Fiction: Ram Mohan realises the only way to live a respectable life is to hold some kind of power

Three months into the Emergency. The rains all but gone. Ram Mohan gets a call from Lucknow. The CM wanted to have a natter over tea with the members of the Commission during his forthcoming visit. Ram Mohan, on his own initiative, began meeting fellow members to discuss things to be raised with the CM, things for the sake of the greater efficiency of the Commission.

On learning that the CM’s office was being selective about whom to invite to tea, he cried in righteous anger, “What are these people playing at?” He was at the house of the member who hadn’t got a call from Lucknow but was the one he was most friendly with. They both had a political background and were once close to Baran Singh. Mr Indrajit, too, had an aversion to making money through dishonest means. While Ram Mohan made great play of his hatred for bribery, Mr Indrajit wasn’t so strident. He would rather have others talk about his uprightness. But Kanti believed that her husband’s warmth towards Mr Indrajit stemmed from something else. That he fancied Mr Indrajit’s wife, his second wife, over twenty-five years his junior.

Members invited to tea with Saansad-ji happened to...

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