The Honest Season

by Kota Neelima

  ‘We can make a statement today,’ Bhaskar suggested. ‘We can include a line or two from Mira to explain how she worked the case.’

  ‘This is a good time to showcase know-reportage and how we pioneered it,’ Dubey pointed out. ‘We should have a story based on her past cases and the way she made this new branch of journalism credible.’

  ‘It’s just an aberration Ashok!’ Lina objected.

  ‘All that matters,’ Bhaskar asserted, ‘is that it has provided pathbreaking news to the readers.’

  There was a knock on the conference room door and Mira entered. She apologised to Munshi for being late and settled in an empty chair at the table. When she finally glanced up, she found everyone looking at her and was intrigued particularly by Munshi’s expression. He was livid.

  ‘Where were you yesterday?’

  ‘I was on leave,’ she said.

  Munshi searched for a way to hold that against her. Then he admitted, ‘Well, at least I cannot blame you for what happened here yesterday. How about today?’

  ‘I was busy working the clues,’ she explained. ‘As I have mentioned before, I am being watched, and it’s sometimes difficult to keep to a regular schedule.’ She paused. ‘I may also need more days away from work.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘Then don’t,’ Munshi snapped. ‘I don’t want to know about things I don’t have to deal with. Instead, tell us what have you discovered about the clues. How close are we to finding this mad man?’

  ‘I can’t be sure, sir,’ Mira replied frankly. ‘Sikander has been quite comprehensive about this disappearance. His cell phones are at his residence, and his email ID has not been accessed since the day he went missing.’

  ‘Are you saying you can’t find him?’ Munshi asked impatiently.

  ‘On the contrary, sir. I am saying no one else can find him, not even the police. The clues are the only way and they are addressed to me.’

  ‘So?’ he demanded. Mira could detect the question he didn’t ask.

  She answered it. ‘Yes, we can afford to take our time and publish more tapes in the meanwhile.’

  Munshi nodded. ‘I am being asked rather frequently these days if I don’t like living in Delhi. I think it’s a threat, but we’ll see. You take your time.’

  Mira thanked him.

  ‘There is another thing I am asked quite often,’ he said. ‘What is Sikander Bansi’s motive behind making the tapes?’

  Mira remembered Sikander’s one-room house in the swampy lane and felt she was more certain about him now. ‘To tell the world what takes place inside Parliament,’ she answered Munshi.

  ‘What about political motive?’ Munshi asked intently. ‘He doesn’t want to fix his opponents? Smooth his way to power?’

  ‘Perhaps he does,’ Mira conceded. ‘But I believe he is also teaching his father a lesson.’

  ‘I know! That’s another good reason to continue publishing the tapes. Never have I been able to do so much damage to someone by helping them,’ he chuckled finally. ‘I love it!’

  Making quick use of the improved weather conditions in the room, Bhaskar steered the discussion to the fallout of the Bharat Party exposé. Dubey informed them that Ratanbau was ready to reveal the facts to the newspaper’s Patna correspondent. And there was to be a special feature on Mira and why only a know-journalist could find Sikander Bansi.

  Salat followed her downstairs to her cabin after the meeting.

  ‘I called you eighteen times yesterday and left eleven text messages,’ he said, incensed. ‘Where were you, Mira?’

  She noticed his anger and was brief. ‘On leave.’

  ‘Couldn’t you call back or text?’

  ‘Didn’t have to.’ She went to her desk and added ‘There was no danger.’

  ‘Really?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Here is a man who has researched your life with the penchant of a psychopath, you are under the surveillance of people who have been exposed by your stories and you tell me there was no danger?’

  ‘You didn’t have to worry.’ She was curt. ‘It was unnecessary.’

  He frowned. ‘Why?’

  She shrugged. ‘No one has to worry about me. Or call.’

  ‘There is no one to worry about you,’ he snapped back. ‘Or call.’

  Mira glanced at him, astonished. They were silent for an instant, and then upset with what he said, Salat stormed out of her room.

  Later Mira walked into his cabin and found him sitting at his desk, looking guilty.

