Sinister Spinster

Recall Miss Marple, a fictional creation of Agatha Christie, without whom the English literature would have been poorer by some ten novels and few stories. This elegant armchair spinster detective has a charm of her own and endowed with the intricate knowledge of rural people and their psychology, which invariably proved helpful to the Scotland Yard in solving the cases in and around her area.

We have numerous female spies, both blonde and brunette, created by Ian Fleming and almost all ended up with providing much needed succor to the tired body of our beloved 007 at the end of the day!

In the exotic world of detectives and spies, our own Madhuri Gupta, a spinster, is a class by herself. Until the other day, no one suspected her to be an international spy. She has IFS tag, also works as a junior diplomatic official in the Ministry of External Affairs. Some complain that she is not in the same league as Mata Hari and Virginia Hall. Tarantula does not approve any such remarks, which are, obviously, made with superficial knowledge of the extent of her activities.

Admittedly, it is difficult to understand her motives behind sharing of information with our neighbor. May be she strongly felt that RTI Act should be extended to brothers beyond the unnatural boundaries made by partitioning the country and started acting on this impulse. As readers are aware, India takes few decades to decide on the punishment, if any, but certainly GoP might not take as many days in awarding Madhuri Gupta their hightest civilian honor Nishan-e-Pakistan.