Billu

(32, Male, 5’7”, 68 kg)

In Joseph D’Souza’s critically acclaimed book Marine Drive Murders, the serial killer walks into a South Indian restaurant called South Delicacies right after he has brutally murdered his third victim. What went inside the restaurant was unfortunately edited out.

Today, we are interviewing Billu, the waiter of South Delicacies who supposedly took the serial killer’s order. We’ll try to know him and how he felt after finding his entire scene removed from the book.

How does it feel to be a part of the critically acclaimed book?

Well, technically I am not in the book. Only the name of the restaurant where I work appears in the book. So, it doesn’t feel any great. But given the abundance of fictional characters that are there, who desperately waiting to find themselves in a published work, it doesn’t feel bad either.

Chapter 7 ends with the killer stepping into South Delicacies. Why should the readers believe that it was you who interacted with him and not any other waiter?

Readers are gods. They are free to believe anything they want to. But as far as the truth is concerned, till the 16th draft of Marine Drive Murders I was there in the story, interacting with the killer. After that, the entire scene was—just—gone!

Apart from being in the thoughts of a couple of contemporary writers, I’m also in certain unfinished short stories.

Can you explain the scene for our viewers? It would be great if you could avoid spoilers.

Sure.

He walks into the restaurant and occupies the first table on the right. He notices two tiny drops of blood on his thumb. For a moment, the two tiny drops of blood, which resembles a snake bite, fascinate him. He takes a tissue and wipes out the blood. If he wasn’t in a restaurant, he would have went on admiring the beauty of those two tiny drops which belonged to someone whose only fault was the first letter of his name. The L. The L was also the third and the fourth letter of the word HELLO.

‘Hello? Hello, sir?’

His reverie breaks.

The waiter stops knocking the table and says, ‘Order?’

He didn’t like the waiter’s tone. He felt it was rude.

‘Name?’

‘Billu.’

Shit, he said inside his head. If only it was Naman, or Nitin, or Nikhil, then he would have smiled, just smiled.

‘Order, sir?’

‘Idli-wada.’

Billu wrote in his pocket book.

‘And?’

‘That’s it.’

Billu about turns and shouts to the busy cook in the kitchen, ‘Nandu, one idli-wada.’

He tilts his head just a little to get a better view of the cook and smiles, just smiles.

Do you think the restaurant scene should have been in the book?

That’s for the readers to decide.

What other projects you are currently busy with?

Apart from being in the thoughts of a couple of contemporary writers, I’m also in certain unfinished short stories. Hopefully, it will see the light of the day someday.

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The sole purpose of interviewing fictional characters is to introduce them to writers of fiction, so that they can become a published fictional character someday. Please feel free to use Billu in your work of fiction. If you wish to know more about him, contact us at mykingdomofsmiles@gmail.com