Neil Must Die
by
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Neil stared at the gray ceiling. The sky outside the small vent high up on the wall, shone brightly. It must be a sunny day outside. No one discerned it from this cell, so cut off from civilization.
He didn’t care. A year of confinement in this cell, away from reality had made all his senses grow numb. He liked it. He liked the numbness that was growing within him. He liked the way the police were treating him. He liked the second-degree tortures.
His bones had been broken near his elbow and jaw and mended without any treatment, over the period.
Despite Hassan’s repeated instructions to Shinde of not touching him or Remo physically, Shinde had a wonderful time spending his off hours with them. He even enjoyed sex with them. Neil began to enjoy the hours with him too. Those were his moments of penance. The case was going on for a year and they were not given bail, despite Hassan’s desperate attempts. They were kept in solitary cells and treated like animals.
The case would be over today. Today was the day of judgment. Neil knew what the judgment would be. So much had Hassan’s lawyer fed him with the slanted details that he was beginning to forget what really happened. Neil knew Hassan was trying to help him out.
But he knew the mafia man was trying to corner Remo. The entire cause for the mishap was getting slowly shifted onto Remo’s shoulders as the case proceeded. He felt bad for Remo. The boy had set a lot of hope on Hassan. But he had a series of extortion rackets and six murders in his books. Even God couldn’t come and help him out.
The only bright aspect of the case was that there were no witnesses to the murders he committed. He had been careful about that and Neil did not give him away. Even then, as the case proceeded Remo realized he was being slowly pushed against the wall. Remo became a bitter and broken man.
“Cheer up,” Neil had whispered to him the last day they crossed each other at the courtroom. “Things are going to go in our favor.”
Remo looked at him vacantly. “Things are going in 'your' favor.”
Neil was tempted to ask him, “Why?” but restrained himself. He wondered why Hassan was trying to pull him out of the case. He didn’t believe the big man would actually betray Remo. When Hassan came to meet him a week ago Neil had asked him directly.
“Why are you letting down Remo?”
Hassan had looked at him sadly. “That’s not your business,” he said calmly. He didn’t add, Remo’s becoming very powerful, an emergent threat. I want to put him off for a few years. He didn’t add, ‘It’s for you, son’.
Neil postponed the discussion. He was going to find out after he came out.
The hearing the last day went completely in his favor.
“And so M’Lord,” Atul Bakshi was summing up. “My client Remo Gujjar was pushed into firing in an act of defending his friend as Vikram Bhatt tried to push Neil overboard. As I told you repeatedly, it was a minor quarrel; about Remo not getting the copy of the contract they signed that day. My exhibits, of the contract signed by him, are with you. They were standing out in the terrace and talking casually. He was offering Remo a lot of money to buy him off. When he refused, Bhatt got abusive. Neil tried to calm him and Bhatt tried to push him overboard. It was then Remo took out his gun in an act of protecting his friend. Remo had no intentions of shooting. The gun accidentally took off in the tussle, two bullets hit him and Bhatt fell off the terrace, not being able to withstand the impact. The case is an open and shut one, M’lord.”
The 49-year-old lawyer had not a scrap of regret in his voice. Bhatt had cheated out on his brother long time back and made him hang himself. He thought Bhatt deserved to die. And to top it all, Rs 50 lakhs were in his pocket. Hassan had promised him another fifty, if he handled the case the way Hassan wanted him to.
The opposition lawyer was junior to Bakshi and was fed with Rs 10 lakhs for sinking the case. His defense was therefore meek and not supported by any witnesses. Bhatt didn’t have a high-ranking mafia man in his support. His widowed wife was fighting the case alone. And she knew she had lost it even before it had started. She had two small children. She didn’t want to lose them. It was as though Bakshi was the judge and was passing the verdict himself.
Though Bakshi clubbed Neil and Remo into the act and even haloed Remo’s action as that of a loyal friend trying to save Neil’s life, he had essentially cornered Remo. The gun was always in Remo’s hand and Neil was the innocent man caught up in the act. Neil knew what would be the verdict today. He would be a free man and Remo would serve the minimum imprisonment. For the kind of act they should have both been sentenced to death.
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About the Book
Neil Must Die is the journey of a young University-going man from his ensconced existence in a conventional society and family, to the outer world, where he is exposed to exploring into his own self and the world around him. The backdrop is set in India, in the early '90s, in a conservative city of Calcutta. Neil, a 23-year-old college-goer, is from an orthodox joint family background. He, however, has his own ideas and views of life which are quite non-conformist. Unassuming by nature, Neil keeps his opinions to himself. He is into casual addictions inside his college premises, majorly due to the fact that he wants to free his conscience from reacting to the social bugs that crawled all around him. His own future too is bleak in a city which was then ruled by a feeble, ineffective government. Another brilliant, yet, unpromising youth getting ready to join the bandwagon of unemployment, Neil suddenly finds his life turned upside-down when his brother gets married by an arranged-marriage set-up, and Tuli, his brother's newly-wedded wife, falls in love with Neil, instead of her husband. After many moons and many storms brewing in the household as a result of this, Neil steps out of his comfort-zone and relocates himself to another city, Mumbai. Here, exposed to the rugged world for the first time, Neil gets pulled into several anti-social and anti-moral activities... many of which he invites upon himself to try to escape his enormous emotion for Tuli. However, when Tuli writes to him saying that she was expecting his child, for the first time, Neil decides to turn around and take life by its horns. But Gods had other plans and they decide that Neil must die. A gritty book that leaves you holding your breath till the end!
About the Author
Kaberi Chatterjee is a journalist with years of experience working as a social reporter and writer in India with several major newspapers. She had started writing novels and short stories in English from a very early age. She had several published short stories, not including hundreds of reports and write-ups published in newspapers over years. Her short story 'I Do Not Love Her' won Oxford and Telegraph Award. She also wrote scripts for films and her short story ``Some Other Spring`` was made into a major motion picture, "Mon-Amour... Sesher Kabita Revisited". Her first book, 'Titir and Other Tales', a collection of short stories, was published from India in 2000. 'Neil Must Die' is her second novel. Kaberi loves traveling and adventure sports. She has traversed the Himalayas and participated in white water rafting. Kaberi is also a qualified classical dancer, which is her passion. She loves animals and nature.