by Kota Neelima
She stared at him, infuriated at his accuracy. ‘Yes, I do!’ she said severely. ‘I suspect the charade of Sikander’s perceptive clues, his uncanny understanding of the way I think. But I also want someone to know me that way, know me to my bones. Including all the parts that are vicious and vulnerable, all the parts that want to hurt and also bleed when I am hurt.’
She paused anguished and then said, ‘He knew I would love this game and that’s why I wouldn’t betray him, because no one has ever come this close to me. Even as a lie!’
Salat heard her in silence, overwhelmed.
‘That’s why I didn’t tell you that I found him,’ she explained, ‘I wanted Sikander for myself, just for a few days or a week, before I gave him up.’ Mira stopped speaking as her voice faltered. She stood up and walked away from her desk. ‘I wanted to know him the way he knows me, wanted to learn how to become another human being, as he had become me. I didn’t want facts, knowing is not facts, it’s truth.’ She said forlorn, ‘Facts have always hurt me, truth has rescued me. I was sure the truth would rescue me from Sikander.’
‘But there was still time for that, I thought,’ she leaned against the wall helplessly. ‘I fit his plan perfectly—a lonely, single woman, suspicious of all affection. He chose pieces of my life when he put me together for himself. It wasn’t the complete me, but I hoped he grew fond of his idea of me.’ She glanced at Salat. ‘This is too good to be true, isn’t it? Tell me I’m deluded. Tell me there can be no such thing for me in this world!’
‘I can’t tell you that,’ Salat said quietly. ‘It would neither be truth nor fact.’
Mira remained silent, waiting.
‘I’ll keep this a secret,’ he said, finally, ‘but I hope you realize you have now chosen a side in this battle, Mira.’ He cautioned her, ‘It will hurt.’
She smiled. ‘It’ll be worth it.’
That night, Mira lay in bed listening to the rain trickle down the window panes like a relationship that had run its course. Not all endings were literal, just as not all beginnings were tangible. There was something personal about Sikander, something close that could only be detached with pain. There was something inevitable about Nalan, something necessary that had to be returned to her despite the pain. She wondered if she had become incapable of anything else but ending things. It was so difficult to seek anything more after a lifetime of practice.
Over the years in Delhi, I kept in touch with the orphanage in Rishikesh and made an annual contribution of whatever I managed to save from my own scholarships and tuitions. I wanted it to be money that I had earned, I never touched Raghunaths ‘charity fund’ in my bank if I could help it. Most of my teachers were by now retired, but it didn’t matter. I talked to whoever was in charge. A few years ago, I made the usual phone call to inform them about the cheque I had written for the orphanage. The person at the other end thanked me, then asked why I made the contribution. I said it was my way of helping other children like me. The person concluded by the size of the contribution, which was meagre, that I couldn’t afford it. A little offended, I pointed out that it should be more valuable then. Besides, I said I would get a job soon and the contributions would improve. The person explained that I didn’t owe them for their kindness. It was unconditional. How could that be? I pondered later. I had to be grateful for everything I got, because I didn’t deserve even to be born. And then, as a girl, I must belong to family, to society, to relationships, to parents, to brothers, to husband, to children and to everyone, but myself. Instead, I was still free. That seemed like a random kindness of destiny. But it wasn’t unconditional, I realized. There was only one condition—that I stayed free. It took me a while to delink myself, and finally I discontinued my annual calls to the orphanage. I was finally free. I was twenty-four years old.
Seventeen
Mira thought that the next morning on Wednesday might have easily ranked as one of the worst in Nalan Malik’s life. In fact, he would have wished he didn’t wake up at all that morning. The story, which had been aired on news channels the evening before, was now splashed across the newspapers. As the tapes were available to multiple sources, they were already posted on the internet and were doing damage online as well. Whatever Nalan’s plan was for containment, it became clear by afternoon that nothing could have stopped such an avalanche of coverage. It might have slowed it down a bit, as was evident from the tone of the television discussions that were severely critical of Sikander’s methods.
