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Page 1 of 7 Remember supersleuths Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls and Miss Marple whose mystery solving prowess assailed our imagination during childhood? These characters are translating to reality in a steadily growing battalion of private investigators who are making a mark for themselves in India.
I SPY
At 38, Rajani Pandit runs Rajani Investigations Bureau in Shivaji Park. Clad in a simple salwar kameez, Pandit powers her 10 member team in an unassuming two-room office. Minus the hoopla of fancy gizmos and gun toting security personnel. "Detectives are not made. You're born to be a detective," she retorts crisply, addressing my first question regarding her formal training in her rather unconventional vocation.
"Though my father was with the CID, he always maintained that owing to the 'risk' factor, the profession of private investigation was unsuitable for women," she says. "But I was determined to pursue this line of work."
Her compulsive desire to ferret the truth manifested itself during school going days. "I suspected a classmate of lying to her parents about the hours she was supposed to be keeping at school. And on sleuthing, discovered that she was bunking classes and hanging out with unsavoury characters. Immediately I apprised her parents of the situation, and they were able to help out their daughter before any unwanted situation arose. It made me feel good that I could help out people liable to get into trouble or in distress," she reveals.
Followed a spiel of cases where she shadowed college going students to keep parents abreast of their activities, verified details of prospective brides and grooms, unravelled criminal cases, tailed rich wives while their husbands were visiting foreign lands, and spied upon philandering husbands at the behest of their worried partners.
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