THUD-ALL : A Balderdash Burphy Story

Chapter Fourteen

LEO or 'Law Enforcement Office' was established with the sole purpose of law enforcement – laws that real law enforcement agencies felt were insignificant or not worthy of the policemen's time. While the police force tackled serious crimes, LEO was tasked with helping trace missing cats, rear-view mirrors, doormats and the likes. A call-centre called the control room was setup to assess and reroute calls from distressed complainants who shouldn't have been distressed in the first place.

Bharani Pichai alias Burphy was one of its earliest members and he stuck on like a stubborn stain. His sprightly demeanour and never say die attitude saw him climb the ladder of success fairly quickly.

There were times when he slipped a rung or two, thanks to people taunting him for his archaic name. People calling him Pichai – meaning alms – riled him to no end. He ended up confronting such people and challenged them to drunken brawls, leading to everything from reprimand to the occasional demotion.

And so, when he finally got high enough to deserve a fancy code name, he chose Burphy formed by concatenating truncated parts of his first and middle names. It was stylish and importantly, it rhymed with Murphy.

While the former helped him escape the ignominy of having an old-fashioned name, the latter helped him come up with fancy one-liners such as the one he mouthed to the caller.

"Chowkilal," he called out. The trusted sidekick promptly arrived, stood ramrod straight and saluted. Burphy smiled and shook his head.

"We have an interesting case to solve. A girl has not picked her phone up for a long time and her parents are worried. Her father just spoke and he seeks our help. Let's get going."

"Oh! What does he want sir?" Chowkilal, known for his presence of mind, asked.

"Hmm? He wants us to save him from his wife. Idiot. Of course, he wants us to find his daughter, you fool," Burphy's condescending reply took everyone but Chowkilal by surprise.

"Sure sir. I will get the jeep ready." Chowkilal ran, followed by Burphy who waddled behind.

"Hurry up. Let's go. We have a case to deal with," Burphy said.

"But where to sir?" Chowkilal asked apologetically. Only then it occurred to Burphy that he had set out on a journey to look for a girl about whom he knew nothing except that she hadn't responded to her parents' phone calls. 

He scratched his balding head and thought for a while. What would Dark Brown have done under such circumstances? He thought of his favourite detective and pictured him saving the world with a sultry sidekick in tow. After a while, his muddled head was clear about one thing – that it was still muddled. And so, he decided to check with Cleopatra, his trusted personal assistant.

"Chowkilal, get me Cleopatra at once. I will wait here," he said to Chowkilal who took a swift U-turn, avoided two oncoming cars and headed swiftly for the LEO headquarters where Cleopatra lay in wait. None but Burphy could turn her on and she loved it that way.

He then turned around to see one of the violators still hanging around and running his fingers frantically over his mobile phone.