Life Among the Scorpions

by Jaya Jaitly

  I tried very hard to explain to George Sahib what was happening to him—that he may indeed forget everything and everyone, including me. I told him not to be alarmed and that, as we had fought every battle together for so many years, this would be the same. I had to reassure him constantly that I was there. He wanted me by his side all the time, but he could not grasp what was happening. He would make Durga telephone both morning and evening to ask when I was reaching 3, Krishna Menon Marg. I had my own work as well, so I struggled to divide my time between his establishment, my handicraft programmes for the hundreds of craftspersons associated with us, and my travels outside of Delhi for them. These had to be worked around keeping George Sahib company morning and evening and dealing with any important papers and visitors. There were meals, exercise, conversation, medication, and any emergency to be handled as well.

  The sorrow that wells up while watching a person undergo the many cruel and undignified manifestations of Alzheimer’s Disease is undeniably one of the most crushing emotions anyone can feel. Today, when people who are occasionally forgetful, joke that they must be getting Alzheimer’s disease, I react with unexpected seriousness that surprises them, warning them never, ever, to speak of such matters lightly.

  To watch the personality of a person, his very element, essence, mind and soul disappear gradually and cruelly is heartbreaking enough. George Sahib would clutch a dog-eared biography of himself written in Kannada that had a picture of him on the cover. This was a manifestation of Alzheimer’s where a person losing their memory holds on to straws to remind them of who they are. It is quite another tragedy to see that person, transforming gradually from being chief mentor, political guru, who had been father, mother, brother, best friend, caretaker, well-wisher and confidante over a period of thirty years, to something like an incurably ailing child. I would always hope that relationships between any two people, anywhere in the world, irrespective of gender, age or status, based purely on mutual respect, honesty and unselfishness, could be like the one we shared. Equally, I now knew, that no one, no one at all, should be afflicted by this disappearance of the self into a black hole of unknowingness while the body remained healthy.

  ~

  On 3 June 2009, unusually, Leila Fernandes dropped in at 3, Krishna Menon Marg, to be present at George Sahib’s birthday. This had happened after decades of her absence. Birthday celebrations were always low-key. Some cake, simple snacks, tea, the Burmese students singing and Tibetan friends honouring him. The only people present always were the office staff, some political colleagues and persons from Muzaffarpur, his Parliamentary constituency, old friends like Swaraj Kaushal, and my children and grandchildren. Leila was greeted and photographed amongst Burmese students singing to him. Then she left abruptly just as the cake was brought out. Later in the evening, George Sahib, puzzled, asked me who had invited her. I had no idea.

  In mid-December that year, I was told by the office and household staff that Mrs Fernandes and her son with his family had visited in the afternoon. They, I was told, had shut the door and forcibly had his thumb marks imprinted on some papers. When I visited him in the evening he was staring at his thumb, purple from the stamp pad. He was muttering and shaking wildly in agitation. He could not express what had happened. A week later, I received a formal letter with his thumb impression, referring to me as ‘Mrs Jaitly’, informing me that the Power of Attorney accorded to me had been revoked. Frederick aka Freddy D’Sa in Mumbai received a similar letter. So far we had jointly handled his cheque payments, including annual taxes, salaries or household expenditures all of which had been impeccably recorded.

  At the inception of this sudden turn of events were three people, ones with strange minds and obviously dangerous agendas. The association with them goes back years but especially to events in 2008 and onwards. I should have sensed the undertow but I was already preoccupied with the myriad little manifestations of George Sahib’s illness, his deeply troubling insistence on fighting the elections in Bihar, and the number of people who arrived like flies to demand money on occasions like these.

  The first was Ananth Hari, long-time political and household errand boy, and an eternally aspiring Party functionary who had attached himself to George Fernandes from 1992. He had been living for many years at the Krishna Menon Marg residence with no serious contribution to political, trade union or publication work. In 2008, George Sahib lost his temper and pulled him up sharply, asking him to engage in meaningful work instead of household errands. He had often been found missing from the residence in the middle of the night in times of crisis during George Sahib’s recuperation from surgery. Ananth took umbrage and left, telling friends in the media that I had turned him out at 3 am. I was nowhere on the scene when these incidents took place. Subsequently, he began spreading the word among Fernandes’s brothers, JD(U) leaders, and the media, that I had a complete grip on ‘Sahib’s’ finances. He joined the JD(U) office in Patna as campaign secretary and worked actively against him in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

  Next was Nitin Kumar, Section Officer, National Commission for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes, charge sheeted by the CBI for giving information to Tehelka, later turning approver. He would regularly visit George Sahib in the evenings after work, to discuss various political ideologies. He fancied himself as an intellectual but soon began to imagine God was speaking to him and giving him strength to pass on to George Sahib. He would rush to join any occasion where religious heads like the Dalai Lama would visit George Sahib. He would get himself photographed and pose as a part of the family.

