by Kota Neelima
Sikander’s voice was tranquil as usual. ‘In the first place, I was interested in contesting for Parliament because I knew its importance and because I wanted to contribute to its working,’ he paused. ‘But it took me just a few weeks to realize that I was being a fool. I used to come prepared every day to participate in debates and impact policy with my ideas. There was low attendance, the government side left a junior minister to take notes of the debates and mostly ignored the suggestions made by the House. The legislations were already negotiated and decided. Clearly, that was not happening inside the House. So, I started to check where the actual debates took place about the bills,’ He added quietly, ‘It didn’t take me long to discover, as you can see.’
‘Yes, I can,’ Nalan assured him dryly. ‘Question number two: If you had complaints about the way Parliament was functioning, you could have taken up the issues with the office-bearers of the parliamentary board of the party. Or, you could have placed the complaints before the party leadership at the headquarters to which, if I may mention here, you have exclusive access. Why didn’t you?’
‘I did,’ Sikander answered. ‘I spoke to the minister in charge of Parliamentary affairs and also to the party whips. They felt that as a new member, I would take some time to learn the ropes. By that, I understood that in time I would get used to the way business was conducted in Parliament. But that was exactly the point. I didn’t want to get used to it; I wanted to change it.’ Then he added with restraint, ‘As for the party leadership, it never took me seriously because I was his son.’
‘Perhaps for good reason,’ Nalan observed sardonically. ‘Question number three: As you must be aware, according to article 157, sub section (a)-2 of the party constitution, a member is prohibited from speaking to the media about the internal affairs of the party. Why did you violate this rule by going to a newspaper to publish your tapes? Please show cause why disciplinary action shouldn’t be taken against you.’
‘I collected the evidence of deals being made in the government over everything, ranging from food to foreign affairs, and I did it with a view to inform the public,’ Sikander said. ‘Voters do not know what happens behind the closed doors of Parliament. The televised sessions and press conferences do not mention what takes place in the shadows beyond the limelight. I wanted people to know who made the millions to support a vote or oppose it. I wanted to name the members of Parliament who converted the hopes of their helpless constituents into a meal ticket for themselves. Yes,’ Sikander asserted evenly, ‘I know of that rule in the party constitution, but I believe that not to correct this situation would have been detrimental to the party’s future. And that’s in sub-section (b) of the same article.’
‘That’s a debatable interpretation,’ Nalan dismissed him. ‘Now, for question number four. Serious allegations have been leveled at senior politicians, bureaucrats and businesses in the tapes. What is the extent and scope of the evidence you have in the tapes that have been published? Can you provide us access to the evidence?’
‘Well, for those who are on the tapes,’ Sikander politely added, ‘such as yourself, it would be evident that each tape is a key that could open many other deals and many other scams. However, to answer your question, yes, I’m ready to pass on to the courts all the evidence and other recordings to support the allegations in each tape. Besides, only five of the tapes were published. There is more unpublished evidence that awaits investigation.’
‘There are more tapes?’
Sikander chuckled. ‘Your surprise disappoints me.’
Nalan cleared his throat. ‘Last question: Why were you in hiding while the tapes were being published? From the clues you gave the know-journalist, whom I shall not name here, it is clear that you knew her well. Why did you collude with her to stay in hiding while her newspaper published the tapes?’
‘My disappearance was the only way to keep the tapes from being attributed to me personally,’ Sikander replied. ‘Without adulterating them with my justifications, which I would have been forced to give, the tapes told the true story exactly the way it happened in each case. It allowed people to judge for themselves what they could see and hear. Besides, I knew I couldn’t have survived the collective pressure of the party leadership, Opposition leaders, senior bureaucrats and business houses. I would have been silenced, and the tapes would have never seen the light of day.’
