Time&Tide

It has been seven years since I was sentenced to jail for contempt of court. A lot has happened in these seven years. For one, I changed countries and now live in Canada instead of my beloved India.

Seven years ago, I decided that I had to end my mind-numbing race against time and break free from what I came to see as an endless cycle of stories that needed to be retold every few years. Tales of corruption or misery, of lives lost or broken, and if I looked hard enough, perhaps some of human triumph- they repeated themselves with frightening regularity. Nothing ever got resolved, nothing really moved forward. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they remain the same. It was time for me to go.

I left- abruptly and without a goodbye to those who gave meaning to the life I had led till then. Much of my family had turned to dust with my father’s ashes, and I scooped up what remained of it and holding it close to my heart, I came here to another land, hoping for new beginnings after 25 years of journalism.

I know now that nothing new will grow when the old still chains my feet. The sun that rises over the land I left, is still my sun and no mountain is taller than the one that called out to me every summer. My ears strain for the music of monsoon.

I know now that tales must be retold and there are no doors between the past, the present, and the future. All flow in, from one to another, creating the mosaic called life.

So I write – of stories that I had once told. Some will be long- like the Sabharwal case for which three of my colleagues and I were sentenced to imprisonment for contempt of court. I hope you will bear with me, all my good friends who have always been by my side through good and bad. You know who you all are, and trust you me- I will always have you in my thoughts till the moment all thoughts cease.

I begin with ‘In Contempt’, because that’s how I meet the threat of retribution for writing the truth.

To be continued

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