by BS Murthy
When Gautam reached M isty Nest, he found it inundated by the neighbors as well. As everyone rushed up to him in the portico itself, he tried to make it up by alleging that his rivals had falsely implicated an innocent Suresh. It was easy to see, he said with his trademark composure, all this was to scandalize his family and ruin his reputation in the same vein. It was like hitting two birds with the same stone. But he assured them nonchalantly that he would come up trumps after all, the indomitable fighter that he was. Apologizing for having spoiled the party, he got rid of them all one by one by bidding goodbye.
Though the Gautams felt relieved for having seen the back of their guests, yet they were overwhelmed by the tragedy that befell on them, and that denied them even a wink all night. If anything, the dawn made it worse for them as the glare of the scandal splashed in the newspapers irrevocably blurred their vision for days to come.
As the reportage of the crime, dubbed as M ehrauli M urder Case, tended to bring the background of the accused into focus, it irked the Gautams no end. What with the
condemnation coming thick and fast from all quarters, it soon turned into a nightmare for them. One newspaper went overboard, suggesting that the Gautams too may be tried as the abettors of the crime for a lack of their brat's bringing up. Then and only then, averred the eloquent editorial, that the country's courts would be perceived as concerned with social justice.
But what kept the news alive for weeks on end was its potential to embarrass the ruling party for its patronage of the Gautams. Thus, in time, it all turned out to be a trial by the media, well before the case was committed to the session's court. As the crime caught the public imagination as well, the investigative journalists worked overtime to pull out skeletons from the M isty Nest's closets. The competitive yellow journalism that followed, tarnished the fair name of the Gautams, and shamed them in the process. Such was the media one-upmanship that even a magazine dubbed the decade-old general insurance claim of the Gautams as fraudulent while a tabloid insinuated that Sneha had all along promoted Gautam's business interests by entrusting her charms to the care of men who mattered.
It was only time before the women's groups joined the fray demanding justice to the victim's soul with a rope to the culprit's throat. The religionists, for their part, lamented over the depravity of the youth and attributed the same to the lack of faith in God. Of course, the conformists raised the decibels of the debate by deriding the baneful influence of the alien lifestyle on the age-old culture. The social scientists, as though not to lag behind, attributed the rise and fall of the Gautams to the deteriorating value system in the society of the day. The political pundits, however, attributed the rise of Gautam Prabhu to the position of power and prestige to the perils of the License Permit Raj. That he was on the verge of being nominated by the party in power to the Rajya Sabha, they averred, underscored the inimical politico-business nexus that was in place. And what a peril that posed to the nascent Indian democracy was anybody's guess. But, waiting in the wings, the human rights activists made no noise till then. It seemed as if they were hoping that the accused would be sentenced to death to enable them to get on to the centre stage. Whatever, well before the scandal ceased to make news, the remarkable transformation of Gautam Prabhu, a former Engineer of the Public Works Department, into the most influential lobbyist in New Delhi became a matter of common appreciation.
In the mid-fifties, it was said, Gautam, with a ravishing wife and a burning ambition to make it big in life came to New Delhi from Andhra Pradesh. Having mastered Hindi meticulously and cultivating people methodically, he soon came to specialize in wheeling and dealing. Sneha Gautam, who eventually made waves on the cocktail circuit, nevertheless, made her debut with her Sneha Travels. Dazzling her influential clientele, soon enough, she reached far and wide in the travel world. But that was not all. Combining her unquestionable charms and questionable morals, she laid the foundation for the edifice of her husband's global empire. It was like she was the spark that ignited Gautam's ambition to make it to the zenith of wealth.
Having begun life in a by lane of Karol Bagh, the Gautams soon set their eyes on the avenues of Defense Colony, only to dominate its landscape in the end. Their palatial bungalow, evocatively named M isty Nest, became the owner's pride and the neighbors' envy, indeed of Lutyen's Delhi. Sadly for the Gautams though, and deservedly so as many thought, the veil of respectability that shrouded their vulnerability lay tattered. And that unmistakably exposed their shameful visages to the public gaze.
