“You ungrateful dog! Get out of here!” shouted Dhamu. Ayyappan just stood there for a moment, fixing his unblinking eyes on Dhamu. His eyes grew bloodshot and the veins on his forehead throbbed. Even though he stood like a stone, there was a hint of a smile on his lips. Then he suddenly whipped his head around and left.

He stayed in town for the next two days, just wandering around. He picked up news of the elections and the disputes about the tamarind tree. He also understood that Dhamu was relishing the victory he had gained by turning the tamarind tree into a deity.

Ayyappan’s brain worked fast. He realized it was the perfect time for him to approach Khader. At midnight, he knocked on Khader’s door.

Khader said in court that he had agreed to offer Ayyappan refuge in his house because he had claimed he could make the tree die right on the spot in exchange for Khader’s support.

Coolie Ayyappan was very diligent with his planning and execution. He knew that as election day approached, Dhamu and his friends would be up all night keeping vigil against the opposition trying to split up Dhamu’s voting blocs, so all their attention would be on the constituency. Coolie Ayyappan therefore deliberately picked a day close to the election to carry out his plan.

He climbed up the tree at one in the morning. In the folds of his veshti, he carried a little bottle of mercury mixed with poison, which he had procured from a local healer. He took out his knife and gouged a hole in the tree where the trunk split into branches. He poured the potion into the hole, then plugged it with some cow dung he had brought in a banana-leaf packet. If he had heard so much as a whisper then, he wouldn’t have tried to climb down the tree. But he was already halfway down the trunk when tragedy struck. He was suddenly blinded by a light in his eyes. He jumped to the ground and tried to run away, but three men pounced on him and pinned him to the earth. Coolie Ayyappan took out his penknife and held it up, over their heads. But one of the men grabbed his hand, wrested the knife away, and stabbed him in the chest with it. It was only a small wound, but the doctors at the government hospital said that the knife had punctured an artery—the injury was fatal.

Dhamu had sent three campaign workers on their bicycles to buy tea and snacks for everyone working through the night at the campaign office. They had been on their way back from the clock tower when they’d seen Ayyappan climbing down the tree.