Crime & Karma

In the pile of mail on my desk, a mutilated envelope with an overseas postal stamp caught my eyes. I opened it to find the familiar new year greeting card signed “Sunder and” in red with a smiley drawn below it. It also had a photo print of a family photograph. A faint smile came to my lips. The man in the photograph had aged and had wrinkles on his withered face but I could never fail in recognising him. Next to him stood a middle-aged fair and slim woman, head covered with an embroidered scarf and a fair-complexioned girl in her early twenties with quaint eyes, smiling to the camera. For the last seventeen years, those cards would somehow land on my office desk around this time with the same scribble, sometimes with a small note with broken words of pleasantries or a photograph. I had never acknowledged them or replied but they kept on coming to me every new year eve, hurdling me 18 years back to Mumbai (then Bombay) when I had my first encounter with Sunder and Lakshmi.

1992, Bombay

The battered courtroom was beginning to fill slowly. The huge British era room was cluttered with rickety furniture and dirty bundles of documents wrapped in red muslin, piled all around. The cramped room smelled of mould and brittle and yellowed documents. A tired fan blackened by dust and soot hanged from a wooden beam in the high ceiling, its rusty blades slowly rotating with painful squeaks. The front row of chairs in the courtroom was mostly occupied by clerks and lawyers in their black jackets. Against a windowless wall, a few under trials sat on a backless bench, accompanied with uniformed sentries who clutched their fingers, waiting for their fate to be announced. Some of them would be sentenced, some freed while some would be remanded to judicial custody when their turn came. One of the undertrials exclaimed with joy on seeing a family member inside the court and was promptly rebuked by the sentry. A few others were trying to look over the shoulders in the crowd for their relatives and loved ones and would grimace when they found none.

I entered the courtroom a little before the Magistrate was to take his seat and headed straight to the public prosecutor who was saddled in a chair in the front row. After a brief conversation with him, I backed off, looking for a place to settle down.

I saw Sunder sitting on the bench with other under trials, next to the sentry in uniform. He wore a white shirt and a crumpled pair of dirty and worn-out jeans. His lips were dry and dishevelled hair hung on his tiny shoulders. Alerted by my gaze, he raised his head slightly and looked at me with desolate eyes. I was intrigued and curious to know what he could have been thinking of me! I was his persecutor, the “bete noir”; I was the reason he was there, facing trial and most probably a harsh punishment for his crime! I wondered if he was still hanging with his thin thread of hope that I could save him, give him a chance to bewail and let him absolve himself of his deeds, set him free.

In my career as a narcotics enforcement officer, I had closely studied many of my subjects- novices, intelligent ones and hardened criminals. A few of them repented for their deeds after being caught and even show remorse while some of the more sombre ones would open up their past lives to me and seek help in undoing their crime and rehabilitating their souls. The more hardened ones would not express their regret; they thought that the system was not in their favour and hence their deeds were consequential and well-grounded. However, I felt that remorse might be lurking in deep corners of their hearts too, waiting for more persuasion and concerted effort to scoop it out.

Sunder was a “drug mule,” a traveller who carries narcotics for others in lieu of money. To become a drug mule, one needs very strong motivation, as the consequences of being caught were serious. Most of the time, instant gratification happened to be the best motivator as the compensation was good which included a journey to a “foreign” country and a fat compensation on successful delivery. The lure often obliterated the risks of being arrested and harsh punishment, even the death penalty in some countries.

I had arrested Sunder a couple of days back at the airport while he was attempting to smuggle out heroin. He came from a small village in the mountains of Satyavati district in Nepal where he had his wife, mother and a girl child as he had told me while recording his statement.

“They won’t survive without me, there is none in the family to feed them. Please have mercy on me, Sir,” he had wailed when I explained to him the impending doom of trial and punishment if convicted. As the insurmountable consequences of his act unfolded before his eyes, I could see his desperation to undo his past and the crime he had committed. During the search, I had found a photograph of his wife, a young petite woman and a little daughter, smiling and hugging each other at the door of their humble home in the mountains.

“You should have thought of them before doing this. You reap what you sow, now you must face the consequences,” I had told him. “But if you help us nabbing the masterminds who gave you the drug, I will see to it that you get a lesser term,” I tried to comfort him. Nonetheless, I was sure that he won’t be having any clue about the real plotters. Narcotics trafficking has a multi-layered chain of commands from veiled identities and pseudo names and a drug mule stood no chance to find out or identify the real hatchers of the plan.