Owing to the fear of compromising their own reputation in their company, their former friends started distancing themselves from the fallen couple. What with the prospect of their only son ending up on the gallows staring in their face, troubled and shamed, the Gautams went into a cocoon in their M isty Nest. Moreover, used as they
were to the hustle and bustle of life, the informal boycott in place seemed to weigh down heavily upon their social spirit.
Thus, in time, as the make-believe world they had built around them came crashing down, the Gautams remained in seclusion in their duplex dwelling. But, it was from that very setting, until not so long ago, that the Gautams had mesmerized the socialites of the country's capital, and strolled like colossuses in its portals of power.
Chapter 2 Trauma atTihar
When Suresh Prabhu was produced before the metropolitan magistrate, he appeared disjointed. That was the day after his arrest, and as he looked traumatized, Vijay Mehrotra sprang up with alacrity. Seizing the chance to corner the prosecution, he accused the police of having tortured Suresh to extort that incriminating admission. And in the end, he dubbed the confessional statement as but a dubious document. Whatever, as the indicted appeared incoherent, and since Rawal too showed no inclination for his continued detention, the magistrate sent Suresh on remand to Tihar.
Though Gautam pulled the strings to ensure his smooth stay at the gaol, Suresh found it hard to face his lot. However, sensing that the accused was insensibly sinking into depression, in time, the jail doctor sent an SOS for psychiatric care. In the specialist counseling of Dr. Prakash Gupta that followed, Suresh unfolded his schizothymic mindset that baffled even the expert. At length, the specialist was able to place the bits and pieces of Suresh's troubled mind in the jigsaw of his psychic frame thus:
From his early childhood, Suresh had craved for his mother's affection but had to settle for ayahs' attentions. Upwardly mobile by the time he turned three, Sneha had no time for the apple of her eye. After all, she was engaged with her business during the day and partying in the evenings. But the veritable toy world that Gautam erected at home for him, gave Suresh a false sense of belonging. Thus, having grown up materially fulfilled but emotionally deprived, he had a bewildered childhood.
Whatever, his insatiate longing for the maternal love insensibly snowballed into an Oedipus complex in his adolescent mind. It was in that psychic state, fond of his mother but deprived of her affection, he was beset with a love-hate feeling for her. Well, this emotional disturbance inexorably sought sexual turbulence for his adolescent company. Gradually, all that afflicted his psyche and that induced aberrations in his libido.
Besides, the emotional void of his upbringing made him vulnerable to the sensual distractions of adolescence. Devoid of the paternal discipline and deprived of the maternal affection, he lacked the psychic barrier needed to keep the coarseness of the Delhi's abrasive culture at bay. It was, thus, the metro's insensitive ethos insensibly impinged upon his impressionable mind. And that drove him into the company of the spoilt brats at the Don Bosco. The delinquent life he happened to lead thus turned him insensitive to the decencies of life. It was only time before his bitterness with his self reached the pitch and that made him defiant to the discipline at the school. And his wayward ways led to his rustication from the school that even Gautam's pull could not help rescind.
But the slight he felt at the rebuke of his teacher at his own misdemeanor outraged his ego. His hurt psyche that
saw the teacher as the cause of his plight sought to get even with him. No less, the derision the incident invited incited him to avenge himself. The scheming for revenge that he indulged in exposed his troubled mind to criminal cunning. After mapping the teacher's movements, he chose the moment to contrive an accident with his motorcycle. The vicarious pleasure he derived in flooring his victim,
and then seeing him writhe in pain, surpassed his sense of vengeance but surprised the vestiges of his sensitivities.
Though the teacher narrowly escaped death, the needle of suspicion that tilted towards him under the weight of motive gave him his first brush with the law, and the Gautams their first taste of a scandal. But thanks to the parental clout he narrowly escaped landing up in a Borstal School. But the aggrieved academia's unrelenting opposition to his reprieve closed the doors of the elitist schools on him.
