Quit Bamming Us, Obama!

On Republic Day, 2015, Barrack Obama will be in Delhi. He is simultaneously a visionary black American leader, and the President of the United States of America, and hence the most powerful man on earth. What can India expect from this last visit of his before he demits office in two years time? Well, the world looked up to him with moist eyes after he published The Audacity of Hope and wished him all success. He did better than many had hoped for and became the American President. His very success turned him into a two-faced man.

With clear-headed realism he focused on two key internal issues that could benefit the common householder. The first, a universal medicare policy that could give health cover even to the poor half of America. The second, a rational immigration policy which could unite millions of immigrant families, without whose underpaid work, inflation in America would go through the roof. He is likely to fail to a great extent in achieving both objectives, except for some degree of canny tokenism, because of the rich white backlash to his Presidency.

As American President, never mind his colour, he has tried to do the ruthless international job he was elected to carry out. His predecessor, George W. Bush, far short of Obama in intellectual comparison, knew enough though to launch wars, breaking solemnly covenanted international laws, and with impunity executed Saddam Hussain of Iraq, the head of an independent country. Obama, knowing where his duty lay, executed Gaddafi of Libya, the head of another independent country. He tried to go one step further than the little Bush by trying to take out Assad of Syria, but was stopped in his tracks by Putin of Russia, while the rest of the world leaders, including Manmohan Singh, stood silently by. Neither Saddam Hussain nor Gaddafi were angels, but in many respects better than the cruel dictators the American governments had foisted on Latin America for over a hundred years, in pursuit of the ruthless Monroe Doctrine which decreed that no other imperial power had a right to interfere in its dominion over the Western Hemisphere. It is a matter of record that no Arab nation, except Egypt, could show the same degree of modernization and women’s emancipation as Libya and Iraq did under their dictators.

The rubbishing of the Middle East was perpetrated by the Bush-Obama duo in search of cornering the oil and energy resources of that region, and their conniving Arab partner sheikdoms allowed it to happen, since neither Saddam Hussain nor Gaddafi huddled with them. Their individualism, so revered as a philosophy by Americans, led to their tragic murder. It would be a mistake for Modi to think that their mafia-like rubbing out was a naive American attempt at stopping international terrorism.

Certainly, the shrewd Indian Prime Minister will pressurize Obama to bring the Pakistani leaders to heel, but he cannot succeed, for the simple reason that the Americans need Pakistani sunni animosity to cordon off shia Iran and try and beat that country down to accept the oil subservience that existed before the days of Dr. Mossadeq, whose attempt at independence was openly subverted by the CIA in the early 1950s. The present dramatic fall in oil prices is not lucky happenstance but an iron policy forged by America, and supported by the Saudis, to bring Iran, Russia and Venezuela to their well oiled knees.

So, what is Obama’s agenda this January? As America’s first salesman he needs to get rid of inventories of defence material, nuclear technology, and other build-ups hurting profit. Secretary of State Kerry, who failed to win the Democratic nomination for the presidential race, has already voiced his alarm at Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign. He would like us to continue to buy American solar PV panels whose prices have crashed in a clear-out sale. Every little bit of profit helps, and American leaders focus on serving their corporate giants, especially in these hard days when the Chinese are inching them off the top-shelf.

A perception of Pakistani threat may compel India to buy some of these cast-offs, just as it bought the ancient aircraft carrier, Admiral Gorshkov, under Russian pressure, but all that will not ease the threat of militant infiltration across the western border. The stoking up of communal hatred against the Indian bogeyman keeps in power the elite Pakistani military establishment, in which is ensconced its terrible ISI. They will continue not only to threaten India but hold the Pakistani civil population in frightened subjugation. Obama is helpless to bring any relief here, despite his disingenuous statements about democratic values.

In the outcome, India most probably will buy from America what it does not need, just to let American leaders declare their mission a success, and retain goodwill for India. None of them need really worry that India will steal away any jobs. Not even the giant IT industry, which has boosted Indian business confidence and produced a rich crop of millionaires, is capable of launching a worthwhile challenge. Indian IT professionals and their expertise are rented out to American industry, and serve it much as our accountants and babus shored up the British Empire a hundred years ago. Low-priced generic drugs, made by Indian companies like Dr. Reddy Labs, do irritate American pharmaceutical giants, who do not care to lose even a small part of their well-padded profits, but while they may buy judges of arbitration cases they win little sympathy from the suffering American public.

Modi’s ‘make in India’ slogan was differently voiced by the late trio of power economists, Manmohan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and Chidambaram, as essential for their ‘export-led growth strategy.’ It has been the centre-piece of India’s economic planning from the time Mahalanobis framed the first Five-Year Plan. This vague desire to industrialise has never challenged any competitive economic power since the early 1950s, though at that time India was among the industrial fore-runners, with all of Europe flattened out after a brutal world war. The cause of our inability to perform then is the same as the one that restricts us now. An effective world economic challenge can only be mounted by a country with an effective large domestic demand. China which lay completely destroyed in the 1940s has succeeded in becoming the world’s second largest economy as of date precisely because it has created the most populous middleclass in the world with a strong domestic market. India has failed to utilize its early potential because political and economic policies have excluded over 80% of the population from participation in growth.

This is why the RBI governor, Raghuram Rajan’s call to ‘make for India’ is a break from a hackneyed sloganeering past. However, to be a really effective strategy, the government must focus on what needs to be done to bring the 800 million poor into a regenerative national economic cycle. Such a strategy might include very much higher investments in education and skill training; rural infrastructure; formation of self-assertive organisations and associations at the grassroots; and breaking of the chains of bondage in the grip of local leaders. This last essential requirement will pose a challenge to the established and corrupted power elite, but their own survival one day may depend on taking it on before being forced to when it is too late.

President Obama will return from India half satisfied with what he achieves, but he has never aimed, nor has been permitted to aim, for much more. In two years time he will retire to a cushy job, most probably in Harvard, and he will be regularly brought out as the poster-boy of American liberalism. A latter-day Uncle Tom cannot hope for a larger page in history. The 21^st century, in any case, belongs to Putin and the enigmatic triad of Hu-Wen-Xi who hold the definitive balance of power in world politics.

A SAFE CARTOON

The Lifting of Imtiaz Khan - A Play. Political Comedy set in presentday India

The Lifting of Imtiaz Khan: Synopsis

This is a political comedy about the difficult existential situation encountered today by Muslims in India, though India is a home to around 150 million Muslims, and Islam has been practiced since the days of the Prophet. A sense of personal and community insecurity, isolation, and discrimination is felt even by professionals, who try hard to integrate with mainstream ‘secular’ society.

Scene 1: Professor Khan hears in the middle of the night that his student son, Imtiaz, has been picked up by the police, and he runs to the home of Ms Kalpana Sonewala, a well-known human rights lawyer. She decides the best way would be to get retired judge Krishnamurti to convince his son, a high placed police officer, to have the boy released immediately before ‘interrogation.’

Scene 2:  They meet the judge over his breakfast and say the boy must have been picked up casually by some bored constables. Krishnamurti’s grand-daughter Gita pops in, says her father must spring Imtiaz out of custody, and drags away Professor Khan. The judge and the lawyer quietly discuss the serious implications and craft a strategy to get Gita’s mother, Rukmini, though she is prejudiced against Muslims, to influence her husband somehow to get the boy out.

Scene 3: Gita goes to the hostel room of Sachi Ghosh, a woolly-headed Marxist student, who told Professor Khan about the arrest. He believes Imtiaz courted arrest for the sake of the Revolution. She tells him firmly not to make the news public, for then the police would dig in their heels. He is to go to Kalpana’s house and take his instructions from her. Sachi who is half in love with Gita agrees.

Scene 4: At Kalpana’s, Sachi blurts out his belief that Gita and Imtiaz are in love. The judge seizes on this news to inform Rukmini, his daughter in law, that her daughter is in love with Imtiaz and she better get her husband to have the boy released immediately.

Scene 5: Over lunch Rukmini pleads with Gita, who says defiantly she is pregnant with Imtiaz’s baby. Rukmini tearfully agrees to speak to Gita’s father, and Gita as a compromise says she will think over her decision to convert to Islam.

Scene 6: At Kalpana’s, Rukmini accuses Professor Khan, and they almost have a fight over the relationship between Imtiaz and Gita, with both being very unhappy about it. Krishnamurti, Gita, and Sachi burst in, in high humour. Rukmini is shocked at their behaviour. The judge is happy that he has secured Imtiaz’s release. Gita apologises to her mother for telling her lies and confesses that there is nothing between her and Imtiaz except ‘sisterly’ concern. Khan and Rukmini recover themselves, and say politely how much they would have valued ‘the alliance.’ Sachi announces grandly that Imtiaz has been freed by the ‘cowardly state,’ and he and Gita dash of to the Club to have a party with Imtiaz. Krishnamurti says an ordinary family might have suffered but ‘we’ know how to take care of ourselves. Kalpana hopes all crises end in similar farce.

CAST

Characters:

Khan:                     Professor Quader Ali Khan, retired professor of anthropology, a tired man, heavy, around 60, a little lost, clear Indian educated accent

Kalpana:                 Ms Sonewala, middle-aged human rights lawyer and social activist, dumpy, very busy, very harassed, strident tones, received pronunciation

Krishnamurti:        Retired chief justice of the high court, in his late 80’s, very well preserved, calm, somewhat distant, aristocratic, British accent

Gita:                      His grand-daughter, in her early 20’s, good-looking, very self-assured, decisive, but easily irritated by others, clear ringing tones, ‘convent’ Indian accent

Sachi:                     Sachitanand Ghosh, podgy, eternal student, late 20’s, dreamy in his own world, unmistakably secure Bengali accent

Rukmini:               Gita’s mother, uncertain age, made up at all times, dyes her hair, accustomed to ordering people around, firm voice, but definitely middleclass Indian accent

Place

Kalpana’s Living Room, Krishnamurti’s Verandah and Dining Room,

Sachi’s room at the student hostel

Hyderabad, India

Time

From early morning till night of one day

The Present

SCENE 1

AS THE CURTAIN RISES:   KALPANA’S LIVING ROOM. It is a large shabby room in darkness since it is between four and four-thirty in the morning. Two closed doors to the right lead to bedrooms and possibly a kitchen. The front door of the house is to the extreme left. Loud banging is heard on that door.

KHAN:                        (OFF-STAGE IN HOARSE AGITATED VOICE) For God’s sake, Miss Sonewala! Open the door! Open the door! They are murdering my boy! Torturing him! I don’t know if he is still alive! For God’s sake, Madam! Open the door!

(MORE LOUD BANGING. KALPANA COMES IN THROUGH BEDROOM DOOR, CRASHES INTO FURNITURE, CURSES UNDER BREATH)

KALPANA:                (SLEEPILY) Who is it? Wait… Can’t see a thing…where’s that bloody switch? (SWITCHES ON LIGHTS) There! Who is it? It’s four in the morning!

KHAN:                        (OFF-STAGE) It’s me, Miss Sonewala! – Quader Ali Khan! I’m sorry to come at this inconvenient hour! (KALPANA DRAWS BACK DOOR BOLTS) I beg your gracious pardon, Madamji! But they are murdering my son, my… you know him, Imtiaz, he’s President of the Union…

KALPANA:                (FLINGING DOORS OPEN) Come in Khan Sahib, come in. Sit down, yes, there, yes. Can I get you a glass of water?

KHAN:                       Madamji, the matter is of the greatest urgency…

KALPANA:                (CUTTING IN) I see that something has happened. Compose yourself, Sir. Wait till I get you some water. It’s so hot this summer, I am dying of thirst. Just give me a minute!

(KALPANA’S TURNS BACK TOWARDS THE KITCHEN AND RETURNS WITH A TRAY WHILE KHAN HANGS AROUND UNCERTAINLY)

KALPANA:                (BANGING THE TRAY ON A TABLE) There! Have a drink of water, it’ll calm you. I will have a glass myself.

(KHAN DRINKS IN NOISY GULPS, BOTH SIT DOWN ON CHAIRS)

KHAN:                       (SPUTTERING) Thank you, that was very kind, Madamji…

KALPANA:                Please, Sir, call me Kalpana! I am young enough to be your daughter!

KHAN:                        Yes…Kalpanaji, but you are our human rights lawyer, world famous, so respect is due… listen Madamji, my son has been arrested! Lifted from the street last night!

KALPANA:                How do you know that, Sir?

KHAN:                        What? Why I… this boy, friend of Imtiaz, came rushing, woke me up, and said Imtiaz has been arrested! Imtiaz hasn’t come home! It’s almost daylight now!

KALPANA:                Imtiaz Khan is a very busy President of the Student’s Union. I bet, sometimes he hasn’t come home for a week!

KHAN:                        Yes… yes, that’s true… but Sachitanand saw them arrest my son, with his own eyes, and he came rushing to me! Sachitanand Ghosh is a good boy, serious, studious… wrote an excellent paper on Gond post-harvest rituals, worth publication I thought, not that I recommend students’ papers but…

KALPANA:               When did he say Imtiaz was arrested, and where did it happen?

KHAN:                        Well, it seems, they, a group of boys at the hostel, were working on a pamphlet about the right to food and economic stagnation, something like that, you know… anyway, Imtiaz went across the street to get them all tea, and Sachitanand leaning out of the window saw him being arrested!

KALPANA:                What exactly did he tell you?

KHAN:                       Who?

KALPANA:                This boy – Sachitanand.

KHAN:                        Yes…well, as I said… he was leaning out, saw Imtiaz reach the teashop across the street… there’s a street lamp there, I asked, so he saw it all quite clearly. A police jeep pulled up, caught hold of poor Imtiaz – even before he had a cup of tea! – Bundled him in and took off at great speed.

KALPANA:                (SHARPLY) There was no altercation? No discussion? Angry words? Warrant being held out?

KHAN:                        No…I don’t think so… No. Nothing! Sachitanand told me everything, I asked again and again. This is all that happened.

KALPANA:                Hmm… looks like a random pick up… they do that to students… he could be back home by now, don’t you think?

KHAN:                        I am very much afraid not, Madam, he would have let me know, he would know I am worried… you see, he signaled to Sachitanand as he was taken…

KALPANA:               (SHARPLY) You didn’t tell me that!

KHAN:                        I did not? Yes, he lifted his hand to Sachitanand just as he was pushed into the jeep.

KALPANA:               Just tell me everything, okay, Khan Sahib?

KHAN:                       Yes, of course… so I think…

KALPANA:                Has he done anything? Do you know anything?  Why the police would be interested?

KHAN:                        I don’t know… yes, of course, they would have had him on their radar as they say nowadays! He is always making these inflammatory speeches, I can’t control him, Madam, I can’t, I have warned him, but you know youth these days…

KALPANA:                Yes, yes, they all make inflammatory speeches. Imtiaz is a Marxist, isn’t he?

KHAN:                        Yes! That’s why I am so worried!

KALPANA:                The police are not concerned about Marxists – it’s just theatre and they don’t care.

KHAN:                        (LOWERING HIS VOICE) You see, he’s a Muslim, Madam.

KALPANA:                (LOOKS UP, ROLLS HER EYES) Yes, Khan Sahib, of course… I know what you mean. I am taking this quite seriously… when did it happen? When did they lift him?

KHAN:                        I think two… two-thirty this morning, Sachitanand came rushing on his motorbike as soon as he could, so I think it was two-thirty, I...

KALPANA:                Sir, dear Professor Khan, you should have come straight away! I would have called to see which police station they were taking him to. Now they would have moved him if they are serious, and it might be difficult to establish a trace.

KHAN:                        (HURRIEDLY) I ran out into street, Madamji, in my pyjamas! But my car had a puncture, so I put on some clothes and went in search of an auto, nobody would come this way! I offered money, but, no! Everyone was asleep, no one would stir! People complain about lack of money, but no one wants to work! I worry about this generation! In my day…

KALPANA:                Yes, yes… it can’t be helped now.

KHAN:                        No! Yes! What do you mean he would be moved? Why…what? I don’t understand what it all means!

KALPANA:                (DRAWING CLOSER TO THE TABLE AND UNCONSCIOUSLY TAKING OUT A PAD AND PEN) It’s like this, Khan Sahib. Police jeeps make nightly sweeps and take suspects… people they just pick up, to the police station they come from. This is routine. If we can get there in time…I just want you to know how everything works in a police station…we can talk to the Station House Officer… get him to laugh it off, and get our boy away from there. Now, if an A.C.P., that is the Assistant Commissioner of Police from the Special Branch, let us say, gets there ahead of us, or anyone like him, from the Intelligence Bureau or one of these special squads, and they want to interro… talk to him, if they have a suspicion that is, then it is just possible they will move him to another station, and we can’t easily find out where they have taken him.

KHAN:                        Madamji, I want you to file a habeas corpus petition in court.

KALPANA:                (FIRMLY) What? And wait two weeks? That’s absolutely useless. No, we have to move fast, very fast, if at all they mean mischief. They may not mean any harm, you know, I am banking on that. I think all this is just routine, and we have nothing to worry about really, but I don’t want to take any chances. We must get him out today!

KHAN:                       So what can be done? I…

                                    (KALPANA GETS UP AND WALKS ROUND THE TABLE)

KALPANA:                We shall spring him. Go to the top, and have him out before those cops lower down do anything, anything at all.

KHAN:                        I don’t understand… I don’t… I am tired… I just wish…

KALPANA:                (SITTING DOWN AND STRETCHING OUT HER LEGS) You are not to worry, Sir. Just relax and I will handle everything. Can I get you some tea, won’t take a minute?

(IT IS KHAN’S TURN TO TAKE AN AGITATED WALK ROUND THE ROOM)

KHAN:                        No, no, I am all right. It’s just… the suddenness of it, though I knew with all his politics he would get into trouble, I warned him to be careful, I told him, ‘You are a Muslim and you just can’t do what all those brainless fellows do…’

KALPANA:                (WITH A WRY SMILE) Khan Sahib, you are wrong, and Imtiaz is right. He is a citizen of this country, and he has every democratic right to express his opinions freely. That’s what we are all fighting for.

KHAN:                        (HOTLY) What good is an opinion if you get butchered for it? Tell me that, Madamji! It’s all very well talking about the Constitution, but reality is different, it’s different for Muslims, you know that! You know that! (STICKS HIS FACE CLOSE TO HERS)

KALPANA:                Yes, I know that, and that reality must be changed. It shall be changed.

                                    (KHAN COLLAPSES BACK IN HIS CHAIR, SINKS HIS HEAD INTO HIS HANDS)

KHAN:                        They could be torturing my son even now, and we are just sitting here talking… about Constitutions! What Constitutions? Those police fellows haven’t read any Constitution!

KALPANA:                Sir, don’t jump to conclusions. Imtiaz maybe in custody, but he has done nothing they can charge him with. They are merely talking with him I think…

KHAN:                        (LOOKING UP IMPLORINGLY) They can kill him, Kalpanaji! Or make him disappear like so many others, and be done with it!

KALPANA:                (LEANING FORWARD ACROSS THE TABLE) Khan Sahib! You are a professor of the university and you should not talk in this loose manner. It doesn’t help people like me who want the State to act according to the law.

KHAN:                        (MUTTERING ALMOST TO HIMSELF) I was a university professor - till last year. But that does not blind me to facts, to realities. You should be the last person to say that Muslim youths have not been picked up at random, kept in custody on false charges, tortured, and then let out years later as ruined men – that is if they have not been killed beforehand!

KALPANA:                All right. At this moment it does not serve any purpose for us – either of us – to be in alarmist mode. We have to act sensibly, and quietly, and fast. Whoever we go to, we must give the impression that we are calm, responsible people, think this whole incident a mistake of some over enthusiastic stupid constables – the higher-ups are always calling their constables ‘stupid’ – and we want the top people to be on our side… see us as one of them. Do you get me, Khan Sahib? It’s very important that you should be completely calm, relaxed, even joke about it!