  It was her first visit to his room, and she surveyed the papers everywhere—graphs, tables, and charts—even on the floor. Mira leaned against a wall and met his eyes questioningly.

  ‘How I never refer to my family?’ she asked. ‘Is that what gave it away? How I don’t talk of my home?’

  He was uncomfortable. ‘Sikander’s clues.’

  ‘Could’ve been misleading.’

  ‘They were systematic,’ he explained quietly. ‘He targeted your weaknesses.’

  ‘That was enough to tell you I was an orphan?’

  ‘Not entirely,’ Salat said, hesitant. ‘There were some patterns about you as well; for instance, you constantly disbelieve and test people.’

  ‘You do the same, even with your family,’ she pointed out.

  He thought about that. Then tentatively said, ‘You also disregard relationships.’

  ‘You make short-term mistakes just to escape loneliness,’ she told him.

  He was pensive. ‘You think emotions weaken you,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘You listen to sad songs when you are drunk,’ she remarked.

  ‘Is this about you or me?’ he demanded, hassled.

  Mira waited in silence.

  ‘Sikander chose you for your vulnerability, not just for your strengths,’ Salat regarded her critically. ‘You like him, Mira. Can’t blame you if you do. He is a smart, good-looking man who has turned your life inside out.’

  Mira didn’t speak at once, then said, ‘Wish it were that simple.’

  He nodded in grim understanding.

  ‘Hopefully,’ Mira said, ‘Sikander doesn’t know that.’

  ‘He doesn’t?’

  They were both silent, sure of the answer.

  She finally said, ‘That’s not why I came here. I wanted to . . .’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Salat interrupted. ‘If it’s about what happened before, I didn’t mind it. Really.’

  Mira patiently tried again. ‘I need to . . .’

  ‘No need to apologize,’ he assured her. ‘You were upset and said some things. That’s fine.’

  ‘Actually, I didn’t . . .’

  ‘Didn’t mean what you said?’ Salat nodded approvingly. ‘Good to see you care for the feelings of others, Mira.’’

  ‘I do,’ she agreed dryly. ‘Especially about Munshi’s feelings for Bharat Kumar.’

  He was puzzled.

  ‘Munshi and Bharat Kumar have reached some understanding,’ Mira told him. ‘We are to explain to Bharat Kumar, much like we did in the case of Nuri, how we work this story.’ Then added calmly, ‘That’s what I came to tell you!’

  ‘Was it?’ he asked, unperturbed. ‘Well, then why didn’t you say so?’

  Mira tried to answer, then shook her head helplessly and left his room.

  Unlike on the drive to Nuri’s residence, they didn’t discuss Munshi’s tactics on the way to the BP office in Sarojini Nagar. There was no point; it was clear that Munshi made deals with people mentioned on the tapes after and not before the tapes were published. The baseline of ethics was getting obscured with all this cross-court play, but it was not altogether lost.

  The afternoon was the same grey as the morning, without sunlight or rain. No anticipatory breeze opened a window in the blue; the sky was just a canopy of mirrors over a concrete city. Mira wondered, as Salat discussed corporate funding of political campaigns, that she had rarely talked with someone who knew the tr
uth about her but was unaffected by it. Salat dealt with it routinely, as if it was something that had happened a long time ago to someone he barely knew. That, in a way, was right.

  The BP office was situated in a government house originally allotted to a BP supporter. It was prohibited to use such residences as offices, but this was Bharat Kumar’s way of showing that he made the rules in his government. He was a middle-aged man with a look of enforced anger about him.

  ‘Don’t you want to end corruption in this country?’ he interrogated them when they were seated. ‘How could you write against me, the only man struggling to improve the system?’

  ‘We believe,’ Salat answered sincerely, ‘that our stories strengthen that struggle.’

  ‘What?’ Bharat Kumar said, his face childish in rage. ‘Who do you think you are speaking with?’

  Prudently, they didn’t answer that.

