Serious Men

Basu, in a black suit and red tie, was at the centre; Nambodri was to his right. She did not know the other three men. They must have been in their fifties.
    One by one, the men rose to greet Oparna.
    ‘Please sit,’ Basu said graciously. She sat in one of the two austere chairs, wondering how these men knew this was the way it had to be done. Such an inquiry had no precedence, yet they knew they had to arrange the table that way and the chairs this way. She tried to imagine what would happen when Acharya arrived. She and he, together in this room on these chairs, would look like a terrible couple undergoing counselling. She tried, once again, not to laugh.
    She wondered how women would have handled this situation. What if the jury had been comprised of menopausal women? That was a disturbing thought. They would have butchered her in a minute. But this jury of ageing men was going to be easy.
    ‘You, of course, know Dr Jana Nambodri,’ Basu said smartly, and introduced the other three as senior scientists who were attached to various institutes in Delhi. From the way they looked at her, almost in appreciation or gratitude — she could not tell — it was evident to her that the jury shared a common grievance.
    The men examined some papers in front of them. Basu said, without looking up, ‘You have stated everything very clearly in your letter. Is there any change in your statement?’
    ‘No,’ she said.
    ‘When Acharya arrives you will have to repeat your statement in front of him. Is that all right with you?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said.
    The jury appeared a bit lost now, as if they had nothing more to say.
    ‘Are there any other statements you would like to make?’ Nambodri asked, one hand on the table, leaning back a bit in what he imagined was a charming way.
    ‘No,’ Oparna said, trying to think of the day her grandmother died so that she did not burst out laughing.
    ‘Acharya had considerable power over you,’ Nambodri said, trying to remind her gently of something she might have missed. ‘Did he misuse his power in any way apart from instructing you to falsify the report?’
    ‘No,’ she said, offering not even the curiosity of confusion.
    ‘What I am trying to say is, you are an attractive woman, a very attractive woman, and he was a powerful man who forced you to do something unethical. There must have been other moments when he used his position and made you feel vulnerable? Something that you were embarrassed to mention in your letter?’
    ‘If you are talking about sexual harassment,’ she said, ‘it is not he who I have a complaint against.’
    That inspired Nambodri to fall silent. The other men, too, had nothing more to say to her. They whispered among themselves. Two men looked at their watches. Basu pressed a bell and a clerk appeared at the door.
    ‘Has he come?’ Basu asked.
    ‘No, Sir,’ the clerk said, and vanished.
    The jury stared at Oparna with the embarrassment of having to wait for the accused. It was an awkward pause that began to disturb the confidence of Nambodri. He imagined the unrelenting presence of Acharya in the room and what it might do to the composure of everyone. Oparna might not be able to sustain the lie. He wanted her to be strong and play a decisive role. But he suspected that she did not fully understand the seriousness of the trial. He tried to draw her into the mood of the moment.
    ‘There were two American professors in the lab when you were studying the contents of the sampler,’ he said, ‘Michael White and Simon Gore. We spoke to them on the phone this morning on a conference call. They expressed their shock, and refused to believe that Acharya could have instructed you to tamper with the sampler. How did you manage to contaminate the sampler when they were around?’
    ‘They were not around when I did it,’ she said. ‘I did it around four in the morning.’
    ‘You were in the lab that early for the purpose of contaminating the sampler?’ Nambodri asked in an educative way, like a lawyer preparing the client for trial.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Acharya asked you to do it around that time, before the professors arrived?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Do you think it’s possible that the Americans too were involved in Acharya’s conspiracy?’
    ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘What proof do you have that Acharya asked you to tamper with the sampler?’ Basu asked.
    ‘I don’t have any proof,’ she said. ‘But, obviously, I have no motivation to make this