KHAN:                        (SHOCKED) I can’t joke, Madam!

KALPANA:                ( IN PROFESSIONAL TONES) Sir, listen, listen carefully. If you show alarm, people could misconstrue your attitude – they could think we have cause to be alarmed! Do you get me? There is no reason why we should be alarmed. It’s just a nuisance, what’s happened, and we want it smoothed over. Okay?

KHAN:                        I am confused, I am not clear… what do you want me to do? I want my son out of there, and at home. I am willing to give any guarantee for future good behaviour. (A BREAK IN HIS VOICE) I’ll keep him at home… I will…

KALPANA:                (LOUDLY, SPREADING OUT HER HANDS) Khan Sahib, Khan Sahib, Khan Sahib! You have not been listening to me. Whatever happens, you just relax and leave all the talking to me. Just look bored… talk about anthropology!

KHAN:                        (CONFUSED) Anthropology?

KALPANA:                Yes, about, post-harvest rituals, whatever. Look, I am going to fix up a meeting this morning with Justice Krishnamurti.

KHAN:                        (STILL CONFUSED) Krish – Justice Krishnamurti? But he has retired! Like me, he’s a retired person.

KALPANA:                Yes, but his son is the Director General of the Police Training Academy.

KHAN:                        What? Do you think they have taken Imtiaz to the Training Academy? For questioning?

KALPANA:                (SPEAKING SLOWLY AS TO A CHILD) Khan Sahib! Of course not!  Though, who knows, one day they may train them in torture. But listen! Krishnamurti’s son is very high up, a Director General. He can find out where Imtiaz is in a jiffy, and if he puts in a word, they would let him go.

KHAN:                        (SOUNDS MORE CONFIDENT) I know Justice Krishnamurti! Known him for years, in fact I invited him to give a keynote address on laws as they pertain to tribal rights. He was very good. Gave concrete ideas how their special rights over jungles can be written in.

KALPANA:                Great, it makes things that much simpler.

KHAN:                        Exactly. I will tell him all! (EAGERLY) I will beg him on bended knees to have my Imtiaz released.

KALPANA:                (ALARMED) No, no, no!

KHAN:                        What do you mean, ‘no’?

KALPANA:                That’s the wrong attitude! How many times must I tell you? We will wander in casually as he is having breakfast…

KHAN:                       Wander in over breakfast…casually?

KALPANA:                Yes, time is of the essence, we have to act before anyone else.

KHAN:                        But at… at breakfast time?

KALPANA:                Yes, soon, Krishnamurti has his morning coffee and idlis around seven. We wander in… don’t look doubtful, I have done it before when I wanted his opinion and I know he doesn’t mind.

KHAN:                        (ON FIRMER GROUND) It may be all right for you, I can’t say, but most certainly I can’t, just cannot, go to a senior person like Justice Krishnamurti unannounced without prior permission, certainly I cannot, Madamji.

KALPANA:                (REFLECTIVELY) Oh, I see. Well, look, we have been out together for a morning jog, or rather walk, right, in the park by his house. We do it often, okay? And while passing his house, I just drag you in, okay? You don’t have to say anything, leave everything to me. All right, you can apologize and then you can subside into silence while I handle it.

KHAN:                        Madamji, Madamji, excuse me! How could I be taking a casual walk with you when my son has been lifted by the police? What sort of father would I be? I don’t know what he would think of me!

KALPANA:                It doesn’t matter what he thinks of you! The point is to give the impression we are not unduly worried, think it all a silly mistake, just want Imtiaz out a.s.a.p., not to waste any more time on such a silly thing. I am going to joke about it, okay, make the old man laugh.

KHAN:                        Justice Krishnamurti is a very good man, I know he will stand up for Imtiaz. I cannot begin to tell you how many boys he has let off in his time, with strictures from the bench on police behaviour. So we need not pretend before him, I think.

KALPANA:                You are very right, Khan Sahib, that Krishnamurti will be on our side. But if the old gentleman gets the wind up about this – this incident, he will start shouting at his son about police atrocious behaviour, and what not. His son will clam up, say most probably the matter needs looking into. That’s not what we want. We don’t want the matter being looked into!

KHAN:                        (A BIT AGGRESIVELY) Why not? It is atrocious behaviour on the part of the police. Justice Krishnamurti will be right to say so.

KALPANA:                (SIGHING) We don’t want to make this a Star Chamber case, something that will ring down through the centuries. We want to have Imtiaz released quietly and quickly.

KHAN:                       No! Yes. You are right, I want him out of there.

KALPANA:                Right, so we will be casual and joke, and have the old man laughing, and have him tell his son about some scrape the son of his old friend the professor has got into because of the idiocy of constables – officers always think constables are idiots, remember – it will work.

KHAN:                        All right, Madamji, I am leaving everything in your hands, hoping to God it works! What do you want me to do?

KALPANA:                Come to the park gates just before seven. I will be there. And Khan Sahib, don’t come dressed like this. Remember, we have been out walking in the park. Wear shorts.

KHAN:                       I don’t have shorts.

KALPANA:                Wear something that looks like we were walking in the park.

KHAN:                        I should have a pair of old white tennis trousers. Don’t know if I can still fit into them.

KALPANA:                Suck in your guts. Better wear an old tie as belt round the middle if it won’t button. And tennis shoes, okay?

KHAN:                        Well trainers, yes, I have a good pair actually, Adidas. My feet have become broad all of a sudden and I can’t squeeze them into my leather shoes without laming myself.

KALPANA:                Great! And a tee-shirt, or anything that looks like a tee-shirt. Remember just before seven at the part gates.

                                    (LIGHTS DIM OUT FOR SCENE CHANGE)

SCENE 2

AS CURTAIN RISES:           JUSTICE KRISHNAMURTI’S VERANDAH. It is seven in the morning. Bird calls off. KRISHNAMURTI is sitting at a table loaded with breakfast things and coffee. He is dressed in simple white kurta and pyjamas. At back is a closed door leading into the house.  To the left can be seen a short path leading to a wicket gate in a hedge. KALPANA with KHAN behind her appear at the gate.

KALPANA:                Yoo-hoo! Justice Krishnamurti, Sir! This is Kalpana! Come for a cup of coffee!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Who? Who is that? (LOOKING UP) Oh! Kalpana! Come, come, come! Just made some coffee! Who – who is that with you? Oh, Khan Sahib! Very welcome! Do join me for some coffee!

(THEY BOTH COME UP, KALPANA GURGLING SOME TUNE HAPPILY, THROWS HERSELF INTO A CHAIR RUBBING HER HANDS GLEEFULLY, KHAN SITS DOWN WITH SOME HESITATION)

KALPANA:                (WITH LOUD ENTHUSIASM) Khan Sahib and I were taking a brisk walk through the park, then I saw you out on the verandah with your heavenly coffee, and I dragged him along!

KRISHNAMURTI:     My dear, I am so glad you did! I do make the best coffee, Khan Sahib, best coffee in Hyderabad! Maybe there are a few others somewhere in the depths of Tamil Nadu who can equal me, but I haven’t come across them so far!

KALPANA:                (AS IF PARTING WITH A TRADE SECRET) Sir grinds the beans himself every morning, and filters the coffee drop by drop!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Of course I do! The trick lies in how you dribble hot water over the powder, you must hear each plop of decoction as it falls in the jug. Here! Let me pour you both some of my coffee and let Khan Sahib judge for himself!

                                    (THEY ALL HELP THEMSELVES TO COFFFEE)

KHAN:                        Marvellous, marvelous!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Not as good as I used to make it, Khan Sahib! Till about seven years ago. I would roast green peaberry beans every morning, grind them hot, filter, and serve. Now you can’t get green beans for love or money. I tried buying from the plantations themselves, but the export houses corner the lot, can you believe that! I tried to file a P.I.L. – you, know public interest litigation, in the High Court, but my juniors laughed – laughed! About Coffee! Well, so I am reconciled to buying roasted beans – I had a fight on my hands with the local shop fellow who said he was authorized to sell only powder, but I did the owner a good turn once, so I am a privileged person now, allowed to buy coffee beans! Kalpana, don’t put that into the papers, or everyone will go on how Brahmins are still calling the shots!

KALPANA:                (LOUD RATHER FORCED LAUGH) Sir! Everyone knows of your services to the underprivileged. And if they do accuse you, I will defend you myself!

KRISHNAMURTI:     You are a good girl, Kalpana, a very good girl. (IN PLAYFUL SHOCKED VOICE) My God, sorry! I had forgotten! There are no girls left anymore! But I can’t call you a Good Woman, can I, as if you were here to take in my washing? (LAUGHS HEARTILY AT HIS OWN JOKE, KALPANA JOINS IN WITH A GIGLE)  Have some more, all this cappuccino business is nonsense. That Reddy fellow down the road showed me his machine, said it cost him fifteen thousand rupees! I just lift the cream as it comes to the top and lace the coffee, I have saved fifteen thousand rupees, made better coffee, and I bet that machine will break down in three months, mark my words, foreign machines can’t withstand our power fluxes.

KALPANA:                (SOFTLY) Sir! I wanted to take your advice.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (POURS HIMSELF A CUP AND IN MATTER OF FACT VOICE) Of course, my dear, why else would you come to visit an old man? I am not as silly as I sound, you know. I was trying to put off the evil moment when you will force me to enter into a conspiracy against the State!

KALPANA:                No such thing! Just a case of mistaken identity, I think.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Whose identity?

KALPANA:                This boy’s. Nothing serious, really… just casual boredom, for having something to do.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (BRIGHTLY) The bored Boy lost his Identity!

KALPANA:                Sir! The poor boy was studying hard for his exams, which are round the corner, you know. They just took him in, I think, out of sheer boredom.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Who did?

KALPANA:                The police.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Ah! I see. A student of yours, Khan Sahib?

KHAN:                        (BURSTING OUT AGITATED) My son, Sir, my son! He is a very, very good boy, I assure you! I am very worried, Justice Krishnamurti Sir! This should never have happened! I have warned my son several times not…

KALPANA:                (BREAKING IN WITH A GURGLE) Of course, you are worried, Khan Sahib! All parents are! All the time! I have seen it so often! Imtiaz must already be in the badminton courts, but you went on, so I said Justice Sir here will tell you there is really no reason to be so upset. But you know, fathers! God! My father keeps calling me every other night just to check if I have had dinner on time, da-da-da, it’s insufferable.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Khan Sahib, have the police arrested Imtiaz, and if so on what charge?

KHAN:                        No, no, no! He has not been arrested!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Then? Then… what has happened?

KHAN:                        He has been lifted, Sir, lifted in the middle of the night! God only knows what they are doing.. what he is undergoing…

KALPANA:                (CUTTING IN) I can’t trust Khan Sahib to tell a straight story. I personally think the whole matter is quite laughable! But Khan Sahib keeps worrying. Imtiaz and a few other boys were in the students’ hostel studying, you know how they get together to study…

KRISHNAMURTI:     (DRYLY) In my day, we always got together to plan some mischief, not to study.

KALPANA:                (BRISKLY) Well, times have changed. In your day there was no competition. Nowadays unless you get ninety-nine percent you can’t get a job as a sweeper!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Now I know why our streets are so filthy! Eggheads can’t sweep.

KALPANA:                (BEGGING) Sir, please be serious.

KRISHNAMURTI:     I was quite serious till you said it was a laughing matter.

KALPANA:                Yes and no. I don’t think we have a serious issue here… at the same time I don’t want that boy upset before the exams, you know, they are sensitive like racehorses before a race.

(A LONG SILENCE WHILE KRISHNAMURTI THINKS)

KRISHNAMURTI:     I was thinking of dog races. The police are like hunting dogs. I don’t take any matter concerning them lightly, especially when it comes to Dalits, women, tribals, or – or Muslims.

KHAN:                        (RAPIDLY) You are right, Sir, very right, that’s why I am so worried and came running to Miss Sonewala as soon as I heard he had been lifted, lifted before he could have a cup of tea, Sir! I disturbed her in the middle of the night, I am sorry to say, I was very upset, beside myself, and so –

KALPANA:                (CUTTING IN HEAVILY) He didn’t disturb me, I was getting up in any case, and suggested we should come here, and take your advice, since Khan Sahib despite all my assurances remains disturbed.

KRISHNAMURTI:     He has every right to be disturbed, if Imtiaz has been lifted by the police in the middle of the night!

(SUDDENLY THE DOOR AT THE BACK IS THROWN OPEN AND GITA LEAPS OUT WITH A ‘AH HA!’ THE OTHERS ALMOST RISE IN THEIR SURPRISE)

GITA:                         Hello! Who’s been lifted? Khan Sahib! Kalpana! What are you all doing here? What’s happened?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Good God, Gits! I thought you were in Bombay!

GITA:                         Came in by the late night flight, Granddad, didn’t want to wake you up, or Mummy! (KISSING HIM LOUDLY ON TOP OF HIS HEAD) You still have a better head of hair than many of my friends!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (LOVINGLY AGGRIEVED) Why couldn’t you call me? I would have sent Madhav round with the car.

GITA:                         Poor Madhav! There were a hundred taxis at the airport waiting to pick me up.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Next time, you must let me know, all right? It’s not safe late at night, Gita, how many times must I tell you, the world is not what it used to be in my day.

GITA:                         (LAUGHS) Granddad! Everyone knows I am the granddaughter of a ferocious judge. Your reputation is a greater shield than all of papa’s police. So, I am safe, okay? Give me some of your delicious coffee, they make dishwater in Bombay. (SHE MAKES HERSELF A CUP AND SIPPING) So, who’s been arrested, not Immy?

KALPANA:                Not arrested. He seems to have been picked up from the University hostels late last night.

GITA:                         Why? What’s he done?

KALPANA:                That’s what we are asking!

KHAN:                        (CUTTING IN ANXIOUSLY) He’s headstrong! I warned him, a number of times, not to keep making these silly speeches, it gets you nowhere!

KALPANA:                (IN OFF-HAND MANNER) He hasn’t done anything. I think it was just a routine sweep, but naturally Khan Sahib was worried when Sachitanand Ghosh came round to tell him.

GITA:                         Sachi! Was he sober?

KALPANA:                Well, sober enough to scare Khan Sahib with his dramatics. Anyway, I think it’s best we bring Imtiaz home for a late breakfast and rest, considering the exams are approaching.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Kalpana! This is quite a new side to you I am seeing! You never gave a damn about exams, and added years to your poor mother. All my grey hairs are due to you.

KALPANA:                I did pass all my exams, even my law exams, and you must take me seriously, for now at least.

KRISHNAMURTI:     When have I not taken you seriously? You have ruled my life since you were three – two-and-a-half to be exact.

KALPANA:                Sir, I want you to help, and you are not doing that! I want you to think what’s best to be done.

GITA:                         (DECISIVELY) Papa should call off the dogs.

KALPANA:                (STRUCK BY THE THOUGHT) That’s a fantastic idea! You are a clever girl, Gita. That’s what needs to be done!

GITA:                         Well, what else? I told Immy he would get into trouble if he ranted on like that. You should have heard him in Bombay last week. Had everyone in stitches with his portrayal of the Cabinet.

KHAN:                        (BEWILDERED) He was in Bombay last week? He never told me!

GITA:                         Khan Sahib, of course he kept it quiet! You are the last person he would tell he was addressing the Nation on the coming Revolution! He sounded like Danton!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Like Danton, eh? Not Robespierre?

GITA:                         Definitely Danton. I was there in my previous life.

KHAN:                        But… but… what did he say, do… I wish I knew… this is so worrying, Miss –

GITA:                         Call me Gita, Sir, I wouldn’t worry at all, it was just guff, but very splendid. We laughed over it all night.

KHAN:                        (ANXIOUSLY) All night?

GITA:                         Yes, Immy stayed with me of course.

Khan:                          (SHOCKED) Stayed with you!

Gita:                            Yes. I have some lovely photos of him giving the speech. Want to see them, Khan Sahib? Come, I have got them in my suitcase. Choose which ones you like. Come Sir, you will see how everyone adored your son in Bombay!

KHAN:                        (CONFUSED) I… I don’t know, I mean, all this is very new, disturbing, I wish he would tell me…

KALPANA:                Yes, yes, Khan Sahib, do go with Gita, and select your photos, while I work out with Krishnamurti Sir here, how we are to get Imtiaz out of the cooler. Go, Sir, go with Gita, please go along.

GITA:                         (INSISTING, PULLING AT HIS SLEEVE) Come, Khan Sahib! Come, see my pictures, come!

KHAN:                        (RELUCTANTLY) Oh, I suppose…(TRAILING OFF)

I may as well…

(GITA PULLS IN KHAN THROUGH THE DOOR AND SHUTS IT FIRMLY BEHIND HER)

KRISHNAMURTI:     Clever girl, my granddaughter, drew him away. Kalpu, how serious is it?

KALPANA:                Frankly, Sir, I don’t know.

KRISHNAMURTI:     That boy is a Maoist, right?

KALPANA:                A sort of intellectual Marxist-Leninist, I would say, all the time spouting radical thought, from Hegel onwards, with heavy quotations in the original. His last article in the student’s journal was on Juvenal.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (RELIEVED) The police should be least interested. It is poor boys who read Mao in the vernacular that they target. Still all the same…

KALPANA:                Yes, but…

KRISHNAMURTI:     He is a Muslim, that’s worrying.

KALPANA:                Precisely, Sir.

KRISHNAMURTI:     And you want me to get Vijay to get him out. No fuss, right?

KALPANA:                Sir… If I may explain…

KRISHNAMURTI:     No need, my dear, I know how your devious mind works. You were afraid I would make a noise, call in the press, while that poor boy rotted, God knows where. Remember, I am not totally stupid, or totally heartless. Yes, we have to get him out in double quick time, but it won’t be easy.

KALPANA:                Sir, if you will speak to your son. I thought…

KRISHNAMURTI:     You thought wrong. That’s the last thing I should do, it will set his back up. And he is on tour, I couldn’t possibly try and do it over the phone, in any case. No, no, definitely no.

KALPANA:                (ALMOST WRINGING HER HANDS) Oh, hell! I didn’t know that! But something has to be done, Sir, quickly, before they do things, and foist cases on him. If we leave it for later, it could get complicated.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Of course! Something must be done now, while the damned police have still not made out a case, or even thought about it. Right! What do we know? A police patrol which knows him to be a Muslim student leader has pulled him in – not by accident, deliberately, on instructions from the local S.I. – I hope, from no greater authority. They have him somewhere, and being lazy buggers, most probably have not yet started interrogations – that’s on the positive side.

KALPANA:                That’s why I thought if we could get your son to pass the word around that he is to be released immediately, the Commissioner of Police might spring him before any damage is done.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Good! Good thinking. Only, who’s to bell the cat? Not me. He and I don’t see eye to eye about police matters. Oh, I know he is a good sort, really, but loyalty to the force, that sort of thing, and I have gone out on a limb before – very visibly.

KALPANA:                What’s to be done, Sir?

KRISHNAMURTI:     I have to get Rukku to do it!

KALPANA:                Rukmini Madam? You mean your daughter-in-law?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Yes. Like many macho men, Vijay is hen-pecked. If she puts her foot down, he will buckle under, always has.

KALPANA:                But, Sir, you said he was on tour, and…

KRISHNAMURTI:     Doesn’t matter, if she yells at him over the phone, he would act in double quick time.

KALPANA:                So, it’s all right, Sir, is it? I mean, you can speak with Rukmini Madam this morning, and she would, as you say… (TRAILING OFF)

KRISHNAMURTI:     Not so fast, Kalpana, not so bloody fast! I have to think out a strategy. We have to finesse this. Oh, she is very respectful to pop-in-law, and all that, but behind all that tradition there is iron! I have got to convince her, and that’s the hardest part! 

KALPANA:                Oh, but, but…I thought you said…

KRISHNAMURTI:     No, I did not! Just said I wasn’t the right bloke to talk to Vijay, and I did find you the right person. Now we have to think of a way to sell it to her. Not easy, he is Muslim, you see.