Sikander continued carefully, ‘You will agree that we don’t usually talk about the personal lives of our friends. It should have been obvious that I wouldn’t have used personal information about the know-journalist in widely publicized clues if we were acquainted in any way or if I was even remotely concerned about her interests. She is a stranger to me, and I researched her only because I couldn’t have trusted an unknown woman on such a sensitive case.’
‘And yet, she is fighting for her life in a hospital, possibly because of you,’ Nalan countered.
‘That’s her choice. I’m sorry, but I’m not responsible for the risks people want to take,’ Sikander answered patiently. ‘I do wish her a quick recovery.’
‘That concludes your questioning, Sikander.’ Nalan was terse and added, ‘Thank you for your time.’
The tape ended, and Munshi glanced at Salat accusingly.
‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘You got that wrong, haven’t you? Sikander didn’t surrender to save Mira’s life. He did it to save his own political career.’
Upset and shocked by Sikander’s words, Salat couldn’t answer Munshi.
‘That’s the story I want tomorrow morning.’ Munshi stood up and glared at everyone. ‘Get working on how Sikander is encashing the tapes. This is the end of the amnesty we had extended to him because he gave the tapes to our newspaper due to Mira. Now, let’s get back to business!’
Later, when everyone left the room, Salat still stood leaning against the wall and studied Mira. Then, he slowly walked to the bed and listened to the effort it took for her to breath. Salat gently held her hand that was cold and sweaty, as if with fever under control with drugs.
‘You heard that Mira. I know you did,’ he said apologetically. ‘I wish I could confront Sikander about his words and prove him wrong, but I can’t. No one can, except you.’
He stood there for a long while, praying fervently for a sign of life from her. Then, disappointed, he turned heavily and left.
Twenty-One
Mira frowned slightly as the pain in her stomach woke her up and increased rapidly as she became aware of it. And so, she slipped back under the great black canopy of sleep and looked for her favourite dream.
Ah yes, I found it. This is the dream I love, but usually can’t remember when I’m awake. It is about a place that has things that I want and would like to keep. I have a little suitcase to carry them with me, and I walk around, wondering what to choose. There are others in the same place, looking equally lost. It is so beautiful that it is difficult to decide. I can’t see what others gather, I can’t look into their suitcases. Many go together, guiding each other, but I walk alone. I decide to pick up what I think I would miss the most. Like the moss in the stream and mountain rain, like the smell of cardamom and the kitchen in the morning, like the fatigue and exhilaration of a long walk, like a cool, white pillow on a summer night.
I take some papers with me as well, like my excellent transcripts from university, my first big story at the newspaper, the journalist of the year plaque, and a few thank you messages from my email. I want to take with me the picture of the Gita, but it won’t come off the wall, so I leave it behind. I also can’t take along the only photo I have of the orphanage in Rishikesh. It won’t stay in my hand.
A bell rings somewhere, and we all gather at a place to leave. It is like a platform, but there is no train. None of us know how we will travel, but we are excited somehow about the journey. As people bring their luggage, I see their suitcases are large and many. Worried, I stare at the little trolley that I have, the kind we generally use for cabin baggage in an ai
rcraft. Even children carried bigger suitcases than mine. I wonder if I had forgotten something, if I should have gathered more. But where was all the good stuff? Perhaps I was stuck on the dull side, where there was nothing special. It didn’t matter, I tell myself. I like travelling light, and what I don’t have in mementoes, I make up in memories.
It always makes me smile, this dream. I smiled the last time I dreamt it. I was twenty-seven years old.
Mira winced as the pain once again forced her awake and opened her eyes weakly. A nurse immediately pressed the bell for the doctor and took her pulse. Mira forgot her agony for a moment and scrutinized the grey wall in front of her bed and the white curtains on the windows. Confused, Mira touched the heavy bandage on her waist where that stranger had stabbed her and then noticed the blue hospital clothes. A doctor arrived and welcomed her back; Mira asked, back from where? He was speechless for a second, and then explained that she had been unconscious for three days.
