Broken Dreams by Aditya Banerjee

Author:Aditya Banerjee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aditya Banerjee
Published: 2020-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

7

The Club

When Shankar arrived at work that day, there were not one but two notes in his office. Both were from Alok. He found that surprising. First, he could not recall the last time Alok had come to the station before he did in the morning. Second, both the notes said the same thing. So, it must be serious, Shankar thought.

He wasn’t wrong. As soon as he entered Alok’s office, the supervisor politely asked everyone else except Shankar to leave. He closed the door, asked Shankar to take a seat, and quickly settled in across from him.

“Judge Shome has asked us to appear in her chambers tomorrow,” Alok finally said. Shankar knew he was worried.

“Why?”

“Have you read the papers this morning?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, take a look, and tell me what you make of it.” Alok handed the morning paper to Shankar and pointed to an article on the third page. It was written by Nitya about the robbery case. Most of it had to do with the facts surrounding that case. But there was a small paragraph questioning whether the police were right to link the robberies to Karan Lal’s slaying. Shankar read the piece and for the most part agreed with it. It was well written, and he wondered why it created such a fuss. The papers were always questioning everything. That was their job, and this one didn’t portray the police in a bad light, either. It merely raised the question whether the robberies had anything to do with Karan’s murder. Shankar himself had his doubts.

When Alok spoke, Shankar realized what the summons was all about.

“Gita Shome is the judge in the robbery case. Do you know who she is?”

“Yes, sir.”

Everyone in Callipur and especially at the club knew who she was. Gita was a trailblazer in her own right. She was one of the few women judges in India and only a handful in the state. She had a reputation of being no-nonsense, tough, but fair. She had been at the forefront of many landmark decisions in the state that had shaped the judicial system and its reach. She had resisted calls from the government during India’s Emergency to pass laws curbing the freedom of press in the newspapers and radio. Hence, it was even more surprising that she would summon the police and the press to her chambers based on this article. Shankar had seen the judge quite a few times in the club. He had never spoken to her, but he knew that folks either liked or disliked her. No one who knew her seemed to have a neutral opinion about her.

“Let’s get our stories straight on the case before we go to her chambers,” Alok said.

“Yes, sir.” Shankar could see that Alok was worried.

They spent the rest of the day reviewing both cases and rehearsing their responses to what the judge might ask. The next morning, before entering her chambers, Alok reminded Shankar of what he had said the previous day.

“Let me do most of the talking.

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