  Nitin began to involve himself in the Lok Sabha campaign of George Fernandes in April 2009 and went to Muzaffarpur where he began to complain bitterly that the campaign was being run badly. He was asked by George Sahib’s local colleagues to stay away from all this activity since he was a government servant. He was ‘deeply affected’ by George Sahib’s defeat. He blamed me, in George Sahib’s presence, of deliberately sabotaging the elections by attempting to physically do away with him and taking money from Nitish Kumar to defeat him. He even claimed he had a text message from me offering him money to sabotage the elections but could not produce it. It was even more ironic since political leaders like Sharad Yadav were accusing me publicly of having compelled George Sahib to fight the elections. He accused me of medicating him wrongly and not taking him to New York for treatment. George Sahib was utterly befuddled, and brusquely asked him to stay away and not enter the house anymore.

  This made Nitin rush to Mrs Fernandes. He told her that Freddy D’Sa and I had made George Sahib sign away all his money to us. In truth, a General Power of Attorney had been prepared in the presence of a notary public since banks were refusing to honour cheques with George Sahib’s illegible signature. Nitin began telling friends that he was his adopted son and professed great love and concern for him while spinning conspiracy theories about those who had been close to him for nearly thirty years. He was found present at Leila Fernandes’s house when she held a tea party to celebrate her grandson’s visit to India in December 2009. On 18 December 2009, he accompanied them to revoke our Power of Attorney. He was party to and ‘official’ witness to get George Sahib’s thumb impression under duress. All this, as a government servant.

  The third in this list of dramatis personae was Ramesh Vinayak, later discovered to be a part-time informant for the Intelligence Bureau, and neighbour and friend to Nitin. He was not known to us until April 2009. Nitin had brought him as a volunteer to assist George Sahib’s front office in coordinating the election campaign. He met him for the first time briefly as George Sahib was leaving to file his nomination papers in the first week of April that year. It was subsequently discovered by the old staff that he had prepared a bogus appointment letter from George Sahib to himself, as his political secretary and biographer. The letterhead was of a Lok Sabha member which George Sahib was not. It was dated 28 March 2009, at a time when he had not even spoken to George Sahib. In truth, George Sahib had never
signed an appointment letter for any of his personal office staff at any time and had never had a private ‘political secretary’ in his life. George Sahib vociferously denied that he had made any appointment, speaking to D’Sa about it when he went to Mumbai. D’Sa came to Delhi and politely terminated Ramesh’s ‘appointment’.

  In the meanwhile, Ramesh had started playing off various visitors against each other, interfering in political activity without knowing his boss’s friends, interests or principles. As soon as George Sahib was made a member of the Rajya Sabha, Ramesh took undue interest in his MPLADS (or Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme) funds, offering constituency colleagues projects, bullying school principals for admissions, etc. Post August 2009, he wrote a letter to the Rajya Sabha secretariat asking for his salary to be forwarded to his account, which was formally revoked by a letter from George Sahib. Many visiting colleagues from across the country complained about Ramesh’s behaviour to me. On being asked to leave, he deleted many entries from his office computer and entered the house without permission early the next day to take away papers from the cupboards. He conducted a campaign saying he was a victim of injustice at my hands. Mrs Fernandes began meeting him and taking his advice.

  At the very end of December, Ashok Subramaniam, George Sahib’s erstwhile official personal assistant, came for a brief visit. As he was leaving, he stopped on the outer verandah and whispered in my ear,

  ‘Ma’am, there is a massive conspiracy brewing against you.’

  The Garp undertow pulled inside me strongly, but I was mentally exhausted and disheartened. It had deeply troubled me that the chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, had sent recently nominated Rajya Sabha MP ‘King Mahendra’ to wheedle George Sahib into accepting the Rajya Sabha nomination when he was clearly unfit. He tried weakly to refuse but failed. I sat and watched helplessly, too powerless to intervene. I felt they were making a mockery of him. After all, if he had been incapable of participating in the Lok Sabha elections, how could he cope with the Rajya Sabha now? I sensed the purpose was not respect for George Sahib but a mocking gesture merely to assuage their guilty consciences.

  My short answer to Ashok’s grim warning was my usual one on such tiresome occasions, ‘Let them. I don’t care.’

  After all, what could I imagine was brewing, and what would I do in any case?

  I had already emailed George Sahib’s brothers asking them to come to Delhi urgently and take care of their eldest brother’s future, since the money for his household expenses and medication was no longer available to me. With my assistance on an earlier visit, and advised by Fali S. Nariman, the premier constitutional lawyer of the country and a good friend, they agreed to persuade him to dictate his will, and formally have it managed by a competent fund management company; this last, also recommended by Nariman. Paul Fernandes, George Sahib’s brother, consulted Leila Fernandes and shared with her details like George Sahib wanting to leave his money from the sale of the Bangalore land to various labour institutions, an old age home, a Tibetan hospital, and some other public causes that had always been close to his heart. George Sahib had indicated he wanted to leave his books to me. He knew the only things I treasured were books.

  Obviously, alarm bells rang for Leila Fernandes, although Paul states she had agreed on all these points quite cheerfully at the time she was consulted.

  There is no place here for another long and complicated story of public attack and personal misery so I would rather keep it as short as possible by putting some facts in place.