KALPANA:                She can’t be that prejudiced!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Of course, she is! Just hides it smoothly, as they all do.

KALPANA:                Then, what are you going to do? Sir… what’s to be done?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Give me some time, damn it! (NOW ANGRY) You come here, spoil my peaceful morning over my coffee with all this agitation, and then expect me to come up with magic solutions like – like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, damn it!

KALPANA:                (IN FALSE CONTRITION) I am sorry, Sir.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Oh, never mind. Look, give me a moment to think it all out. You just take away that poor man, tell him everything will be okay, just sooth the man, all right? If he keeps being jumpy here, I can’t think straight, and that’s no help.

KALPANA:                All right, Sir, I will go across to Gita’s room, and take him away.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (ALMOST TO HIMSELF) Yes, you do that, there’s a good girl. Let me think, think, think… (TRALING OFF)

(LIGHTS DIM OUT FOR SCENE CHANGE)

SCENE 3

AS CURTAIN RISES:           STUDENTS HOSTEL, SACHITANAND GHOSH’S ROOM. It is spare, littered untidily with clothes and books. SACHI is in a white banian and blue stripped pyjamas shaving himself with an electric razor. He is also trying to sing a Bengali film song. GITA opens the single door to the left and walks in.

GITA:                         Sachi! Sachi! Stop caterwauling! And switch off that razor! It’s nine-thirty already, and you are not yet out of your pyjamas! Shame on you, Sachi! (HE SWITCHES OFF THE RAZOR)

SACHI:                       I had a very rough night. I wouldn’t be up if duty didn’t call.

GITA:                         And what duty is that?

SACHI:                       I have to rescue Imtiaz. I am setting out to report his dastardly kidnapping by the police last night. Every newspaper! Every TV station!

GITA:                         No, you don’t, Sachi! Sachi, use your head! Once it becomes prime times news, the police will clam up, deny all knowledge, break Immy’s bones.

SACHI:                       (GRANDLY) We will take it to the Supreme Court.

GITA:                         Idiot! We will have a great time, but Immy could be killed!

SACHI:                       If they dare do that, we will make them rue the day!

GITA:                         I don’t want to make them rue anything, I just want Immy alive and safe.

SACHI:                       Is that what Imtiaz wants?  He is like Bhagat Singh, you know, defying the British!

GITA:                         The Brits left thirty years before you were born, Sachi! Don’t be such a romantic fool! We don’t need martyrs, we only need friends, millions of them, to say ‘No’ loudly and firmly to the bosses, that’s all!

SACHI:                       People wake up only when they are shocked by an outrage, when they see the true face of our rulers. You should have heard Imtiaz last night!

GITA:                         I have heard him all I want in Bombay, thank you very much! He should join a theatre company.

SACHI:                       I thought you admired him.

GITA:                         Yes, and no. He is such an idiot, but he’s a lovable idiot.

SACHI:                       (STRIKING A POSE) He is a patriot, and he will be a martyr!

GITA:                         Rubbish! You are all such fools! Sachi, now is not the time to talk student politics. You have to help get your friend out of trouble before they think of foisting false cases on him.

SACHI:                       Well, he put his head in the noose, deliberately I tell you, despite my warnings, and I honour him for it, no matter what you or other girls say.

GITA:                         Get this into your thick head, Sachi my boy, what we have got to do now is focus on getting him out of custody. Kalpana Sonewala says it must have been just a random sweep, they really have nothing against him except that he is a loud mouth, but so are you all, so that’s all right.

SACHI:                       (IN HUSHED TONES) He – he used the ‘K’ word in our meeting last night, and right in front of that biology lab attendant!

GITA:                         (SHARPLY) What! What was that? Why can’t you tell a straight story, Sachi?

SACHI:                       Well, you didn’t ask. We were having our party meeting, and Imtiaz announced that it was time we produced a National Manifesto.

GITA:                         But – but – but you said he used the ‘K’ word?

SACHI:                       Yes, he said it should be an integral part of our demands.

GITA:                         (EXASPERATED STAMPS HER FOOT) For Christ’s sake, what exactly did he say?

SACHI:                       He said we should demand that all military atrocities should stop in Kashmir and that the Kashmiri people should be given the right of self-determination! He was fantastic!

GITA:                         (HANDS TO HER HEAD) Oh my God! My God! And that police guy was there?

SACHI:                       Yes, you know he always attends our meetings. I have said before that we should unmask that fake lab attendant, but Imitiaz, you know his lordly ways, he said we have nothing to hide. He said something about Pericles. Anyway, this is the result.

GITA:                         (WALKING ROUND THE ROOM ABSENTMINDEDLY) What a God-damned idiot, really I lose all patience. It’s bad enough for a Brahmin to talk about Kashmir, but for a Muslim! He has only himself to blame if the Special Branch is after his blood!

SACHI:                       (UNCTUOUSLY) I told you he wants to be a martyr.

GITA:                         He doesn’t know what he wants. He is an air-head like all the rest of you!

SACHI:                       Gita, you have to face facts. He is not the marrying kind.

GITA:                         What? What are you babbling about now?

SACHI:                       Well, just giving you a kindly warning, that’s all.

GITA:                         Warning? What about? Are you off your head at long last?

SACHI:                       I am not off my head, you are! To have hopes that Imtiaz will settle down and marry you!

GITA:                         (AMAZED, LAUGHS) Sachi, is that what you think?

SACHI:                       Not just me, everybody. Everybody knows you are crazy about him.

GITA:                         Everybody is an ass.

SACHI:                       You can say what you like, but Imtiaz knows that too.

GITA:                         What nonsense! What did he tell you?

SACHI:                       Well, he doesn’t have to tell me anything. Last week, he stayed with you in Bombay, right? I am not a prude, you can sleep with him, but don’t get your hopes up.

GITA:                         (ANGRY) Sachi! I would slap your face, if you were not such a complete ass!

SACHI:                       Well, he showed me pictures of you two cavorting all over Bombay, sleeping in your bed…

GITA:                         (CUTTING IN) How dare you! He did not sleep in my bed! He slept under my bed!

SACHI:                       Under your bed?

GITA:                         Well, on the floor, beneath it, whatever. So, don’t go spinning stories.

SACHI:                       Of course I won’t spin stories, Gita, never about you. You don’t notice it, why should you, but I love you.

GITA:                         Yes, yes, I love you too.

SACHI:                       No, but really, I love you to bits, I think.

GITA:                         Oh, you think, do you? You are not sure?

SACHI:                       Of course I am sure.

GITA:                         Well, this is the first time you happen to mention it, in passing I may add!

SACHI:                       Well, I am a proper gentleman.

GITA:                         (COMING UP TO HIM IN A CHALLENGING WAY) You love me in a platonic sort of way, do you?

SACHI:                       Yes, that’s right. (GOADED) No, damn it! I love you in a very proper sort of way.

GITA:                         Which is very boring, get that into your head. It went out with Queen Victoria, no wonder she was not amused!

SACHI:                       Well, you have always been so wrapped up in Imtiaz, that I thought it was not my place to push in, so…

GITA:                         Sachi, when you do meet a girl you really like, do push in, regardless, that’s my advice. And for the last time, I am not wrapped up in Immy, I am a good friend to him, to you, and a million others. And as a good friend, I am not boring on about love, but trying to use what brains I have to get him out. He has complicated the hell out of it by talking about Kashmir, but no one has taken him seriously about Marx, so why should they bother now, for God’s sake?

SACHI:                       Now who is being romantic? The ‘K’ word is not the same as Marx.

GITA:                         No, it’s not, you are right. Well, we are still going to try, and maybe if we act fast enough, he will be out before the police can pile it on. This is what you have to do.

SACHI:                       Okay, I am listening.

GITA:                         (FIRMLY) You are to go to Kalpana Sonewala’s as soon as you have cleaned up a little. You are not to contact the press, or make a hoo-ha, is that understood?

SACHI:                       I can be as quiet as a mouse, but how’s that going to help Imtiaz?

GITA:                         Sachi, for one last time, try to use your head. If he was lifted by some bored constables out for some fun, who just wanted to give him some agro…

SACHI:                       Whistling in the dark, you are. I tell you he used the ‘K’ word in front of that agent, and instructions came down to bring him in. That’s what’s happened, no getting away from facts.

GITA:                         Wasn’t he lifted by a patrol just as he was getting you guys some tea from across the road? If they had wanted him, they would have barged in and arrested him.

SACHI:                       (GETTING SOME OF HIS GRAND MANNER BACK) What? Four cowardly constables to take Imtiaz from us, from our Red Base? Twenty couldn’t have done that! No, they lay in wait.

GITA:                         Right, let’s not argue. You go to Kalpana Sonewala, where she is working out the strategy. The plan as I know it is to get my grandfather to speak to dad, some guff about an old friend’s son, that sort of thing, and have Immy out before they get serious. It could work, it’s got to work!

SACHI:                       I don’t know… it might have worked if he hadn’t used the ‘K’ word.

GITA:                         Just don’t keep on getting stuck on that one idea like a… like a…

SACHI:                       Like an old gramophone needle. Know what? I haven’t seen a gramophone anywhere in the last ten years. My grandmother has one, but she just listens to her Ipod these days. Come to think of it, even radios are gone!

GITA:                         Right, and cassette players too, but that’s not what we are talking about. So will you set off for Kalpana Sonewala’s a.s.a.p. and take your instructions from her?

SACHI:                       You are putting a lot of faith in this one human rights lawyer. I vote we keep our options open. He is my friend as well, just remember that, and I won’t stand by and see him brutally tortured without lifting a finger. No, by God, I won’t! If, if Imtiaz is killed, that day marks the start of the real Indian Revolution! And we won’t stop till the red flag flies over the Red Fort!

GITA:                         (CATCHING HOLD OF HIM AND SHAKING HIM) I am not applauding, Sachi! I am dead serious! Listen to every word I say! No one is going to get hurt, we are going to get Immy out, and the Indian Revolution can wait for its chance till you get hanged.

SACHI:                       I have never feared dying for my country! But you, Gita, you are just petit bourgeois, that’s all I will permit myself to say.

GITA:                         I thought you said a few minutes ago you loved me?

SACHI:                       (ALMOST CRYING) Gita! Gita! Gita! Don’t stand there twisting everything I say! You… you are not being nice.

Gita:                            I am sorry. I was rude, Sachi, I respect your sentiments… all of them, okay? Now, let’s all work together. We have all our options open in any case, but let’s try out what Kalpana wants first.

SACHI:                       Of course.

GITA:                         So, will you go to her house soon as you can?

SACHI:                       Yes.

GITA:                         And not be grumpy?

SACHI:                       I am never grumpy.

GITA:                         Friends… right?

SACHI:                       Oh, Gita, have I ever been anything but your friend… why I…I…

GITA:                         Okay then, dear Sachi, here, let me give you a nice kiss to make up. (KISSES HIM ON THE CHEEK) Ugh, your bristles! You haven’t shaved properly!

SACHI:                       You barged in as I was shaving!

GITA:                         Bye! Don’t forget, you are to go straight to Kalpana Sonewala’s as soon as you are ready. I will meet you there. Bye!

SACHI:                       Gita, I… I just had a thought… (DOOR SLAMS SHUT AS SHE LEAVES. MUTTERS) Oh, she’s gone. Better have a bath first, if there’s any water in the hostel. Bet there isn’t any. I will wear that shirt I got for my birthday… where did I put it now?

(LIGHTS DIM OUT FOR SCENE CHANGE)

SCENE 4

AS THE CURTAIN RISES:   KALPANA’S LIVING ROOM. It is around noon. KALPANA, KHAN, KRISHNAMURTI and SACHI are sitting around the table. They all have letter pads in front in which they have been scribbling.

KALPANA:                Mister Ghosh, Mister Sachitanand Ghosh, is that right? Okay, tell me everything in full detail, one more time. Yes, keep sitting here beside me, while I write it all down. We must have our facts straight, in case…in case this whole thing blows up into something bigger.

SACHI:                       You are very right, Ma’am, it will blow up, as I told Gita…

KHAN:                        (BREATHLESS) You have met her, have you? Now? Now, after, after they took Imtiaz?

SACHI:                       Yes, Sir, this morning. She came to tell me to get here. To join Miss Sonewala here.

KALPANA:                Call me Kalpana.

SACHI:                       Yes, Ma’am.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Of course, Khan Sahib, Gita would have told Sachitanand to join us all here for a council of war. There must be just one story. I am waiting to hear it straight from this young man who saw it all happen, and reported to you. Now, Sir, what exactly happened?

KHAN:                        I told you, Sir, Sachitanand saw Imtiaz being lifted, just as he was going to get tea from that shop across the street. You said it was round two… two-thirty, right? I couldn’t come here immediately, no one was ready to bring me, such lazy fellows…

KRISHNAMURTI:     Khan Sahib, the young man is here, let him speak.

KHAN:                        (TENSELY) Yes, of course, of course. Only we must do something now! It is already more than ten hours since my son… they could have done anything to him by now!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (TRYING TO BE CALM) Khan Sahib! I appreciate – I understand your anxiety, but believe me, I have dealt with such cases for over thirty years. Nothing would have happened till now, except locking him up somewhere. Nothing will happen till there is – ah – what they call an interrogation, and that will be conducted by an A.C.P. or someone of senior rank. No one would have bestirred himself till now, so we are all right.

KALPANA:                For the moment.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Yes, for the moment, so let us proceed in an orderly fashion, thinking it out.

SACHI:                       Sir, much harm could have happened already, Sir!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (SHARPLY) Nonsense, nonsense.

SACHI:                       No, Sir, beg your pardon, Sir. Much sense, Sir.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Young man, I have just now explained in simple terms, understandable to the meanest intelligence – to anybody that is, how the system works. If anyone knows, I should!

SACHI:                       Sir! You don’t know the background, Sir! Imtiaz committed the greatest folly!

KHAN:                        (AGITATED, SPEAKS TOGETHER WITH KRISHNAMURTI) What did he do?

KRISHNAMURTI:     (NOW ANGRY) What the devil do you mean? Spit it out!

SACHI:                       (TRIUMPHANT) Sir, he used the ‘K’ word!

KRISHNAMURTI:     What? What was that? What did he use?

KALPANA:                I think Sachitanand means Imtiaz spoke about Kashmir.

KHAN:                        (HORRIFIED) When? Where?

SACHI:                       In our student party meeting, yesterday.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (WITH A SIGH) I am relieved. No one gives a tinker’s curse what you fellows say to each other. Let’s get on.

KHAN:                        (ANGRY AND TERRIFIED) But why talk of Kashmir? It is none of his business. He is there to get a degree in Physics!

KALPANA:                Did anyone overhear? Let’s know the worst.

SACHI:                       The lab attendant.

KALPANA:                And you fear he might have spoken to someone?

SACHI:                       (MORE TRIUMPH) He is a police spy, Ma’am! No, actually a head constable from the Special Branch – specially posted.

KHRISHNAMURTI: (BARKS) What! What did you say? Do – do the university authorities know about this? Why, why did you not complain?

SACHI:                       To whom, Sir? The V.C. knows, he himself sanctioned the spy’s presence.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (GETTING UP AND PACING UP AND DOWN) By God, I won’t stand for this! I will tell the University Grants Commission! I will speak to the Governor, he is Chancellor and should suspend the V.C. on the spot! My student days were bad enough, but … but… even the Brits wouldn’t have sunk so low!

KALPANA:                Sachitanand, are you absolutely sure?

SACHI:                       Yes, Ma’am, we have always known, they can’t hide it from us!

KALPANA:                And Imtiaz knew, are you sure? And still he spoke in front of this – this informer?

SACHI:                       (GLEEFULLY) Oh, yes, Ma’am! Imtiaz is our President and he is quite fearless. He has always said we have nothing to fear or hide. He is like Bhagat Singh, Ma’am! The way that martyr stood up to the British, Imtiaz now stands up on behalf of the people of India!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Kindly spare me your claptrap. Does he make a habit of pontificating on Kashmir?

SACHI:                       Doing what, Sir?

KALPANA:                Has he spoken on Kashmir before, in open assembly?

SACHI:                       Well…er…no. We were preparing our National Manifesto yesterday, and he wanted the Kashmir Question to be raised.

KHAN:                        (VERY AGITATED) There is no Kashmir Question! Except illegal occupation of our territories by Pakistan and China! Why does he meddle with things he does not understand? What wrong have I done to have a son like this! This fellow is defaming all of us! The rascal should remember he has a sister to be married!

KALPANA:                Calm yourself, Khan Sahib. I have also insisted many times in public meetings that the Kashmir issue needs to be settled.

KHAN:                        (ALMOST BROKEN) It’s different for you, Madamji. You are from a famous family, a well-known human rights lady lawyer. But Imtiaz is my son! Surely, Sir, you can see it is not his place to speak on such a delicate issue…so thoughtlessly!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Yes, I agree with you, Khan Sahib, and disagree with Kalpana. Sorry to say this to you, Khan Sahib, your son has acted very rashly indeed. This news puts a darker colour on the whole incident.

KALPANA:                If everyone is to be cowardly, God help this country!

KHAN:                        Madamji, as Justice Krishnamurti said just now, he is gravely at fault! Imtiaz must remember he comes from a patriotic family!

KALPANA:                I think it is very patriotic to want to settle the Kashmir issue in a humane and just manner. If he has denounced atrocities, he has every Constitutional right to do so.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (SHOUTING) No one is questioning anybody’s Constitutional right! But if you babble on heedless of the consequences, you get consequences! The sins of the son are visited on the father! You yourself were always heedless, ever since you could walk! You would run out onto the road the moment the front door was opened, without looking to the left or right! Gave your parents and me as much trouble as you could as a baby, and continue to do so right up to today!

KALPANA:                Sir, calm yourself.

KRISHNAMURTI:     I won’t, damn it! None of you care what you do to your parents! You can’t help anybody, or the nation, let me tell you, by jumping off a cliff!

SACHI:                       Sir, how can we sit still when people are getting killed in Kashmir?

KALPANA:                Shut up! Just shut up for a minute!

KHAN:                        What are we to do now, Justice Krishnamurti? What am I to do? What answer shall I give my wife? It will break her heart! My heart is already broken.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Khan Sahib, I feel for you, Sir, truly I do, as a colleague and as a father. We might still retrieve the situation. I have spoken to my daughter-in-law – well, paved the way, so to speak. If I told her the whole truth, she wouldn’t do a thing, I know. She is prejudiced against Muslims, let’s face it. But I did say, an old friend was in trouble, our family owes much to him, his son has been thoughtlessly dragged away from the hostel, just before exams. That struck a cord in her, the mention of exams, all middleclass mothers are anxious about exams. Told her to ask Vijay to tell the Police Commissioner to speak with me. She said she would. Now, when the Police Commissioner calls, I will tell him to get Imtiaz out from wherever he is in double-quick time. It could still work, that is, if he is not being held by the Special Branch.

SACHI:                       (WITH SATISFACTION) Oh, he is with the Special Branch, all right.

KALPANA:                Thank you for cheering us up.

SACHI:                       Well, actually I think Imtiaz did it all deliberately, come to think of it. I think he was trying to push forward the day of the Revolution.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Mister Ghosh! One more word about your Revolution and I shall hold you in contempt.

SACHI:                       The truth is, Sir, he has decided his own fate. It’s poor Gita who is left in the lurch.

KALPANA:                Gita! What has Gita got to do with it?

SACHI:                       Everyone knows she is crazy about him.

KHAN:                        (SHOUTS) What! What did you say, Sachitanand? What is all this?

SACHI:                       Khan Sahib, I don’t talk about it, but maybe now I should tell you all the truth. Gita loves him.

KHAN:                        (LOUDLY, APPEALING TO ALL) This cannot be true! Definitely not! My boy could never forget himself…I have brought him up honourably, Justice Krishnamurti Sir, I assure you…

SACHI:                       I don’t think he… then again, I don’t know about him, his feelings I mean. He is wedded to the Nation, Sir, that I am sure of. ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more!’ That sort of thing.

