Custody (18 page)

Ashok phoned Shagun with the news. Their lawyer’s junior, all primed to take another date, had been spared the trouble. Then next week if the application came up for hearing, a date would be taken.

And after that another date. Only then would they file a reply. Only then.

What could the other side do? What
could
they do? Nothing.

Afterwards Shagun phoned her mother, the poor woman had been fretting since the morning – unable to grasp the way in which the courts functioned, unable to absorb the legal landscape that her daughter was continually trying to explain to her.

‘Bomb scare? Did anybody get hurt?’ she asked.

‘It was a
scare,
nothing happened.’

‘Beta, you must never go to court. These days, so much lawlessness everywhere. And the police are hopeless. Let the lawyer go – you are paying him so much.’

‘Ma,
I’ve told you before, he is an old school friend of Ashok’s – he is not charging us a paisa.’

‘Then how is he taking an interest?’

‘That’s the way their school works, the old-boy network is very strong. We are lucky, he is one of the best lawyers in Delhi.’

‘Beta, I don’t understand these things. Only be careful. Lots of terrorism everywhere.’

‘Right now we just want to get as many dates as we can. Let him see how it feels. All I asked for was my freedom, willing to let him have the children, still he tried to blackmail me. Bastard.’

Mrs Sabharwal couldn’t bear to participate when Shagun cursed the man she had lived with for so many years. ‘Don’t the children ask for him?’

‘No. They realise it’s either him or me, and they naturally prefer their mother to their father. How much time did he spend with them, that they should start missing him now?’

The man was working, he would come home tired, then both of you would go out, ran treacherously through Mrs Sabharwal’s mind. Such thoughts belonged unequivocally to the past.

On the 17th of August Raman phoned his cousin.

‘What is going to happen tomorrow?’

Nandan sighed. ‘Why don’t you come and see?’

‘Really? I think it will make a difference. Let the judge realise she is dealing with suffering human beings.’

‘Yes. Be there around eleven.’

‘Even earlier if necessary?’

‘Eleven is fine.’

‘Bye.’ The lightness in his cousin’s voice made Nandan wince. He hoped against all experience that the application would be heard.

Meanwhile Raman told his secretary he had to attend to important legal work, and she should reschedule his meetings.

This was the first time Raman was actually visiting Tees Hazari. As he followed Nandan’s junior into the labyrinth inside, he felt he was entering a large government hospital. The same mix of people from poor to well dressed, the same groups of huddlers, the same air of desperation, the smell of urine coming through open bathroom doors, pools around water coolers, paan-stained walls, a body or two stretched along corridors.

Finally they reached a court on the far end of the second floor. ‘Wait here,’ said the junior as they came to a foyer that opened onto two rooms. ‘Court of the Addl District Judge’ flaked in white letters above both doors. Outside each was a board with papers stuck to it.

Raman looked around, his nerves on edge. Would Shagun be present?

There were two benches against the wall crammed with people. Lawyers with files under their arms could be seen sauntering everywhere. ‘When will it be our turn? Where is Nandan?’ demanded Raman.

‘He’s just coming.’

‘Mr Nandan Kaushik said that it would be heard early.’

‘It’s last in the miscellaneous. Arranged datewise – our case is still new,’ said the junior casually, ambling towards a clone, slapping him on the back, generating bonhomie as though he were at a party.

‘Who was that?’ asked Raman when he returned.

‘The other side’s junior.’

‘You were
talking
to him?’

The man looked surprised. ‘He’s a friend of mine. Case won’t come up for a while, he says.’

It seemed very wrong to Raman that his side’s lawyers were consorting with the enemy. How would they fight, plot, plan, keep secrets, if they were friends?

‘Where is Nandan?’

‘He is just coming. Please you sit,’ said the junior, gesturing to the courtroom.

Inside was space to breathe and think. At the end of the room sat the judge, elevated and cordoned off, surrounded by litigants, their lawyers, families and supporters.

Raman took a seat in front, glad to be one step closer to the process that would decide his fate.