Mira wondered what Sikander thought about that day’s news. The fifth Parliament tape provided evidence for something that had been suppressed as untruth. Whenever people had expressed such doubts about the state’s division, their reputations had been tarnished and their voices stifled.
Nalan Malik’s career as a politician appeared to be finished. Even the PP spokespersons couldn’t defend him. Mira watched the television in the newsroom after the morning meeting, as she waited for it to be 1 p.m. She wished she were back in that narrow lane where Sikander lived; she hadn’t been there in two days. She missed watching that open window, the silent night, the working day; she missed him. Just then, the news channels recapped the Parliament tapes and Sikander’s photograph flashed on the screen. There was mention of the Parliament tapes and how they had reached her. There was no photograph of her. As part of the segment on Sikander’s personal life, there were some more pictures, mostly taken accidentally, and one with a girl at a polo match where he smiled a non-smile for the cameras. The feature ended with an earlier recording of Mahesh Bansi, as he answered a question for the cameras and Sikander stood behind him, looking away as if bored. It was one of the masks he had recommended they should discard in the latest clue.
The masks we wear must be discarded because they are just masks.
Mira smiled at the file footage on the screen, familiar with that expression on his face; it was the same mask she wore. It covered the fatigue with the millionth replay of mundane moments that must be considered precious because that’s all one would get instead of the one special moment that could change it all.
‘Handsome man, isn’t he?’ a voice teased her.
Startled, Mira turned. It was Nalan, who looked cool as if the day’s top headlines had nothing to do with him.
‘Your type?’ Mira inquired politely. The lunch hour newsroom was sparsely populated, but even then every eye was on them and every ear tuned to their conversation.
He smiled like he meant it. ‘Yours, I believe.’
Mira could feel the room fall silent around them.
‘Because we published the tape against you?’ she questioned him.
‘Because I saw you smile at his picture,’ he disclosed.
Mira uneasily said, ‘I thought I recognized a look of indifference to hide a certain helplessness—a quiet and constant desperation.’
‘That’s understandable,’ Nalan noted generously. ‘Not everyone can have lunch with you.’
There were chuckles in the aisles behind them, and Mira ushered Nalan out of the newsroom. His aides waited in the corridor with a phone and a few messages; Nalan asked them to hold his calls for an hour. The functional steel and white canteen had a short menu. Nalan glanced through it as he said that he came from a meeting with the chief of the party disciplinary committee who gave him a scolding for the tape. Mira listened to him as they both chose the vegetarian options and carried their steel trays to the seating area. By then he had managed to silence the noisy lunch hour with his presence. Most journalists there recognized Nalan Malik, the influential PP general secretary. And the few who didn’t were now familiar with him because of last night’s news and that morning’s papers. They were astonished that he should eat at their notoriously disastrous canteen with their notoriously silent colleague on an already punishing day.
They sat facing the open windows that overlooked the parking lot behind the building.
Nalan scrutinised the dark brown-green sticky material in his plate. ‘Seems like so
mething from the Yamuna river bed, but I might be wrong,’ he said considerately and turned to her. ‘Do you cook? I do. Very well, I’m told.’
Mira began to eat. ‘Whom do you cook for?’
‘Used to be for my wife, now I cook for myself.’ He paused, the spoon suspended in his fingers. His voice was distant, as he added, ‘It’s not the same.’
‘Why not?’ she spoke lightly. ‘Don’t tell me it was love!’
Mira stopped, realizing what she had just said and glanced at him, hurriedly.
He smiled. ‘I won’t.’
‘I’m so sorry!’ she said, flustered.
His face was drawn as he responded, ‘It may not have been love, but it was a marriage. And its end has left a gap that I don’t know how to fill. Like a fractured bone with a piece missing; it can’t heal, it won’t.’
Mira knew what he meant. ‘You would be lost without the pain,’ she reasoned. ‘Loneliness makes sense of the incomplete, so that we can endure again.’
