Time unkindly has a sole endeavour: To drag the person, whose death you are mourning, further and further away from your presence, to some far edge of your falsely anesthetised mind. So your memories are drained of colour, growing faint and grainy. You are left with a more and more distant recollections of that person, their laugh, their embrace, their voice and the moments surrounding their final departure. Vaihayasi P Daniel mourns her beloved father who passed away one December morning last year.
Dramatic minutes like the sentencing by a judge or a round of artful cross examination hog all the attention in a courtroom. But more noteworthy and infinitely more memorable are the human moments -- Like when a brother and sister hug before a judge. Or the steady support between a husband and a wife in court.
Arthur J Pais charmed her and exasperated her. But, says Vaihayasi Pande Daniel as she bids him goodbye, it is the 'irrevocability' of death that 'stingingly puts into focus what you never realised you would miss terribly.'
Generations of Indian Americans have had Arthur first note their feats and recount it to the world. And that is why so many desis across America have been saddened by his passing.
'If India maintains the Constitutional set-up that its founders envisaged -- which is that it is a parliamentary democracy, with a broadly speaking market economy, in which all people are equal as everyone votes, in which the rights of minorities are respected -- that will be a great thing.' 'Not just for India. But for humanity.'
'No civilised nation can thrive if it is possessed with the spirit of Hindutva.'
'If I have to write a letter I will give it to the media. They will put it out.'
'Over one million people served in various battlefronts during World War I. And yet, even today, we know so very little about them.' 'It is absolutely essential to acknowledge this part of India's colonial history,' Santanu Das tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com
Pragya Singh Thakur remained at the back of the courtroom during Tuesday's framing of the charges, her face serene, quite different from the fiery person one read about or saw on television. But once the day's proceedings were over and she was wheeled out, the sadhvi decided she actually was very keen to meet the media and headed right out into the melee, says Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com.
He was getting fruits, but no implement to cut them with. He told the judge, sadly: "I have tried and it is very difficult, your honour." His statement quickly brought up the imagery of Peter trying to cut a pineapple with his teeth or a papaya with a pen or a toothbrush.
Indrani exclaimed excitedly, her face lighting up like a little girl's: "I know him soo0o well." Sanjeev Khanna, Accused No 2, jokingly suggested to Badami: "Influencing the witness!" Badami retorted good humouredly: "She can't influence witnesses. She can only influence you and Peter."
Pasbola had a number of queries about the nails of the corpse found at Gagode Khurd. Did it have nails? Nails, in a case of strangulation, are key because they often have particles and skin beneath them to show the victim had been grasping something as s/he was strangled.
Maruti Warke's basic understanding illustrated how far outside the system most less privileged Indians are -- simple, innocent people barely but admirably eking out an existence, with almost no knowledge of their surroundings or owning even the basic smarts to go about life. The same people who instinctively and often astutely vote governments into and out of office in New Delhi without knowing the entire reality of this country. The folks who are actually the essence of India.
'In any business you have to achieve short-term goals.' 'But at the same time you have to keep your broader perspective long term.' 'It is good for business survival.'
Shivade: "You didn't find any brain inside the brain cavity?" Dr Thakur nodded. The judge shocked: "Huh?!"
Ganesh Dhene said there had only been two or three mango trees in the grove, from where he found the skeleton, which he specified had no flesh on it.
'Hinduism is not a religion, but a way of life, a philosophy.'
Happy with her latest move, Indrani departed from Courtroom 51 with a spring in her step. The woman who hopped up into the jail truck was a cheerful one.
'Nehru had multiple chances to make compromises, that would have preserved a united India, and he chose not to,' Nisid Hajari tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com
'I went to slums in India which were quite destitute, where people were clearly really struggling, but typically there is a sort of sense of purpose.' 'People are hustling.' 'What that tells you is that if the country was so organised in a way to give these people opportunity, then they would make something of it.'
'Most likely scenario is Modi comes back with either a much smaller majority and no majority at all and a coalition.' 'Very hard to imagine him doing better than he did last time.' 'He will then be a weaker prime minister,' the author of The Billionaire Raj tells Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
'There are a lot of positive things these reforms are bringing about and it is only a matter of some quarters before the growth rate picks up momentum.' 'Until then we need to be a little bit patient.'
The last seven Indian sailors held hostage by Somali pirates were released October 30. Chirag Bahri, Indian coordinator for the Maritime Piracy Humanitarian Response Programme that aids piracy survivors and their families, speaks to Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com on how the near-impossible was achieved.
So concluded a day in court that saw a woman accused of murder don a fresh role of heroine of the moment. Even Bollywood couldn't have come up with such a curious twist.
Indrani is easily the most striking woman arriving in the court complex from jail on trial days. For those who don't know who she is, there is absurd puzzlement written large on faces when they bump into her. When she reaches or leaves the premises, one notices heads swivelling in jaw-dropping curiosity, as did a pair of transsexual undertrials who crossed her path at the last hearing of 2018, who were, not surprisingly, a less unusual sight than Indrani.
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.
'It is vital that objects such as the Harihara -- and collections from South Asia generally -- remain here,' the British Museum tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
It would seem that Indrani's application was not something prepared or maybe even sanctioned by her lawyers and was a courtroom enterprise she had embarked on by herself, perhaps not realising it distracted from the main business of the trial and didn't help her cause.
'At the back of the courtroom the three accused sat trying to catch the drift and fathom the new, inexplicable turn the case could be taking.' 'And the consequences it might have on their lives.'
'The fragility of this case is that taking a side could be a fallacy to do. Because you don't have all the answers. So how do you take one particular side?' Meghna Gulzar asks Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com
The warmest reception came from his soon-to-be ex wife Indrani, who on spying him getting out of the lift, muttered an "Oh dear!" and walked over to him, trailed by her police guards, wreathed in high-wattage smiles.
He is, at the closing of 2018, a man quite different from the Peter Mukerjea who entered judicial custody three-and-a-half years ago. He is a man not yet convicted of a crime, but already suffering for it, like the hundreds that enter these courts every day and the thousands Peter shares jail space with in a central Mumbai prison.
'India is a major target for ISIS and Al Qaeda because it has a very large Muslim Diaspora, regular conflicts with a Muslim country and experiences violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims on a regular basis.' 'This provides for a very stable breeding ground for jihadist radicalisation and recruitment.'
'The obsession of the Pakistan army with India leads to several destabilising things. Support for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Support for groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, that have attacked India. Every time you get an attack like that there is a possibility of a war. And then the build up of the their nuclear arsenals. Chances of a nuclear weapon landing in the hands of a terrorist group, or a nuclear war breaking out, are tiny. But they are higher here than anywhere else in the world.'
Her great grandfather began sugar co-operatives in Maharashtra. Her grandfather was an eight time MP. Her uncle is currently leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra assembly. Her cousin joined the BJP on Tuesday, March 12. Nila Vikhe Patil, who could one day become prime minister of Sweden, unravels her India connections in an e-mail interaction with Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
From the hilariously funny Harold and Kumar series, Kal Penn moves on to the more serious Bhopal: A Prayer For Rain, his first Hindi film. On the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy, the actor discusses his movie with Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/ Rediff.com
Her elfin face could be seen and once more after many days the victim of this murder had a face and a presence.
'Raza exemplified a sense of warmth and a connectedness to his roots and to Indian earth.'
'Without it, it is going to be much, much, much, much worse.' 'In the meantime, we really need to work on a sort of war footing, given that it is a natural disaster, provide relief, provide essentials, till we get biological herd immunity, we need to get economic immunity, and also social immunity.'
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