‘Your Honour,’ said a woman dressed in a white and black sari, ‘I must protest, this is the fifth time the respondent is trying to take a date. Please grant us some relief – my client is facing great financial distress.’ Next to her was a thin woman in a salwar kameez, sindhoor in her hair, bangles on her wrist, henna on her feet, all the signs of marriage. She had two children with her. God knew how far she had come, and how many times she had waited.

The other side’s lawyer asked for a postponement, and after some argument it was granted. The thin mother of two dully staggered out, while the clerk typed away.

At one the judge got up. Lunchtime. Nandan appeared.

‘Come.’

‘Where?’

‘We can get something to eat in the canteen, but it’s not very good.’

‘When’s the case?’

‘I have sent Bhasin to find out – my junior.’

‘He was talking to the other side’s lawyer.’

‘We have a professional relationship with everyone.’

Like whores.

Nandan was right – the food was bad. Raman could barely swallow the cold vadas, drink the too-sweet coffee. ‘I thought I would see Shagun,’ he probed.

‘She might come.’

‘But you don’t think so?’

‘I don’t know. Depends on the advice she is getting,’ said the non-committal Nandan, curved over his plate scooping the sambar into his mouth with a bent aluminium spoon. There was so much noise in the canteen that conversation was a strain.

‘Is it like this all the time?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you come here how often?’

‘Every day.’

‘You think the judge will hear our case?’

‘Can’t say.’

‘Why? Don’t they care about people’s time?’

He would look a big fool if there was no hearing, especially after he had taken half-day leave. The atmosphere of Tees Hazari was seeping into him, he could sense the hopelessness that hung in the air, the waiting that each aimless loiterer embodied.

Nandan patted his back soothingly and got up to pay. Lunch over, they returned to their designated courtroom to find only a few people. Judge gone for a meeting, said Bhasin as they entered. Nandan walked towards the clerk, who was brusquely greeting every fresh enquiry with the words ‘next week’.

‘Let’s go.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Today’s cases have been shifted to next week. That’s still not too bad.’

‘But didn’t she know she had a meeting? Why ruin everybody’s time?’

‘Sometimes we do get to know when the judge is going to be busy, sometimes not – it depends,’ said Nandan.

By now Raman knew better than to ask what it depended on. He felt sick to his stomach. Not only was one leave wasted, but he was no nearer seeing his children. ‘Tell me honestly – how long will all this take?’

The standard reply, not long.

They must be lying like this to everyone. That was why the place was like hell, the air thick with the collective despair emanating from the multitudes outside every courtroom.

‘But you must have
some
idea. Papa said you had never known failure. All your cases ended either in settlement or victory.’

‘That’s why I stick to Tees Hazari,’ said Nandan modestly. ‘Arre, everybody wants to practise in the High Court, in the Supreme Court. But then clients here suffer.’

‘And having a High Court lawyer like the other side does? That impresses the judge?’

‘Some judges do get impressed by a big name – but it is not worth it. Charges are too high, then instead of coming himself he sends his junior. Here everybody knows I am sincere.’

Eventually Raman managed to drag a time estimate out of his cousin. Around six months. The hearings for the main case would go on simultaneously, but the more interim applications there were, the more the main decision would be deferred, because those got heard first. If delays suited the other side, well, Nandan shrugged, sometimes people got lucky with a bribe that worked.

‘But you are already bribing the recorder and the clerk.’

‘That’s hardly bribing. Just a little tea money to make sure the work gets done.’

Raman drove back to office furious and miserable. The minute he entered, the phone rang. His father.

‘What happened, beta?’

‘Nothing. Another date. Nandan took care of the recorder so at least we will get an early one.’

‘How much?’

‘Two hundred.’

‘Hmmm. Nandan is a sincere boy. He knows.’

‘The steno, the clerk, all get a fixed cut. What kind of system is this?’

‘Arre, that’s why you have a lawyer. Leave it to him. And don’t worry.’

Everybody kept telling him not to worry. They did not apply that same brilliance to the problem of how to see his children.

XIV

It was around this time that Arjun started fussing over school. The first-term exams were scheduled for the end of August and he had never felt so unprepared. He had just scraped through in science, 10 on 25, and once again had had to forge his mother’s signature.