The lunch recess for the day was over and as the bailiff took his position near the door of the anteroom which opened near the huge deck on the wooden dais, the murmur inside the room receded to hushed tones. In a few minutes time, the bailiff announced the arrival of the Magistrate in a stern voice. The courtroom had a pin drop silence, except the screeching sound of the battered ceiling fan. No sooner the Magistrate had settled in his chair behind his huge desk, the bailiff began calling cases by their numbers in his rhetoric voice.

“Sunder Chankhe Tamang versus Union Of India” the bailiff announced without looking away from his list. Coaxed by the constable, Sunder stood, hands folded, his eyes moving between me and the Magistrate expectantly. After a brief hearing and a lame appeal by the defence counsel, the Magistrate scribbled on his file and announced curtly, “Fourteen days remand to Judicial custody, department to file an interim investigation progress report on the next date.” Before Sunder could understand a word of the order, the sentry dragged him out of the court to the waiting Jail van.

To me, it was just another case and another accused. We would complete the investigation in a couple of months or so while Sunder would be in judicial custody followed by a sentence! It was an open and shut case, another closed file stacked in the closet and another accused left to rot among the high prison walls. Sunder‘s name would soon be relegated to just a case number in the files. My job would be over, in the line of my duties.

Little did I know that the events that would unfold in the coming days would realign my surmise of actions and their reverberations, my beliefs on karma and change the way I reckoned my deeds and their prevalence over others’ lives. It was going to shake my preconceived notions of actions and their consequences. I had no inkling of the storm which was lurking to hit Sunder and my understanding of crime and punishment.

A week later, I had to visit him in the jail to record his further statement. Sunder was summoned in the Jailor’s room when I arrived. He had shrunk, standing in a dejected posture in the centre of the bare room with just a table and a couple of chairs. His eyes were hollowed and his head hung on his tiny shoulders. I was not surprised. I had seen how life in jails broke even hardened criminals, especially the ‘emotional types’ or those with families they adored and the ones who were repentant of their wrongdoings! Solitude, fear of a new and hostile place and the horrendous life in confinement battered them.

I sat on the chair and gestured for him to sit across the table so I could scribe his statement. He sat, his face hung on his chest in dejection. I could see that he was crying silently, wiping his tears. Then all of a sudden, he clutched my palm and wept bitterly. I was a bit unnerved, though not surprised, and freed my hands gently. “Are you alright? Did anyone trouble you here?” I tried to show concern.

He cried inconsolably, trying to speak but the words were muffled by his sobs.

“Sir, please help me, I have no one else to help me out. Please save my wife Sir.” He managed to speak.

I was taken aback. “What about your wife; what happened to her?” I had not expected this.

In a voice laced with desperation and broken by sobs, he said, “Sir, when I came here, I received a letter from her saying that she was on her way to Bombay to see me and would reach the day before yesterday. But my lawyer told me yesterday that he had not heard from her so far. Last night, an inmate was brought here from a red light area and was kept in my cell. This morning he told me that a Nepali woman was kidnapped from Bombay Central station a couple of days back and taken to some brothel in Kamathipura. When I showed him my wife’s photograph, he confirmed that he had seen her and was sure that it was her. Sir, he is a pimp, he cannot be wrong,” Sunder broke down, clutching my hands even harder.

“For God’s sake, help me, sir, I will never do anything wrong again in my life. I swear on her and my daughter. I have ruined my family.” He sobbed, grabbing his brittle hair, tears of desperation rolling down his cheeks.

“You had told me that you reap what you sow, but look at me Sir, I am reaping a hundred times of what I sowed! She did nothing wrong but then why God is punishing her for what I did!” He got up from his chair and fell on my feet, pleading and crying. I was stunned by the shockwaves of his pain and remorse, hitting hard in my face! I did want him to face the consequences of his crime but would the consequences go so far? Was his wife destined to take the punishment for his deeds, and if so, who would decide the quantum of that punishment and why? I had no answers!

My concern had ignited a tiny sparkle of hope in his eyes swollen with tears. With trembling fingers, he pushed the photograph in my palms,

” Sir, give me a death sentence, but why she should be punished for my crime, please do something” he pleaded desperately.

