Legal Fiction

by Chandan Pandey

  It dawned on me that this list would have been prepared in the presence of others. The handwriting was the same as on the other pages, so it wouldn’t be correct to say someone else had prepared the list. But the way ‘Rafique’ was listed across from ‘Niyaz’, it was plausible that other people were around and that there may have been a discussion about it. If Rafique had written it by himself, or if I were Rafique and had written this in inexplicable solitude, I would have perhaps jotted down ‘me’ in the first person instead of writing my own name.

  I didn’t like the play’s title. For the past two days, my mind had been sculpting an image of Rafique through his diary, his lively literary engagements and his students. All of it, however, began to crumble because of the title. His accomplishments at the ground level with his students had fortified his image as a man of hard work and perseverance in my mind. Such a perception was natural. I knew little about him, but the fact that he was Anasuya’s husband, and not one bought with dowry but earned with love – a fact that, even by itself, created a good impression. I respected him even more because of the struggles that came his way because of the marriage. As I grew older, I had begun to believe that ‘love marriage’ was not made for Indian society. One couldn’t cut oneself off from society for the sake of a woman. One could not leave everything for love. But whenever I heard of a love marriage, a certain kind of respect took root in my heart for such couples.

  Rafique’s image actually began to crumble because of the hope that had arisen when I saw the cast of the play. I had thought I was going to get a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes moments of the production of a world-renowned play. I had started wondering which play it could be even before I saw the cast. I was thrilled to peek into the diary of a dynamic young theatre director in a mofussil town of less than 25,000 people. What play could it be? I thought of several names: Melancholia? The Girl on the Sofa? Piano for Sale? The Caucasian Chalk Circle? Charandas Chor? Which one would it be?

  But the title – Bachane Wala Hai Bhagwan! – felt as if the play had been created for an ad agency or as part of a marketing campaign. Was it for the same agency that Rafique had mentioned on a previous page as one that owed him money? When I tried to turn to that page, it came apart. I tried to recall the name of the agency. Was it M.K. or R.K.?

  Most pages of the diary and notebooks were still damp. I tried to determine what the play was about, or its story, from the few dried pages. Then it occurred to me that rather than getting entangled in the play, I needed to browse the pages to look for clues into Rafique’s disappearance.

  Seeing Janaki’s association with the play here, I began to regret all that I had thought so far about her. From the very beginning, whenever one spoke of Janaki – the newspaper report that carried the news about her disappearance, the inspector’s mention of her, and now the report about love jihad – my scepticism had repeatedly hinted that the truth lay somewhere in the primeval connection between man and woman. When that thought first came to me, I refuted it almost immediately. I had no right to think like this about others. If there was a relationship between the two – if it ever existed or even if it did not – it was not my business, nor was it ethical to suspect them. But when the daroga too said it, it seemed as if all signs were indeed pointing at a relationship between them. Also, if such a relationship did exist, nobody would write about it in their diary.

  What I should have done, in fact, was ask Kushal, Jagdish, or some other students about them. But Kushal was not around any more for me to ask. Mukesh was yet to call me back, and I did not have Jagdish’s number. I could now only ask Anasuya. I sent her a message instead of calling: ‘Jagdish’s phone number?’

  There was a knock on the door.

  There wasn’t enough light in the room to see everything clearly. It was Shalabh, who had come to pick me up to go to the function. A few dried pages crackled under his feet. The noise drew his attention to the forest of pages – his sophistication might have led him to call it a garden. He was baffled for a bit. Then he started looking over the room slowly, peering into the corners, as my words led his turning neck. Pages from the diary lay here, and on the other side of the room too. Scattered across the middle of the room were two scripts comprising around sixty to sixty-five pages. Every shelf in the cupboard housed more pages from the diary. Tiptoeing his way through them, he moved forward as I showed him the washroom. Some papers lay there as well. I showed him the pages that hung from the rope I had fashioned by tying my shirt and trousers together.

