in Hollywood on two screenplays: Perfumed Garden, and Maya.<br><br>

He lives in Madras, now called Chennai, and has travelled widely. He believes that work is worship and to worship is to work, and also that there is “So much to do, so little done, and not much time left!”
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Can be contacted at randorguy11@gmail.com , and guyrandor@ymail.com

A Diabolical Doctor

April 16, 2012

Laxmibai Karve, a 45-year-old widow from Poona, was poisoned by her doctor on the train to Bombay.

by Randor Guy

The slow-crawling passenger night train from Poona to Bombay pulled into Victoria Terminus, Bombay after a weary stop-at-every station journey soon after dawn. A middle-aged man, Anant Chintaman Lagoo, a Poona-based doctor, arranged for a stretcher to carry a 45-year old widow. She was unconscious and obviously needed immediate medical help. Lagoo raced towards G. T. Hospital, some distance away, where the woman was admitted. It was about 5:45 a.m.

Lagoo told the hospital doctors that the lady whom he had not known before had travelled in the same compartment with him on the Poona-Bombay night train. He had gathered from the usual train journey chat that her name was Indumati Paunshe and she had a brother G. B. Deshpande, living in Calcutta. She took ill during the journey and became unconscious on board.

The lady was treated for diabetic coma. Glucose and insulin were administered along with other drugs, but she did not respond to the treatment. Nor did she regain her senses and she passed away at 11:30 a.m.

She had neither jewelry nor ornaments on her. No money either. Except the clothes she had on her person, there was nothing. She seemed a destitute. And nobody came to claim her body nor did anyone turn up to see her, of course, besides the Good Samaritan Poona doctor, Lagoo.

The Alavandar Murder Case

March 19, 2012

One of the most sensational cases that Dr. C. B. Gopalakrishna investigated from the Forensic Science angle was the history-making Alavandar murder case. Even though more than half century has passed since the murder and its trial that shook South India, it is still being talked about and discussed as excitedly as it was 50-plus years ago. This writer wrote a TV serial based on this case in Tamil, which was produced by the Dhina Thanthi Group-owned TV Division, and telecast over Doordarshan some years ago. The serial turned out to be a major success.

by Randor Guy

The noted Madras morning daily, The Hindu, carried a short news item one morning during August 1952. It had a sensational headline that caught the reader’s attention at once. "CITY BUSINESSMAN MISSING!"

A complaint had been made at the Law College police station in Esplanade, Madras that a person named Alavandar was missing, and his whereabouts were unknown. The complainant was a well-known businessman of the city, a big dealer in fountain pens and the owner of the noted firm Gem & Company, M. C. Cunnan Chetty.

Who was Alavandar? A man in his early 40s, during World War II he had worked as sub-divisional officer at the Army Headquarters at Avadi near Madras. He belonged to the Hindu Vysya community to which M.C. Cunnan also belonged. Known as "Komati Chettis," the Telugu-speaking members of this community are traditionally businessmen and many of them wealthy. But Alavandar was not. After his discharge from the British Indian Army service he looked around for a living and chose to have a small business of his own. Plastic goods.

The age of plastics dawned in India, soon after the World War II and caught the fancy the Indian consumer. The articles were colorful, light, and not so expensive. Plastic articles became the fashion of the day and Alavandar thought that it was a good line of business. His fellow Vysya, Cunnan Chetty, kindly gave him a small space in the frontage of his pen company for him to display the goods and conduct his business. Gem & Company drew many customers and it seemed a fine venue of business for the novelty of the day.

Alavandar also had another line of business. Selling saris on installments. The installment business was something new in Madras during that period. With its easy terms of payments and possession of the goods it found ready acceptance and took firm roots. Though some criticized it as "buying on the never-never," it found its place in the economy of the country and the world too. (According to law goods bought on the installment plan never really belonged to the user until and unless the last installment was paid. Until then the lessor was the legal owner and he had right to seize the property at any time for default in payment. That was why it was called buying on the "never-never" system of purchase because the article never legally belonged to one until the end.)