Then came the electrifying climax of Tuesday's hearing. Pasbola showed Sharma copies of cheques that had been deposited at the bank with Indrani's signature on them. He accused Sharma of forging Indrani's signature and collecting the money for herself. In the back Indrani stood up in the accused box and very pointedly nodded her head up and down and mouthed, "She did!".
Mekhail hopped off the bench in a hurry and turning his back to Indrani, stood at the window. Indrani ignored him too. Mekhail is getting married later this year. His mother will, of course, not be in attendance. Nor, of course, would he want her to be there, if she could.
Though on the face of it appeared Pasbola was asking a series of odd questions that would be difficult for anyone to answer, there was, it gradually emerged, it seemed, a method to the questioning. Somehow, somewhere instinctively, Pasbola knew there was something not right with Riyaz's account.
With Narendra Modi about to make his first Independence Day speech, there is a buzz in Delhi that Modi will make some big announcements to signal major reforms and directional shifts. But we have to wait and see if it happens, says Mohan Guruswamy.
Opposition on Monday picked holes in various government decisions like demonetisation and surgical strikes as well as allocation of funds for MNREGA, agriculture sector and Scheduled Castes, saying it has failed on all fronts despite which it is trying to "fool" the people.
'2016 was the age of convenience for Hindi movies; of down pat effrontery and planned feeling triumphing over attempts to discern something complexly beautiful,' says Sreehari Nair.