KALPANA:                What are you babbling about?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Lovelace. This is very interesting. Did you say Gita loves him?

SACHI:                       She tries to hide it, but we all know… I know.

KHAN:                        (BEGGING) Sir! Sir! This cannot be true! A tissue of lies! I fall at your feet, Sir, my son would not even touch her hand or look up at her face, Sir, he is properly brought up…

KRISHNAMURTI:     (BRIGHTLY) This is the best news I have heard today!

KALPANA:                What do you mean, Sir?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Kalpu, don’t you see? My sweet little granddaughter can twist her mother round her little finger! Rukmini will do anything she tells her to do, and Rukmini will get Vijay to do it! Gita will insist! Rukmini will insist! Vijay will insist! Khan Sahib, our troubles are over! I promise you, your son will be out before nightfall!

KHAN:                        (ABJECTLY) But, but, Sir, these lies cannot be true… it cannot be true, I tell you, this much at least I know of my son…

KRISHNAMURTI:     Khan Sahib, we know nothing about our children. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. This sterling young man here has given me the key to unlock this puzzle and I am going to use it. Get me a phone! Now!

KALPANA:                What are you going to do, Sir?

KRISHNAMURTI:     I am going to call Rukmini and tell her everything!

KALPANA:                But, but, Sir! You said… you said, she had opinions…

KRISHNAMURTI:     I don’t know about that. I only said she was prejudiced.

KALPANA:                That’s what I meant. If she is prejudiced, this might set her back up, and she could scuttle…

KRISHNAMURTI:     No, she can’t, for she is scared of Gita. Look, I know my daughter-in-law. She is cagey when it comes to confronting her daughter. She will give in precipitously to win Gita’s confidence, and then, and then, wear her down by casting sly doubts. Rukku is quite the Iago of my family.

SACHI:                       (WONDERING) Really, Sir? Who would have thought Gita of all people could have a mother like that?

KRISHNAMURTI:     You will learn about women in time, that is if you haven’t already been committed for your patriotism. Kalpana, reach me that phone. (KALPANA HANDS HIM A DESK PHONE) Thank you, my dear. Can I dial straight out? Okay. Nothing like old-fashioned desk phones, I hate cell-phones! (RINGS A NUMBER) It is ringing. Yes? Rukmini? It is me! Remember I told you about Khan Sahib’s son being whisked away by some drunken constables?...What? Didn’t I mention Khan Sahib?...Yes, of course, it’s his boy, Imtiaz! (SINKS VOICE) Vijay wouldn’t be where he is today if it hadn’t been for Khan Sahib… tell you about that later, but I have just heard something incredible…yes… Gita, our Gita is madly in love with this Imtiaz, and is going to marry him!... What? No, you ask her! She should tell you the truth!... She came down it seems to help Imtiaz…ask her yourself, my head is in a whirl with this news…First thing I thought of was to tell you, you would know what to do! Bye! I have to rush! (HANGS UP)

KALPANA:                But, Sir! Gita will deny it all, and we would be where we started!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (CHUCKLING) No, she won’t. The moment her mother tells her I have spilled the beans, she will catch on lightning quick. Gita takes after me! Khan Sahib, we can now relax. Kalpana, you don’t have any beer around the place, have you? 

(LIGHT DIMS OUT FOR SCENE CHANGE)

SCENE 5

AS THE CURTAIN RISES:   THE KRISHNAMURTI DINING-ROOM. GITA and RUKMINI are sitting at table, loaded with food. It is well past noon and they have almost finished lunch.

RUKMINI:                  Have some more of the brinjal curry, Geetu darling, I made it myself. Just the way you like it! You must be starved in a place like Bombay. (PASSING HER A DISH)

GITA:                         I eat like a horse there. See, I’ve put on a kilo round my hips. I have got to lose it somehow. But your curry is absolutely fabulous! Thank you, Mummy.

RUKMINI:                  You don’t have to thank me, dearest, it’s a pleasure cooking your favourite things. I stay awake at night wondering how you are getting on, in unaccustomed places, eating strange food, from unknown people.

GITA:                         Come on, Mummy! The world is fully of great chefs, but I must admit you are the best! Can I have some more?

RUKMINI:                  Of course, darling! Here let me serve you the best piece! (GETS UP TO DO SO)  No… new places, meeting different people, are all very exciting in the beginning, but you know, one cannot live like that for long.

GITA:                         Why not?

RUKMINI:                  Darling, believe me! New ways, different ways, strangeness, all that has an appeal, I know! But it wears off, then everything becomes uncomfortable. Remember Meera? That beautiful, beautiful girl, who visited with the Kapoors five years ago?

GITA:                         Vaguely, yes. I thought she was stuck up, though why I can’t say.

RUKMINI:                  No, darling, she was very talented, had the brightest prospects, and then, this happened.

GITA:                         What? Umm, very good curry…I think I will have one more helping, though I shouldn’t. (HELPS HERSELF)

RUKMINI:                  (HESITANTLY) Meera went and married Tyeb, you know the third son of the rich Bilgramis? It was a Bollywood wedding, all glitter and gloss! But when she had a baby, everything changed. They wanted her to convert, wear a burqa, stay at home. She wouldn’t, they divorced, and now she is a single parent, with a small child, no job and no money. I tried warning her, even though I knew she wouldn’t listen to me, her head was in the clouds…I just kept hoping for the best, but I knew it would end in tragedy.

GITA:                         Most probably her fault as well.

RUKMINI:                  I am surprised you say that. Everyone of course blames the woman. The fact is, these marriages don’t work. I am so glad I married your father, who grew up next door to us, and now I live the life I have always lived. When I was a little girl, you would laugh, I used to say I wanted to marry a blue-eyed Frenchman! Thank God, I didn’t! (FALSE LAUGH)

GITA:                         I wish you had, I would have had blue eyes. Can you pass me the halwa, please?  You are the best cook in my life.

RUKMINI:                  (PASSING THE HALWA) Darling, I will always be there for you.(SNIFFS TEARFULLY)

GITA:                         Mummy! What’s the matter? Is Daddy sick or something?

RUKMINI:                  No, no, darling, in the pink of health, I am sure. But he is always travelling, and with you away, I am so lonely.

GITA:                         Mummy, this is not like you at all! You have your kitty parties, your book reading circle, bridge nights, you are busiest person I know!

RUKMINI:                  I am so worried about you being with strangers.

GITA:                         Mummy! What is it? Come right out with it! Now!

RUKMINI:                  Your grandfather…he’s given me such a jolt. I don’t know what to think. I only want what is best for you, never wished for anything else.

GITA:                         Mummy, if it’s about my not joining the civil service, that’s final! I am going to join a women’s collective fighting for women’s rights!

RUKMINI:                  No, no, darling, I am so glad. I am so glad you will be with a women’s collective who can protect you better than I ever can!  Some religions, darling…I should say, cultures… give no rights to women! They treat women very badly, they are not liberal at all, not like us.

GITA:                         I never thought killing baby girls and burning brides who haven’t brought dowry are hallmarks of a liberal society! News to me.

RUKMINI:                  Horrible! Horrible, horrible! These uneducated rural people!

GITA:                         It’s the rich, greedy middleclass Hindus living around Delhi who burn brides.

RUKMINI:                  Well, no one we know, darling. Not people like us, dear. But in some cultures, some middleclass families just oppress women as part of their beliefs. That’s inhuman.

GITA:                         Oh, like which cultures?

RUKMINI:                  (WITH TEARFUL EMPHASIS) Muslims, darling! I have no right – or wish – to say anything negative about them, they have a right to live as they like, but it will be very hard for us, very hard for you, darling! Grandfather has told me everything!

GITA:                         (COOLY) What did that old fool tell you?

RUKMINI:                  Only, that…that you wish to marry Khan Sahib’s son!

                                    (A PREGNANT PAUSE)

GITA:                         (SLOWLY) Oh, he said that, did he? Clever old bugger!

RUKMINI:                  (GETTING UP AND RUNNING ROUND TO PUT HER ARMS ROUND GITA, WHICH HER DAUGHETR AVOIDS) Gita! You are not to speak of your grandfather like that! But, darling, you know I have never stood in your way! You marry anyone you like, your happiness is all I want! You know that! But think, darling, think! You will be marrying not just a man, but a whole people who live very differently – slaughtering goats in their own home!

GITA:                         Come on! You are no vegetarian.

RUKMINI:                  Don’t think of me at all, Gita darling, just think about yourself! Can you, my precious, brave, free child, can you live like that, wrapped up in a burqa?

GITA:                         Easily! I hate the way men ogle when I go shopping, stripping me with their eyes, damn them! I am going to wear a burqa, that’s decided, and I will feel free for the first time in my life. What is more, I am converting to Islam, that’s another shock for you!

RUKMINI:                  Gita! You can’t! Just think!

GITA:                         I have. Thought it all out. I am going to meet the Kazi after lunch. They are strict Muslims, Mummy, I can’t live with them as a Hindu, that’s not on.

RUKMINI:                  (PLEADS) But our religion! – Gandhiji said it was a way of life – it embraces all faiths, it – it is inclusive! That’s right, inclusive, and…

GITA:                         As the Holy Prophet has said, Peace Be Upon Him, ‘to thee thy religion, to me, my religion.’

RUKMINI:                  Oh, Gita! Not many Muslims believe that! You know our history!

GITA:                         Anyway, it may all be beside the point by now. The police might have already killed my husband.

RUKMINI:                  Your – hus – husband?

GITA:                         Well, husband to be. I might have to mourn him as a widow in Khan Sahib’s house! Visiting every dargah in penitence, for having a father who didn’t raise his little finger to protect the love of my life!

RUKMINI:                  Your father is away! He knows nothing about the matter!

GITA:                         (COLDLY) But you do! You have done nothing about saving his life! Mummy, I will never forgive you!

RUKMINI:                  Darling, darling, don’t say such terrible things! (WEEPING) Don’t look at me like that, as if I was a criminal, you are so like my mother-in-law!

GITA:                         Imtiaz isn’t a criminal either, just a dear misguided boy. Mummy, you should help me save him! You can speak to Daddy!

RUKMINI:                  (WEEPY) Gita, I will try, but you know your father, he is such a strict man, I don’t know... y’know…

GITA:                         Well, it won’t do his career any good if his son-in-law is jailed, or worse. They will send him off to manage a dairy farm, he will never live it down.

RUKMINI:                  Oh, dear! What can I do? What shall I say?

GITA:                         (BRIGHTLY) Tell him I need a father for my baby!

RUKMINI:                  (QUAVERING) What! What did you say, Gita?

GITA:                         My baby! That’s why we wanted to get married right away!

RUKMINI:                  Darling! Darling! How?...Why didn’t you tell me…anything? Kept it all dark…for so long…

GITA:                         (CRUELLY) Well, I am telling you now. Tell Dad Imtiaz is totally innocent! He was illegally lifted by drunken constables! Tell him to get him out today! Do that, Mummy, if you were ever want me to speak to you again!

RUKMINI:                  (PLEADS) I will, darling, I will! But don’t do anything hasty… for God’s sake, listen to me!

GITA:                         Well, it’s done already. But, Mummy! I will do a deal with you.

RUKMINI:                  Oh, God! What is it now?

GITA:                         If, mark you, if Imtiaz is released today, I might start believing what you said about ours being a liberal society and the rest of it. If Imtiaz is out today, I won’t convert today, I will think about it.

RUKMINI:                  Darling, I will speak to your father! I promise! I promise!

GITA:                         Make him see reason.

RUKMINI:                  I will, I will! In the meantime, dearest, don’t do anything rash. Is that a deal?

GITA:                         All right. I am off to see the Kazi and ask for more time to think things over.

(LIGHTS DIM OUT FOR SCENE CHANGE)

SCENE 6

AS THE CURTAIN RISES:   KALPANA’S LIVING ROOM. It is night. KHAN is slumped in a chair with his eyes closed. KALPANA is busy at the table writing something. RUKMINI bursts in unceremoniously through the front door.

RUKMINI:                  (RUNNING UP TO KHAN) Ah! Here you are Khan Sahib! I knew I would find you here! I have done all I can, believe me! Mr. Krishnamurti is even now with the Police Commissioner.

KHAN:                        (JUMPING UP) Rukminiji! Thank you, thank you…all of you are so kind…here Miss Sonewala is also trying…

RUKMINI:                  (WITHOUT LOOKING) Hi, Kalpana.

KALPANA:                (GETTING UP) Hello, Rukmini, why don’t you sit down? Can I get you something? It could be a long wait.

RUKMINI:                  I don’t want anything, I can’t think of anything, how can I? Khan Sahib, we are doing all we can for your dear boy…I am beside myself with anxiety!

KHAN:                        (SOOTHING HER) Rukminiji, we all are. Please do sit down, here beside me. Calm yourself, Madamji. God is Great! Let us believe in His Mercy!

                                                (RUKMINI SITS DOWN, BURIES HER HEAD IN HER HANDS AND BURSTS INTO TEARS)

KALPANA:                I will get you a glass of water. Better still, a stiff whisky and soda. What do you say?

(SHE GOES TO THE KITCHEN WITHOUT WAITING FOR AN ANSWER AND RETURNS WITH A GLASS OF WHISKY. KHAN LOOKS ON HELPLESSLY)

RUKMINI:                  (TAKING A SIP) I am so distraught…for the children!

KHAN:                        God is great. Let us believe in His Mercy.

RUKMINI                   But the Police, Sir…what do they care? I am married to a Police Officer – a very good man – but I do know what happens…

KALPANA:                Nothing is going to happen. You have spoken to Mr. Vijay, and Sir as you said is down there sorting things out, so…

RUKMINI:                  (SNIFFING) Gita is so adamant…in the mood she is in, I am afraid of what she may do…my poor child, to be caught in all this before she has seen the world…

KHAN:                        (A LITTLE STIFFLY) Rukminiji, let me say all this is a great shock to me as well, my wife knows nothing about all this, we have nothing to do with all this…

RUKMINI:                  Sir, you must have known…had an inkling…the way your son was behaving with my daughter, surely you must have known?

KHAN:                        (FIRMLY) No, Madamji, certainly not! No more than you did! We would have stopped it right away! Of course!

RUKMINI:                  (WITH FRESH TEARS) Sir, what are we to do? It breaks my heart. Such marriages don’t work! There are so many divorces these days, even when you carefully select the boy… and my poor girl to fall for a Muslim…

KALPANA:                (BUTTING IN IMPATIENTLY) Really, Rukmini! You have known Khan Sahib and his family for more than thirty years!

KHAN:                        (GETTING UP IN AGITATION) Madamji, please be assured, this… this complication is the last thing I wish for… or anticipated! I respect your family, your daughter, may God protect her, but I do not want her as a daughter-in-law!

RUKMINI:                  You should have thought off that before your son seduced my daughter!

KHAN:                        (ANGRY) Madam! Please be aware of what you say! My son is very strictly brought up! He does not have loose Hindu ways!

RUKMINI:                  (JUMPING UP) How dare you, Sir! How dare you! That I have to listen to you after… after what your son has done to my daughter! He has got my poor innocent girl with child! Shame on you, Sir! Shame!

KHAN:                        The shame is elsewhere, Madam! May God forgive me for saying that! Oh God that this has happened! Islam does not tolerate such behaviour, let me insist! But I will accept her into my family, that much I will do, forgiving all that has happened! Our true faith will guide her!

RUKMINI:                  (INCONSOLABLE) She is ruined! You are all determined to ruin her!

KALPANA:                No such thing, Rukmini, please do pull yourself together. Young people decide their own lives nowadays. Gita and Imtiaz will do what they want to do. There is nothing you or Khan Sahib here can say that can change that!

                                    (KRISHNAMURTI, BOTTLE IN HAND, GITA AND SACHI WALK IN LAUGHING)

GITA:                         Hello! What’s happened? Why such tragic looks? Have the Americans declared a Third World War?

KRISHNAMURTI:     (IN HIGH MOOD) Kalpana! Get me some ice! I am very thirsty with all this work. I picked up a bottle of Talisker on the way to celebrate. Genuine stuff from Ramsingh’s, the others are not to be trusted, but the police won’t do anything to them! Hand in glove with the rascals! Hello Khan Sahib! Keep me company with a club soda!

RUKMINI:                  (RUSHING UP TO HIM) Sir! How can laugh at such a moment?

KRISHNAMURTI:     I laugh, Rukku, because I am happy, that’s natural. Now, where’s my drink?

RUKMINI:                  God! You are a cruel man, aren’t you? All your age hasn’t lessened your hatred for me, has it? Just because… just because, poor papa couldn’t afford a huge dowry…you…you…you a judge! Hypocrite!

GITA:                         (PLEADING, HOLDING RUKMINI’S HANDS) Mummy! Mummy! Please! Don’t make a scene!

RUKMINI:                  You! You telling me! You have brought disgrace on me and your father! I have had to listen to abuse from this man…this…this Muslim! I told all them you should only be sent to a girls school, but no one listened…they were all being maha secular! I could kill myself!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (SHOCKED) Good God, Rukku! Calm down, sit down, my dear. There’s nothing to be so worked up about, my dear.

RUKMINI:                  Don’t you ‘my dear’ me, Sir! Never! Never! Do you hear? You have ruined my life! You and this girl! You were never my daughter! Never!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (SOFTLY) What’s all this, Gita? What did you say to your mother?

GITA:                         Granddad! I had to say something to get Immy out of jail! Maybe I overdid it. But the good new is, he is out!

KALPANA:                (ANXIOUSLY) Is that true? Is everything all right?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Of course, my dear! Have I ever failed? The Police Commissioner was ever so cooperative. A snake, but a tame snake curled in his basket. Imtiaz is unharmed!

KHAN:                        (COMING UP HESITANTLY) When do you think he will be out, Sir?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Any time now, we should be hearing any time now. Mr Ghosh! You know I detest cell-phones but they have their uses. Go into a corner, there’s a good man, keep ringing Imtiaz’s number. It will ring when he is out! Kalpu! My throat is dry and my scotch is getting warm!

                                                (KALPANA BUSTLES OFF TO THE KITCHEN, SACHI GOES TO A FAR CORNER WHIPPING OUT HIS CELL-PHONE)

KHAN:                        (HOLDING ON TO KRISHNAMURTI’S HAND) Sir, I can never thank you enough. He is the light of my house, if anything had happened to him, I don’t know how I would have lived out my years, Sir, why…

KRISHNAMURTI:     Nonsense, Khan Sahib, nothing would have happened to him! And it is not me you should thank, but my granddaughter, Gita. Cleverest little kitten, if I say so myself. Gita! Come here and be thanked! Khan Sahib wants to thank you!

GITA:                         (WALKING UP SMILING) Please don’t thank me, Khan Sahib. If anyone is to be thanked it’s my mother here! She persuaded my father to speak to the Police Commissioner.

RUKMINI:                  Gita! How can you have the heart to laugh at a moment like this?

GITA:                         No better time, Mumsy. Got a good friend out of the cooler. Though, mind you, I didn’t quite like telling you fibs. But I had to get you to talk to Daddy!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

RUKMINI:                  What is all this nonsense? What omelettes?

GITA:                         A figure of speech.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Don’t be a crass illiterate. It’s a saying, not a figure of speech.

KALPANA:                (COMING FROM THE KITCHEN WITH A TRAY) I think Gita has been telling you fairy stories. Rukmini, you should be relieved, not cross.

RUKMINI:                  Fairy stories? What fairy stories? Are you all mad?

KHAN:                        (WITH HOPE IN HIS VOICE) Gita… you are like my daughter…always have been. So, between you and Imtiaz… there is nothing… there was nothing…?

GITA:                         Nothing, Khan Sahib. Nothing! Imtiaz is like a brother to me! So as a good sister should, I told a little lie to my mother to help him get free.

