MA Ganapathy retired as Director General of National Security Guard in 2024. He has written 112 pages, carrying 12 stories! As said, these stories are intended to convey some kind of wonderment and escape from vicissitudes of a humdrum existence, while hinting towards real possibility of life beyond life as we know it.

An excerpt.

Haidalpur District was light years away from any trappings of modernity. The defining feature was desolation. Haidalpur was also the land of vendetta killings.

It was on a July morning, Avinash received the message of a suspected double murder of an unidentified young couple in Village Behta under Sarangarh Police Station limit. Avinash was posted as Police Chief of Haidalpur and Sarangarh was the remotest part of the District with sparse inhabitation.

Avinash arrived at Sarangarh Police Station after breakfast. Man Singh, Station-in-Charge, apprised Avinash of a rather strange and unusual fact about Behta Village. Every Police Station maintains a Village Crime Notebook. Behta Village was shown as uninhabited for over 80 years!

After travelling for nearly an hour, Police Party finally reached what Avinash presumed was Behta Village. Police were soon directed by a Villager to where two dead bodies were lying.

Soon rain started pouring steadily. Avinash and his Team started early next morning. The scoured the area thoroughly to locate Behta Village, but no Village! It was as if, Behta was lost in the immense vastness of the saline landscape!

Next, Avinash wanted to know the outcome of post-mortem examination. The probable cause of death was determined by Doctors as ‘heart failure due to stress induced cardiomyopathy’.

Today, if one were to read Sarangarh Police Station Records of this incident, it does not tell the entire story of the Bizarre Village which disappeared. Behta Village remains listed as uninhabited in Sarangarh Police Station Records to this day.

– Whispers in the Shadows, (2024, Srishti Publishers and Distributors).

This is a case of a dastardly murder of a young couple, Murugesan and Kannagi, who were only in their early 20s. Both of them were administered poison in full view of a large number of Villagers. A wicked and odious crime, as one we have just dealt with, is an ugly reality of our deeply entrenched caste structure. Honour-Killing, as these are called, must get a strong measure of punishment.

– Hon’ble Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, K.P. Tamilmaran v. State, [Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 1522 of 2023] decided on 28.04.2025.