by Praniti Gulyani
Trigger Warning: Recount of a murder case, mentions of murder, violence, poisoning and death.
Dear Jolly’s Cyanide,
I learned about you 2 days ago—almost 5 years after your bearer, 47-year-old Jolly Joseph was arrested.
Over a span of 14 years, Jolly used you to claim 6 lives in her family including that of her husband. Concealed within her clandestine—yet murderous— grasp, the first life that you claimed was that of her mother-in-law, Annama Thomas.
After Annama’s demise, you went on to claim the lives of Jolly’s father-in-law, her husband, her two-year-old-niece, and her niece’s mother.
Irrespective of where Jolly sprinkled you—from a glass of water to the grainy interiors of an outwardly tempting dish of rice and gram curry—you lay motionless and did not budge.
At the risk of putting forth words that might be mistaken for ambiguous appreciation, I have to say that you—Jolly’s Cyanide—outshine the chameleon in the craft of camouflage.
Once ingested into the body, you assumed the significance of an unwelcome invader and wrapped your flaky arms around the harmonious flow of oxygen.
After defeating the most essential source of survival for human beings, and permanently obstructing its flow, you moved from invader to spectator and watched each organ slow down. As electric waves of superseding suffocation sped through the body, you witnessed the whitening of cheeks and blueing of lips.
Soon enough, you took in all that comes with the unexpected fading of life: the welling of eyes, the flopping of limbs, the halting of days, the forming of questions, and most importantly—the beginning of long-due investigations.
Thereafter, the environment around you changed from one of apprehension and accusation to contemplation and confusion.
As a chemical element, you are meant to polish precious metals, extract gold and create paper. I wonder how you—the cautiously-used cyanide that facilitates the functioning of urban industries—reached Jolly’s domestic space, who, in addition to being a serial killer, was also a counterfeit professor.
Most importantly, for all these years—how did you persist?
In my quest for an answer, I conclude that the answer lies in your camouflaging competence.
In addition to camouflaging with the various food items that Jolly sprinkled you in, you also managed to camouflage with the affectionate wrinkles of a mother-in-law, the soft smile buried in the beard of a father-in-law, and the giggling dimples of a two-year-old-niece who was hurriedly finishing up piece of bread that her aunt had brought for her, hoping that her aunt would take her in her arms, and bounce her around: up and down, right and left—just the way she liked it.
Note: This letter is based on the Jolly Joseph Koodathayi Case, details of which can be found by accessing this link.
