Sudeep Chakravarti weaves tapestry of trauma in ‘Fallen City’

Life’s but a play of contrasts. Evil lurks around the good, apathy sours the taste of empathy and concern, trust is shattered by deceit and a bustling, glittering city can hide hideous secrets in its underbelly. It is around these contrasts that Sudeep Chakravarti weaves the narrative of ‘Fallen City’. The abduction in broad daylight and subsequent murder of Geeta Chopra (17) and her brother Sanjay Chopra (15) in August 1978 shook the whole country, causing a sea of protests and a political storm. Two bright lives were crushed brutally in the national capital and a family was shattered forever, but the most frustrating part was the fact that it all could have been prevented. The two children who fought heroically for their lives could have been saved.

The author makes the readers not only revisit the ghastly crime, but also take a deep dive into that era — the late 1970s. He weaves the political and social scenario of the time with this grim saga, making ‘Fallen City’ a mini encyclopaedia of the political and social life of the time. The author has done extensive research not only on the incident and its details, but also on the events of those years, depicting the rot in the soul of the ‘fallen city’.

A seasoned journalist, Sudeep is meticulous in presenting facts. And the dichotomy of contrasts is palpable in his non-linear narrative all through. The author is clinical as well as deeply emotional. There are the stark numbing details of the post-mortem and confessions of the killers, which he presents without any “make-up” as if bringing the reader to confront the grotesque human depravity. At the same time, his words have an undercurrent of contempt over the way the police handled the case and the long winding road to justice for the ruthless ‘killers’, Billa-Ranga.

Much like a crisp movie script, the tightly-knit story moves at a fast pace without ever losing grip. In spite of so many side tracks explaining the political atmosphere, happenings of Emergency, Indira’s fall and rise again, the rise and the fall of the Janata Party government/leaders, killing of Indira Gandhi, anti-Sikh riots, Sudeep stays on track. The revulsion one feels about the criminals and their act, the sense of relief at their end, are all evoked due to the author’s inimitable style.

Having lived through the Nirbhaya case and the more recent Kolkata doctor’s case, one is forced to think — what has changed in over 45 years? Comparing the helplessness of Geeta and Sanjay with that of the Nirbhaya case victim, one can easily say, “Nothing much.” The crime, the public outrage, the political storm, the knee-jerk reaction of the police, the fight for justice and the final punishment for the guilty — all are pretty much the same still, just the faces of the victims and the perpetrators have changed. And Sudeep explains this déjà vu excellently: “Delhi has for long moved on by burying, not confronting or dealing with trauma… Geeta and Sanjay offered yet another opportunity to confront trauma, deal with it and find restitution with an outpouring of emotion. And then quietly bury it to be able to move on to ever newer traumas. Disquiet upon disquiet. Trauma upon trauma.”

Surely, a not-to-be-missed book.