While Gautam was aghast at the setback, Sneha felt distressed about his future. But, preoccupied as they were with their own lives, they failed to summon the required imagination to amend his character. The neighbors who felt outraged at his conduct though barred their kids from mixing with him. But soon, they all mellowed, seemingly disarmed by his handsome looks and affected manner. But it was Gautam's largesse to help some school of lesser eminence build a swanky structure on its campus that helped Suresh avoid the tag of a school dropout. Soon, as the Gautams were back in their make-believe world, there was none to mend the disheveled mind of their son. And that left the troubled boy to fend for himself.
Amidst the middle-class crowd at the unheralded school, he turned supercilious and became a bully in due course. But when he finished his schooling, his mediocre aggregate became a handicap for Gautam to get him inducted into any professional college of some standing. However, owing to Sneha's connections, Suresh managed to find himself on the rolls of the prestigious St. Stephen's. Yet he felt that his parents had gone to lengths to keep him in the college not to cut a sorry figure for themselves on his account. It hurt him even more that they, having ignored his interests all along, should turn desperate to buttress his worth only to shore up their sagging image. All that made him feel that the way to get even with his parents, especially his mother, for his hitherto neglect was to get spoiled even more.
All the same, the accentuation of his sexuality imparted a carnal color to the canvas of his curiosity. It didn't take long for the deep attraction he always felt for his mother to turn into a vague sexual love for her. With each passing day, his Oedipus psyche sought sexual gratification in her possession, which in time became his sole obsession. So he tried to come closer to her on the sly but as he found her ever preoccupied, his frustration inculcated a feeling of vengeance against her. Thereby, he turned roguish at every turn to hurt her in every conceivable way.
When he noticed his mother's uninhibited manner with men, what with the outrage his jealousy induced in him, he began resenting her even more. But, the desire he spotted in the male eyes for her seemed to enhance his own craving for her in weird ways. As he insensibly focused on her, he noticed her flirtations with all and sundry. And that made him envious of them and hurtful of her. Thus, driven by jealousy, and compelled by curiosity, he came to spying on his own mother.
The first time he had seen her leading a stranger into her private room that was next to his own, he feared the worst and wanted to probe further. Using his ingenuity, he stealthily embedded peeping and hearing devices at vantage points in her room. M aking sure that he managed to camouflage them from her casual vision, he lay in wait to espy her escapades.
That afternoon, as she moved in with a young guy, he went up to his observatory in anticipation. Oh, what was in the offing for his voyeuristic delight was beyond his adolescent fantasies! Admiring the youth for his manliness, she enslaved him in her ardent embrace. Gripping him to gauge what was on offer, she was profuse in her praises. Reaching for his lips eagerly, she savored them passionately. As the guy became all eager, she turned a tease to rein him in. When he went on his knees in submission,
she pressed him to her crotch as if in triumph. When he shoved in his head between her thighs, she dropped her pallu over him as if to secure his ardor. When he pulled out her sari at her naval, she unbuttoned her blouse seductively. As he untied her lehanga, she removed her brassieres to his delight. Even as he was ogling at her nudity, no less eager to espy his essence, she undressed him with urgency. But as he sought to possess her, she subdued him into cunnilingus. Maybe, embarrassed at her becoming a foul mouth and as if to cease being clamorous, she herself took to fellatio.
Though the mother's wantonness affronted the son, yet her amorousness thrilled his own romanticism. But, the man's surging passion on her urging frame offended the son's sense of possessiveness. And, when the mother let that man penetrate her, the son felt as if she was being pushed out of his own heart. What's worse, her sexual surge leading to her orgasm left the son with a feeling of betrayal by his own beloved. Whatever, as her sexuality excited him sensually, her coital satiation with another male left him sullen. Above all, her moral degradation compounded by her lustful expletives distressed his materialistic sensibilities.