RUKMINI:                  (VERY ANGRY) A little lie? A little lie! Gita! Gita! Tell your mother the truth, the real truth, if you can, for once! What’s happened? What have you done?

GITA:                         Mummy, please don’t be angry. I know it was very wrong, but I wanted to make you get Daddy to let Immy out of jail. I told you the first thing that came into my head!

RUMINI:                    How dare you! How dare you!

(GOES TO SLAP GITA. GITA HUGS RUKMINI)

GITA:                         (SOFTLY) Mummy, please forgive me, please?

RUKMINI:                  (STILL ANGRY) I will never forgive you! You told me…you told me… that you were… that you were…

GITA:                         Pregnant? Of course not! I am pure as driven snow. Grandad, what can a girl do when her own mother doubts her character? Mummy, you should know me better!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (SOFTLY) Rukku, you have a wonderful little daughter, clever, resourceful, brave! You should be very proud. Forgive her for causing you temporary anxiety, it was in a good cause.

RUKMINI:                  (WITH TEARS) You Sir! How can you join hands with her? What do you think of me?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Come, come, Rukku, have a drink, have another. Let everything be forgiven and forgotten. Your girl has more character than all of us put together. Give her a chance.

                                   

(KRISHNAMURTI FORCES A DRINK ON RUKMINI)    

RUKMINI:                  (TURNING TO KHAN, STILL ANGRY) This daughter of mine, Khan Sahib, she is such a devil! Even now I can’t forgive her for causing us – you and me – so much pain, anxiety! I tell you, I don’t know where she gets her cunning. As you know I am a very simple person!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (MURMURS) Really, Rukku, I hadn’t noticed.

RUKMINI:                  (RECOVERING) See, Khan Sahib? Between the two of them, they made such a fool of me! I was so trusting! This girl was howling and weeping saying she would die if anything happened to dear Imtiaz. And it was all such a drama, we find out now!

KHAN:                        Of course, of course, how could we doubt such a wonderful girl? She has saved my son, and how fearlessly! She is our Rani of Jhansi!

RUKMINI:                  Khan Sahib, she could have told me the truth! A girl should tell her mother the truth, always, shouldn’t she, Sir?  I thought she was telling me the truth! It would have been…been…such an honour to make an alliance with your family!

KHAN:                        (HASTILY) Madamji, too great an honour for us, more than we can aspire to! Far higher!

RUKMINI:                  There was no need for all this drama. I believe in one God, Sir, I offer my prayers at dargahs. I feel we are all of one family!

KHAN:                        Very true, Madamji, we in India are all of one family! Under one God.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Now that we have achieved ecumenical consensus, I could do with  more ice for my whisky. Thank you, Kalpana.

                                    (KALPANA HOLDS OUT THE ICE BUCKET)

KRISHNAMURTI:     Thanks, just two cubes, don’t want to drown the scotch, you know, but I do need to cool my drink to below boiling point, it’s so bloody hot. Muggy as well, worse than yesterday. Kalpana?

KALPANA:                Yes, Sir?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Any news?

KALPANA:                You have posted Sachitanand by the telephone. Hope Imtiaz  calls him any minute now.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (CHUCKLING) That boy, Ghosh, I am surprised he ever got out of nursery school.

KHAN:                        But Sir, he is a very serious student of anthropology.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Now that you mention it, I can see he is something of a wild man.

SACHI:                       (SCREAMING, HOLDING ON TO A TELEPHONE) He is coming through! He has come out! Yes…yes! We are all here, Imtiaz!... Celebrating your release! Your victory! …Lal Salaam, Comrade! Long Live the Revolution, Comrade!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Khan Sahib, congratulations seems to be in order all round.

(SACHI RUNS OVER PANTING TO SHAKE KRISHNAMURTI BY THE HAND).

SACHI:                       (GASPING) Congratulations, Sir! Our President has been released unconditionally by the cowardly apparatus of the State!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Good, sit down, have a drink.

SACHI:                       Have to go, Sir. Imtiaz invited me to a game of squash at the Club.

GITA:                         (SUDDENLY) I will come too. The barman told me they had received a case of Mouton Cadet. We will celebrate. Bye! Bye all!

                                    (THEY BOTH RUN OUT OF THE FRONT DOOR, LAUGHING. A LITTLE QUIET, PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY)

KHAN:                        I cannot approve of young people drinking, I must say.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Look on the bright side, Sir. You can’t make Molotov cocktails with Bordeaux! 

KALPANA:                Sir, I instructed the cook about the biryani. I know how particular you are about slow cooking.

RUKMINI:                  (NOW SUAVE) What looked like a frightening tragedy at noon has just blown over by dinner time! Cheers! (LIFTING HER GLASS)

KRISHNAMURTI:     If it had happened to ordinary people it would have been another story, one of our countless tragedies. But we know how to take care of ourselves.

KALPANA:                May all our crises end in farce!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Amen to that!

                                    (LAUGHTER. THEY ALL RAISE THEIR GLASSES. LIGHTS DIM OUT.)

THE END

SCENE 1

AS THE CURTAIN RISES:   KALPANA’S LIVING ROOM. It is a large shabby room in darkness since it is between four and four-thirty in the morning. Two closed doors to the right lead to bedrooms and possibly a kitchen. The front door of the house is to the extreme left. Loud banging is heard on that door.

KHAN:                        (OFF-STAGE IN HOARSE AGITATED VOICE) For God’s sake, Miss Sonewala! Open the door! Open the door! They are murdering my boy! Torturing him! I don’t know if he is still alive! For God’s sake, Madam! Open the door!

(MORE LOUD BANGING. KALPANA COMES IN THROUGH BEDROOM DOOR, CRASHES INTO FURNITURE, CURSES UNDER BREATH)

KALPANA:                (SLEEPILY) Who is it? Wait… Can’t see a thing…where’s that bloody switch? (SWITCHES ON LIGHTS) There! Who is it? It’s four in the morning!

KHAN:                        (OFF-STAGE) It’s me, Miss Sonewala! – Quader Ali Khan! I’m sorry to come at this inconvenient hour! (KALPANA DRAWS BACK DOOR BOLTS) I beg your gracious pardon, Madamji! But they are murdering my son, my… you know him, Imtiaz, he’s President of the Union…

KALPANA:                (FLINGING DOORS OPEN) Come in Khan Sahib, come in. Sit down, yes, there, yes. Can I get you a glass of water?

KHAN:                       Madamji, the matter is of the greatest urgency…

KALPANA:                (CUTTING IN) I see that something has happened. Compose yourself, Sir. Wait till I get you some water. It’s so hot this summer, I am dying of thirst. Just give me a minute!

(KALPANA’S TURNS BACK TOWARDS THE KITCHEN AND RETURNS WITH A TRAY WHILE KHAN HANGS AROUND UNCERTAINLY)

KALPANA:                (BANGING THE TRAY ON A TABLE) There! Have a drink of water, it’ll calm you. I will have a glass myself.

(KHAN DRINKS IN NOISY GULPS, BOTH SIT DOWN ON CHAIRS)

KHAN:                       (SPUTTERING) Thank you, that was very kind, Madamji…

KALPANA:                Please, Sir, call me Kalpana! I am young enough to be your daughter!

KHAN:                        Yes…Kalpanaji, but you are our human rights lawyer, world famous, so respect is due… listen Madamji, my son has been arrested! Lifted from the street last night!

KALPANA:                How do you know that, Sir?

KHAN:                        What? Why I… this boy, friend of Imtiaz, came rushing, woke me up, and said Imtiaz has been arrested! Imtiaz hasn’t come home! It’s almost daylight now!

KALPANA:                Imtiaz Khan is a very busy President of the Student’s Union. I bet, sometimes he hasn’t come home for a week!

KHAN:                        Yes… yes, that’s true… but Sachitanand saw them arrest my son, with his own eyes, and he came rushing to me! Sachitanand Ghosh is a good boy, serious, studious… wrote an excellent paper on Gond post-harvest rituals, worth publication I thought, not that I recommend students’ papers but…

KALPANA:               When did he say Imtiaz was arrested, and where did it happen?

KHAN:                        Well, it seems, they, a group of boys at the hostel, were working on a pamphlet about the right to food and economic stagnation, something like that, you know… anyway, Imtiaz went across the street to get them all tea, and Sachitanand leaning out of the window saw him being arrested!

KALPANA:                What exactly did he tell you?

KHAN:                       Who?

KALPANA:                This boy – Sachitanand.

KHAN:                        Yes…well, as I said… he was leaning out, saw Imtiaz reach the teashop across the street… there’s a street lamp there, I asked, so he saw it all quite clearly. A police jeep pulled up, caught hold of poor Imtiaz – even before he had a cup of tea! – Bundled him in and took off at great speed.

KALPANA:                (SHARPLY) There was no altercation? No discussion? Angry words? Warrant being held out?

KHAN:                        No…I don’t think so… No. Nothing! Sachitanand told me everything, I asked again and again. This is all that happened.

KALPANA:                Hmm… looks like a random pick up… they do that to students… he could be back home by now, don’t you think?

KHAN:                        I am very much afraid not, Madam, he would have let me know, he would know I am worried… you see, he signaled to Sachitanand as he was taken…

KALPANA:               (SHARPLY) You didn’t tell me that!

KHAN:                        I did not? Yes, he lifted his hand to Sachitanand just as he was pushed into the jeep.

KALPANA:               Just tell me everything, okay, Khan Sahib?

KHAN:                       Yes, of course… so I think…

KALPANA:                Has he done anything? Do you know anything?  Why the police would be interested?

KHAN:                        I don’t know… yes, of course, they would have had him on their radar as they say nowadays! He is always making these inflammatory speeches, I can’t control him, Madam, I can’t, I have warned him, but you know youth these days…

KALPANA:                Yes, yes, they all make inflammatory speeches. Imtiaz is a Marxist, isn’t he?

KHAN:                        Yes! That’s why I am so worried!

KALPANA:                The police are not concerned about Marxists – it’s just theatre and they don’t care.

KHAN:                        (LOWERING HIS VOICE) You see, he’s a Muslim, Madam.

KALPANA:                (LOOKS UP, ROLLS HER EYES) Yes, Khan Sahib, of course… I know what you mean. I am taking this quite seriously… when did it happen? When did they lift him?

KHAN:                        I think two… two-thirty this morning, Sachitanand came rushing on his motorbike as soon as he could, so I think it was two-thirty, I...

KALPANA:                Sir, dear Professor Khan, you should have come straight away! I would have called to see which police station they were taking him to. Now they would have moved him if they are serious, and it might be difficult to establish a trace.

KHAN:                        (HURRIEDLY) I ran out into street, Madamji, in my pyjamas! But my car had a puncture, so I put on some clothes and went in search of an auto, nobody would come this way! I offered money, but, no! Everyone was asleep, no one would stir! People complain about lack of money, but no one wants to work! I worry about this generation! In my day…

KALPANA:                Yes, yes… it can’t be helped now.

KHAN:                        No! Yes! What do you mean he would be moved? Why…what? I don’t understand what it all means!

KALPANA:                (DRAWING CLOSER TO THE TABLE AND UNCONSCIOUSLY TAKING OUT A PAD AND PEN) It’s like this, Khan Sahib. Police jeeps make nightly sweeps and take suspects… people they just pick up, to the police station they come from. This is routine. If we can get there in time…I just want you to know how everything works in a police station…we can talk to the Station House Officer… get him to laugh it off, and get our boy away from there. Now, if an A.C.P., that is the Assistant Commissioner of Police from the Special Branch, let us say, gets there ahead of us, or anyone like him, from the Intelligence Bureau or one of these special squads, and they want to interro… talk to him, if they have a suspicion that is, then it is just possible they will move him to another station, and we can’t easily find out where they have taken him.

KHAN:                        Madamji, I want you to file a habeas corpus petition in court.

KALPANA:                (FIRMLY) What? And wait two weeks? That’s absolutely useless. No, we have to move fast, very fast, if at all they mean mischief. They may not mean any harm, you know, I am banking on that. I think all this is just routine, and we have nothing to worry about really, but I don’t want to take any chances. We must get him out today!

KHAN:                       So what can be done? I…

                                    (KALPANA GETS UP AND WALKS ROUND THE TABLE)

KALPANA:                We shall spring him. Go to the top, and have him out before those cops lower down do anything, anything at all.

KHAN:                        I don’t understand… I don’t… I am tired… I just wish…

KALPANA:                (SITTING DOWN AND STRETCHING OUT HER LEGS) You are not to worry, Sir. Just relax and I will handle everything. Can I get you some tea, won’t take a minute?

(IT IS KHAN’S TURN TO TAKE AN AGITATED WALK ROUND THE ROOM)

KHAN:                        No, no, I am all right. It’s just… the suddenness of it, though I knew with all his politics he would get into trouble, I warned him to be careful, I told him, ‘You are a Muslim and you just can’t do what all those brainless fellows do…’

KALPANA:                (WITH A WRY SMILE) Khan Sahib, you are wrong, and Imtiaz is right. He is a citizen of this country, and he has every democratic right to express his opinions freely. That’s what we are all fighting for.

KHAN:                        (HOTLY) What good is an opinion if you get butchered for it? Tell me that, Madamji! It’s all very well talking about the Constitution, but reality is different, it’s different for Muslims, you know that! You know that! (STICKS HIS FACE CLOSE TO HERS)

KALPANA:                Yes, I know that, and that reality must be changed. It shall be changed.

                                    (KHAN COLLAPSES BACK IN HIS CHAIR, SINKS HIS HEAD INTO HIS HANDS)

KHAN:                        They could be torturing my son even now, and we are just sitting here talking… about Constitutions! What Constitutions? Those police fellows haven’t read any Constitution!

KALPANA:                Sir, don’t jump to conclusions. Imtiaz maybe in custody, but he has done nothing they can charge him with. They are merely talking with him I think…

KHAN:                        (LOOKING UP IMPLORINGLY) They can kill him, Kalpanaji! Or make him disappear like so many others, and be done with it!

KALPANA:                (LEANING FORWARD ACROSS THE TABLE) Khan Sahib! You are a professor of the university and you should not talk in this loose manner. It doesn’t help people like me who want the State to act according to the law.

KHAN:                        (MUTTERING ALMOST TO HIMSELF) I was a university professor - till last year. But that does not blind me to facts, to realities. You should be the last person to say that Muslim youths have not been picked up at random, kept in custody on false charges, tortured, and then let out years later as ruined men – that is if they have not been killed beforehand!

KALPANA:                All right. At this moment it does not serve any purpose for us – either of us – to be in alarmist mode. We have to act sensibly, and quietly, and fast. Whoever we go to, we must give the impression that we are calm, responsible people, think this whole incident a mistake of some over enthusiastic stupid constables – the higher-ups are always calling their constables ‘stupid’ – and we want the top people to be on our side… see us as one of them. Do you get me, Khan Sahib? It’s very important that you should be completely calm, relaxed, even joke about it!

KHAN:                        (SHOCKED) I can’t joke, Madam!

KALPANA:                ( IN PROFESSIONAL TONES) Sir, listen, listen carefully. If you show alarm, people could misconstrue your attitude – they could think we have cause to be alarmed! Do you get me? There is no reason why we should be alarmed. It’s just a nuisance, what’s happened, and we want it smoothed over. Okay?

KHAN:                        I am confused, I am not clear… what do you want me to do? I want my son out of there, and at home. I am willing to give any guarantee for future good behaviour. (A BREAK IN HIS VOICE) I’ll keep him at home… I will…

KALPANA:                (LOUDLY, SPREADING OUT HER HANDS) Khan Sahib, Khan Sahib, Khan Sahib! You have not been listening to me. Whatever happens, you just relax and leave all the talking to me. Just look bored… talk about anthropology!

KHAN:                        (CONFUSED) Anthropology?

KALPANA:                Yes, about, post-harvest rituals, whatever. Look, I am going to fix up a meeting this morning with Justice Krishnamurti.

KHAN:                        (STILL CONFUSED) Krish – Justice Krishnamurti? But he has retired! Like me, he’s a retired person.

KALPANA:                Yes, but his son is the Director General of the Police Training Academy.

KHAN:                        What? Do you think they have taken Imtiaz to the Training Academy? For questioning?

KALPANA:                (SPEAKING SLOWLY AS TO A CHILD) Khan Sahib! Of course not!  Though, who knows, one day they may train them in torture. But listen! Krishnamurti’s son is very high up, a Director General. He can find out where Imtiaz is in a jiffy, and if he puts in a word, they would let him go.

KHAN:                        (SOUNDS MORE CONFIDENT) I know Justice Krishnamurti! Known him for years, in fact I invited him to give a keynote address on laws as they pertain to tribal rights. He was very good. Gave concrete ideas how their special rights over jungles can be written in.

KALPANA:                Great, it makes things that much simpler.

KHAN:                        Exactly. I will tell him all! (EAGERLY) I will beg him on bended knees to have my Imtiaz released.

KALPANA:                (ALARMED) No, no, no!

KHAN:                        What do you mean, ‘no’?

KALPANA:                That’s the wrong attitude! How many times must I tell you? We will wander in casually as he is having breakfast…

KHAN:                       Wander in over breakfast…casually?

KALPANA:                Yes, time is of the essence, we have to act before anyone else.

KHAN:                        But at… at breakfast time?

KALPANA:                Yes, soon, Krishnamurti has his morning coffee and idlis around seven. We wander in… don’t look doubtful, I have done it before when I wanted his opinion and I know he doesn’t mind.

KHAN:                        (ON FIRMER GROUND) It may be all right for you, I can’t say, but most certainly I can’t, just cannot, go to a senior person like Justice Krishnamurti unannounced without prior permission, certainly I cannot, Madamji.

KALPANA:                (REFLECTIVELY) Oh, I see. Well, look, we have been out together for a morning jog, or rather walk, right, in the park by his house. We do it often, okay? And while passing his house, I just drag you in, okay? You don’t have to say anything, leave everything to me. All right, you can apologize and then you can subside into silence while I handle it.

KHAN:                        Madamji, Madamji, excuse me! How could I be taking a casual walk with you when my son has been lifted by the police? What sort of father would I be? I don’t know what he would think of me!

KALPANA:                It doesn’t matter what he thinks of you! The point is to give the impression we are not unduly worried, think it all a silly mistake, just want Imtiaz out a.s.a.p., not to waste any more time on such a silly thing. I am going to joke about it, okay, make the old man laugh.

KHAN:                        Justice Krishnamurti is a very good man, I know he will stand up for Imtiaz. I cannot begin to tell you how many boys he has let off in his time, with strictures from the bench on police behaviour. So we need not pretend before him, I think.

KALPANA:                You are very right, Khan Sahib, that Krishnamurti will be on our side. But if the old gentleman gets the wind up about this – this incident, he will start shouting at his son about police atrocious behaviour, and what not. His son will clam up, say most probably the matter needs looking into. That’s not what we want. We don’t want the matter being looked into!

KHAN:                        (A BIT AGGRESIVELY) Why not? It is atrocious behaviour on the part of the police. Justice Krishnamurti will be right to say so.

KALPANA:                (SIGHING) We don’t want to make this a Star Chamber case, something that will ring down through the centuries. We want to have Imtiaz released quietly and quickly.

KHAN:                       No! Yes. You are right, I want him out of there.

KALPANA:                Right, so we will be casual and joke, and have the old man laughing, and have him tell his son about some scrape the son of his old friend the professor has got into because of the idiocy of constables – officers always think constables are idiots, remember – it will work.

KHAN:                        All right, Madamji, I am leaving everything in your hands, hoping to God it works! What do you want me to do?

KALPANA:                Come to the park gates just before seven. I will be there. And Khan Sahib, don’t come dressed like this. Remember, we have been out walking in the park. Wear shorts.

KHAN:                       I don’t have shorts.

KALPANA:                Wear something that looks like we were walking in the park.

KHAN:                        I should have a pair of old white tennis trousers. Don’t know if I can still fit into them.

