The Honest Season

by Kota Neelima

  ‘Did he give any names?’ Nalan asked.

  ‘No. The assailant referred to them only as his employers,’ Mira answered. ‘Presumably, they were the people who sent him to kill me.’

  Nalan remarked, ‘You know who they are, Mira.’

  ‘I do,’ Mira accepted, ‘but how can I prove that they were the same people who got hurt due to the Parliament tapes?’

  ‘There are other suspects,’ Sita countered. ‘You had gone to see Sikander Bansi that morning and returned from Sangam Vihar. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, but I had not met him.’

  ‘He says he first checked the room you had rented in the area but didn’t find you there. He rushed to your home as he anticipated the danger you might face from the people who were allegedly looking for him.’

  ‘That’s possible.’

  Sita studied her. ‘It’s also possible that it was Sikander Bansi himself who sent that man to kill you. That’s why he knew where and when to rescue you.’

  Mira frowned.

  ‘What nonsense!’ Nalan objected. ‘Another of your police theories, Sitaji, that you cook up sitting behind your desk? Why would Sikander Bansi want to kill Mira when he cares for her so much?’

  ‘As we just discovered, Mr Malik,’ Sita pointed out, ‘the assailant’s employers also cared for her.’

  ‘Yes, but Sikander left his life in her hands, with clues that led directly to him. He would be grateful that Mira didn’t betray him till the end, not get her killed!’

  Sita considered him. ‘Another of your civilian theories that you cook up sitting in your living room?’

  That made Nalan chuckle. He raised his hands, giving up. Mira responded intrigued. ‘Why do you suspect Sikander?’

  ‘Two reasons. He might have needed an excuse to come out of hiding.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Sitaji!’ Nalan intervened again impatiently, ‘Sikander could have done that anytime. There were enough “excuses” for him to choose from. For example, to save his father’s reputation, to save his own political career and to just prove wrong all the doubts about his motives.’ Nalan paused, his sharp eyes turned keen. ‘But none of them would have been the right excuse. None of them would have made him the martyr he is now. And he surrendered to me, one of the tainted men from the Parliament tapes. It was a priceless political move!’

  Mira didn’t speak. As usual she could detect only some of Nalan’s thoughts and, at that moment, even those were incomplete.

  Then she asked Sita, ‘What’s the second reason?’

  ‘Well, didn’t one of Sikander’s clues mention death?’ Sita inquired, ‘Your death?’

  ‘Many of his clues did.’

  ‘Yes, but this one talked about a knife.’

  Mira didn’t speak. She vividly recollected Sikander’s first clue.

  ‘I should have a copy of the clues in the file in my vehicle downstairs,’ Sita stood up. ‘Let me get that, please excuse me.’

  When she was gone, Nalan glanced at Mira. ‘Are you all right with this? You don’t have to solve the case for the police.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she told him, lost in thought. ‘That clue Sita was talking about came with the first tape. It had stated:

  ‘Choose the knife carefully, none of the fancy types will do. It should be double-edged and long, and made of steel for a warrior.’

  Nalan listened to her, getting enraged.

  ‘These were different ways in which I could end my life,’ Mira recalled. Then the clue ended with;

  ‘Come die with me any way you want, but not alone.’

  ‘That murderer!’ Nalan said, infuriated. ‘I shouldn’t have let him off so easily.’ He angrily paced the room.

  ‘It was just a clue . . .’

  ‘It was not!’ Nalan snapped. ‘He advertised how he was going to get you killed, Mira! The arrogant little . . .’ He stopped with effort, then asked, ‘Don’t tell me you can’t see that?’

  Mira shrugged. ‘I don’t mind, really. I myself have thought of these ways to die.’

  ‘I would like to change that,’ Nalan retorted sternly. ‘And I know I can. But Sikander didn’t want to even try, he wanted you to die instead.’

  Mira watched Nalan in silence. She knew he lied.

  Nalan walked to the window. ‘I want the police to lodge a case against Sikander for that attack on you. I don’t need more proof than this, and I don’t care if you do.’

