The Honest Season

by Kota Neelima

  ‘I blame the media for being biased and not believing me,’ he charged.

  ‘According to the tape,’ another journalist said, ‘you confessed that you have fooled people in past and plan to do it again.’

  ‘It’s a conspiracy against me and my honest politics.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stop the farmer from committing suicide at your public meeting?’

  ‘That wasn’t my job; I blame the police.’

  ‘Your colleague in the party, Ajay Sarkar, confirms the facts he had stated in the tape about Ratanbau’s hunger strike.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter now.’ Bharat Kumar added with satisfaction, ‘I have expelled Ajay from the party this morning.’

  A senior journalist stood up. ‘This is cold-blooded ambition, Bharat, this is neither clean politics nor real revolution.’

  Bharat was furious. ‘Not real revolution?’ he repeated scornfully. ‘Revolutions require martyrs and heroes, and the leader decides who among his men will become what. The tape only reveals the price of opposing my clean politics.’

  The next questions naturally were about why the BP cadres protested when the story wasn’t wrong. Cornered, Bharat Kumar re-enacted theatrics based on popular themes of police brutality, political corruption, media apathy and corporate interference. Then he stormed out of the press conference.

  ‘They should have asked him about his false promises,’ Salat said to Lina, as the cameras chased Bharat into his office.

  ‘You’ll get your chance tonight on the news channels.’

  ‘Can’t wait,’ he replied.

  ‘I see that you enjoy this!’ she smiled. ‘Mira never cared for the publicity. She never cared for anything, except the know-reports and their subjects.’

  He scanned other news on the television screens. ‘You speak as if she is part of the past.’

  ‘She may soon be,’ Lina speculated, ‘if she fails to solve Sikander’s clues.’

  ‘They are not easy clues to solve,’ he defended. ‘It’s difficult for her to handle them. They affect her personally.’

  ‘That’s impossible!’ Lina said, laughing briefly. ‘It’s nice of you to make excuses for another knower, Salat, but you are wrong. Nothing can affect Mira, she has no feelings.’ Lina paused. ‘Well, I won’t miss her if she leaves; I have never really liked the way she plays around with one’s thoughts.’

  ‘What did she do?’ Salat asked, as he surveyed the bustling newsroom around them. ‘Read your next move?’

  ‘Much worse. She read my boyfriend’s next move.’

  Salat glanced at her, interested. ‘Don’t tell me that didn’t help.’ ‘It did. I escaped from that relationship in time.’ Then she turned to him. ‘Now I wish Mira had told me something else.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Your next move.’

  He smiled. ‘I could tell you that.’

  Lina nodded. ‘You should.’

  He watched as she walked away to her section of the newsroom, then turned to check Mira’s cabin. It was dark, and the door was still shut. He knew she was away for half a day but she should have returned by then. Salat checked his watch, it was almost 3 p.m.

  About the same time across the city, the landlord of an unauthorized building in the dark end of Sangam Vihar read the visiting card Mira had handed him. She explained that she represented a charitable educational trust that set up schools in the poorer parts of the city. As the dark end was one such part, the landlord had no reason to doubt her story, and especially when she said she would pay cash. She was interested in the room on the first floor of his house, and he was interested in skipping the paperwork. The room was built by illegally extending the unauthorized house in violation of various municipal rules, and the landlord didn’t want to sign on anything that identified him as the owner of such a structure. She heard him in silence as he explained the additional charges, and he listened to her with patience as she said she required the room only for a month or two. When they entered the dusty room, the landlord apologized for his old furniture that was packed into it and promised to sort it out. Thus, with the formalities out of the way, and with half of one month’s rent paid, Mira got the key to the room and exclusive access to the staircase. After the landlord left, Mira untangled a chair from the pile of furniture and dragged it to the covered balcony—the main reason why she had rented the room. She could covertly observe the entire street from there, and especially the ground floor house across the lane of the address 1221/11/OC.

