India’s First Female Private Eye Talks About The Sleuth Game

India’s First Female Private Eye Talks About The Sleuth Game
Julian Manning

Mumbai, like any major city, has a prominent underbelly of murder, adultery, jealousy, and suspicion.

The police touch the tip of the proverbial iceberg, but just like the arctic iceberg that sank the Titanic, there is a whole lot underneath the surface, in this case, a dense mass of vice and suspicion. The core of malignancy that ails city folk can only be tackled by one profession, whose job it is to slink in the shadows and uncover the elusive truth- the private eye. Although most people envision sleuths as their popular fictional counterparts, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock or Satyajit Ray’s Feluda, few can say they know what a true private detective’s life is like.

That’s why I sought out Rajani Pandit, India’s first female private eye, who has combed the streets of Mumbai for over 25 years, vetting out criminals and adulterers for her clients. Her agency Rajani Pandit Detective Services has solved over 75,000 cases, many of them by the head lady herself. As Rajani put it, “detectives are born, not made,” and as her impressive track record shows she was cut out for this line of work.

Rajani’s first foray into the detective world was spurred by a friend falling into bad company. Rajani, was a young girl in college at the time, and her friend would not heed her well-intentioned advice, so Rajani went to her friend’s parents. The parents were vehemently opposed to the notion that their daughter could be under the influence of seedy characters. To clear her name as a liar as well as to help her wayward friend, Rajani unveiled her talents as a detective by showing the father the illicit activities his daughter and her cronies were up to. Rajani still smiles like a schoolgirl when she recalls the moment the slackjawed father uttered the words, “You are a spy!”

Rajani had never before questioned that her keen eye and deft deductive skills could be applied to becoming a detective, but she suddenly felt the urge to utilize her talent and thus began honing her skill, solving another five cases before she embarked on her newfound dream of becoming a professional detective.

Of course, the patriarchy pushed against this desire, her own father was deeply confused as to why his daughter would want to pursue such an ‘unwomanly’ activity. Telling me this Rajani doesn’t feign bitterness or start into a tirade about how difficult it was; she just flashes that patented 100 dollar smile again, the mischievous curl of her lips slashing all the trash talk from the unbelievers with the knowledge that she is Mumbai’s miracle detective.

The Presence Of The Private Eye

I was allowed to sit in on a client’s consultation with Rajani and listened intently as a young woman held back her tears, unleashing 45-minutes-worth of suspicion revolving around her husband and his possible infidelity.

The unravelled client brandished her phone at Rajini showing her suspect text messages, telling her tales of long work hours, frequent business trips, and a mountain of moments that pointed to questionable activity, each sentence inflected with an everlasting and desperate question mark. As the distressed woman poured out all her inhibitions and fears in a flood of emotions directed at Rajani, the private eye sat there with a calm stoicism befitting a monk. No matter how high-pitched and strained the client’s voice got, Rajani maintained such composure that one would almost suspect she wasn’t really listening. Her eyes, on the other hand, told a different story – a piercing look one gets they peer out from behind a mask.

I didn’t think much of it initially. During the course of our interview, she slowly typed out a few seemingly innocuous messages when I paused to jot things down. I later found out that in those brief moments, recon against the accused husband had already begun.

As a veteran private eye, she has a poker face that would rattle even the best five-card stud player. And if your name enters her realm, you better hope you’re clean, because she’ll find your dirt faster than a vacuum sucks up dust.

Making Her Bones

Perhaps the most famous of Rajini’s cases is when she went undercover as a housemaid for six months to uncover a double homicide. A married woman was involved in a passionate affair, which resulted in the murder of her husband. The woman had an alibi, however, rumours circling the topic of an affair were already bubbling. The woman’s son began to question whether his father was actually killed. Suspicion surrounding the mother rose to new levels, but once again she had an alibi, and it was around this time that Rajani was hired to find the truth.

