On six occasions, his enemies had tried shooting him; twice, they'd attempted poison (once using a samosa laced with arsenic); and during the Case of the Pundit with Twelve Toes, a hired thug had tried to force Puri's car over the edge of a hairpin bend on the road to Gulmarg.
# Permanent link to “Saala, maaderchod!”*
The most ingenious attempt had been orchestrated by a cunning murderer (a naturalist by profession) working in Assam's Kaziranga Park, who had secretly sprayed Puri's clothes with a pheromone that attracted one-horned rhinos.
The closest anyone had come (not including the three rhinos, who could move surprisingly quickly) had been a criminal hijra who had pushed a pile of bricks off the top of a building into an alley in Varanasi where Puri had been walking.
Lessons for the Day
[from the stabenow.com vaults, 2007] March 17 A little before nine a.m. I felt the ship turn hard right rudder, so I went up to the bridge. We spotted a fishing boat on the radar. The captain says that drug smugglers often use fishing boats as mother ships for go fasts. The go fasts will…
First Day Underway
[from the stabenow.com vaults, 2007] Friday, March 16 Hello Danamaniacs, Coasties, friends and family! Once again I write from on board a Coast Guard cutter underway. Man, I love my job. Last time it was 16 days in the Bering Sea on board the USCG cutter Alex Haley, a 282-foot medium endurance cutter out of…
Last Day
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 19, 2004] Today I took my leave of the USCGC Alex Haley and her crew. I know that for the past two weeks I’ve been writing what amounts to a recruiting poster. All I can tell you is that I wrote what I saw. Was I able to…
Two different days
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 18, 2004] What a difference a day makes. Yesterday we worked with another cutter, testing an electronic positioning system that will help the Coast Guard prove cases in court, which required ten hours of steaming back and forth, pinging the other ship on radar and recording both positions…
Courtesy Call
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 17, 2004] So I got to do a courtesy call on another Coast Guard cutter. Which means I got suited up like the BTMs and took a boat ride. I can’t tell you how hard it has been NOT to beg, plead, whine and cry to do this.…
Pushing responsibility down
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 16, 2004] The Captain scrubbed a boarding due to heavy seas. The bosun’s mate, the person who drives the boarding party over to the fishing vessel in the small boat, came to the bridge afterward, and the Captain explained the reasons why he’d scrubbed the launch. “Agreed,” said…
About Seasickness
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 15, 2004] About seasickness, since almost every single non-Coastie person who has emailed me has asked if I’m seasick. Yes, once, the first full day of patrol. I woke up, sat up, and threw up. Later that same day I walked into the wardroom pantry and the seaman…
Poetry and pizza
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 14, 2004] Two poems I found posted by the mid-watch on yellow sticky notes on a bridge window. I added the titles. Night Watch Cold wind blowin’ On the sea tonight One screw turning’ One screw tight Box steaming In the lee tonight Cold wind blowin’ On the…
Fishermen and fire drills
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 13, 2004] We did a safety boarding on an opilio crabber. I tried to talk the boarding team into bringing back some crab but they wouldn’t go for it. Then I tried to talk Ops into swinging the boat hoist over to pick one of the pots as…