Mira turned and saw the closed window and the blocked sunlight. It had been raining when she was killed. It had been prefect. Why did she return? What for? This constant torment of the injuries didn’t make sense; this wasn’t her doing. In the hours that followed, doctors and nurses from the next shift told her the anxious times they went through when she was close to death. They misunderstood her tears as she heard them and changed her pain medication instead. By that night, however, everyone realized there was something wrong. It was as if she fell apart, and the doctors consulted each other worriedly about her condition. They talked to her and reasoned with her, but she restlessly contradicted the advice in her mind. They didn’t understand, Mira argued; she didn’t want to ‘pull herself together’, she didn’t want to ‘get well’ or ‘miraculously’ live again. She had tried life; she now wanted something better. Then she remembered the identity of the assailant’s employers—those who wanted her dead. Why didn’t they ensure it? Or did they want her to suffer, here on the edge of life? A fitting punishment, a difficult death! The nurses held her down to the bed as she wouldn’t sleep despite sedation. Mira struggled against the grip on her arms, trying to free herself to escape. People rushed around, and urgent voices called. She begged them to let her die, her whispers were lost in the warning sounds of the machines around. Everything was grinding to a halt, and she struggled against the restraints, the needles and the words. She felt her breath fail suddenly and panicked. Warm blood spread on her skin from her injuries, and her heart began to ache. As she choked, she felt fear of death again, but it was still less powerful than her fear of returning to life. She stopped fighting; it was a simple choice. She could feel her body collapse inside her, detach itself from her, and she let it go. There was chaos at the brink, the pain of her wounds dug into her and unravelled the muscles. Her heart ached acutely, and she completely ceased to breathe, lost in the unfamiliar silence. There were noises around her, hands supported her, and machines beeped, but she fell through it all at a speed that frightened her. There was nothing to stop her, no reference points, no memory and no one. Her eyes filled up for the unwanted life she was forced to live, and she willed it resolutely to its end. Vaguely, as if from across a great river, she felt something return, something she had desired: a touch. Delusion, she thought, must be part of the end, part of the brain’s survival tactics. The last deception. Such reference points could work with others, not her. Whose touch could she miss? But she was intrigued as warm hands held her face, and someone asked her to wake up. What for, she thought, falling through the images behind her eyes of the places she had never belonged to.
‘Mira don’t!’
She gasped for air, as the voice pulled her back through the distance she had already travelled. This wasn’t fair, she complained as she strained to breath again. Why was she called back? Someone called her name again, the familiar voice afraid and agitated. Did she forget to finish something? Why was she going back? She opened her eyes, puzzled, and could only see the hazy light at first. There were relieved chuckles around the bed, and she found someone holding her close, pushing the hair away from her forehead. It was the same touch that had stopped her, and she glanced up to ask why. She stared at Nalan, confused. His face was serious and grim with worry. Intrigued, Mira frowned; he thought she objected to him and left her. But as he moved away she felt disoriented and reached out, and he quickly held her cold hand again. Mira closed her eyes, tired, and after some time, fell asleep.
Nalan was still there when she woke up a few hours later. He sat in a chair at a distance and worked on his laptop. She noticed as he intently surveyed the screen that lit up his good-looking face. A nurse asked her if she felt better, and that made Nalan glance up.
He quietly walked to her bed.
‘You could have told me, you know,’ he protested, ‘that you were planning this. I had just dropped by, it had become a habit in the last two days. Good I did, though. Might have missed meeting you forever.’
Mira closed her eyes indifferently.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ he said, contemplating. ‘I’ve got to get out of the habit. You won’t be here in this hospital for long. And others have their own Nalans.’
That made her smile weakly.
‘Maybe I’ll get lucky, I agree with you,’ he nodded. ‘But my days of searching hospitals for true love are over. Really.’
Mira chuckled and opened her eyes. He studied her, then gratefully touched her face. ‘I don’t know why I came here every day twice,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t be anywhere else, do anything else . . .’