  On the last day of December 2009, I had left George Sahib after seeing to his dinner at 9.15 pm. He asked, as he did without fail, when I would come the next day. I assured him I would come in the morning and stay all day as it was a Sunday. The Fernandes brothers were to arrive in Delhi at midnight from Bangalore. They were to go from the airport to 3, Krishna Menon Marg. Instead, Leila Fernandes and family drove in to the residence an hour earlier, and padlocked the gates giving instructions for no one to enter. The entire operation was obviously guided from someone on the premises. The brothers were compelled to come to my home in Sujan Singh Park. We spent the rest of the night talking, stunned by the developments.

  Sushanto, whom I had lovingly cared for when he was a young kid, declared me persona non grata, telling the media he had written to the home minister of India for ‘additional protection from Jaya Jaitly’ as he feared for the father’s safety. Ananth, with some riff-raff crowd, led slogans against me at the gates of the Krishna Menon Marg residence the next day, although I had made no attempt to go there. Leila Fernandes accused me in the media of keeping George Sahib in a dark unventilated room smelling of urine. In a long feature as a cover story titled, ‘Caught in a Squalid Saga of Love, Money and Greed’ in Society magazine (March 2010), she accused George Sahib of having been a liar, spoke about his womanizing, and hit out at everyone.

  Fortunately, earlier I had taken all my Tehelka-related files for convenience of working on the court case to our lawyer Abhijat’s office, so I have them with me today. Otherwise I would have been royally stuck. Every other possession of mine—whether books, documents, paintings, political work files, pens and pencils, personal photographs that were part of my office space, and my late mother’s furniture which I had lent to 3, Krishna Menon Marg, were no longer available to me.

  I waited six months to ask for permission to visit 3, Krishna Menon Marg to collect my own modest possessions. By then, only the dogs and goods were left. George Sahib had been relocated to a rented house near Leila Fernandes’s. I was refused permission and questioned about the ownership of the goods I claimed as mine. After some amount of persisting, I was told to coordinate with the personal assistant Bernard and take what I could identify.

  On the designated day, 30 June 2010, Bernard chose to stay away. George Sahib’s brothers, Michael and Richard Fernandes, were in town and accompanied me to collect some family photographs that had hung on the wall. We were met by the police and a hostile group on the other side of a firmly closed gate. They shouted ugly accusations at us and refused us entry. The brothers, both senior citizens, squatted on the pavement in protest in the sweltering June heat. I was accompanied by a volunteer friend and a young colleague from my craft office, both women. Much shouting and threatening later, another friend, Amina, wife of my forensic expert friend Milin Kapoor, arrived. She persuaded the Party thugs to let her in. Inside the house they told her they wanted to strip me naked and parade me on the streets. One man, claiming to be from the trade union wing of the JD(U), showed her a country-made pistol sticking out of his pocket in silent warning.

  The whole episode outside the gates was filmed by the media gathered around us. I don’t know who called them, and the police. All this is documented by various television channels and in national newspapers for the world to see forever, and on YouTube. All you have to do now is Google my name to see how I am painted on the one hand as a villain and another as a serious, erudite handicraft expert and writer of many books.

  The day following this incident, I wrote an email to Leila Fernandes expressing disappointment at the ‘warm welcome’ but I made a final try and asked her to at least let me have this very old, metal folding table tray that I had lent George Sahib after my mother passed away. The art work on it had been fading away over the last sixty years. My mother used it to have her tea and evening soup till the end. George Sahib had his tea and biscuits kept on it every evening. It was worth nothing, but now carried a double sentimental value for me. She brushed me off, writing, ‘I thought you had given it to George.’

  I gave up on retrieving anything, telling myself that once loved ones are gone, there is perhaps no point in clinging on to their ‘things’.

  But I did not give up on George Sahib. In 2014, senior human rights lawyer Colin Gonsalves managed to fight for me all the way up to the Supreme Court to get permission to visit George Sahib at Leila Fernandes’s house for fifteen minutes every fifteen days. I do so faithfu
lly, allowed by Leila to visit at strictly 11.05 am every time. We communicate the request and acceptance through brief polite text messages.

  I am instructed not to go near George Sahib, not to speak too much, not to touch him, to take off my shoes, and to wear a mask. It is as if he is in ICU, or preserved in a museum, not allowed any socializing, although he is very much alive. Music is never playing and I understand that the rare visitor is not encouraged to engage him. Who knows if that is the doctor’s orders? He is conscious, but there is neither any sign of cognizance of anything nor any communication. I have watched more sadly through each visit as his mumbles have gradually dwindled to silence, and his facial expressions are turning blank.

  George Fernandes was once a man no one could ignore, he exuded so much energy. His personality was such that he could never disappear into a crowd. I recall an incident when we were once rushing down a railway platform somewhere in Maharashtra to catch a train, and someone had shouted out to him in Marathi, ‘Hey, sir, you look like George Fernandes!’ He had stopped only for a fraction of a second to answer in Marathi, ‘Yes, many people have told me so.’