  ‘I know exactly what you tried to do and you better make sure this never happens again,’ he said in mock fury. ‘You underestimate the power of my voice and my image. I ended the agitation against your newspaper as a favour to you guys. But if I demand that the newspaper never be published again,’ he paused significantly, ‘it won’t be.’

  ‘Nice to know that, Bharatji,’ Mira commented. ‘However, we are here to explain to you the manner in which we investigate the tapes before each publication . . .’

  ‘No ma’am,’ he interrupted, amused. ‘You are here because I demanded an explanation from your editor.’

  ‘Fine, then.’ Mira refused to get provoked, as she continued, ‘The tapes came to our newspaper because Sikander Bansi’s clues can be deciphered only by a know-journalist like me. We did not ask for the tapes, and we don’t know what the next tape may contain. The readers get to know as much as we do about the tapes in the very next edition of the newspaper. We don’t alter the tapes in any way, and we don’t report anything more than what is in the tapes . . .’

  ‘I don’t care what you did with other tapes,’ he said, cutting her short. ‘Just make sure you don’t publish anything against me again.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked fascinated. ‘What’s so special about you?’

  ‘If I have to tell you,’ he seethed, ‘then you haven’t learnt the lesson yet.’

  She considered that. ‘I get the same feeling about you, Bharatji.’

  That made him lose his temper. ‘The people will rise in revolt on my one gesture, ma’am,’ he shouted, reaching the edge of the chair. ‘You take a great risk by angering me. I am a leader of the common people. I am a saviour of the voiceless . . .’

  ‘Let me,’ Mira suggested helpfully, ‘continue with the explanation. The way it works is that we get the tapes in the mail, which we then send to our newspaper offices in the relevant cities across the country. In this case, we sent the tape to Patna, where it was taken to Ratanbau for confirmation . . .’

  ‘This is a conspiracy!’ he declared darkly. ‘You want me to fail because you are corrupt!’

  ‘The verification process is all on record,’ she proceeded, unfazed, ‘and has been published along with each story and with every transcript of the tapes.’

  ‘You want me to fail because you serve corporate interests!’

  ‘I would recommend,’ she spoke calmly, ‘that you take a look at our process and suggest improvements to make it more effective and fair.’

  ‘You want me to fail because you are against the revolution!’ he charged, ominously.

  ‘And now, if all your doubts are at rest,’ Mira concluded amiably, ‘we would like to thank you for your time and take your leave.’

  ‘You are on the payrolls of my political opponents!’

  They stood up. ‘It was good talking to you.’

  ‘No, wait!’ He came to his feet quickly. ‘You must promise that you won’t publish anything against me again.’

  Salat unhappily said, ‘We can’t publish anything against you.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Bharat smiled, relieved. ‘Then I promise we won’t vandalize your office.’

  ‘I meant,’ Salat clarified, ‘we can’t publish anything against you because we don’t have the next tape yet. If it turns out to be against you, we will publish it.’ He added cheerfully, ‘This I can promise.’

  Bharat Kumar’s small face once again stiffened in fury.

  ‘However, as Mira mentioned,’ Salat was conciliatory, ‘we will know the contents of the next tape only when we get it, as will our readers, which includes you.’

  ‘Make sure you send me a copy,’ he instructed sternly. ‘Your editor agreed to that.’

  Salat and Mira were stumped. They had both forgotten that the deal had already been struck between Munshi and Bharat Kumar, just like it was before with Omkar Nuri and Mahesh Bansi.

  They coldly wished him a good day and marched out.

  Salat pointed out as he drove back to the office that they were being followed and Mira recognized the surveillance jeep. Salat felt that with every new tape, her delay in finding Sikander would worry more and more people. Mira knew that; it would also get further difficult for her to visit Sikander’s lane. She pondered about how to go to that lane in the evening without being followed. She couldn’t confide in Salat because he mistrusted Sikander and might expose him to protect her.