  She observed him outlined against the rainless bright day, as he stood straight and strong. It was his nature to believe in himself. That’s why he was there with her working out her life, despite her. In a way, she loved that about him.

  ‘Sikander didn’t plunge that knife into you,’ Nalan reasoned, coldly, ‘but he chose that death for you. I care too much about you to let him get away with it.’

  ‘All right, Nalan,’ she said, and he turned to her in surprise.

  She gently accepted, ‘You know him better.’

  His angry eyes softened. ‘I do.’

  ‘But can you wait a little before you lodge that police complaint?’ ‘What for?’ He gestured to the chair, which Sita had just occupied. ‘Let Sitaji return, and she can write down the complaint right now.’

  Mira whispered, ‘I would like to meet Sikander once.’

  Nalan was still. ‘Why?’

  What could she tell him? Mira wondered. Then said, ‘To learn from my mistakes.’

  ‘It was his mistake, not yours.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  Nalan was unsure, but finally agreed. ‘Fine, I’ll wait.’

  Mira thanked him and mentioned that she would seek time from Sikander’s office. Nalan didn’t speak immediately. Then he said, ‘I find I can’t refuse you anything. It’s going to cost me something someday, much more than that terrible lunch at your newspaper canteen I shouldn’t have had.’

  Mira smiled mischievously. ‘Then learn from your mistakes.’

  He studied her smile and said, ‘This isn’t a mistake. This is a disaster.’

  She laughed, conceding that, and the healing wounds began to hurt a little less.

  A couple of days later, Mira managed to walk around in the hospital room and the doctors felt she could soon return home. Salat helped her to the chair and sat on the bed himself.

  ‘Why don’t you come and stay at my house?’ he suggested. ‘As you saw for yourself, there is enough staff to take care of you and enough space for you to rest without disturbance.’

  Mira smiled. ‘Good try, Salat, but no.’

  ‘Now really, Mira,’ he protested. ‘You can’t go home. Who’ll take care of you?’

  She declined, and just then, her cell phone rang. It was Nalan, and she told him that the doctors might send her home in a day or two.

  ‘Yes, but you’ll be alone at home.’ Nalan was concerned. ‘You need to be looked after.’

  ‘Salat was just saying that.’ Mira glanced at him. ‘He has even generously invited me to his house, as if I could be so cruel.’

  Salat smiled at her words and tried to guess whom she talked to.

  ‘I extend to you a similar invitation,’ Nalan offered, ‘and I hope you are cruel enough to accept it.’

  ‘And you guys think I’m suicidal!’

  ‘Fine! Have it your way and go home,’ he said. ‘I’ll send along my staff to take care of the medicines, food and other things you may need.’

  ‘You won’t do any such thing,’ she exclaimed. ‘I don’t need your staff. I would rather stay here at the hospital for a few more days.’

  ‘That was easy!’ He chuckled. Then he said he would visit her in the evening and ended the call.

  Salat surveyed her, amazed. ‘This is the first time I’ve seen you actually happy!’

  Mira laughed. ‘It’s the stab wounds.’

  ‘This is something special,’ Salat noted, curious. ‘Who was that on the phone? Sikander?’

  Mira’s smiled faded. ‘Why would you think it was Sikander?’
r />   ‘Perhaps because he rescued you and saved your life,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Not the only one,’ she said cryptically.

  Intrigued, Salat said, ‘But I do find it strange that he should have spoken those words against you, and called you a stranger when he knows you so well. And he hasn’t even come to visit you.’ Salat then added, hurt, ‘He could have at least sent a message.’