KALPANA:                Suck in your guts. Better wear an old tie as belt round the middle if it won’t button. And tennis shoes, okay?

KHAN:                        Well trainers, yes, I have a good pair actually, Adidas. My feet have become broad all of a sudden and I can’t squeeze them into my leather shoes without laming myself.

KALPANA:                Great! And a tee-shirt, or anything that looks like a tee-shirt. Remember just before seven at the part gates.

                                    (LIGHTS DIM OUT FOR SCENE CHANGE)

SCENE 2

AS CURTAIN RISES:           JUSTICE KRISHNAMURTI’S VERANDAH. It is seven in the morning. Bird calls off. KRISHNAMURTI is sitting at a table loaded with breakfast things and coffee. He is dressed in simple white kurta and pyjamas. At back is a closed door leading into the house.  To the left can be seen a short path leading to a wicket gate in a hedge. KALPANA with KHAN behind her appear at the gate.

KALPANA:                Yoo-hoo! Justice Krishnamurti, Sir! This is Kalpana! Come for a cup of coffee!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Who? Who is that? (LOOKING UP) Oh! Kalpana! Come, come, come! Just made some coffee! Who – who is that with you? Oh, Khan Sahib! Very welcome! Do join me for some coffee!

(THEY BOTH COME UP, KALPANA GURGLING SOME TUNE HAPPILY, THROWS HERSELF INTO A CHAIR RUBBING HER HANDS GLEEFULLY, KHAN SITS DOWN WITH SOME HESITATION)

KALPANA:                (WITH LOUD ENTHUSIASM) Khan Sahib and I were taking a brisk walk through the park, then I saw you out on the verandah with your heavenly coffee, and I dragged him along!

KRISHNAMURTI:     My dear, I am so glad you did! I do make the best coffee, Khan Sahib, best coffee in Hyderabad! Maybe there are a few others somewhere in the depths of Tamil Nadu who can equal me, but I haven’t come across them so far!

KALPANA:                (AS IF PARTING WITH A TRADE SECRET) Sir grinds the beans himself every morning, and filters the coffee drop by drop!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Of course I do! The trick lies in how you dribble hot water over the powder, you must hear each plop of decoction as it falls in the jug. Here! Let me pour you both some of my coffee and let Khan Sahib judge for himself!

                                    (THEY ALL HELP THEMSELVES TO COFFFEE)

KHAN:                        Marvellous, marvelous!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Not as good as I used to make it, Khan Sahib! Till about seven years ago. I would roast green peaberry beans every morning, grind them hot, filter, and serve. Now you can’t get green beans for love or money. I tried buying from the plantations themselves, but the export houses corner the lot, can you believe that! I tried to file a P.I.L. – you, know public interest litigation, in the High Court, but my juniors laughed – laughed! About Coffee! Well, so I am reconciled to buying roasted beans – I had a fight on my hands with the local shop fellow who said he was authorized to sell only powder, but I did the owner a good turn once, so I am a privileged person now, allowed to buy coffee beans! Kalpana, don’t put that into the papers, or everyone will go on how Brahmins are still calling the shots!

KALPANA:                (LOUD RATHER FORCED LAUGH) Sir! Everyone knows of your services to the underprivileged. And if they do accuse you, I will defend you myself!

KRISHNAMURTI:     You are a good girl, Kalpana, a very good girl. (IN PLAYFUL SHOCKED VOICE) My God, sorry! I had forgotten! There are no girls left anymore! But I can’t call you a Good Woman, can I, as if you were here to take in my washing? (LAUGHS HEARTILY AT HIS OWN JOKE, KALPANA JOINS IN WITH A GIGLE)  Have some more, all this cappuccino business is nonsense. That Reddy fellow down the road showed me his machine, said it cost him fifteen thousand rupees! I just lift the cream as it comes to the top and lace the coffee, I have saved fifteen thousand rupees, made better coffee, and I bet that machine will break down in three months, mark my words, foreign machines can’t withstand our power fluxes.

KALPANA:                (SOFTLY) Sir! I wanted to take your advice.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (POURS HIMSELF A CUP AND IN MATTER OF FACT VOICE) Of course, my dear, why else would you come to visit an old man? I am not as silly as I sound, you know. I was trying to put off the evil moment when you will force me to enter into a conspiracy against the State!

KALPANA:                No such thing! Just a case of mistaken identity, I think.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Whose identity?

KALPANA:                This boy’s. Nothing serious, really… just casual boredom, for having something to do.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (BRIGHTLY) The bored Boy lost his Identity!

KALPANA:                Sir! The poor boy was studying hard for his exams, which are round the corner, you know. They just took him in, I think, out of sheer boredom.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Who did?

KALPANA:                The police.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Ah! I see. A student of yours, Khan Sahib?

KHAN:                        (BURSTING OUT AGITATED) My son, Sir, my son! He is a very, very good boy, I assure you! I am very worried, Justice Krishnamurti Sir! This should never have happened! I have warned my son several times not…

KALPANA:                (BREAKING IN WITH A GURGLE) Of course, you are worried, Khan Sahib! All parents are! All the time! I have seen it so often! Imtiaz must already be in the badminton courts, but you went on, so I said Justice Sir here will tell you there is really no reason to be so upset. But you know, fathers! God! My father keeps calling me every other night just to check if I have had dinner on time, da-da-da, it’s insufferable.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Khan Sahib, have the police arrested Imtiaz, and if so on what charge?

KHAN:                        No, no, no! He has not been arrested!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Then? Then… what has happened?

KHAN:                        He has been lifted, Sir, lifted in the middle of the night! God only knows what they are doing.. what he is undergoing…

KALPANA:                (CUTTING IN) I can’t trust Khan Sahib to tell a straight story. I personally think the whole matter is quite laughable! But Khan Sahib keeps worrying. Imtiaz and a few other boys were in the students’ hostel studying, you know how they get together to study…

KRISHNAMURTI:     (DRYLY) In my day, we always got together to plan some mischief, not to study.

KALPANA:                (BRISKLY) Well, times have changed. In your day there was no competition. Nowadays unless you get ninety-nine percent you can’t get a job as a sweeper!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Now I know why our streets are so filthy! Eggheads can’t sweep.

KALPANA:                (BEGGING) Sir, please be serious.

KRISHNAMURTI:     I was quite serious till you said it was a laughing matter.

KALPANA:                Yes and no. I don’t think we have a serious issue here… at the same time I don’t want that boy upset before the exams, you know, they are sensitive like racehorses before a race.

(A LONG SILENCE WHILE KRISHNAMURTI THINKS)

KRISHNAMURTI:     I was thinking of dog races. The police are like hunting dogs. I don’t take any matter concerning them lightly, especially when it comes to Dalits, women, tribals, or – or Muslims.

KHAN:                        (RAPIDLY) You are right, Sir, very right, that’s why I am so worried and came running to Miss Sonewala as soon as I heard he had been lifted, lifted before he could have a cup of tea, Sir! I disturbed her in the middle of the night, I am sorry to say, I was very upset, beside myself, and so –

KALPANA:                (CUTTING IN HEAVILY) He didn’t disturb me, I was getting up in any case, and suggested we should come here, and take your advice, since Khan Sahib despite all my assurances remains disturbed.

KRISHNAMURTI:     He has every right to be disturbed, if Imtiaz has been lifted by the police in the middle of the night!

(SUDDENLY THE DOOR AT THE BACK IS THROWN OPEN AND GITA LEAPS OUT WITH A ‘AH HA!’ THE OTHERS ALMOST RISE IN THEIR SURPRISE)

GITA:                         Hello! Who’s been lifted? Khan Sahib! Kalpana! What are you all doing here? What’s happened?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Good God, Gits! I thought you were in Bombay!

GITA:                         Came in by the late night flight, Granddad, didn’t want to wake you up, or Mummy! (KISSING HIM LOUDLY ON TOP OF HIS HEAD) You still have a better head of hair than many of my friends!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (LOVINGLY AGGRIEVED) Why couldn’t you call me? I would have sent Madhav round with the car.

GITA:                         Poor Madhav! There were a hundred taxis at the airport waiting to pick me up.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Next time, you must let me know, all right? It’s not safe late at night, Gita, how many times must I tell you, the world is not what it used to be in my day.

GITA:                         (LAUGHS) Granddad! Everyone knows I am the granddaughter of a ferocious judge. Your reputation is a greater shield than all of papa’s police. So, I am safe, okay? Give me some of your delicious coffee, they make dishwater in Bombay. (SHE MAKES HERSELF A CUP AND SIPPING) So, who’s been arrested, not Immy?

KALPANA:                Not arrested. He seems to have been picked up from the University hostels late last night.

GITA:                         Why? What’s he done?

KALPANA:                That’s what we are asking!

KHAN:                        (CUTTING IN ANXIOUSLY) He’s headstrong! I warned him, a number of times, not to keep making these silly speeches, it gets you nowhere!

KALPANA:                (IN OFF-HAND MANNER) He hasn’t done anything. I think it was just a routine sweep, but naturally Khan Sahib was worried when Sachitanand Ghosh came round to tell him.

GITA:                         Sachi! Was he sober?

KALPANA:                Well, sober enough to scare Khan Sahib with his dramatics. Anyway, I think it’s best we bring Imtiaz home for a late breakfast and rest, considering the exams are approaching.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Kalpana! This is quite a new side to you I am seeing! You never gave a damn about exams, and added years to your poor mother. All my grey hairs are due to you.

KALPANA:                I did pass all my exams, even my law exams, and you must take me seriously, for now at least.

KRISHNAMURTI:     When have I not taken you seriously? You have ruled my life since you were three – two-and-a-half to be exact.

KALPANA:                Sir, I want you to help, and you are not doing that! I want you to think what’s best to be done.

GITA:                         (DECISIVELY) Papa should call off the dogs.

KALPANA:                (STRUCK BY THE THOUGHT) That’s a fantastic idea! You are a clever girl, Gita. That’s what needs to be done!

GITA:                         Well, what else? I told Immy he would get into trouble if he ranted on like that. You should have heard him in Bombay last week. Had everyone in stitches with his portrayal of the Cabinet.

KHAN:                        (BEWILDERED) He was in Bombay last week? He never told me!

GITA:                         Khan Sahib, of course he kept it quiet! You are the last person he would tell he was addressing the Nation on the coming Revolution! He sounded like Danton!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Like Danton, eh? Not Robespierre?

GITA:                         Definitely Danton. I was there in my previous life.

KHAN:                        But… but… what did he say, do… I wish I knew… this is so worrying, Miss –

GITA:                         Call me Gita, Sir, I wouldn’t worry at all, it was just guff, but very splendid. We laughed over it all night.

KHAN:                        (ANXIOUSLY) All night?

GITA:                         Yes, Immy stayed with me of course.

Khan:                          (SHOCKED) Stayed with you!

Gita:                            Yes. I have some lovely photos of him giving the speech. Want to see them, Khan Sahib? Come, I have got them in my suitcase. Choose which ones you like. Come Sir, you will see how everyone adored your son in Bombay!

KHAN:                        (CONFUSED) I… I don’t know, I mean, all this is very new, disturbing, I wish he would tell me…

KALPANA:                Yes, yes, Khan Sahib, do go with Gita, and select your photos, while I work out with Krishnamurti Sir here, how we are to get Imtiaz out of the cooler. Go, Sir, go with Gita, please go along.

GITA:                         (INSISTING, PULLING AT HIS SLEEVE) Come, Khan Sahib! Come, see my pictures, come!

KHAN:                        (RELUCTANTLY) Oh, I suppose…(TRAILING OFF)

I may as well…

(GITA PULLS IN KHAN THROUGH THE DOOR AND SHUTS IT FIRMLY BEHIND HER)

KRISHNAMURTI:     Clever girl, my granddaughter, drew him away. Kalpu, how serious is it?

KALPANA:                Frankly, Sir, I don’t know.

KRISHNAMURTI:     That boy is a Maoist, right?

KALPANA:                A sort of intellectual Marxist-Leninist, I would say, all the time spouting radical thought, from Hegel onwards, with heavy quotations in the original. His last article in the student’s journal was on Juvenal.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (RELIEVED) The police should be least interested. It is poor boys who read Mao in the vernacular that they target. Still all the same…

KALPANA:                Yes, but…

KRISHNAMURTI:     He is a Muslim, that’s worrying.

KALPANA:                Precisely, Sir.

KRISHNAMURTI:     And you want me to get Vijay to get him out. No fuss, right?

KALPANA:                Sir… If I may explain…

KRISHNAMURTI:     No need, my dear, I know how your devious mind works. You were afraid I would make a noise, call in the press, while that poor boy rotted, God knows where. Remember, I am not totally stupid, or totally heartless. Yes, we have to get him out in double quick time, but it won’t be easy.

KALPANA:                Sir, if you will speak to your son. I thought…

KRISHNAMURTI:     You thought wrong. That’s the last thing I should do, it will set his back up. And he is on tour, I couldn’t possibly try and do it over the phone, in any case. No, no, definitely no.

KALPANA:                (ALMOST WRINGING HER HANDS) Oh, hell! I didn’t know that! But something has to be done, Sir, quickly, before they do things, and foist cases on him. If we leave it for later, it could get complicated.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Of course! Something must be done now, while the damned police have still not made out a case, or even thought about it. Right! What do we know? A police patrol which knows him to be a Muslim student leader has pulled him in – not by accident, deliberately, on instructions from the local S.I. – I hope, from no greater authority. They have him somewhere, and being lazy buggers, most probably have not yet started interrogations – that’s on the positive side.

KALPANA:                That’s why I thought if we could get your son to pass the word around that he is to be released immediately, the Commissioner of Police might spring him before any damage is done.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Good! Good thinking. Only, who’s to bell the cat? Not me. He and I don’t see eye to eye about police matters. Oh, I know he is a good sort, really, but loyalty to the force, that sort of thing, and I have gone out on a limb before – very visibly.

KALPANA:                What’s to be done, Sir?

KRISHNAMURTI:     I have to get Rukku to do it!

KALPANA:                Rukmini Madam? You mean your daughter-in-law?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Yes. Like many macho men, Vijay is hen-pecked. If she puts her foot down, he will buckle under, always has.

KALPANA:                But, Sir, you said he was on tour, and…

KRISHNAMURTI:     Doesn’t matter, if she yells at him over the phone, he would act in double quick time.

KALPANA:                So, it’s all right, Sir, is it? I mean, you can speak with Rukmini Madam this morning, and she would, as you say… (TRAILING OFF)

KRISHNAMURTI:     Not so fast, Kalpana, not so bloody fast! I have to think out a strategy. We have to finesse this. Oh, she is very respectful to pop-in-law, and all that, but behind all that tradition there is iron! I have got to convince her, and that’s the hardest part! 

KALPANA:                Oh, but, but…I thought you said…

KRISHNAMURTI:     No, I did not! Just said I wasn’t the right bloke to talk to Vijay, and I did find you the right person. Now we have to think of a way to sell it to her. Not easy, he is Muslim, you see.

KALPANA:                She can’t be that prejudiced!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Of course, she is! Just hides it smoothly, as they all do.

KALPANA:                Then, what are you going to do? Sir… what’s to be done?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Give me some time, damn it! (NOW ANGRY) You come here, spoil my peaceful morning over my coffee with all this agitation, and then expect me to come up with magic solutions like – like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, damn it!

KALPANA:                (IN FALSE CONTRITION) I am sorry, Sir.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Oh, never mind. Look, give me a moment to think it all out. You just take away that poor man, tell him everything will be okay, just sooth the man, all right? If he keeps being jumpy here, I can’t think straight, and that’s no help.

KALPANA:                All right, Sir, I will go across to Gita’s room, and take him away.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (ALMOST TO HIMSELF) Yes, you do that, there’s a good girl. Let me think, think, think… (TRALING OFF)

(LIGHTS DIM OUT FOR SCENE CHANGE)

SCENE 3

AS CURTAIN RISES:           STUDENTS HOSTEL, SACHITANAND GHOSH’S ROOM. It is spare, littered untidily with clothes and books. SACHI is in a white banian and blue stripped pyjamas shaving himself with an electric razor. He is also trying to sing a Bengali film song. GITA opens the single door to the left and walks in.

GITA:                         Sachi! Sachi! Stop caterwauling! And switch off that razor! It’s nine-thirty already, and you are not yet out of your pyjamas! Shame on you, Sachi! (HE SWITCHES OFF THE RAZOR)

SACHI:                       I had a very rough night. I wouldn’t be up if duty didn’t call.

GITA:                         And what duty is that?

SACHI:                       I have to rescue Imtiaz. I am setting out to report his dastardly kidnapping by the police last night. Every newspaper! Every TV station!

GITA:                         No, you don’t, Sachi! Sachi, use your head! Once it becomes prime times news, the police will clam up, deny all knowledge, break Immy’s bones.

SACHI:                       (GRANDLY) We will take it to the Supreme Court.

GITA:                         Idiot! We will have a great time, but Immy could be killed!

SACHI:                       If they dare do that, we will make them rue the day!

GITA:                         I don’t want to make them rue anything, I just want Immy alive and safe.

SACHI:                       Is that what Imtiaz wants?  He is like Bhagat Singh, you know, defying the British!

GITA:                         The Brits left thirty years before you were born, Sachi! Don’t be such a romantic fool! We don’t need martyrs, we only need friends, millions of them, to say ‘No’ loudly and firmly to the bosses, that’s all!

SACHI:                       People wake up only when they are shocked by an outrage, when they see the true face of our rulers. You should have heard Imtiaz last night!

GITA:                         I have heard him all I want in Bombay, thank you very much! He should join a theatre company.

SACHI:                       I thought you admired him.

GITA:                         Yes, and no. He is such an idiot, but he’s a lovable idiot.

SACHI:                       (STRIKING A POSE) He is a patriot, and he will be a martyr!

GITA:                         Rubbish! You are all such fools! Sachi, now is not the time to talk student politics. You have to help get your friend out of trouble before they think of foisting false cases on him.

SACHI:                       Well, he put his head in the noose, deliberately I tell you, despite my warnings, and I honour him for it, no matter what you or other girls say.

GITA:                         Get this into your thick head, Sachi my boy, what we have got to do now is focus on getting him out of custody. Kalpana Sonewala says it must have been just a random sweep, they really have nothing against him except that he is a loud mouth, but so are you all, so that’s all right.

SACHI:                       (IN HUSHED TONES) He – he used the ‘K’ word in our meeting last night, and right in front of that biology lab attendant!

GITA:                         (SHARPLY) What! What was that? Why can’t you tell a straight story, Sachi?

SACHI:                       Well, you didn’t ask. We were having our party meeting, and Imtiaz announced that it was time we produced a National Manifesto.

GITA:                         But – but – but you said he used the ‘K’ word?

SACHI:                       Yes, he said it should be an integral part of our demands.

GITA:                         (EXASPERATED STAMPS HER FOOT) For Christ’s sake, what exactly did he say?

SACHI:                       He said we should demand that all military atrocities should stop in Kashmir and that the Kashmiri people should be given the right of self-determination! He was fantastic!

GITA:                         (HANDS TO HER HEAD) Oh my God! My God! And that police guy was there?

SACHI:                       Yes, you know he always attends our meetings. I have said before that we should unmask that fake lab attendant, but Imitiaz, you know his lordly ways, he said we have nothing to hide. He said something about Pericles. Anyway, this is the result.

GITA:                         (WALKING ROUND THE ROOM ABSENTMINDEDLY) What a God-damned idiot, really I lose all patience. It’s bad enough for a Brahmin to talk about Kashmir, but for a Muslim! He has only himself to blame if the Special Branch is after his blood!

SACHI:                       (UNCTUOUSLY) I told you he wants to be a martyr.

GITA:                         He doesn’t know what he wants. He is an air-head like all the rest of you!

SACHI:                       Gita, you have to face facts. He is not the marrying kind.

GITA:                         What? What are you babbling about now?

