Devulkar had a certain abnormal vagueness about him that was unreal and defied belief. That came across in both his slightly too easy-going, extra-cooperative manner and the ragged nature of his testimony.
'Who is the right Mekhail? Mekhail I or Mekhail II?'
The attempts to unearth the document started getting more and more frantic. The clerks began to flip pages of files full of documents, some hand written, some bearing thick seals or multiple stamps, some in Hindi, some in Marathi. Several junior lawyers joined in, perusing different files and dockets. But in spite of the best of efforts the document was not to be found.
'He totally gets the Gandhis...' 'If anything, he pays too much attention to the Gandhis.' 'I feel that in places like UP, where the Congress doesn't matter, he often spends time blasting the Gandhis.'
'Indrani gave a mirthless laugh on spying The Suitcase, from the accused enclosure and, in sign language, gestured the impossibility of anyone fitting in such a small bag.'
After 800 days, is it a little clearer that Accused No 1 through 4 are responsible for her death?
One always ponders over why the witnesses should not have poor memory when answering cross examination questions or recounting events that occurred six years ago. Too many witnesses seemed to have drunk some Harry Potter-esque Philosopher's Stone magic elixir that has Botoxed their fading memory to make it as good as new again.
'There are hundreds of items from Madhya Pradesh, Andhra, Rajasthan, Gujarat in Subhash Kapoor's loot. The Tamil Nadu Idol Wing wants to just prosecute Kapoor for three cases and close it. To me that's myopic.'
The lesson Waghmare sternly received on Monday from CBI Investigating Officer K K Singh and CBI Prosecutor Bharat Badami about the way a witness must answer questions from the defence seemed to have had only a marginal effect on him. On Tuesday the timid former office boy still chose, unpredictably and remarkably, to answer many a question in the manner of his choosing. He told the room categorically that he had asked Indrani's former secretary Kajal Sharma not to forge Sheena Bora's signature on her resignation letter.
'Our body functions in a particular system. We pass urine. We pass motions. We swallow food. We drink water. We breathe properly.' 'If there is an obstruction to any of these things -- difficulty swallowing, difficulty passing urine, passing blood in the urine, passing blood in the stools or severe pain anywhere, lasting for more than a month, or for example the skin, which covers our body, has a few moles that start increasing or bleeding... then you need to see a specialist.'
Why had the CBI decided to have Waghmare tell the court the tale surrounding this odd trip to Kolkata made for even odder reasons, close to a year-and-a-half after Sheena's murder? To show the kind of person Indrani was? And that the murder of her daughter was not a heat of the moment crime, given Indrani was capable of other odd, suspicious, premeditated acts like this?
Sameer Buddha was just the kind of witness Indrani's lawyer Sudeep Pasbola dislikes. Someone, who had temporarily dumped his memory before entering the court. He answered most questions, one after another, one after another, one after another, with a monotonous, deadpan: 'I don't remember.' 'I don't remember.' 'I don't remember.'
When it came to his cross examination by Sanjeev Khanna's lawyer Niranjan Mundargi, Imtiaz Shaikh appeared to be afflicted by that peculiar gap-in-one's-memory or Choosy Memory Syndrome with his recall of other dates in his life, except those directly related with the murder, shaky or non-existent.
Economist Dale W Jorgenson declares that India is doing "very, very well" and forecasts that India might continue to outrun world economies, including China over the next many years.
Annabel Mehta, Sachin Tendulkar's mother-in-law, has dedicated her life to working with the Beautiful People of the other half of Mumbai without whom the city would neither exist nor thrive. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel met the amazing lady who was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire for her service to underprivileged communities.
A pregnant woman is murdered in cold blood in the heart of suburban Mumbai. By her father who didn't want her to marry the man she did.
Badami asked Das if Indrani was in the room. Das, whipping out his hand and pointing it at Indrani, announced: "Yes, she is right there." Indrani, who was looking down, through most of the hearing, momentarily raised her eyes, just a fraction and glanced at him. That was the first time either of them looked at each other. Till then, and later, Das refused to look at her, as if he was not able to, either out of anger or revulsion. It seemed mutual. Indrani too pretended throughout like he did not exist.
Shivade then asked if the skeleton finally came out of the ground in many parts. It was difficult not to gasp aloud at that revelation. Bhagat said that was true.
'Could the Khar police and the CBI have tinkered with the driver's call data records?' 'And did their fiddling with the information not make it that they were tampering with the lives of people that were in the balance as a result of this case?'
Tuesday was the last that Courtroom 51 saw of Shyamvar Rai, accused No 3 and approver in the Sheena Bora murder trial. True to form, Rai's final hours in the witness box were rather acrimonious. His cross-examination at several points turned downright ugly.
