Tags:
Journalism of Courage
This could be another first of sorts from India8217;s suicides capital 8212; Kerala. A bankrupt jeweller in Palakkad has demolished the legend about people tasting cyanide dying before they could pick up a pen and write down what it really tastes like. This man tasted the poison, addressed a note in some detail to doctors on it, then died.
State Health Secretary Vishwas Mehta says he is contacting experts to see if this note could be of some use to science. Forensic department sources say there is plenty of scientific literature theoretically deducing cyanide8217;s taste from analysing its known chemical properties 8212; but they have yet to see any that says someone had actually tasted the deadly stuff, and then documented it.
Prasad mixed the cyanide in a tumbler, stirred it with the bottom of his pen, then sat down to write the suicide note to his kin. The police presume that by the time he was nearly done with it, he would have been absently chewing on the pen8217;s bottom with the cyanide on it. His suicide note abruptly goes off course to address doctors:
8216;8216;Doctors, this is potassium cyanide. I have tasted it. It comes through slowly at the beginning, and then it burns, the whole tongue burns and feels hard. The taste is very acrid8230;I had read in some novel about killing a man discreetly with cyanide. It was smeared on the pages of a book that he was reading, and when he touched his tongue with his finger to turn the book8217;s pages, he died and no one suspected8230; I am now convinced how easily someone can kill another using this8230;8217;8217;
Forensic officials say Prasad8217;s description of its taste tallies with the surmises in scientific journals. A mere 300 mcg of cyanide could kill a man. The police think that though the poison might have begun acting fast while he wrote and chewed on his pen, Prasad would have collapsed and died immediately after he drank up the remaining portion of the deadly brew as well. The autopsy has now confirmed it was potassium cyanide.