I came back home, questions pounding my conscience, my thoughts struggling to find a ground where I could see actions and their emanation more clearly. Was Sunder’s karma behind the impending doom of his wife? Or do our karma have ramifications more than what is visible, like an iron ball hitting a concrete wall, making a small dent on it while the shockwaves running inside the wall are imperceptible! “Do our karma really have a proportionate effect?” My eyes devoid of sleep, I pondered. And then I questioned myself, “Was the pain of remorse not a bigger punishment than confinement! I could see that Sunder had served a life term in prison in the last three days, rolling in pain and penitence on the dusty floors of his cell. Can mere confinement absolve one’s crimes or purify souls? Can true remorse bring the criminal out and make it confront the corrupted souls?

I had no answers to any of my questions. I tried to catch sleep but my struggle to untangle the web of paradoxes kept me almost awake that night.

The next morning I woke up after a short feverish spell of sleep, the photograph of Sunder’s wife and daughter still clinging to my fingers. Looking at their smiling faces, I made up my mind.

The station in charge of the police station which controlled the red light district was an old friend. I called him and arrived at his office an hour later.

“Are you crazy?” He looked at me with bewilderment, “is she connected to any of your cases?”

“Rathore, this is far more important than that. Please do not ask any questions, just do it,” I insisted.

“Well, it is like searching a needle in a haystack; you know how cleverly they hid their prey and if they have already sold the woman, it would be even more difficult to trace her,” he was noncommittal.

“Do whatever it takes to dig her out, but you must rescue this woman, for my sake, please.” I pushed the photograph of Sunder’s family in his palms and left.

I grew restless in the coming days as there was no word from Rathore. I tried hard to forget Sunder’s quandary and desperation, but the images of his innocent wife and daughter kept haunting me. After almost two weeks, just a day before Sunder’s next remand, Rathore called me. “You are damn lucky, we have found the woman and also arrested a few men. If you want to meet her, come over before we move her to a safe house,” he sounded triumphant. Before he could hang the phone, I jumped from my chair and rushed to my car.

She sat in a corner, flanked by two women from some NGO who would be sheltering her before she was sent back to her home. I introduced myself meekly to the terrified woman, ravaged by the events which had shaken her to the core. She raised her head, keeping her gaze low and asked in a feeble voice, laced with despair and hope at the same time, “is he alright?”

“I will get you to meet him tomorrow, at the court,” I tried to assure her. I got no answer but a blank stare from a pair of moist and helpless eyes.

The next day, before Sunder arrived at the court, I was there, waiting for him. As soon as he alighted from the Van, his hands tied, he looked for me and found me standing near the entrance to the corridor of the building. He had shrunk and his desperate eyes were even more hollowed. Those forlorn eyes were asking me the same question a million times in a millionth of seconds! I smiled and pointed to the bench in the corridor where she sat, flanked by the volunteers. At first, he could not see anything in the dimly lit patio, his eyes blinded by the glare of the sun. Then he saw her and ran almost dragging the constable with him. He cupped her face in his tiny palms and then he embraced her. They cried over each other’s shoulder for several minutes, occasionally looking at me with gratitude as if I was their saviour and not persecutor who had stormed their lives.

I turned my eyes away.

The verdict came a couple of months later. Sunder was sentenced to five years in prison which he chose not to appeal against. It was strange as most would, but just two of us knew the reason. Sunder had chosen to settle his score with his karma. By accepting the punishment, he wanted to reconcile with fate, to reap what he had sowed. His acceptance of the punishment was a tribute to his belief in his fate which he had chosen not to fight with!

That was the last day I had seen Sunder when he was sentenced and taken to Jail. Before leaving the court after the pronouncement of his sentence, he requested me to help her wife reach their home safely. I did see that she had a safe passage and even sent one of my trusted men to accompany her.

After all, this happened, I never tried to contact Sunder, nor did he. After about four years, I received a letter from him saying that he was released early for his good conduct in jail. He also wrote that before going back to his home, he had gone to my office to see me and requested an officer to convey his regards to me as I had relocated to Delhi.

Sunder sends me the greeting cards every new eve with a new photograph of his family. I have never replied or acknowledged them but this was one case that changed my view of life, crime and karma and the intricate mesh in which they are entwined in the matrix of actions and their repercussions.

I carefully slid the card and the photograph into the envelope and put them gently in my drawer.