While his sense of parentage was belittled by her immoral ways, his selfrighteousness too was troubled by his own sense of guilt. And that left him indignant. All the same, he was puzzled by the fact that his mother could indulge herself with relish with another male, in spite of her apparent affection for his father. Unable as he was to come to terms with the reality of her life, he was left wondering about her motives behind that sexcapade. Whatever, he couldn't help but pity his father for having been cuckolded, and on that score he came to experience a simmering contempt for him. The mixed feelings his voyeurism induced in him had resulted in accentuating his love hate for his mother. While her lovemaking that he watched erased the borders of his own filial sensitivities, his Oedipus desire turned into an incestuous lust to possess his own mother. He found that, the innate shame her conduct infused in him was at odds with his own craving for her curvaceous frame. While the son in him felt ashamed, the man in him was torn between his lust and hurt. As a way of resolution for his conflicting emotions, he thought of humiliating her by surprising her in her indulgence.
As he came to spy on her, soon he saw her spiriting a hunk into the room on the sly. And that distressed him even more for the change of her mate symbolized the debauchery of her soul. He felt as if he had lost his esteem to her as a lover, and wished to leave the slut of a mother alone. But the allure of her frame and his urge to voyeur her fare pulled him to the post. When he had seen her mounting the man, his sense of deprivation goaded him to catch her red-handed. But his desire to see her reach the climax capped his own intent. At the end of her rendezvous, as he found himself drained as well, he resented his own impotence to affront her in her misdeed.
After a couple of aborted moves to shame her in the act and having got addicted to the voyeuristic joy he derived from her indulgences, he gave up the idea altogether. However, he ceased to see her as his mother and came to view her as a beddable woman. In his state of perversion, supplanting his self for her mate in the familiar setting his voyeurism provided, he was wont to daydream for long. Consumed by his own urge to possess her, he was outraged by her sexual transgressions. It was this impotent rage that led him to suffer in eternal shame. The effect of this underlying cynicism affected his subconscious to trouble his conscience.
As neither masturbations nor wet dreams could bring him release, he opted for paid sex for relief. In his union with the harlots, even as he fantasized his mother, he visualized her humiliation in their subjugation. But, whenever a whore turned out to be aggressive, reminiscent of his mother's self-assertion with her mates, he suppressed them no end. It was thus he came to see his exploits in the brothels as his means of revenge on his mother. But, soon, he realized the hollowness of his revenge brought
about by his generous doles to the whores for their extra favors. That he had to pay for what his m
other offered to her mates on a platter made him feel defeated even more. And that made him dejected no end.
With the passage of time, as his need to vindicate himself by his own machismo became compelling, he contrived to seduce a girl on the campus and coaxed her into sex with the promise of marriage. But, the falsity of his own duplicity denied him the pleasure of the conquest. Thus, feeling defeated in his bid to humiliate his mother, he came to hating women, painting them all with the brush of her dark character.
Experiencing physical attraction for the fair sex but nursing emotional apathy for them, he thought of rape to enjoy and hurt them at the same time. It was only time before he looked for his prey and realized that housewives would be a better bet. Once, he forced himself upon an unsuspecting woman and that readily catered to the conflicting emotional needs of his schizothymic psyche. While her pleadings to be spared of her humiliation gave him the feeling of an arbiter of her shame, the resistance he encountered in the face of his assault appealed to his sense of combat. But eventually, as he could subdue her, he felt elated by the strength of his own libido. All that made him feel as though he was doubly rewarded for his violation. Also, his perception that the woman coalesced after all, catered to his sense of virility. But, above all, having enjoyed the fare as long as it lasted, her picturing the sex as rape buttressed his cynicism about women. So he ended up where he began.
The feeling that the woman tried to wash her own guilt with a profusion of her crocodile tears seemed to wipe out his own sense of humiliation brought about by his mother's misconduct. Thus, while the subjugation of an unwilling woman satisfied his sense of revenge on his mother, the humiliation he could heap on the hapless dame addressed the hurt of his troubled mind. The warning he delivered in the end to the vanquished 'to keep shut or else' seemed to seal her shame while signaling his own triumph.