  ‘Why should he?’ Mira frowned. ‘His project is done, Salat. The Parliament tapes are published. He doesn’t need me or the newspaper anymore. Please don’t confuse his efficiency with emotion. The research about my life, the insightful clues and everything else was part of his larger strategy to reinvent himself.’ Salat reluctantly accepted that. ‘Yes, I see that in every news report and political analysis. He is considered a rebel despite his background and is seen as someone who is better than the system because he has exposed its corruption.’ He paused. ‘Even his re-election, which was in doubt, is assured now.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Mira said derisively. ‘He has moved ahead in his life and, in time, his enemies will relent. I’m sure you have noted that he has not made even a single demand to ask for specific action against anyone mentioned in his tapes.’ She was quietly furious. ‘But these facts can’t dull the blinding glory of his honesty and his morality. No one, not even the PP, can touch him now. Not just because of his soaring popularity, but because he is armed with the evidence in Parliament tapes that our newspaper helped advertise for him. It was routine journalism for us and it was routine blackmail for him.’

  Salat heard her seriously, then reflected, ‘I wish we were all more than what we do to succeed.’

  ‘We are exactly what we do to succeed,’ she insisted.

  Salat was puzzled, ‘If it was not Sikander, then who were you talking to on the phone?’

  ‘Nalan Malik.’

  ‘Who!’

  Mira avoided his stunned eyes.

  ‘Are you sure you can even stand him?’ he asked incredulously. ‘I mean, he is the same man who forced our newspaper to stop publishing the tapes. And the last tape we did publish gave evidence of his role in the division of a state for corporate purposes!’

  Mira remained silent.

  Salat sounded dazed. ‘I mean, I can see straight patterns in his behaviour that reveal his motives. His interest in you might be because he is committed to bringing down Sikander. He was probably even behind the attack on you.’ Salat was disturbed. ‘Why are you even talking to him?’

  ‘I like him.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Look, I know what he did, Salat,’ she argued. ‘His deals, his politics, all that our newspaper tried to expose and all that he did to prevent us from doing so. But you forget that it was not Nalan who decided not to publish the last tape on weapons dealers. It was the editor of our newspaper.’

  Salat tolerantly pointed out, ‘You know Nalan forced that decision. He is a dangerous man, Mira.’

  ‘More than Sikander?’ she asked him evenly.

  Salat weighed that. ‘Probably not.’

  ‘I have recorded the thoughts of both men,’ she told him, her voice forlorn. ‘I can’t hate either of them.’

  He noticed her drawn face. ‘Well, I guess I was wrong,’ he said easily. ‘I thought you hated Nalan.’

  She chuckled. ‘Hate a man who is here morning and evening to meet me looking like this?’ Mira gestured to the hospital clothes. ‘Even I’m beginning to believe.’

  Salat smiled. ‘That he is more than what he does to succeed?’

  ‘Or less, in his case,’ she replied.

  Salat laughed. Then he remembered something.

  ‘What is it?’ Mira asked, observing his troubled face.

  ‘There was something I never wanted to tell you about Sikander.’ Salat spoke uncertainly. ‘I thought you liked him too much and that it might upset you.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Mira chided him. ‘When did you not upset me?’

  But he was anxious as he said, ‘Sikander seemed to know who was behind the attack.’

  She was suddenly still. ‘Who did he say it was?’

  ‘Bhaskar asked him but he wouldn’t say. He just mentioned that it was his score to settle.’

  ‘His score?’ Mira repeated, frowning.

  ‘So I accused him of protecting the assailant.’

  ‘Please, Salat,’ she protested. ‘Wasn’t that going too far?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he admitted. ‘But he didn’t deny it.’

  Mira’s dark eyes sharpened with interest.

  ‘He said your blood spoke to him,’ Salat fell silent, tormented, as he recalled the stains on Sikander’s shirt. ‘He said he shed your blood, and you won’t stop thanking him for it.’

  She remained silent, distressed; Sikander referred to his first clue that suggested death by knife, the clue that Sita thought made him a suspect in the case.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Salat said remorsefully, noticing her expression. ‘I shouldn’t have told you this.’

  Mira took a deep breath and managed to smile at him. ‘You haven’t told me anything I didn’t know already. You just confirmed something I wasn’t sure of.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That it was probably good I survived the attack,’ Mira reflected. ‘This is no time to die.’