  Mira sat back in the chair and observed how the lane was still flooded from the brief rain that morning. She had the apple she carried in her bag, and traced back her steps that day to check for mistakes. She had been in Sikander’s study when she had discovered what he had meant by the ‘place’ in the third clue. He knew exactly what it was; the place she visited to recover her faith was not a town or a location, but an object. Using that as a template, Mira searched for words in other clues that supported this conclusion. She could find none at first, and so eliminated words that did not fit in. The words ‘ponds’, and even the ‘place’ made another set that was just a diversion. She had to listen to the tapes several times to further distill his thoughts from his words. Finally, Mira isolated ‘warrior’ from the first clue and ‘battlefield’ from the second. There was only one way to ascertain if she was right, and she rushed out of his house and headed home. The surveillance jeep had kept up with her through the traffic. She smiled now, taking another bite of the apple. It had been one of the longest drives of her life. At home, in her living room, Mira had paused for an instant. To recover faith? She had thought he meant that deep place in the heart where the other self waited and used faith to complete circles that life left unfinished. But no.

  He had meant something frustratingly tangible, something real and available. A picture on her wall! The warrior Arjuna in the battlefield, dispirited and disillusioned, struggling to recover his faith in his destiny as he understood the Bhagavadgita. Sikander must have stood before the picture in her living room, she realized. What did he want her to think? He wanted her to be disappointed, as she was, that the answer was right before her eyes. He must have known she didn’t need faith, it was too fragile for her life. That picture was a gift from the only person she had ever trusted—her uncle who turned out to be a stranger. And yet, she had kept the picture because it reminded her of what faith had felt like. It helped to repair her masks.

  It was easy to think like Sikander, he thought like her. She discovered the address taped to the back of the picture, it belonged to the house across that flooded lane. Mira had studied the clean tape and the small piece of paper, and wondered when Sikander might have had access to her home. She recalled the landlord saying he had let a cable technician into the house while she was away. She hadn’t cared to ask what was repaired; the television worked fine. That was almost a month ago. Mira looked around her house; what else had Sikander touched? What else had he changed? Everything seemed different for a moment. What did he make of her home? The absence of furniture, the absence of food, the space and the silence?

  Before she could visit the address, Mira had to get rid of the watchers who followed her. Thinking of a way, she drove to a crowded bazaar in South Delhi and left her car in the parking. Walking through the maze of shops, she finally managed to slip away from a different exit to reach the nearest metro station. She had arrived in the lane around noon and found the door of the ground floor house locked, as it was now. She had to keep a watch on that house, and a quick search revealed the room available for rent across the lane. Mira left the lane again to withdraw money from a distant ATM. On the way back, she got a few visiting cards made at a printer and hoped the landlord didn’t call the phone number given on the card. It didn’t exist.

  Her cell phone buzzed and startled her. It was one more message from Salat, asking if she was safe. Ignoring it, she leaned forward in her chair pensively, and wondered what was that ground floor house about. The lan
dlord was in his office when she went to meet him again and asked about the general profile of the residents of the lane. To her surprise, she found he owned several houses in that area, including the one across the lane. He said that a farmer named Gopi had rented that single room house many months ago. He had come to the city looking for work, but found the going tough. He was unable to keep jobs and was already on his third one. But as he could read and write, and was ready to work for low wages, Gopi was presently employed at the storage facility of the shopping mall on the main street. The landlord, however, didn’t seem to give him more than another week at this new job and explained the man had a habit of vanishing for days, a reason why he was sacked from the earlier jobs. Mira nodded indifferently and moved on to ask about other neighbours.