SACHI:                       Well, just giving you a kindly warning, that’s all.

GITA:                         Warning? What about? Are you off your head at long last?

SACHI:                       I am not off my head, you are! To have hopes that Imtiaz will settle down and marry you!

GITA:                         (AMAZED, LAUGHS) Sachi, is that what you think?

SACHI:                       Not just me, everybody. Everybody knows you are crazy about him.

GITA:                         Everybody is an ass.

SACHI:                       You can say what you like, but Imtiaz knows that too.

GITA:                         What nonsense! What did he tell you?

SACHI:                       Well, he doesn’t have to tell me anything. Last week, he stayed with you in Bombay, right? I am not a prude, you can sleep with him, but don’t get your hopes up.

GITA:                         (ANGRY) Sachi! I would slap your face, if you were not such a complete ass!

SACHI:                       Well, he showed me pictures of you two cavorting all over Bombay, sleeping in your bed…

GITA:                         (CUTTING IN) How dare you! He did not sleep in my bed! He slept under my bed!

SACHI:                       Under your bed?

GITA:                         Well, on the floor, beneath it, whatever. So, don’t go spinning stories.

SACHI:                       Of course I won’t spin stories, Gita, never about you. You don’t notice it, why should you, but I love you.

GITA:                         Yes, yes, I love you too.

SACHI:                       No, but really, I love you to bits, I think.

GITA:                         Oh, you think, do you? You are not sure?

SACHI:                       Of course I am sure.

GITA:                         Well, this is the first time you happen to mention it, in passing I may add!

SACHI:                       Well, I am a proper gentleman.

GITA:                         (COMING UP TO HIM IN A CHALLENGING WAY) You love me in a platonic sort of way, do you?

SACHI:                       Yes, that’s right. (GOADED) No, damn it! I love you in a very proper sort of way.

GITA:                         Which is very boring, get that into your head. It went out with Queen Victoria, no wonder she was not amused!

SACHI:                       Well, you have always been so wrapped up in Imtiaz, that I thought it was not my place to push in, so…

GITA:                         Sachi, when you do meet a girl you really like, do push in, regardless, that’s my advice. And for the last time, I am not wrapped up in Immy, I am a good friend to him, to you, and a million others. And as a good friend, I am not boring on about love, but trying to use what brains I have to get him out. He has complicated the hell out of it by talking about Kashmir, but no one has taken him seriously about Marx, so why should they bother now, for God’s sake?

SACHI:                       Now who is being romantic? The ‘K’ word is not the same as Marx.

GITA:                         No, it’s not, you are right. Well, we are still going to try, and maybe if we act fast enough, he will be out before the police can pile it on. This is what you have to do.

SACHI:                       Okay, I am listening.

GITA:                         (FIRMLY) You are to go to Kalpana Sonewala’s as soon as you have cleaned up a little. You are not to contact the press, or make a hoo-ha, is that understood?

SACHI:                       I can be as quiet as a mouse, but how’s that going to help Imtiaz?

GITA:                         Sachi, for one last time, try to use your head. If he was lifted by some bored constables out for some fun, who just wanted to give him some agro…

SACHI:                       Whistling in the dark, you are. I tell you he used the ‘K’ word in front of that agent, and instructions came down to bring him in. That’s what’s happened, no getting away from facts.

GITA:                         Wasn’t he lifted by a patrol just as he was getting you guys some tea from across the road? If they had wanted him, they would have barged in and arrested him.

SACHI:                       (GETTING SOME OF HIS GRAND MANNER BACK) What? Four cowardly constables to take Imtiaz from us, from our Red Base? Twenty couldn’t have done that! No, they lay in wait.

GITA:                         Right, let’s not argue. You go to Kalpana Sonewala, where she is working out the strategy. The plan as I know it is to get my grandfather to speak to dad, some guff about an old friend’s son, that sort of thing, and have Immy out before they get serious. It could work, it’s got to work!

SACHI:                       I don’t know… it might have worked if he hadn’t used the ‘K’ word.

GITA:                         Just don’t keep on getting stuck on that one idea like a… like a…

SACHI:                       Like an old gramophone needle. Know what? I haven’t seen a gramophone anywhere in the last ten years. My grandmother has one, but she just listens to her Ipod these days. Come to think of it, even radios are gone!

GITA:                         Right, and cassette players too, but that’s not what we are talking about. So will you set off for Kalpana Sonewala’s a.s.a.p. and take your instructions from her?

SACHI:                       You are putting a lot of faith in this one human rights lawyer. I vote we keep our options open. He is my friend as well, just remember that, and I won’t stand by and see him brutally tortured without lifting a finger. No, by God, I won’t! If, if Imtiaz is killed, that day marks the start of the real Indian Revolution! And we won’t stop till the red flag flies over the Red Fort!

GITA:                         (CATCHING HOLD OF HIM AND SHAKING HIM) I am not applauding, Sachi! I am dead serious! Listen to every word I say! No one is going to get hurt, we are going to get Immy out, and the Indian Revolution can wait for its chance till you get hanged.

SACHI:                       I have never feared dying for my country! But you, Gita, you are just petit bourgeois, that’s all I will permit myself to say.

GITA:                         I thought you said a few minutes ago you loved me?

SACHI:                       (ALMOST CRYING) Gita! Gita! Gita! Don’t stand there twisting everything I say! You… you are not being nice.

Gita:                            I am sorry. I was rude, Sachi, I respect your sentiments… all of them, okay? Now, let’s all work together. We have all our options open in any case, but let’s try out what Kalpana wants first.

SACHI:                       Of course.

GITA:                         So, will you go to her house soon as you can?

SACHI:                       Yes.

GITA:                         And not be grumpy?

SACHI:                       I am never grumpy.

GITA:                         Friends… right?

SACHI:                       Oh, Gita, have I ever been anything but your friend… why I…I…

GITA:                         Okay then, dear Sachi, here, let me give you a nice kiss to make up. (KISSES HIM ON THE CHEEK) Ugh, your bristles! You haven’t shaved properly!

SACHI:                       You barged in as I was shaving!

GITA:                         Bye! Don’t forget, you are to go straight to Kalpana Sonewala’s as soon as you are ready. I will meet you there. Bye!

SACHI:                       Gita, I… I just had a thought… (DOOR SLAMS SHUT AS SHE LEAVES. MUTTERS) Oh, she’s gone. Better have a bath first, if there’s any water in the hostel. Bet there isn’t any. I will wear that shirt I got for my birthday… where did I put it now?

(LIGHTS DIM OUT FOR SCENE CHANGE)

SCENE 4

AS THE CURTAIN RISES:   KALPANA’S LIVING ROOM. It is around noon. KALPANA, KHAN, KRISHNAMURTI and SACHI are sitting around the table. They all have letter pads in front in which they have been scribbling.

KALPANA:                Mister Ghosh, Mister Sachitanand Ghosh, is that right? Okay, tell me everything in full detail, one more time. Yes, keep sitting here beside me, while I write it all down. We must have our facts straight, in case…in case this whole thing blows up into something bigger.

SACHI:                       You are very right, Ma’am, it will blow up, as I told Gita…

KHAN:                        (BREATHLESS) You have met her, have you? Now? Now, after, after they took Imtiaz?

SACHI:                       Yes, Sir, this morning. She came to tell me to get here. To join Miss Sonewala here.

KALPANA:                Call me Kalpana.

SACHI:                       Yes, Ma’am.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Of course, Khan Sahib, Gita would have told Sachitanand to join us all here for a council of war. There must be just one story. I am waiting to hear it straight from this young man who saw it all happen, and reported to you. Now, Sir, what exactly happened?

KHAN:                        I told you, Sir, Sachitanand saw Imtiaz being lifted, just as he was going to get tea from that shop across the street. You said it was round two… two-thirty, right? I couldn’t come here immediately, no one was ready to bring me, such lazy fellows…

KRISHNAMURTI:     Khan Sahib, the young man is here, let him speak.

KHAN:                        (TENSELY) Yes, of course, of course. Only we must do something now! It is already more than ten hours since my son… they could have done anything to him by now!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (TRYING TO BE CALM) Khan Sahib! I appreciate – I understand your anxiety, but believe me, I have dealt with such cases for over thirty years. Nothing would have happened till now, except locking him up somewhere. Nothing will happen till there is – ah – what they call an interrogation, and that will be conducted by an A.C.P. or someone of senior rank. No one would have bestirred himself till now, so we are all right.

KALPANA:                For the moment.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Yes, for the moment, so let us proceed in an orderly fashion, thinking it out.

SACHI:                       Sir, much harm could have happened already, Sir!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (SHARPLY) Nonsense, nonsense.

SACHI:                       No, Sir, beg your pardon, Sir. Much sense, Sir.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Young man, I have just now explained in simple terms, understandable to the meanest intelligence – to anybody that is, how the system works. If anyone knows, I should!

SACHI:                       Sir! You don’t know the background, Sir! Imtiaz committed the greatest folly!

KHAN:                        (AGITATED, SPEAKS TOGETHER WITH KRISHNAMURTI) What did he do?

KRISHNAMURTI:     (NOW ANGRY) What the devil do you mean? Spit it out!

SACHI:                       (TRIUMPHANT) Sir, he used the ‘K’ word!

KRISHNAMURTI:     What? What was that? What did he use?

KALPANA:                I think Sachitanand means Imtiaz spoke about Kashmir.

KHAN:                        (HORRIFIED) When? Where?

SACHI:                       In our student party meeting, yesterday.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (WITH A SIGH) I am relieved. No one gives a tinker’s curse what you fellows say to each other. Let’s get on.

KHAN:                        (ANGRY AND TERRIFIED) But why talk of Kashmir? It is none of his business. He is there to get a degree in Physics!

KALPANA:                Did anyone overhear? Let’s know the worst.

SACHI:                       The lab attendant.

KALPANA:                And you fear he might have spoken to someone?

SACHI:                       (MORE TRIUMPH) He is a police spy, Ma’am! No, actually a head constable from the Special Branch – specially posted.

KHRISHNAMURTI: (BARKS) What! What did you say? Do – do the university authorities know about this? Why, why did you not complain?

SACHI:                       To whom, Sir? The V.C. knows, he himself sanctioned the spy’s presence.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (GETTING UP AND PACING UP AND DOWN) By God, I won’t stand for this! I will tell the University Grants Commission! I will speak to the Governor, he is Chancellor and should suspend the V.C. on the spot! My student days were bad enough, but … but… even the Brits wouldn’t have sunk so low!

KALPANA:                Sachitanand, are you absolutely sure?

SACHI:                       Yes, Ma’am, we have always known, they can’t hide it from us!

KALPANA:                And Imtiaz knew, are you sure? And still he spoke in front of this – this informer?

SACHI:                       (GLEEFULLY) Oh, yes, Ma’am! Imtiaz is our President and he is quite fearless. He has always said we have nothing to fear or hide. He is like Bhagat Singh, Ma’am! The way that martyr stood up to the British, Imtiaz now stands up on behalf of the people of India!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Kindly spare me your claptrap. Does he make a habit of pontificating on Kashmir?

SACHI:                       Doing what, Sir?

KALPANA:                Has he spoken on Kashmir before, in open assembly?

SACHI:                       Well…er…no. We were preparing our National Manifesto yesterday, and he wanted the Kashmir Question to be raised.

KHAN:                        (VERY AGITATED) There is no Kashmir Question! Except illegal occupation of our territories by Pakistan and China! Why does he meddle with things he does not understand? What wrong have I done to have a son like this! This fellow is defaming all of us! The rascal should remember he has a sister to be married!

KALPANA:                Calm yourself, Khan Sahib. I have also insisted many times in public meetings that the Kashmir issue needs to be settled.

KHAN:                        (ALMOST BROKEN) It’s different for you, Madamji. You are from a famous family, a well-known human rights lady lawyer. But Imtiaz is my son! Surely, Sir, you can see it is not his place to speak on such a delicate issue…so thoughtlessly!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Yes, I agree with you, Khan Sahib, and disagree with Kalpana. Sorry to say this to you, Khan Sahib, your son has acted very rashly indeed. This news puts a darker colour on the whole incident.

KALPANA:                If everyone is to be cowardly, God help this country!

KHAN:                        Madamji, as Justice Krishnamurti said just now, he is gravely at fault! Imtiaz must remember he comes from a patriotic family!

KALPANA:                I think it is very patriotic to want to settle the Kashmir issue in a humane and just manner. If he has denounced atrocities, he has every Constitutional right to do so.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (SHOUTING) No one is questioning anybody’s Constitutional right! But if you babble on heedless of the consequences, you get consequences! The sins of the son are visited on the father! You yourself were always heedless, ever since you could walk! You would run out onto the road the moment the front door was opened, without looking to the left or right! Gave your parents and me as much trouble as you could as a baby, and continue to do so right up to today!

KALPANA:                Sir, calm yourself.

KRISHNAMURTI:     I won’t, damn it! None of you care what you do to your parents! You can’t help anybody, or the nation, let me tell you, by jumping off a cliff!

SACHI:                       Sir, how can we sit still when people are getting killed in Kashmir?

KALPANA:                Shut up! Just shut up for a minute!

KHAN:                        What are we to do now, Justice Krishnamurti? What am I to do? What answer shall I give my wife? It will break her heart! My heart is already broken.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Khan Sahib, I feel for you, Sir, truly I do, as a colleague and as a father. We might still retrieve the situation. I have spoken to my daughter-in-law – well, paved the way, so to speak. If I told her the whole truth, she wouldn’t do a thing, I know. She is prejudiced against Muslims, let’s face it. But I did say, an old friend was in trouble, our family owes much to him, his son has been thoughtlessly dragged away from the hostel, just before exams. That struck a cord in her, the mention of exams, all middleclass mothers are anxious about exams. Told her to ask Vijay to tell the Police Commissioner to speak with me. She said she would. Now, when the Police Commissioner calls, I will tell him to get Imtiaz out from wherever he is in double-quick time. It could still work, that is, if he is not being held by the Special Branch.

SACHI:                       (WITH SATISFACTION) Oh, he is with the Special Branch, all right.

KALPANA:                Thank you for cheering us up.

SACHI:                       Well, actually I think Imtiaz did it all deliberately, come to think of it. I think he was trying to push forward the day of the Revolution.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Mister Ghosh! One more word about your Revolution and I shall hold you in contempt.

SACHI:                       The truth is, Sir, he has decided his own fate. It’s poor Gita who is left in the lurch.

KALPANA:                Gita! What has Gita got to do with it?

SACHI:                       Everyone knows she is crazy about him.

KHAN:                        (SHOUTS) What! What did you say, Sachitanand? What is all this?

SACHI:                       Khan Sahib, I don’t talk about it, but maybe now I should tell you all the truth. Gita loves him.

KHAN:                        (LOUDLY, APPEALING TO ALL) This cannot be true! Definitely not! My boy could never forget himself…I have brought him up honourably, Justice Krishnamurti Sir, I assure you…

SACHI:                       I don’t think he… then again, I don’t know about him, his feelings I mean. He is wedded to the Nation, Sir, that I am sure of. ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more!’ That sort of thing.

KALPANA:                What are you babbling about?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Lovelace. This is very interesting. Did you say Gita loves him?

SACHI:                       She tries to hide it, but we all know… I know.

KHAN:                        (BEGGING) Sir! Sir! This cannot be true! A tissue of lies! I fall at your feet, Sir, my son would not even touch her hand or look up at her face, Sir, he is properly brought up…

KRISHNAMURTI:     (BRIGHTLY) This is the best news I have heard today!

KALPANA:                What do you mean, Sir?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Kalpu, don’t you see? My sweet little granddaughter can twist her mother round her little finger! Rukmini will do anything she tells her to do, and Rukmini will get Vijay to do it! Gita will insist! Rukmini will insist! Vijay will insist! Khan Sahib, our troubles are over! I promise you, your son will be out before nightfall!

KHAN:                        (ABJECTLY) But, but, Sir, these lies cannot be true… it cannot be true, I tell you, this much at least I know of my son…

KRISHNAMURTI:     Khan Sahib, we know nothing about our children. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. This sterling young man here has given me the key to unlock this puzzle and I am going to use it. Get me a phone! Now!

KALPANA:                What are you going to do, Sir?

KRISHNAMURTI:     I am going to call Rukmini and tell her everything!

KALPANA:                But, but, Sir! You said… you said, she had opinions…

KRISHNAMURTI:     I don’t know about that. I only said she was prejudiced.

KALPANA:                That’s what I meant. If she is prejudiced, this might set her back up, and she could scuttle…

KRISHNAMURTI:     No, she can’t, for she is scared of Gita. Look, I know my daughter-in-law. She is cagey when it comes to confronting her daughter. She will give in precipitously to win Gita’s confidence, and then, and then, wear her down by casting sly doubts. Rukku is quite the Iago of my family.

SACHI:                       (WONDERING) Really, Sir? Who would have thought Gita of all people could have a mother like that?

KRISHNAMURTI:     You will learn about women in time, that is if you haven’t already been committed for your patriotism. Kalpana, reach me that phone. (KALPANA HANDS HIM A DESK PHONE) Thank you, my dear. Can I dial straight out? Okay. Nothing like old-fashioned desk phones, I hate cell-phones! (RINGS A NUMBER) It is ringing. Yes? Rukmini? It is me! Remember I told you about Khan Sahib’s son being whisked away by some drunken constables?...What? Didn’t I mention Khan Sahib?...Yes, of course, it’s his boy, Imtiaz! (SINKS VOICE) Vijay wouldn’t be where he is today if it hadn’t been for Khan Sahib… tell you about that later, but I have just heard something incredible…yes… Gita, our Gita is madly in love with this Imtiaz, and is going to marry him!... What? No, you ask her! She should tell you the truth!... She came down it seems to help Imtiaz…ask her yourself, my head is in a whirl with this news…First thing I thought of was to tell you, you would know what to do! Bye! I have to rush! (HANGS UP)

KALPANA:                But, Sir! Gita will deny it all, and we would be where we started!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (CHUCKLING) No, she won’t. The moment her mother tells her I have spilled the beans, she will catch on lightning quick. Gita takes after me! Khan Sahib, we can now relax. Kalpana, you don’t have any beer around the place, have you? 

(LIGHT DIMS OUT FOR SCENE CHANGE)

SCENE 5

AS THE CURTAIN RISES:   THE KRISHNAMURTI DINING-ROOM. GITA and RUKMINI are sitting at table, loaded with food. It is well past noon and they have almost finished lunch.

RUKMINI:                  Have some more of the brinjal curry, Geetu darling, I made it myself. Just the way you like it! You must be starved in a place like Bombay. (PASSING HER A DISH)

GITA:                         I eat like a horse there. See, I’ve put on a kilo round my hips. I have got to lose it somehow. But your curry is absolutely fabulous! Thank you, Mummy.

RUKMINI:                  You don’t have to thank me, dearest, it’s a pleasure cooking your favourite things. I stay awake at night wondering how you are getting on, in unaccustomed places, eating strange food, from unknown people.

GITA:                         Come on, Mummy! The world is fully of great chefs, but I must admit you are the best! Can I have some more?

RUKMINI:                  Of course, darling! Here let me serve you the best piece! (GETS UP TO DO SO)  No… new places, meeting different people, are all very exciting in the beginning, but you know, one cannot live like that for long.

GITA:                         Why not?

RUKMINI:                  Darling, believe me! New ways, different ways, strangeness, all that has an appeal, I know! But it wears off, then everything becomes uncomfortable. Remember Meera? That beautiful, beautiful girl, who visited with the Kapoors five years ago?

GITA:                         Vaguely, yes. I thought she was stuck up, though why I can’t say.

RUKMINI:                  No, darling, she was very talented, had the brightest prospects, and then, this happened.