  Twenty-Two

  The following days saw many agitations across the country that demanded action against people exposed in Sikander’s Parliament tapes. There were demonstrations, hunger strikes, boycotts and symbolic arrests. But the movement seemed to have no leaders, no organizers and no spokespersons. In other words, there was no politics. There was also no corporate support and no media support. In other words, there was no money. And yet people gathered in parks, at crossings, outside government buildings and inside school playgrounds. Experts sitting in Delhi analysed this rapid mobilization and mistook it for a revolution against an elected government. There was outrage against the undemocratic uprising, and the government prepared to retaliate. And then, just on the brink of a conflict, Sikander made a statement to clarify that the movement should not be about taking over of power. Instead, it should only be about making power more accountable to people.

  That simple explanation, which he had Tweeted one morning over a cup of tea, forced the government to wait and stalled the planned crackdown against the agitators. It also instantly made Sikander a hero. His Tweet was re-Tweeted, made into posters and even T-shirts and caps. Then someone proposed that if his statement crossed over 10,000 re-Tweets, he should be declared leader of the movement. It took just three hours to cross that mark, and the question was settled. However, no one had anticipated Sikander’s answer when he turned down the offer. But by refusing power over people, he became the most qualified man to wield it. He was asked about it often; why wasn’t he ready to take the credit for the Parliament tapes and lead the movement for better accountability? And he repeated the same answer every time, that he had done the job for which he was elected as a member of Parliament—to serve the best interests of the people. There was no need to give him credit for it, he mentioned, he already drew a salary. Delhi was not used to this, at least not from one of its own.

  There was an uproar of support for him from across the country. And yet, he stayed home, allowing himself to be photographed with his books and friends. He was a recluse in the middle of a crowd, a silence that made the chaos around him stand still and make sense. He seemed to have no ambition, no motive, no need for wealth and no desire for power. There is always demand for such people at all times of history, and there is always a short supply.

  The PP had no choice but to treat Sikander like a star. He was the only clean face they had in the party. He stood against the corruption of his own party’s government and, therefore, neutralized the Opposition parties’ campaigns. The PP knew the next election would be about the Parliament tapes, and it was prudent to own them than denounce them.

  However, everyone in the PP kn
ew what Sikander had done was treacherous. They needed him politically, but they didn’t respect him personally. Their respect was reserved for Nalan, especially for his effortless handling of the investigation against Sikander in a way that no one was hurt. He was also admired for the way he had braved the risk of facing action himself, when he had made his bold recommendation based on the investigation. That had made him a favourite among all the others named in the published tapes or expected to be named in the unpublished ones. He too was constantly petitioned to lead a front within the party against Sikander. It already had the support of the leadership that was tired of Mahesh, and also the cooperation of other political parties angry with Sikander. Such a rebellion could have split the PP and created a new party in which a new leader could have emerged and assumed control. There was possibility of power, and there was certainty of money. And yet, just like Sikander, Nalan didn’t make a move. They both seemed to wait for something to happen.

  Mira returned home after a week’s stay in the hospital, and, just as everyone had warned, found it difficult to manage alone. It helped that Salat’s staff brought food and other supplies, and the landlady sent her own housekeeper to do the chores. But it was Nalan who was to be always found in the house, usually talking on his phone, pacing the living room or sitting with his feet up, reading one of her stories from old newspaper clippings. Mira wondered about his way of thinking. He sought nothing of her and gave everything of himself, without her ever asking. So, she wanted to find out what if she asked him for something. For instance, the apples she loved? He would get her a few dozen, she thought, make sure she was never short of apples. Instead, he brought one apple every time he met her and sliced it himself carefully, as if he valued something she liked. It almost changed the taste of apples forever.

  Mira had already informed Bhaskar that she would seek time to meet Sikander unofficially and not on behalf of the newspaper. When she had called from the hospital, Sikander’s office politely registered her request but never got back. When she called to check, she was told that he was busy. Then, after a few more reminders, his office finally gave her time for the meeting at 4 p.m on that Monday.