  ‘These are Rafique’s papers – his diary, his script. Look at his language.’ I showed him a page that elaborately described the meeting with Amandeep. ‘Just read the descriptions. He is a poet. This is the first time I have seen someone so candid even in a diary.’

  ‘Who? He is a jihadi, boss!’

  ‘No, there is no such Rafique, sir. What leaps out of these pages is his dedication, the struggles he has faced, and the work he is doing. I have no other word for him but “genius”.’

  His forehead erupted with furrows as he began to think. ‘Why has he been targeting Hindu girls then?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Hello, mister, don’t give me this official bullshit. There is some other war going on in your town, and I think all of you are involved. Anybody who loves this town would not stand to hear anything bad about such an amazing person. Are you aware – but how could you be? You should know that another student of Rafique has been made to disappear. Tell your city’s residents to cook up new stories, submit them as facts, start claiming that he is involved in a love triangle now.’

  As I spoke, I got a lump in my throat. Perhaps because the last two days had exhausted me, or perhaps because of the helplessness I felt since I couldn’t do anything for Anasuya, or perhaps because I had been overpowered by those who played this game. My voice first became hoarse, then it choked. There was something in this choking that made Shalabh leave the room. To overcome my tears, I went back to the pages. Reading them was like turning illusion into reality.

  18/7/15

  We’ve performed it twice as a street play, and people are beginning to like it. Performing on 15 August will be a great opportunity for others to watch it. If it can make even one person rise up against a murderous mob, our mission will be successful. It’s the perfect moment to stage the play, but nobody is giving us the space for it. We had rented the Hindi Pracharini Sabha’s hall for Independence Day. We had even paid Rs 3,400 for shows over two days. But then we were told it would not be possible since the hall was being repaired. How can we expect to rely on others when our own college has not given us the space to perform this play? People often refuse to look in the mirror because they fear the reflection may show a criminal’s face.

  9/7/15

  Dadda had sent for us. All of us went over – Neeraj, Mukesh, Kushal, Aniruddha, Jagdish, Janaki and me. He wants us to perform Jaishankar Prasad’s Chandragupt at the Dol Mela this time. His university will arrange the funds and the venue for rehearsals. Dadda is polite but imposing at the same time, so even though it was difficult to say, I still asked him to watch a performance of Bachane Wala Hai Bhagwan! at least once. I told him if he just said the word, any place in the town would give us a stage. He said he was too busy to watch our play, but asked us to think about the other one. As the character named Amangal says – Let … us … see … what … happens…

  17/7/15

  This road leads to Swami Devanand Degree College. The potholes to the side are brimming with black water. There is a culvert, and several passers-by. Niyaz lies down on the culvert with his head to the south and feet pointing north. Anuradha’s touch alerts Niyaz to the fact that she has arrived. The evening itself is most pleased to see these two, so pleased that the sun refuses to set.

  Niyaz: You’ve come?

  Anuradha (taking a seat on the culvert): So it would seem.

  [Silence for a couple of beats.]

  Anuradha: My uncle is in the market today. He had called.
<
br />   Niyaz: Say, we have to leave now.

  Anuradha: Understand, we have to leave now.

  Niyaz: Understood, we have to leave now.

  Anuradha: Must you stand atop your pedestal and ridicule others all the time, Neju? Is this what your Allah-Allah-Khair-Salla has taught you?

  Niyaz: He has also taught me that people should not be late, but they are.

  Anuradha: Stop it.

  Niyaz: Stopped it.

  [A beat.]

  Niyaz: Rakesh and Supriya went to the lodge.

  Anuradha: Find someone else you can go to a lodge with.

  Janaki’s voice became sharp while delivering this line, the way it does when a body part emerges into the cold during harsh winter. She too had slipped out of Anuradha’s character for a moment and become Janaki. Her face had started to burn. She needs to rehearse.