  The rainwater receded from the lane that evening just before people returned home from work. As the doors and windows were opened on neighbouring floors, Mira found her secret vantage point suddenly compromised. She shifted indoor and sat next to a window in another chair retrieved from the furniture pile disturbing its thick layer of dust, which rose up in protest. From the twilight of the room, Mira looked out at the homes that came alive as the day ended. A mother called for her children as she returned from work, and a father carried fruits for his family. There were smiles, laughter and plans for dinner. Mira leaned to the window and heard the sound of television, many channels playing at the same time. Younger children came out to play some more and found the failing light inadequate. They sat together on steps of houses and discovered stories to tell in the deepening shadows around them. The kitchens were all busy, there was something different about the smell of food cooked for one’s own. It didn’t smell fancy, it didn’t even smell familiar; it just smelt good. A girl ran to the corner bookshop to buy something for school the next day. A boy darted to the grocer and returned with onions that his mother needed in the kitchen. Every house was lit by 7 p.m., except the one she was waiting for. Mira decided to call off her vigil.

  Locking the room, she walked through the damp lane towards the main street to take the metro at Saket. She paused at the tea stall at the lane’s entrance and decided to have a cup, which turned out to be a glass. It was dark and damp inside the shack, and she settled on a bench near the back to watch the traffic of the main street. It started to rain a slow, monsoon rain. The wet, dark road reflected the streetlights, and people were silhouettes as they rushed for cover. It was almost 8 p.m. The tea stall offered a sketchy dinner, but the tea never stopped. Those who returned from work mingled with those going out on night shifts to stop and chat over tea. She sipped her second glass, and wondered about her next step. It was a mystery why that address should be locked, or even belong to a farmer. Gopi might know something about Sikander, but if Gopi had vanished, as the landlord said he did periodically, then there may be no way left to find Sikander. Perhaps, it would take another day’s watch to know for sure, she felt. The rain thrashed on the tin shed above as Mira prepared to leave. She paid the bill at the counter at the entrance and opened her umbrella in the porch light. From the darkness beyond, a man ran up to the tea stall and paused at the counter.

  ‘I see that the roof has stopped leaking,’ he said to the owner, laughing. ‘No fun having tea here anymore.’

  Mira froze. She could recognize that voice anywhere.

  ‘And I thought you came here because you liked me, Gopi,’ the owner chided.

  ‘Liked you better with a leaking roof, my friend,’ Sikander remarked and walked in. ‘Tea please.’

  Mira held the umbrella tightly to stop her hands from trembling and restrained herself from looking. She had found Sikander, she told herself, thrilled. He stood just a few feet away! She desperately wanted to register the expression on his face if he saw her there; it would be worth remembering for a lifetime. But not yet, she resolved. She had to know how he did it. Sikander appeared to be so much like her that it almost felt like a lie; no one could understand her life so precisely. But if he did, it would prove to her for the first time that this world was worth living in, after all. She smiled at the thought and left the porch without glancing back into the restaurant.

  Much later when she was on the metro, she realized that Sikander might have known she wouldn’t make his whereabouts public, even if she discovered him. He might have known she would be compelled to learn about him and forced to share his secret. Mira was disconcerted; what gave her thoughts away? She was under pressure to find him, and even under surveillance. No one wanted more tapes to be published, and everyone wanted to settle a score with him. So, how could he be sure she wouldn’t betray him? Was it because she was an orphan, too lonely to lose someone who pretended to care for her? Or as he had stood in her living room, there amid her empty house, he had discovered death was equal because she didn’t live at all? When did Sikander know that she couldn’t betray him?

  Still lost in her thoughts, Mira recovered her car from the bazaar parking and drove home. She could see the surveillance jeep now with three watchers instead of two. Whatever his plans to manipulate her, she couldn’t deny Sikander gave her the address also as a last resort to give him up if she was in danger. This was more than anyone had ever thought for her, she realized, overwhelmed. He was right, she decided as the headlights of traffic reflected in the faint tears of her eyes. This was the place to recover faith.

  Eleven

  The next morning was covered under a bright blanket of clouds that held back rain, as if expecting sunlight for ransom. Munshi was back in town and began the editorial meeting on a menacing note.

  ‘I get the feeling that I am addressing a bunch of newcomers to this newspaper,’ Munshi announced acidly, as he settled in his carefully arranged chair. ‘I was away for one day and look what happened!’

