In a Honda Brio, waiting in the early rush hour traffic at
the beginning of the Golf Course
Road in Gurgaon, was a family of three. The young
girl at the back seat was trying to talk to her parents about her plans for the
school day over the loud radio playing Kis Mod Se Jaate Hain from Aandhi. The
wife in turn was combing her now dried hair, giving it the shape it was going
to take for the day, all the while admonishing the husband passive-aggressively
about something that was surely “non-negotiable” for her, The husband
resolutely stared ahead.
Diagonally to the left of the Brio was a BMW X3. In it sat a
single 26 year old man in the back seat. His driver was an old man in a safari
uniform that went out with Dhirubhai Ambani. The 26 year old man was looking at
the wife in the Brio intently. She looked beautiful to him. Sure, curly haired,
fair, buxom could be his type that day. In the silence of his car, he heard
neither the incessant rambling of the little girl at the back of the car, nor
the loud radio in front. All he saw was her making her hair, to the rhythm of
the right indicator of his own car.
He was brought back from his reverie when the driver started
honking loudly at the tractor in front of him, uttering choicest abuses like
“Bhosdiwale” and such from the safety of his shut window. The tractor took its
own sweet time to get on with it, acting as if it still owned this city.
He finally started watching a film on his ipad to kill time.
The credits scene of The Social Network had the protagonist walking through the
hallowed corridors of the Harvard campus to the minimalistic yet portentous
score of Nine Inch Nails. He had studiously avoided watching this film for two
years now and he thought enough time had passed for it to not sting. But
conversations about a film often miss out the best scenes. Because these are
scenes so purely cinematic that they are not pliable for spoken or written
word.
The music, the damp streets, the arrogant lights and elegant
brick buildings, set to the haunting score, reminded him again of what he had
missed out. 4 years ago, within the space of 5 hours he had received two mails
in his gmail account at his dorm room in Georgia Tech. One was the call letter
to Harvard and the other was a hasty mail from his father asking him to call
asap.
His father had come to Gurgaon way back in the early
eighties, when the city was still a village. Sanjay Gandhi was dead and with it
the scam called Maruti Udyog got its shot at becoming something more than an
abomination. His father was one of the early settlers who brought that JV with
Suzuki to life in the dreary environs of Gurgaon. Soon, farmers became
millionaires and ministers became billionaires and a stuttering apology of a
city was cobbled together on nothing but cement and steel. His father went
through the death of his mother and he was sent away to Mumbai at his aunt’s. There
he battered his mind into submission towards his textbooks.
His father married again in a few years and by then he was
at Georgia Tech. He was emailed pictures of his father’s second wedding. In it
were pictures of this delicate teenage girl, who the father had captioned as
“your new sister”. In the moment between seeing the picture and reading the
caption, the truth peeped out and hid away behind decency. For the next 3
years, the delicate teenage girl blossomed through a slew of pictures of family
trips and parties.
Then that autumn morning, the call was made and the father
explained in muffled sobs that his new sister had been raped. The new mother
being weak of heart had died of shock and the new sister was in critical state.
The father wanted him to come back. Between feeling surprised at not feeling
surprised at the turn of events – well, she was pretty and she was in Gurgaon
and, you know, shit happens – and finding it quite funny that another of his
father’s wives was dead, he thought it would be interesting to go down and see
things first hand.
By the time he landed at T3, the new sister was dead and the
father was appropriately hysterical. It began with innocuous initial paperwork
but soon snowballed into him being the project manager on the rape case. Then
with two months to go for his year to begin at Harvard, the court proceedings
began. Then something happened. For a brilliant mind, fighting a tricky case
against an accused who was a local strong man, presented a delicious little
challenge. Navigating through a labyrinth of criminal law and strategy with his
smart lawyer, he got hooked onto the case. How was it different to what he was
good at? You spend enough hours poring over case law through nights, and applying
the finest works of John Nash and Robert Hare, you are bound to get better at
this thing.
He started loving the insane hours spent on every nuance of
the case. He enjoyed the thrill of the court procedure. But above all, he loved
to act.
He got transformed in front of the cameras. He would say all
the right things, calibrated with just the right tinge of emotion to have the
media eating out of his hands. He vexed eloquent about the innocence of his
sister, which he personally was sure didn't exist. There would be bouts of
uncontrollable rage befitting a loving brother and then there would be moments
of reverence for due process befitting a model citizen. All the time, the
father looked on from the sidelines, not particularly interested in much after
two dead wives; other than the contents of his mini-bar. He even acted when he
was alone – simultaneously being the tragic figure whose Harvard dream had been
stolen, as well as the hero who was doing something righteous.
While he was watching the film now in his car, on his left
he saw the hills looming where his sister’s was the first rape reported. Over
time, the hills had become notorious for crime and even the most hardened
builder respected their invincibility.
His star witness was one of the residents in the hills who
claimed to have seen it all. The next day was the final day of the hearing and
his star witness was slated to give his testimony. He was headed to his
lawyer’s office to meet his star witness and go over the testimony one last
time. His star witness was a scrawny man with a disproportionately booming
voice. The star witness’ oily hair would always be perfectly parted on the
right side and he wore his moustache proudly. The start witness’ clothes always
looked dusty but if you would have dusted them, you would know it was Gurgaon’s
haze and not his clothes.
He didn't need to go for the practice testimony but
listening to the witness’s description of the act gave him a special kind of
pleasure. Not the sexual kind of pleasure that some men get out of rape porn.
It was something higher – it was the pleasure of knowing the convicted man
wouldn't go unpunished for the fun he had.
While the practice testimony went well that day, something
dramatic happened at the court the next day. The star witness wasn't “sure”
anymore if the accused was the person he had seen that night. The case wasn't
over yet. It would go on for god knows how much longer now. In the meantime, he
signed a book deal, a television series to find an ideal bride for himself and
a few cheques worth a few crore rupees in the name of his star witness.
It the oldest rule in the book. Its fun playing chess with a strong opponent; but what do
you do when you are your strongest opponent?
You play the game from both sides.