  Oh god!

  Amandeep was right, as was my suspicion. Anasuya’s trust wasn’t misplaced either. But a collective system had first rendered us isolated, and then imposed its story on our reality.

  The programme was supposed to begin from 2 p.m. There was still some time left – long enough for me to clarify my position to the protectors of this town’s image whom I’d met the night before last. My act of changing the setting of my Facebook post on their insistence, so that it was visible only to me, began to irk me. I changed the post’s setting to public again, and during the time I should have spent reading Rafique’s diary, I calmly put up another post with updates. I made sure it would not upset those who worried about the town’s image either:

  I am in Noma. The people here are nice and friendly. The entire town is busy with the preparations for the Dol Mela. The town has been trying to establish this festival as its unique identity for a few years now. Besides preparing for it, everyone is anxious that the festival should take place in a dignified manner. But a few destructive forces are also at work. My family friend Rafique, about whom I had said in my previous post that he had not returned home and had sought help, continues to be missing. One of his students, named Janaki, is also missing. The police, which until yesterday had refused to register an FIR, and the newspapers that could not find any space for the news, are brazenly calling it a matter of love jihad today. But nobody has any evidence to show for it. More tragically, Kushalpal, another one of Rafique’s students, has not returned home since yesterday. It remains to be seen what story will now be put together about him.

  After writing this, I thought for a while about whether to post it or not. There was no point in asking for someone’s opinion, because they were all far away. In any case, if anything went wrong, it was on me. Second, if the town was so conscious about its image, then it should do good deeds. You cannot laugh and pout at the same time.

  I pressed ‘Post’.

  ANYBODY WOULD BE AMAZED WHEN they saw the campus of that deemed university. Spread over more than forty acres, it looked like the headquarters of some large corporation. The guards were probably familiar with Shalabh’s jeep, so they let us in without any checks and without requiring us to sign anywhere. I had requested Sahadeo to follow me, and Shalabh had objected to it. For some reason, I hadn’t liked his act of barging in and offering to drive me out here, so I didn’t pay any heed to his objections.

  A river called the Chhoti Gandak flowed on the northern and eastern ends of the campus. Pointing to it, Shalabh said it was the perfect place to set up a pharmaceutical plant. ‘If the next government wishes, our state could turn into a pharma-manufacturing hub after the elections, just as Himachal Pradesh used to be once upon a time.’

  Thinking I’d read whenever I’d get the time, I was carrying around fifty or sixty dried pages from Rafique’s diary in my laptop bag. I was also carrying three sets of notes-like texts that had been made by stapling together four-five pages. But I got so carried away by the beauty of this campus that I couldn’t find the time to do so.

  The programme was to be held in the central auditorium, which was exquisitely decorated and equipped with state-of-the-art facilities. There were chairs on three sides of the stage. The hall, which looked like it could hold a thousand, was reasonably, if not fully, occupied. A closer look revealed they were mostly students. The university’s dignitaries were seated in the first two rows. A long session of introductions followed. Barring the fact that Dadda was very cordial towards me, nothing else was memorable. After a while, when the conversations began to subside and only the voices from the stage could be heard, I saw that barely any of the young men I had met at the party were present. Perhaps they were busy with their work.

  In all, twenty-three people were invited up to the stage. I grew worried at the thought that if everybody took even ten minutes to speak, the programme would last four hours. But no, this was not a government university where everyone held sway over their own little domains. There was only Dadda here.

  The ambience reminded me of other functions so much that I became uneasy and got busy with my phone to distract myself. There were two messages:

  ‘What date should I book the tickets for? Do answer your phone once in a while.’

  ‘I won’t be able to go to Delhi, Arjun. I am sending Jagdish’s number.’

