CASé-ßLANK-Ah!!! (sic): "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

ALL SINS FORGIVEN
"Prosecution closed": two words I've been yearning to hear for the past year. Well, it finally happened today, with the testimony of the investigating officer (IO) Mr AGL Kaul, Dy.SP/SCB/CBI, having been duly recorded. Afterwards, when the proceedings had been adjourned for the day, we met and shook hands, possibly for the last time, under the blaze of media. I gave him a pre-publication copy of my poetry, composed in jail. He asked me to inscribe it. I did: "for K., my persecutor & friend: with love, Amit". In another world, under different circumstances, on different frequencies- to paraphrase James Joyce from Ulysses- he and I might even have been friends: an idea that is at once a lament and a hope.

In any event, I am grateful to Mr Pankaj, press-photographer with the Chhattisgarh newspaper, for giving me the photograph that appears here.


AJ