He frowned as if he disagreed, but didn’t speak. She could once again feel the distance at which his thoughts stopped, as if he was afraid she would hurt him.
Then he sought to verify if his fear was valid. ‘That was a smart lie about Salat, which you told those men at your house the other day.’
Yes, the fear was valid, she wanted to tell him. ‘Was it a lie?’
His eyes reflected the light from the windows. ‘Wasn’t it?’
‘Question is: How do you know what I told the four guys?’
‘I told you, I keep track.’
‘How?’
‘Everyone affected by the tapes is aligned against Sikander. And you.’ His soft voice distracted Mira for an instant, as he observed, ‘I can survive the damage in the media, I always have. But there are those who won’t. So it’s either your survival or theirs. The stakes are very high.’
Mira continued with her lunch. ‘So, which side are you on?’
His fingers gently moved the spoon around, as if to test the indeterminate curry for life. ‘You don’t seem to need my help. It was a good lie about Salat. They believed it.’
Mira glanced up and he met her eyes again, waiting. She couldn’t escape this time, she couldn’t lie like before.
He looked away at the windows, and she breathed again.
‘Sikander has hurt me viciously,’ he remarked. ‘I have to retaliate; it is expected of me. I wouldn’t be much of a politician if I let him get away with it.’
Nalan then reached for his cell phone, opened an email and handed it to her. Intrigued, Mira saw the image of a letter on the screen, written on Sikander’s Parliament stationery with his signature at the end.
‘Two years ago,’ Nalan explained, ‘Sikander wrote this letter to the government requesting that an infrastructure company may be considered for an airport contract in his constituency, as it fulfilled the project criteria. This is routine, all members of Parliament write such letters, most of which are never taken seriously. And neither was Sikander’s letter,’ he paused gravely and then continued, ‘but it assumes importance now because the company he recommended was recently blacklisted by the government for anti-national activities.’
‘He may have been unaware of it when he signed that letter,’ Mira argued.
‘How can you be sure?’ Nalan inquired.
‘You mentioned it was routine. He must have written many such letters.’
‘He must have,’ he granted. ‘But I have the one in which he supports a company suspected of subversive activities.’
‘It could be an honest mistake, Nalan. Perhaps his staff didn’t check the antecedents of the company.’
‘And perhaps you have been helping a criminal,’ he mentioned gently, ‘just because he made you believe in his words!’
Mira turned away, concerned, as her doubts about Sikander resurfaced.
‘Is it really that easy, Mira?’ he asked her, his luminous eyes hurt somehow. ‘All it takes is a smart man who says what you want to hear? If someone could aggregate every loss in my life and promise to set it right, I would be her slave.’ He continued, his voice distant, ‘But I would also know these are mere words. They will stay much after that person is gone and much after the words have been proved wrong. Like a shrapnel in the mind,’ he whispered, ‘that hurts every time I think of it and leaves every reality incomplete.’
Mira heard him, distraught. He once again seemed to speak about her life, not just about his.
‘But I can’t blame you for searching among words.’ He lowered his eyes, disturbed. ‘Words are the missing pieces of bone, missing pieces of heart—every missing piece. You never know what you might find in the debris of our language.’
He collected himself, then said, ‘I came today to show you the letter that is scheduled to reach every newspaper and television channel tomorrow. When that’s published, it will be for the people to judge what kind of a man Sikander is and the motive behind his tapes.’ Nalan added clinically, ‘We can also show that he has links with a particularly unpatriotic group that has international support.’
Mira could sense the smouldering anger in his thoughts against Sikander.
‘The tapes, then, would appear to be part of an elaborate strategy to destabilize the country by attacking the most visible and efficient symbol of our democracy, our Parliament.’ Nalan glanced at her, saying, ‘It’s treason, and it will destroy Sikander.’
Mira noted bleakly, ‘I knew you wouldn’t stop short of that.’
