R. K. Menon Chapter 1 The morning traffic on Outer Ring Road was its usual symphony of blaring horns, impatient engines, and the occasional curse shouted through helmet visors. Somewhere between a lumbering BMTC bus and a swerving goods carrier, Prakash Nayak’s modest grey scooter skidded. The police report would later write it up as a tragic but routine road mishap—oil slick on the asphalt, sudden brake, impact with a divider, helmet cracked clean through. For the few bystanders who stopped, he was just another middle-aged man in an ill-fitting formal shirt and worn office trousers, carrying a black backpack…