  At first glance, it seemed that those who were on stage were people who loved functions and would go to any if invited. But I was proved wrong. Every speaker began by extolling Dadda’s virtues and ended with that day’s news – all of them gave a lecture on love jihad. Even Ratnashankar, who used to insult Rafique all the time, was there, and he stepped up and spat out numerous theories about love jihad. When he introduced himself to me, I began to abhor my own hand which he had shaken. I wanted to tell him that I already knew about him. What was slightly surprising was that all the speakers would have been counted among the town’s intellectuals, and yet everybody thought the same as the newspaper report. Every speaker underscored the crisis love jihad represented.

  When it was my turn, the emcee, a young teacher at this deemed university, insisted that I read out a story. And I did. A whole story.

  But…

  But…

  But I had not come here just to read a story. This town had gobbled up a brilliant artist and a talented author. His diary was the perfect illustration of this. It testified to his heroism. But it didn’t matter one bit to this town whether he lived or not. Or maybe it did matter – which is why he had been made to disappear.

  Before commencing my reading, I paid back what I owed from the other night. I began by saying:

  ‘I won’t mind if you don’t listen to my story, but I request your attention for what I am about to say now. Various ludicrous accusations have been thrown around about Rafique in the garb of legal language. But I remained quiet. I remained quiet because he was not my friend. Yesterday, a police official gently threatened me, saying that if people came to know I was his wife’s ex-boyfriend, it could lead to a furore. Several among you will admit to being told that my reason for coming to your town is to see my ex. Think about it, someone like me, on the brink of middle age, has come to meet his ex! These fictions have been cobbled together to scare me. It might happen that tomorrow or day after or even later, you will get to read about me. So, I thought about telling you all up front.

  ‘Anasuya is my friend, and her husband has gone missing, has vanished. Would you believe it? A man disappears in this small town and nobody knows anything! The police don’t register a case. The daroga assures me that he will find Rafique, but eventually unearths a falsehood that it is a case of love jihad. Since Janaki, a student of that Rafique, has also gone missing.

  ‘You will probably come to know in a day or two through these same dishonest newspapers that yet another student of Rafique has gone missing. Let me tell you right away that a young man named Kushalpal has not returned home since last evening. How does someone disappear in a small town like this? And why are only those connected to Rafique’s acting group going missing?

  ‘I have been told that my Facebook po
st is tarnishing the image of this town. Please think it over and tell me what is happening, and why. I am hurt, but I don’t know whom to ask for help. The stories in the papers may claim to have evidence, but what I have is the trust garnered over the past three days by getting to know the lives of Rafique, Janaki and Kushalpal.’

  By the time I had said all this, more than half the dignitaries in the first row had stepped outside. Almost everyone on the stage had made their way out too. Dadda remained seated, however. My reading went on for almost forty minutes. What was astonishing was that when Dadda’s name was respectfully called for delivering the presidential address, all those who had gone outside during my reading came back.

  Dadda, in his own style, said he could not take the matter of Rafique and Janaki seriously. He thanked me for telling them about the artists of their town despite being an outsider. I could have told him about his meetings with Rafique as well, which had been recorded in the diary, but I thought it better to remain silent. I listened to him quietly. In the end, turning to his students, he said we needed to seek inspiration from our society’s heroes and their lives. As an inspirational example, however, he talked about Vajashrava – the sage who gave his son away to the god of death when the boy dared to correct his father’s mistakes.

  We sat in Dadda’s office after the programme ended. Those who had been at the party the other night slowly began to arrive. There were several others as well. Dadda praised my statement and my story in front of everyone. ‘Whatever be the thinking behind them, the stories you write are about love,’ he added. I could only smile wanly.

  Then I noticed I was getting a call. It was Amandeep. I stepped outside to receive it.

  What Amandeep told me chilled me to the bone. Mukesh too had not returned home since morning. Amandeep also said someone from the police station had tipped him off that my phone might be tapped. ‘Sir, listen to me and leave this town,’ he said. Then he added hesitantly, ‘If possible, take Jagdish and Niyaz with you.’