As he handed in the signed test paper his teacher asked him to stay behind during recess.

‘Is anything wrong, Arjun?’ she started. ‘Why have you suddenly begun doing so badly? All your junior school teachers thought very highly of you.’

Arjun remained silent while the teacher supplied her own answer. Students often found class VI difficult, the sudden increase in subjects, the leap from junior to middle school, the system of weekly tests all took getting used to, but he had to buck up. She would be very disappointed if he started slacking now.

Yes, Miss, he replied and walked slowly to the playground to join his friends, who would all want to know why he had been singled out. It had to be a reprimand of some sort.

The next morning his legs hurt so, he couldn’t get up.

Shagun pleaded: he was her big boy, too big to fuss, too big to stay in bed. See, even Roo was getting ready.

Arjun stubbornly clung to his pains.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Shagun over a breakfast that took place three hours later. He detected the entreaty in her voice, which made her seem the weaker one. This both dismayed and exhilarated him.

‘I’m not feeling well.’

She felt his forehead.

‘No fever.’

After a pause: ‘Do you miss your father?’

This question was dragged from her. Arjun was an intelligent child, their situation should have been clear by now. Ashok had offered to talk to him, but she had nervously refused, even though he had assured her that all he wanted was for Arjun to know he had a place in his life. But she hadn’t considered her son ready for such information.

‘Are we going back?’

‘No. I can’t go back.’

The boy played with his food. ‘Why?’

‘Don’t be silly, Arjun, you know why.’

He didn’t really. All his friends had their parents firmly in the background – to be lied to over minor matters like homework, to be avoided over baths, to be coaxed when something was wanted, to be obeyed when it came to tuition, to be pleased by doing well in tests. Nobody consciously thought about them. Now he was the different one.

‘I don’t want to go to school,’ he said suddenly, the problem becoming clear.

‘You have to.’

‘Why do I have to? You said your feelings had changed towards Papa, well mine have changed about VV.’

‘Don’t be such a silly-billy.’

He said nothing, continuing to play with his scrambled eggs, now quite cold.

‘Eat your food.’

‘I am not hungry.’

‘All you friends will get ahead of you if you start staying home for no reason. What—’ She paused, the words – will your father say? – dying in her momentarily amnesiac mind. She drew close to Arjun and stroked his hair, hoping to achieve through love what reasoning could not accomplish; he must go for her sake, how was he going to be big and smart if he did not go to school?, etc., etc.

His mother was giving this too much importance. He knew he could not, not go to school, and this kind of attention made him uncomfortable.

‘Can’t I go someplace else?’

‘Do you know how difficult admissions are?’

Arjun got up, went to the drawing room and impatiently flicked the remote at the TV. Cartoons he had long outgrown appeared on the screen. Roohi must have been watching this stupid channel last night as she was being fed. Listlessly he gazed as Pingu the penguin led his snowy childhood in some frozen Arctic landscape.

The next morning again Arjun complained of pain.

A doctor’s appointment was made.

‘It hurts when I walk,’ whined the child to Dr Jain.

‘Since when?’

‘A long time.’

‘Did you fall? Injure yourself playing?’

Arjun shook his head. Where was the question of playing? He wanted to shun all those who had known him.

‘He doesn’t go out much nowadays, Doctor – the work has suddenly increased in class VI. He remains quite long with his books, my boy has become very studious.’

‘Exercise is essential. If you fall sick how will that help your studies?’ observed the doctor absently as she checked his injection schedule, examined his reflexes, palpitated his abdomen, took his height and weight.

‘He is growing,’ she remarked.

His mother nodded.

‘Beta, wait outside,’ continued the doctor.

Arjun limped his way to the waiting room.

‘I can’t find any physical symptom. Sometimes there is an emotional cause. Is anything troubling him?’

Dr Jain had known the children since their births. She was well acquainted with Raman, and Shagun now felt unequal to the task of explaining which of all the recent changes in their lives might be the one (if any) that was causing her child stress.