‘Neither did Sikander.’
‘It is not the same. The tapes don’t single out anyone, Nalan,’ Mira objected. ‘They expose our failure as a nation and a people, so that we can change and grow stronger.’
He disagreed with her. ‘The tapes are about breaking down a structure that has been our dream,’ he said. ‘We chose democracy because we thought it will best serve our people. It has fulfilled many of our aspirations, sometimes beyond our expectations. Yes, it might have also fallen short of our goals. But the democratic system hasn’t failed, we can correct it because we built it.’
‘But who will correct it?’ she mocked his words. ‘You? Why would you change a system whose problems benefit you? Sikander’s tapes prove how good you are at manipulating the system; why would you ever reform it?’
‘The tapes also prove that I didn’t draw any benefit by creating problems. I might have, by finding solutions.’ He pointed out, ‘Unlike Sikander.’
‘But unlike Sikander,’ she countered, ‘your hands are dirty!’
‘That’s because I am part of the system,’ he contended. ‘Sikander trashes the system without offering options for a new one; I don’t. His hands are clean because he doesn’t want to mend it. I do.’
‘And yet, he is the one being hunted,’ she pointed out, ironically. ‘He is the one who has to hide from the system and people like you.’
‘Don’t be naïve, Mira,’ he chided her. ‘Sikander is hiding because he has a past too, just like me or anyone else on the tapes. And it is equally indefensible.’ He reached for the cell phone. ‘If I mail this letter in the morning tomorrow, Sikander won’t stand a chance.’
Mira perceived he seriously weighed that option.
‘What if people still believe him?’ she challenged him.
‘Then they will change their minds,’ he promised her. ‘After all these decades of democracy, we should know by now how to construct a good scandal.’
‘If you must distrust him just because he is a rival, then I have to ask you what you asked me before.’ She regarded him severely. ‘Is it really that easy?’
Nalan surveyed her for an instant. ‘You mean, all it would take is a smart woman who says what I want to hear?’ He smiled. ‘Want to try?’
She stared at him patiently.
He chuckled. ‘Yes, it’s easy, because it’s Sikander,’ he answered her question. ‘All it will really take is to address one common email from my cell phone to every newspaper and television channel
in the country and abroad. And just press “Send”.’
Mira shook her head, as if to clear it. ‘Can we please have lunch now?’
He apologized for his negligence and considered the flotsam in his plate. Picking up his spoon again, he tentatively tasted it.
‘Beans!’ he discovered, relieved, ‘and not dead fish in an oil spill. The chef deserves to be complimented. What an excellent disguise!’
The response to the fifth Parliament tape that day was widespread and sharp. Members of every political party, including some PP leaders loyal to Mahesh Bansi, condemned Nalan for siding with business interests. Action against Nalan appeared imminent as PP looked for damage-control and he made a brief statement in the press to say the tape was one-sided and unfair.
Mira was preoccupied as she sat through various meetings in office for the rest of the day and offered little or no input. Then she went to the office balcony to be alone for a while and to think. It rained again in that sad, dripping way. Perhaps she was wrong, she thought, maybe there was something common between Nalan and Sikander. Perhaps both had secrets to hide, which if exposed, could threaten their political careers. And as Nalan mentioned, perhaps, that was the reason why Sikander was in hiding. Because he knew that for every allegation he made against others, there could be one made against him. Mira glanced up at the monsoon sky. She had felt Sikander’s detachment, just as she now felt Nalan’s restraint. It was hard not to like Nalan. He was both a strong and a weak man, who hated and cherished his ability to get hurt. But it was harder not to like Sikander who cared for the pain of others, the fate of others, even if it was for his own political gain.
Reaching a decision, she went back into the newsroom and walked to Salat’s cabin. He was typing his story and without turning away from the computer screen, asked her to sit down.
‘Thanks for offering to write the main story today,’ Mira said. ‘I am a little distracted.’
‘No problem.’