She just heard him speak in his beautiful voice.
‘And my irate driver informed me today that the hospital doesn’t fall on the way to every destination in the city,’ Nalan smiled. ‘But it will, as long as you are here. So I request you, for the sake of my itinerary, please recover quickly.’
She realized this was what had brought her back, he had to let her go for her to die.
‘I don’t want to recover,’ she whispered with effort, and he leaned forward to hear her better. ‘I have to go now,’ she begged him. ‘Let me. Please.’
He was silent, his brown eyes pained by her request. He didn’t speak at once, but reached and held her hand.
‘Go where, Mira?’ he asked her finally. ‘I can’t afford another detour!’
She smiled, apologetic; she knew he understood.
‘Wherever next you’re planning to go,’ he said earnestly, ‘make sure it falls on my way.’
Mira was aware that he probably didn’t mean them, but the words made her eyes fill up, and noticing that, he kissed her hand.
‘All right! That hand tasted of the antiseptic!’ he said, disgusted.
Mira chuckled again and managed to weakly pull her hand away. The first visitors the next morning were Salat and Lina. They brought the newspapers with them and told her about Sikander’s interview to Nalan. They were puzzled by his harsh comments about her. The doctors didn’t let her sit up yet, and she often fell into long spells of fatigued sleep. But every time she woke up, she found herself thinking only about Sikander. His words enraged her. What did he mean he couldn’t trust her with a sensitive case? Perhaps she would ask him when he came to see her, but he never did.
The following day, Nalan was visiting her when Sita Patnaik came to check on her informally. Overlooking the nurse’s protests, Nalan and Sita helped Mira sit up on the bed with the support of the pillows. Nalan left his chair for Sita and leaned against the window. They talked of the case and the progress.
Then Sita smiled a little contritely. ‘I need a bit of your help, Miraji. We can’t seem to place the assailant.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Mira said, her voice was still a low whisper. ‘No one can.’
‘You were stabbed twice from the front,’ Sita noted. ‘You must have seen him. What did you make of your assailant?’
‘Well, let me remember.’ Mira closed her eyes. ‘He was about six feet tall, forty-five years old, well built, fair with dark hair, small
eyes, no glasses, a watch with a silver dial, no ring and black shoes with rubber soles. He takes the labels off his clothes, he even wears shoes that don’t belong to him. He loves being invisible, and it is not just because he doesn’t leave footprints or fingerprints. He wouldn’t even leave traces of his life behind when he moves from one place to another. He will own nothing that can’t fit in his pocket. His assets will be inaccessible but online and so would be his entire work.’ Mira opened her eyes. ‘He will be impossible to catch in the real world, he will have no physical address.’
Amused, Nalan glanced at Sita’s stunned face.
‘Right,’ Sita recovered. ‘‘I should’ve known.’
Mira just smiled.
‘It was a symbolic assault,’ Sita said. ‘Your hands were tied to make the point. However, the man could have easily killed you. Instead, he left you to die. That’s very interesting.’
‘Why is that interesting?’ Nalan was offended.
‘It saved her life,’ Sita calmly explained to him. ‘It made the rescue possible.’ She turned to Mira again. ‘Can you remember anything more about the two phone calls you said he had made?’
‘When he called before the attack, he was instructed to ask me if I wanted to say something or have something, like a last wish.’ Mira stopped for breath, then said, ‘It was a meaningless formality that wasted time, which was strange because the assailant said he was in a hurry. The employer wanted the attack delayed.’
Sita was troubled. ‘This is most confusing. It seems to be someone who cares for you.’
‘And also wants to kill you,’ Nalan added meditatively. ‘Sounds like my divorce.’
They all laughed. Then Mira continued, ‘The person in the second phone call ascertained whether prior instructions were followed about the attack, like I should bleed to death and not killed outright. I thought that was also a bit strange, you know.’