Dr Kalyani Gomathinayagam, a young Indian doctor who volunteered to spend four weeks in west Africa helping those suffering and dying of Ebola, speaks to Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com why she took on an assignment many would shy away from.
Indrani, radiant in an immaculate white and gold salwar-kurta that matched the moment, her hair open, a bindi gleaming on her forehead, beamed placidly, fully enjoying this small minute of victory.
If the radical Islamic movement had been largely peaceful, Headley would have probably found another way to ensure real life excitement.' 'But I really do believe that his relationship with radical Islam is real. Very real.' 'It was a match for his desires.'
If Pasbola seemed like he was testing Rai on his high school physics, Rai on the other hand, had relocated himself to a classroom of philosophy, offering beautifully inexact answers, arrived at after deep thinking.
It is not often that Goswami's Nation-Wants-to-Know shows become material evidence in a murder trial no less. Nor was it something CBI Special Judge J C Jagdale was wildly enthused about. It had to be done because as he put it to CBI Special Public Prosecutor Kavita Patil caustically: "Your witnesses gave interviews to channels about a serious crime."
'India stands on the broad shoulders of an extraordinary civilisation. In some ways it is quite surprising that it hasn't fully embraced the power of that.' 'The prime minister speaks about Make in India. Let's remind ourselves also of Made in India. What made India great. What are the great things of the past which will help us make India even greater.' 'India stands on the broad shoulders of an extraordinary civilisation. In some ways it is quite surprising that it hasn't fully embraced the power of that.'
'When I give advice to my Indian relatives they are shocked.' 'I tell them to eat butter again and eggs and all that stuff.' And eat only so much rice.' 'Instead of having three chapattis, have one.' A must-read interview!
'Quite the raconteur, much to the dismay of Courtroom 51's CBI Special Judge Jayendra Chandrasen Jagdale, Christopher 'Doglis' Marquis, a Bandra dog-breeder who was Prosecution Witness No 57 and a panch or witness, seemed to move into the witness box with glee, embellishing every answer that he gave to the lawyers' questions with a variety of additional details.' Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
Lawyer: 'Did YOU not ever feel scared?' Shyamvar Rai: 'I am a driver, I said okay. Madam said it is your job...'
'I kept photographs of everyone. Because I was working for them.' 'Madam, Saab...' Shyamvar Rai, the approver in the case, said in a tone that tried to suggest that that would be a routine practice for a driver.
That answer, the strangest of all till date in this courtroom, set off a ripple of excitement, surprise and muted amusement among those present, including Accused No 1 Indrani Mukerjea.
In walked the scruffy band of pirates, without any swagger. Mostly tall or burly men, with weather beaten, resigned faces, the majority were dressed in track pants and tees; a few had skull caps. Some of their T-shirts had messages like 'I'm not in danger, I'm danger' or 'Long Beach California Surfer'.
As he was giving evidence, Dr Matcheswalla peremptorily summoned the CBI representative over to the witness box and whispered something. Indrani Mukerjea's advocate Sudeep Pasbola immediately cut in, wondering what he was up to: "Please, please, please." Dr Matcheswalla, looking innocently startled, said: "I was asking if I can order for tea."
Darjeeling is on the boil over the demand for a separate Gorkhaland state. June and July are bad months to have a strike. Tea picking during its most valuable season has been affected. Those consequences will be felt all over the world and ultimately damage Darjeeling tea.
'It was only relatively recently that Subhash Kapoor was able to secure the sources in India, Afghanistan and Cambodia, that allowed him to get the really highest level objects, and that helped propel him in recent years up the ranks.'
Finally to end the dispute, Sharma threatened to show her shoes. Pasbola declared regally that he would like to forgo that particular honour. Sharma ignored him. Instead, she bent down, took off her shoe and triumphantly held her prize aloft, and said delightedly, "Yeh dekhiye! (Have a look!)"
'15, 17 years back we were not even in existence in the US. Today nearly 1/3 of prescriptions written comes from India.' 'India is showing that in a very competitive environment -- like the US and Europe -- our industry is doing very well.'
Many pictures showed The Skeleton Named Sheena. For the purpose of the photographs, the skeleton had been re-assembled and looked straight at the camera.
The 25 odd witnesses that so far had given testimony had not come up with anything incriminating against Peter or the way Shivade characterised it -- "not even a whisper."
More noticeable than the hue of his shirt was his mast style in the witness box. He seemed to be reinventing the truth every few minutes. He yarned on and on, navigating his testimony further and further away from the facts, but he never lost his aplomb.
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