  Deciding not to take her car out of the parking, where it had been the entire day, Mira left her office from one of the side exits at around 6 p.m. She took a bus to the nearest metro station and after changing lines, finally headed to Sangam Vihar. It was crowded, and the aisle was full, but there was not much chatter. The evening rush hour was quieter than other times. People were too exhausted at the end of the day. Their faces were clear and strong, as if they didn’t want to give away their fatigue to strangers. But their shoes, they told another story; the day was etched on their shoes. Some had the thick dust of busy sidewalks, others had the fine dust of carpeted offices. Some were cheap and comfortable, others were expensive and difficult. Some were honest about failures and others were dishonest about success.

  As the metro took the elevated path, Mira saw the crowded eight-lane roads below, four lanes for going home, four for leaving it. If she had a home, she would never leave it, never waste time on escapes. She would throw away her travelling shoes and just belong . . . be home.

  Mira closed her eyes, and remembered the shoes she had once got as a gift.

  How well must you know a person to gift them shoes? The size, the colour, the style, the heel, and finally, the look. Perhaps nothing packed so many clues about a person’s character as shoes did. I got these beautiful shoes once, wine red brocade embellished with tiny beads. My room-mate in the college hostel had brought them for me from Punjab. They were beautiful, but a size small, so I managed to get my feet into them, but couldn’t walk without wincing. Others couldn’t see me suffer and suggested that I should give them away. But how could I? They were bought specially for me, unlike the random stuff we usually got from donations at the orphanage. I enjoyed this difference, the knowledge that someone had thought about me long enough, imagined how I would look when I wore them, imagined that I would be happy. So, I didn’t give away the shoes and pretended that they had finally fit me. I wore them a few more times, even if they cut my feet. Finally, however, the physical pain overpowered the pain of their loss. With a heavy heart, I offered the shoes to the girl who stayed a few doors away in the hostel corridor. They fit her feet perfectly. They made her so happy that it almost felt like I wore the shoes myself, and this time, without the pain. It was almost my dream that had been fulfilled. That was a breakthrough for someone like me who didn’t dream, because I couldn’t think of myself in any place or any life, not even my own. I couldn’t own things, I realized, because I knew nothing ever belonged to anyone. I couldn’t desire things, like those shoes; I didn’t see myself wearing them in the first place. I didn’t dream for a better life, a better place; I had no idea what that would be like.

  What the girl fe
lt was not my kind of happiness, but it was close. It wasn’t my kind of dream, but it was close. Since then, I began collecting things I could give away to be that close again, my halfway to happiness. I was seventeen years old.

  The lane was settling in for the day when Mira reached it. All the houses across the street were alive except Sikander’s room, which was still dark. As promised, the landlord had got her room cleaned and tastefully arranged his discarded furniture. The sinking couch, the shaky chairs and the stoic dining table stood questioningly when she walked in. Mira touched their clean surfaces, as if apologizing for the trouble, and switched off the single light blub. Once again, she sat in the darkness and watched the street merge with the main road in the distance. She followed people as they returned home, but no one reached Sikander’s room. Then, around 8 p.m., a tall figure walked into the lane and, as he passed under a lamp post, the light fell on Sikander’s face. Mira quickly moved to the balcony to observe him better. He walked slowly, unhurriedly. He wore a loose shirt and trousers, and carried a paper bag in his hand. He had his eyes lowered in thought and glanced up only when a motorcycle drove by. She couldn’t see much of his face from that distance, except that his eyes reflected the lights before he lowered them again.

  She pressed back into the shadows as Sikander opened the door of his room. From across the narrow lane, she could even hear the turn of the lock and the rustle of his rough shoes on the uneven floor. He switched on a light and opened the single window through which Mira could see the peeling paint on the walls and a wooden table with an empty plate, a glass and a water bottle. The packet he carried had dinner, which he put on the plate. He then pushed a chair to the table, washed his hands, and sat down to eat. From her post in the balcony, she could see him only partially. He wore no rings, his wristwatch was cheap, and his shirt was folded till the elbows. There was nothing noteworthy about him, except the way he evenly placed the napkin, and neatly finished his food using plastic cutlery. His behavior wasn’t just habit, which changed when he was alone and there was no one to see. It was discipline. And pride.