THE STENCH OF INJUSTICE

It all began with a faint odor, barely noticeable, except to those few with keen and peculiar olfactory senses and the ones, especially of foreign lineage, with aquiline noses and enlarged nostrils, arched up or curiously angled to take larger quantities of air. It swarmed around certain parts of the building and stairwell, swirled around and sailed with the gentle breeze blowing softly through its corridors, in a spirit, its own.

The distinct putrid smell, was mistaken by some, as that from a rotting carcass of a rodent, stuck in a crevasse and hidden from sight, and passed off as transient or languorously dissipating. Those, overtly self-conscious, with weaker or smaller nostrils, just enough to take in air, but with no capacity of deciphering it, would stop and inspect the soles of their shoes, to see if it was not from excrement that may have been unknowingly trodden on and still lodged in its ridges. Others, the dandies and fussy ones, quick to lose composure at the slightest body odor, would bend their necks, discreetly and quickly, to take in a breath at their armpits, hoping their colognes and deodorants hadn’t warn off.

At first, it was weak enough, to be snubbed, perhaps brushed aside, turned a blind eye to, treated like a trifle and not taken note of. It wasn’t penetrating or overpowering, and could easily be taken as just another of the different smell that people of the city were habituated to. As long as it was contained or isolated, not in ones face and nostrils, it was bearable or perhaps even accepted as a necessary evil.

But with each passing day, the smell grew stronger, louder and brazen. It became overly malodorous, piercing and incisive. Even those with stuffed and congested noses or reeling from anosmia, began to sense something amiss. The haughty, high and mighty, who frequently graced the corridors and considered themselves chosen or privileged, and who otherwise would turn askance at any irregularity that didn’t seem to affect them, began to take notice. The men and women endowed with larger nasal organs, were the worst off, but would hardly complain, thinking that that would pronounce their difference and open them to ridicule. It was quickly turning ghastly and pervasive and appeared to increase in strength exponentially. It could no longer be ignored and was poised to breach the threshold to be called a contagion.

The task of suppressing the smell, limiting its spread or news of it to the general public, was becoming more challenging. It was now in striking distance of or already afflicting the honorable justices, comfortably nestled in the rarefied air of their vaulted chambers. The grapevine was abuzz that some of the judges were nauseated by the smell while others still oblivious. The many levers of power of the court were immediately activated into service.

Officers at the highest echelons, were summoned in camera before an en banc session. Without an opinion or report of any committee of experts with domain experience, sommeliers or perfumers, a diktat was hastily issued, in a characteristic laconic manner, as was wont in cases considered sensitive or to be tucked from prying eyes of reporters. “Find the source and stem the smell, else heads will roll. Compliance report to be filed within 2 weeks. Per Curiam”. Officers of the departments of sanitation, sewerage, solid waste management, health, public works department and fire brigade were scrambled together in close doors at the headquarters of the Municipal Corporation, with the Commissioner, his Deputies and Assistants in attendance, and tasked with setting out the course of action and quick implementation. 

Extreme confidentiality and highest levels of secrecy were to be maintained in the operations, lest word or the proverbial cat was out and a public spectacle or ridicule made, of the impotence of a powerful institution, to quell what would otherwise appear an innocuous issue in contrast to big ticket-constitutionally relevant-headline grabbing matters it was accustomed to and recognized for.

Labradors and shepherd dogs with handlers in tow, were immediately deputed to site, to identify the source of smell and just as quickly withdrawn from service. The odor had punctured their delicate epithelial lining, that delicate inner lining of their nostrils, and caused them to turn en masse on the handlers, most brutally.

The sanitation workers directed to inspect the entrails of the building, every gutter, open, closed, hidden or within sight, inside and in the vicinity of the building, for any and every trace of evidence that could remotely be attributed to the scourge, were beginning to experience trauma, up till then associated exclusively with manual scavenging, and required immediate hospitalization for various respiratory ailments, some yet to be diagnosed.

The smell, much like Pinocchio’s nose, ink on blotting paper, and rats of Hamelin, kept growing and spreading, was becoming difficult to contain. Since efforts at identifying the source of smell through conventional means, grew increasingly difficult nigh impossible, it was left to the speculators and theorists within the establishment, to lay bare their assumptions and suggest remedies.

Of the many reasons put forward on the causes and possible solutions, two merited consideration. The first, claimed it to be the handiwork of the monkey in the garb of a judge, sculpted in stone and tucked away in a corner of the building, presumably to mockingly represent the system responsible for a past injustice meted out to the contractor who had a role in its construction. The only way to placate the monkey was to find the contractor, and pay his dues denied him earlier by the very system he helped establish. But that would entail too much of digging up of or sifting through old records, most likely non-existent with the tardy record keeping, to locate the contractor or his heirs.

The other, more credible theory, attributed it to the growing injustice, and suggested the only way to stem the stench or reduce its intensity was to ensure greater fairness, transparency, impartiality, compassion and equity in justice dispensation, abstract as they were. Now this was too much to ask of the powers that be.

So instead, industrial scale fumigation was deployed, the likes never seen. Small scent diffusers were strategically installed so that they would be inconspicuous yet effective. Contract laborers were hired to wash down the superstructure and inspect its cornices, cracks, nooks and crannies to cover and destroy every minutest evidence of smell. Workers of the public works department were entrusted the work of identifying every sculpture, of human or animal form, in every nook and corner of the court, and to smother them into oblivion with plaster of Paris. But this was to no avail and only damaged the aesthetics and ornamentation of the building and interfered with the daily routine and functioning of the court.

The exercise spread over a fortnight, drew to a close and neared the imposed deadline. There was no letup in the smell. The only saving grace was a contrived perception that the smell, although still unbearable, had reached saturation and could not get any worse.

Focus and energies deftly switched towards saving face and finding an alibi, a ruse to deflect attention from the real issue, which came from an unlikely source. An ingenious junior engineer from the public works department, while noting down his observations on the probable causes of smell, had out of habit, inadvertently recorded that the building had long outlived its utility and was structurally compromised and coming through in parts.

It was unanimously decided, that in view of the imminent collapse of the justice system, the court would have to be relocated to or near the marshes on the fringes of the city, in the hope that once and for all, the stench of injustice would be buried, masked or made one with the hovering cornucopia of ghastly smell, amalgamated from carcasses, excrement, ogres, decay, grime, slush, dregs, waste and sewage, fresh and accumulated over centuries. In no time, an elaborate scheme was devised to navigate the labyrinth of justice, through a petition purportedly in the name, for and on behalf of the public, seeking largesse from the government, the courts most favored patron, in the form of a large plot of land to construct a new court building to accommodate the needs of present and future. In no time, an order was passed in favor of the court.

Jacob Kadantot

Advocate