Missing Mistry

I am told, it was around 1975- 77 period, when Indira Gandhi had imposed her emergency. The constitution of India does entitle the government to impose one, only in special circumstances like a threat of war from some other country.

The stories have remained etched in the minds of people. The empty editorial pages in express, the mass imprisonment of political leaders, etc. When once I asked my mother, why is it that , though all my uncles have more than two kids, one particular uncle does not, my dad replied, it was the time of the emergency, and Mr. Sanjay Gandhi was having a field day.

The consequence was a system where the owner tells other, I know better than you and since I have power you better listen to me. Damodaran in one of his webinars on Corporate finance is critical of these systems, he much rather prefers self correcting systems, where even though I might not have best people running the show, but responsive people who can own up their mistakes and correct them soon enough. Something, which works in the stock markets, over a period of time.

The consequences of emergency were many, but one that remained was the disillusion it left behind in people's mind. In this state, I guess Rohinton Mistry moved lock stock and barrel to Canada. For good.

The one thing, I would have loved to do is discuss with him, how did he feel when he was writing the sequence when Manek steps on the railway tracks, with Avinash's chessboard with him. Did he cry, when he was writing it ?

Had Mistry stayed back, to become some professor of English in Mumbai or any other place in India, I might have have gone up to him and attempted to draw him out. But, he left. For his own good.

It's been more than 30 years since that incident, and life has come one full circle for Mumbai. I don't know how many we might loose this time.