GITA:                         What? Umm, very good curry…I think I will have one more helping, though I shouldn’t. (HELPS HERSELF)

RUKMINI:                  (HESITANTLY) Meera went and married Tyeb, you know the third son of the rich Bilgramis? It was a Bollywood wedding, all glitter and gloss! But when she had a baby, everything changed. They wanted her to convert, wear a burqa, stay at home. She wouldn’t, they divorced, and now she is a single parent, with a small child, no job and no money. I tried warning her, even though I knew she wouldn’t listen to me, her head was in the clouds…I just kept hoping for the best, but I knew it would end in tragedy.

GITA:                         Most probably her fault as well.

RUKMINI:                  I am surprised you say that. Everyone of course blames the woman. The fact is, these marriages don’t work. I am so glad I married your father, who grew up next door to us, and now I live the life I have always lived. When I was a little girl, you would laugh, I used to say I wanted to marry a blue-eyed Frenchman! Thank God, I didn’t! (FALSE LAUGH)

GITA:                         I wish you had, I would have had blue eyes. Can you pass me the halwa, please?  You are the best cook in my life.

RUKMINI:                  (PASSING THE HALWA) Darling, I will always be there for you.(SNIFFS TEARFULLY)

GITA:                         Mummy! What’s the matter? Is Daddy sick or something?

RUKMINI:                  No, no, darling, in the pink of health, I am sure. But he is always travelling, and with you away, I am so lonely.

GITA:                         Mummy, this is not like you at all! You have your kitty parties, your book reading circle, bridge nights, you are busiest person I know!

RUKMINI:                  I am so worried about you being with strangers.

GITA:                         Mummy! What is it? Come right out with it! Now!

RUKMINI:                  Your grandfather…he’s given me such a jolt. I don’t know what to think. I only want what is best for you, never wished for anything else.

GITA:                         Mummy, if it’s about my not joining the civil service, that’s final! I am going to join a women’s collective fighting for women’s rights!

RUKMINI:                  No, no, darling, I am so glad. I am so glad you will be with a women’s collective who can protect you better than I ever can!  Some religions, darling…I should say, cultures… give no rights to women! They treat women very badly, they are not liberal at all, not like us.

GITA:                         I never thought killing baby girls and burning brides who haven’t brought dowry are hallmarks of a liberal society! News to me.

RUKMINI:                  Horrible! Horrible, horrible! These uneducated rural people!

GITA:                         It’s the rich, greedy middleclass Hindus living around Delhi who burn brides.

RUKMINI:                  Well, no one we know, darling. Not people like us, dear. But in some cultures, some middleclass families just oppress women as part of their beliefs. That’s inhuman.

GITA:                         Oh, like which cultures?

RUKMINI:                  (WITH TEARFUL EMPHASIS) Muslims, darling! I have no right – or wish – to say anything negative about them, they have a right to live as they like, but it will be very hard for us, very hard for you, darling! Grandfather has told me everything!

GITA:                         (COOLY) What did that old fool tell you?

RUKMINI:                  Only, that…that you wish to marry Khan Sahib’s son!

                                    (A PREGNANT PAUSE)

GITA:                         (SLOWLY) Oh, he said that, did he? Clever old bugger!

RUKMINI:                  (GETTING UP AND RUNNING ROUND TO PUT HER ARMS ROUND GITA, WHICH HER DAUGHETR AVOIDS) Gita! You are not to speak of your grandfather like that! But, darling, you know I have never stood in your way! You marry anyone you like, your happiness is all I want! You know that! But think, darling, think! You will be marrying not just a man, but a whole people who live very differently – slaughtering goats in their own home!

GITA:                         Come on! You are no vegetarian.

RUKMINI:                  Don’t think of me at all, Gita darling, just think about yourself! Can you, my precious, brave, free child, can you live like that, wrapped up in a burqa?

GITA:                         Easily! I hate the way men ogle when I go shopping, stripping me with their eyes, damn them! I am going to wear a burqa, that’s decided, and I will feel free for the first time in my life. What is more, I am converting to Islam, that’s another shock for you!

RUKMINI:                  Gita! You can’t! Just think!

GITA:                         I have. Thought it all out. I am going to meet the Kazi after lunch. They are strict Muslims, Mummy, I can’t live with them as a Hindu, that’s not on.

RUKMINI:                  (PLEADS) But our religion! – Gandhiji said it was a way of life – it embraces all faiths, it – it is inclusive! That’s right, inclusive, and…

GITA:                         As the Holy Prophet has said, Peace Be Upon Him, ‘to thee thy religion, to me, my religion.’

RUKMINI:                  Oh, Gita! Not many Muslims believe that! You know our history!

GITA:                         Anyway, it may all be beside the point by now. The police might have already killed my husband.

RUKMINI:                  Your – hus – husband?

GITA:                         Well, husband to be. I might have to mourn him as a widow in Khan Sahib’s house! Visiting every dargah in penitence, for having a father who didn’t raise his little finger to protect the love of my life!

RUKMINI:                  Your father is away! He knows nothing about the matter!

GITA:                         (COLDLY) But you do! You have done nothing about saving his life! Mummy, I will never forgive you!

RUKMINI:                  Darling, darling, don’t say such terrible things! (WEEPING) Don’t look at me like that, as if I was a criminal, you are so like my mother-in-law!

GITA:                         Imtiaz isn’t a criminal either, just a dear misguided boy. Mummy, you should help me save him! You can speak to Daddy!

RUKMINI:                  (WEEPY) Gita, I will try, but you know your father, he is such a strict man, I don’t know... y’know…

GITA:                         Well, it won’t do his career any good if his son-in-law is jailed, or worse. They will send him off to manage a dairy farm, he will never live it down.

RUKMINI:                  Oh, dear! What can I do? What shall I say?

GITA:                         (BRIGHTLY) Tell him I need a father for my baby!

RUKMINI:                  (QUAVERING) What! What did you say, Gita?

GITA:                         My baby! That’s why we wanted to get married right away!

RUKMINI:                  Darling! Darling! How?...Why didn’t you tell me…anything? Kept it all dark…for so long…

GITA:                         (CRUELLY) Well, I am telling you now. Tell Dad Imtiaz is totally innocent! He was illegally lifted by drunken constables! Tell him to get him out today! Do that, Mummy, if you were ever want me to speak to you again!

RUKMINI:                  (PLEADS) I will, darling, I will! But don’t do anything hasty… for God’s sake, listen to me!

GITA:                         Well, it’s done already. But, Mummy! I will do a deal with you.

RUKMINI:                  Oh, God! What is it now?

GITA:                         If, mark you, if Imtiaz is released today, I might start believing what you said about ours being a liberal society and the rest of it. If Imtiaz is out today, I won’t convert today, I will think about it.

RUKMINI:                  Darling, I will speak to your father! I promise! I promise!

GITA:                         Make him see reason.

RUKMINI:                  I will, I will! In the meantime, dearest, don’t do anything rash. Is that a deal?

GITA:                         All right. I am off to see the Kazi and ask for more time to think things over.

(LIGHTS DIM OUT FOR SCENE CHANGE)

SCENE 6

AS THE CURTAIN RISES:   KALPANA’S LIVING ROOM. It is night. KHAN is slumped in a chair with his eyes closed. KALPANA is busy at the table writing something. RUKMINI bursts in unceremoniously through the front door.

RUKMINI:                  (RUNNING UP TO KHAN) Ah! Here you are Khan Sahib! I knew I would find you here! I have done all I can, believe me! Mr. Krishnamurti is even now with the Police Commissioner.

KHAN:                        (JUMPING UP) Rukminiji! Thank you, thank you…all of you are so kind…here Miss Sonewala is also trying…

RUKMINI:                  (WITHOUT LOOKING) Hi, Kalpana.

KALPANA:                (GETTING UP) Hello, Rukmini, why don’t you sit down? Can I get you something? It could be a long wait.

RUKMINI:                  I don’t want anything, I can’t think of anything, how can I? Khan Sahib, we are doing all we can for your dear boy…I am beside myself with anxiety!

KHAN:                        (SOOTHING HER) Rukminiji, we all are. Please do sit down, here beside me. Calm yourself, Madamji. God is Great! Let us believe in His Mercy!

                                                (RUKMINI SITS DOWN, BURIES HER HEAD IN HER HANDS AND BURSTS INTO TEARS)

KALPANA:                I will get you a glass of water. Better still, a stiff whisky and soda. What do you say?

(SHE GOES TO THE KITCHEN WITHOUT WAITING FOR AN ANSWER AND RETURNS WITH A GLASS OF WHISKY. KHAN LOOKS ON HELPLESSLY)

RUKMINI:                  (TAKING A SIP) I am so distraught…for the children!

KHAN:                        God is great. Let us believe in His Mercy.

RUKMINI                   But the Police, Sir…what do they care? I am married to a Police Officer – a very good man – but I do know what happens…

KALPANA:                Nothing is going to happen. You have spoken to Mr. Vijay, and Sir as you said is down there sorting things out, so…

RUKMINI:                  (SNIFFING) Gita is so adamant…in the mood she is in, I am afraid of what she may do…my poor child, to be caught in all this before she has seen the world…

KHAN:                        (A LITTLE STIFFLY) Rukminiji, let me say all this is a great shock to me as well, my wife knows nothing about all this, we have nothing to do with all this…

RUKMINI:                  Sir, you must have known…had an inkling…the way your son was behaving with my daughter, surely you must have known?

KHAN:                        (FIRMLY) No, Madamji, certainly not! No more than you did! We would have stopped it right away! Of course!

RUKMINI:                  (WITH FRESH TEARS) Sir, what are we to do? It breaks my heart. Such marriages don’t work! There are so many divorces these days, even when you carefully select the boy… and my poor girl to fall for a Muslim…

KALPANA:                (BUTTING IN IMPATIENTLY) Really, Rukmini! You have known Khan Sahib and his family for more than thirty years!

KHAN:                        (GETTING UP IN AGITATION) Madamji, please be assured, this… this complication is the last thing I wish for… or anticipated! I respect your family, your daughter, may God protect her, but I do not want her as a daughter-in-law!

RUKMINI:                  You should have thought off that before your son seduced my daughter!

KHAN:                        (ANGRY) Madam! Please be aware of what you say! My son is very strictly brought up! He does not have loose Hindu ways!

RUKMINI:                  (JUMPING UP) How dare you, Sir! How dare you! That I have to listen to you after… after what your son has done to my daughter! He has got my poor innocent girl with child! Shame on you, Sir! Shame!

KHAN:                        The shame is elsewhere, Madam! May God forgive me for saying that! Oh God that this has happened! Islam does not tolerate such behaviour, let me insist! But I will accept her into my family, that much I will do, forgiving all that has happened! Our true faith will guide her!

RUKMINI:                  (INCONSOLABLE) She is ruined! You are all determined to ruin her!

KALPANA:                No such thing, Rukmini, please do pull yourself together. Young people decide their own lives nowadays. Gita and Imtiaz will do what they want to do. There is nothing you or Khan Sahib here can say that can change that!

                                    (KRISHNAMURTI, BOTTLE IN HAND, GITA AND SACHI WALK IN LAUGHING)

GITA:                         Hello! What’s happened? Why such tragic looks? Have the Americans declared a Third World War?

KRISHNAMURTI:     (IN HIGH MOOD) Kalpana! Get me some ice! I am very thirsty with all this work. I picked up a bottle of Talisker on the way to celebrate. Genuine stuff from Ramsingh’s, the others are not to be trusted, but the police won’t do anything to them! Hand in glove with the rascals! Hello Khan Sahib! Keep me company with a club soda!

RUKMINI:                  (RUSHING UP TO HIM) Sir! How can laugh at such a moment?

KRISHNAMURTI:     I laugh, Rukku, because I am happy, that’s natural. Now, where’s my drink?

RUKMINI:                  God! You are a cruel man, aren’t you? All your age hasn’t lessened your hatred for me, has it? Just because… just because, poor papa couldn’t afford a huge dowry…you…you…you a judge! Hypocrite!

GITA:                         (PLEADING, HOLDING RUKMINI’S HANDS) Mummy! Mummy! Please! Don’t make a scene!

RUKMINI:                  You! You telling me! You have brought disgrace on me and your father! I have had to listen to abuse from this man…this…this Muslim! I told all them you should only be sent to a girls school, but no one listened…they were all being maha secular! I could kill myself!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (SHOCKED) Good God, Rukku! Calm down, sit down, my dear. There’s nothing to be so worked up about, my dear.

RUKMINI:                  Don’t you ‘my dear’ me, Sir! Never! Never! Do you hear? You have ruined my life! You and this girl! You were never my daughter! Never!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (SOFTLY) What’s all this, Gita? What did you say to your mother?

GITA:                         Granddad! I had to say something to get Immy out of jail! Maybe I overdid it. But the good new is, he is out!

KALPANA:                (ANXIOUSLY) Is that true? Is everything all right?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Of course, my dear! Have I ever failed? The Police Commissioner was ever so cooperative. A snake, but a tame snake curled in his basket. Imtiaz is unharmed!

KHAN:                        (COMING UP HESITANTLY) When do you think he will be out, Sir?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Any time now, we should be hearing any time now. Mr Ghosh! You know I detest cell-phones but they have their uses. Go into a corner, there’s a good man, keep ringing Imtiaz’s number. It will ring when he is out! Kalpu! My throat is dry and my scotch is getting warm!

                                                (KALPANA BUSTLES OFF TO THE KITCHEN, SACHI GOES TO A FAR CORNER WHIPPING OUT HIS CELL-PHONE)

KHAN:                        (HOLDING ON TO KRISHNAMURTI’S HAND) Sir, I can never thank you enough. He is the light of my house, if anything had happened to him, I don’t know how I would have lived out my years, Sir, why…

KRISHNAMURTI:     Nonsense, Khan Sahib, nothing would have happened to him! And it is not me you should thank, but my granddaughter, Gita. Cleverest little kitten, if I say so myself. Gita! Come here and be thanked! Khan Sahib wants to thank you!

GITA:                         (WALKING UP SMILING) Please don’t thank me, Khan Sahib. If anyone is to be thanked it’s my mother here! She persuaded my father to speak to the Police Commissioner.

RUKMINI:                  Gita! How can you have the heart to laugh at a moment like this?

GITA:                         No better time, Mumsy. Got a good friend out of the cooler. Though, mind you, I didn’t quite like telling you fibs. But I had to get you to talk to Daddy!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

RUKMINI:                  What is all this nonsense? What omelettes?

GITA:                         A figure of speech.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Don’t be a crass illiterate. It’s a saying, not a figure of speech.

KALPANA:                (COMING FROM THE KITCHEN WITH A TRAY) I think Gita has been telling you fairy stories. Rukmini, you should be relieved, not cross.

RUKMINI:                  Fairy stories? What fairy stories? Are you all mad?

KHAN:                        (WITH HOPE IN HIS VOICE) Gita… you are like my daughter…always have been. So, between you and Imtiaz… there is nothing… there was nothing…?

GITA:                         Nothing, Khan Sahib. Nothing! Imtiaz is like a brother to me! So as a good sister should, I told a little lie to my mother to help him get free.

RUKMINI:                  (VERY ANGRY) A little lie? A little lie! Gita! Gita! Tell your mother the truth, the real truth, if you can, for once! What’s happened? What have you done?

GITA:                         Mummy, please don’t be angry. I know it was very wrong, but I wanted to make you get Daddy to let Immy out of jail. I told you the first thing that came into my head!

RUMINI:                    How dare you! How dare you!

(GOES TO SLAP GITA. GITA HUGS RUKMINI)

GITA:                         (SOFTLY) Mummy, please forgive me, please?

RUKMINI:                  (STILL ANGRY) I will never forgive you! You told me…you told me… that you were… that you were…

GITA:                         Pregnant? Of course not! I am pure as driven snow. Grandad, what can a girl do when her own mother doubts her character? Mummy, you should know me better!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (SOFTLY) Rukku, you have a wonderful little daughter, clever, resourceful, brave! You should be very proud. Forgive her for causing you temporary anxiety, it was in a good cause.

RUKMINI:                  (WITH TEARS) You Sir! How can you join hands with her? What do you think of me?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Come, come, Rukku, have a drink, have another. Let everything be forgiven and forgotten. Your girl has more character than all of us put together. Give her a chance.

                                   

(KRISHNAMURTI FORCES A DRINK ON RUKMINI)    

RUKMINI:                  (TURNING TO KHAN, STILL ANGRY) This daughter of mine, Khan Sahib, she is such a devil! Even now I can’t forgive her for causing us – you and me – so much pain, anxiety! I tell you, I don’t know where she gets her cunning. As you know I am a very simple person!

KRISHNAMURTI:     (MURMURS) Really, Rukku, I hadn’t noticed.

RUKMINI:                  (RECOVERING) See, Khan Sahib? Between the two of them, they made such a fool of me! I was so trusting! This girl was howling and weeping saying she would die if anything happened to dear Imtiaz. And it was all such a drama, we find out now!

KHAN:                        Of course, of course, how could we doubt such a wonderful girl? She has saved my son, and how fearlessly! She is our Rani of Jhansi!

RUKMINI:                  Khan Sahib, she could have told me the truth! A girl should tell her mother the truth, always, shouldn’t she, Sir?  I thought she was telling me the truth! It would have been…been…such an honour to make an alliance with your family!

KHAN:                        (HASTILY) Madamji, too great an honour for us, more than we can aspire to! Far higher!

RUKMINI:                  There was no need for all this drama. I believe in one God, Sir, I offer my prayers at dargahs. I feel we are all of one family!

KHAN:                        Very true, Madamji, we in India are all of one family! Under one God.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Now that we have achieved ecumenical consensus, I could do with  more ice for my whisky. Thank you, Kalpana.

                                    (KALPANA HOLDS OUT THE ICE BUCKET)

KRISHNAMURTI:     Thanks, just two cubes, don’t want to drown the scotch, you know, but I do need to cool my drink to below boiling point, it’s so bloody hot. Muggy as well, worse than yesterday. Kalpana?

KALPANA:                Yes, Sir?

KRISHNAMURTI:     Any news?

KALPANA:                You have posted Sachitanand by the telephone. Hope Imtiaz  calls him any minute now.

KRISHNAMURTI:     (CHUCKLING) That boy, Ghosh, I am surprised he ever got out of nursery school.

KHAN:                        But Sir, he is a very serious student of anthropology.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Now that you mention it, I can see he is something of a wild man.

SACHI:                       (SCREAMING, HOLDING ON TO A TELEPHONE) He is coming through! He has come out! Yes…yes! We are all here, Imtiaz!... Celebrating your release! Your victory! …Lal Salaam, Comrade! Long Live the Revolution, Comrade!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Khan Sahib, congratulations seems to be in order all round.

(SACHI RUNS OVER PANTING TO SHAKE KRISHNAMURTI BY THE HAND).

SACHI:                       (GASPING) Congratulations, Sir! Our President has been released unconditionally by the cowardly apparatus of the State!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Good, sit down, have a drink.

SACHI:                       Have to go, Sir. Imtiaz invited me to a game of squash at the Club.

GITA:                         (SUDDENLY) I will come too. The barman told me they had received a case of Mouton Cadet. We will celebrate. Bye! Bye all!

                                    (THEY BOTH RUN OUT OF THE FRONT DOOR, LAUGHING. A LITTLE QUIET, PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY)

KHAN:                        I cannot approve of young people drinking, I must say.

KRISHNAMURTI:     Look on the bright side, Sir. You can’t make Molotov cocktails with Bordeaux! 

KALPANA:                Sir, I instructed the cook about the biryani. I know how particular you are about slow cooking.

RUKMINI:                  (NOW SUAVE) What looked like a frightening tragedy at noon has just blown over by dinner time! Cheers! (LIFTING HER GLASS)

KRISHNAMURTI:     If it had happened to ordinary people it would have been another story, one of our countless tragedies. But we know how to take care of ourselves.

KALPANA:                May all our crises end in farce!

KRISHNAMURTI:     Amen to that!

                                    (LAUGHTER. THEY ALL RAISE THEIR GLASSES. LIGHTS DIM OUT.)

THE END