It was through the children’s chatter that Candy came to know that Kamalesh had received a transfer order. He realized that his master was not going to take his aged pet with him to this new, faraway place. Only the youngest child seemed upset by this decision, and cried until he was pacified with a chocolate candy.

The day before their departure, Kamalesh and the children took Candy for a ride in the car. It had been a long time since Candy had been outside the compound, and he sat happily watching the world go by.

‘You’ll be happy here, Candy,’ Kamalesh said when they arrived at the vet’s house. He patted Candy, and as he kissed him for the first time in years, his eyes were wet. Candy watched until the car was out of sight, worrying whether the children would be safe in the new place without him to watch over them.

For the next two days, Candy was fed lavish meals in the new house. Although he had no appetite, he showed his appreciation by licking the hand of the woman who brought the food and barking gently.

On the third day, the vet came up to him. ‘Candy,’ he called softly, and stroked his face. He had a big syringe in his left hand, and Candy understood what was about to happen. He stared into the doctor’s eyes and wagged his tail as fast and strongly as he could. As the medicine spread through his body and he felt himself slip painlessly into darkness, Candy continued wagging his tail. A few years later, someone would post his story, titled ‘A Sad Dog Story’, on the Internet and many people would admire it.

At the police camp, a young man they had arrested was stripped naked and made to stand, for the last three or four days, with his hands tied to a wooden bar above his head. He looked at Victor with begging, terrified eyes. Victor sprang forward from Inspector Janardhanan’s hands. In the split second between him and the dog, the young man remembered his father and the girl who had been his first love at a tender age. Many years ago, he had written some political slogans on the walls of the school urinal—that was his crime. He confessed to the inspector that he had been inspired by the books he had read, and that no one else was involved. Inspector Janardhanan believed him, but he acted as though he did not because he enjoyed interrogating these hapless suspects, noting down the names they called out in the agony of their helplessness, and bringing those people too into the police camp within hours.

‘Who needs clothes when they are in the presence of God?’ Inspector Janardhanan told the young men tied to the table legs, window bars and pillars in the various rooms at the police camp. ‘When you go to the temple, you take off your shirts, and when you’re here, you must remove your underpants.’ He had figured out that dogs were most useful in interrogations. Victor did not have to attack their exposed private parts. The sight of him was sufficient to make the suspects own up to their wildest fantasies. A few of them, like the young man who wrote the slogans in the urinal, would lose their ability to be aroused forever.