Simply surveying of the house from afar proved difficult as the suspected male lover would only show up in the wee hours of the night. Rajani approached the domestic help, posing as a woman in dire need of a job. Her acting skills earned her a short-term place as house help. Later on, the woman in question fainted and Rajani rushed to the rescue by giving her medicine and ringing the doctor. The lady of the house was impressed and took Rajani on as a permanent caretaker.

One night Rajani heard her ‘employer’ and her lover having a big row, which resulted in the woman urging him to run away and not return since she suspected her house was being watched. Since this occurred in the early nineties, before everyone had a mobile, Rajani used her quick wits and dropped a kitchen knife on her foot. Upon seeing the copious amount of blood gushing from Rajani’s foot, her employer told her to rush to the doctor. Rush is exactly what Rajani did, but her destination was the police station. Twenty minutes later the police arrested both the lovers, finally sealing two murder case files, which comforted the concerned. Knowing a loved one was killed is a dreadful kind of pain, but not knowing whether it was murder or not seems like it would be a twist of the knife that damns any hope of closure.

Another daring case of Rajani’s bears a lot of relevance to the current Karan Joseph case, where consistent ineptitude by the Bandra Police has left a possible murder in unnecessarily murky waters.

A wealthy man was pushed off his roof and fell to his death. Although there was no likely reason for the man to jump, the only person with a legitimate motive for the man’s untimely death was his nephew, who just happened to be his sole heir. He, however, had a convenient alibi. Rajani was contacted by concerned friends of the man, who could not fathom why a happy man with much to live for would decide to plummet to an early death. Rajani reminds me during the retelling of this story that much of being a good detective is applying logic. She deduced that the death was under suspicious circumstances; the nephew was the only person who stood to gain from it and that the only person present in the house during the suspected time of death was the old man’s helper.

So how would a greedy nephew persuade a helper to kill his employer - well, many people have a price, and in this case, it was a promised 50 percent of the old man’s vast property. Without concrete evidence Rajani got a confession from the murderous helper - she didn’t have her colleagues beat him, she in no way forced a confession but merely sat him down and manipulated the guilt by using logic.

Advice For The Aspiring Detective

Secret agents have their gadgets, private eyes have their wits.
These days there is a James Bond-level of gadget technology to help out in the sleuthing world. However, Rajani maintains that no matter how much equipment you have, you need 101 detective skills to survive in the game, of which somethings can be learned and some you’re just born with.

In her opinion, the skill of shadowing is of paramount importance. She elaborates that true, comprehensive shadowing is a lot more difficult than Hollywood portrays it to be. You don’t jump in a cab and blurt out “follow that car!” In fact, if you’re in the private eye biz you hardly ever do the one-man shadow.

She explained that any professional operation mandates a team of well-coordinated shadowers. If the first tail gets made, the operative immediately backs off, allowing others from the team to close in. In Rajani’s eyes, if you can’t tailor your pace to your target’s and blend into the surrounding atmosphere, you aren’t worth your salt as a detective.

Rajani later confided in me that suspected affairs are the number one source of business as a detective in Mumbai. A close second is background checks before marriages. Despite these two categories being the leading breadwinners for a private eye, Rajani cautions that being a detective is not for the fainthearted as she took me on the journey of some of her darker cases.

Business Is Booming

Why is being a private eye a great business? Because everybody has problems.

In Rajani’s opinion detective work is a great business and her logic is rather shrewd. “As long as there are people, I’ll have work,” she commented poetically. She elaborates, “Everybody has some kind of drama. Some suspicion or dispute, whether it be a father and son, and uncle and niece, a contractor and an employee, we have so many relationships that at least one is bound to end up in drama. Because of this, the private eye will always have work.”

So if you’re tired of being a corporate lackey, apply to Rajani Pandit Detective Services and add a little adventure to your life! But be warned, you’ve got to earn your stripes before you can stride alongside the cases’ leading lady.

Rajani Pandit photographed by Julian Manning

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