  Everyone knew what he referred to. The Bharat Party members had stayed outside the office the day before and made various threats, ranging from hunger strike to storming the building, to extract an apology from Munshi. It made the headlines, along with other news about the tapes. Being absent from the scene, Munshi seemed like a fugitive. And that was a first for him.

  ‘This tells me that I should not leave Delhi,’ Munshi concluded, tragically. ‘I should probably not even leave this office. I should stay somewhere in this building. Perhaps, live in the basement to keep an eye on the printing process.’ He remembered, ‘Where on earth is Mira?’

  There was nothing unusual that he searched for Mira, almost everyone did. There was an intense but new-found interest in know-reportage after the damage caused by the third tape. The threat of more tapes on their way helped everyone develop a sudden admiration for Mira’s powers and curiosity about how she was tracing down Sikander. However, she was nowhere to be found that day, she did not answer her cell phone and no one in the office knew if she was on leave or would report to work. So, when Bhaskar said the newspaper had no comments in response to inquiries about Mira, he was not being coy. It was the truth.

  He now tried to answer Munshi’s question. ‘Mira may be late for this meeting.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘No,’ Bhaskar spoke with an attitude of someone lighting a cigarette at a petrol pump. ‘But she has never gone missing like this before, so I assume she will be here shortly.’

  ‘If she is, Bhaskar,’ Munshi said dangerously, ‘then make sure she is never out of sight again!’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘What do you mean “Yes sir”? If you can’t keep track of your own journalists, then forget about tracking news!’

  Bhaskar stayed silent.

  Munshi glanced at others with his small black eyes shining in anger. ‘I was at a meeting yesterday where no one carried cell phones and no one answered calls. They could afford that kind of peace and focus, because their deputies were efficient and could handle any crisis. But not me!’ he thundered. ‘It’s clear that I did not belong in that meeting!’

  No one breathed around that table.

  Munshi co
llected himself with effort. ‘Why were the BP members allowed to gather before the gate?’

  Bhaskar cleared his throat. ‘There was no notice. We were not prepared.’

  ‘Not prepared?’ Munshi repeated. ‘They were gathering there, right in front of your eyes!’

  ‘Yes sir,’ Bhaskar said uneasily, ‘That’s why we shut the gates and used the side entrances . . . ’

  ‘I know,’ Munshi said and added bitterly, ‘and now the whole world knows what you did. That’s what I am asking you, why did you do it?’

  Bhaskar said, confused, ‘It was the only thing we could do.’

  ‘It was not!’ Munshi exploded. ‘You should have let them come in, dammit! You should have kept the bloody gates open!’

  There was a stunned silence.

  Salat recovered first. ‘Kept them open?’

  ‘Yes!’ Munshi slammed the table. ‘They would have damaged property and hopefully even burnt a few copies of the newspaper. They might have even refused to leave the building until one of us apologised. Think of the drama it could have been. Think of the free publicity this newspaper has lost!’

  Bhaskar was still unsure, and his face showed it.

  Salat asked Munshi, ‘But what if they had prevented us from printing the newspaper last night?’

  Munshi dismissed the argument. ‘I can get this newspaper printed from half a dozen places in Delhi. You are missing the bigger picture.’

  ‘No, I get it,’ Salat said. ‘The vandalism would have threatened the freedom of press, and we would have looked like the champions of it.’

  ‘Exactly! Thank God we hired you,’ Munshi said fervently. Then he glanced at Bhaskar again. ‘Instead of using a good opportunity, you thought to save us from the mob. You are turning into a scared rabbit, Bhaskar!’

  Bhaskar seemed ambivalent about that.

  ‘Last evening for me was hell,’ Munshi was pained. ‘I emerged from my meeting just before dinner and discovered the news channels were full of BP’s protest against our newspaper. We appeared guilty,’ he lamented, ‘and we could not even produce Mira as a face-saver.’