ATTN: MR. D. JACOBS

REQUEST FOLLOW-UP AT EARLIEST ON 06/24/75 SUPREME COURT RULING. ADVISE ON MRS. GANDHI’S STATUS AS PM. IN JEOPARDY? SUGGEST YOU FLY TO DELHI IMMED. RUMORED PROTESTS PLANNED OUTSIDE PM’S RESIDENCE.

KE

The day before, I’d filed a story on the Supreme Court’s conditional stay of Indira Gandhi’s guilty verdict, handed down earlier in the month by the Allahabad High Court. That first decision had voided the prime minister’s 1971 election victory and barred her from holding office for six years. The stay granted by the Supreme Court gave Mrs. Gandhi twenty days to prepare an appeal and allowed her to remain in office and perform the duties of the PM, but stripped her of the right to vote in parliament until the case had been heard. It was a dramatic development. Demonstrations were in the works across the nation to demand her resignation.

I needed to make travel arrangements. Inspector Lokhande could wait.

On first approach, Bombay assaults you, blinds and confuses you. The smoky air and muddy roads, rumbling taxis; the baking heat and the stinking garbage; the squawking crows; the visual pollution of billboards and signs covering buildings and blocking the sky. There’s rubble wherever you look, swept into piles alongside the footpaths, which, by the way, pedestrians never used. The road was so much more inviting.

Later, you begin to discover the city’s subtleties. Surprising urban scenes that charm and challenge your assumptions. A green parakeet, unfazed by the noise of the metropolis, perched in a tree; the flower seller, plucking marigold blooms from a basket and sewing them into a long garland; the horse-drawn carts competing gamely with automobiles; and even the white cow outside the local temple, chomping on bundles of grass, offerings from the supplicants.

Of course, none of those tableaux was on display in the pouring rain. Outside, I climbed into a black-and-yellow taxi and headed to the office.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 1975, 12:51 P.M.

Frank Muller summoned me to his cabin as soon as I arrived. That’s what they called personal offices in India: cabins. He was a good guy. Sometimes. Understanding and friendly one minute, screaming himself hoarse the next.

“So I’m off to Delhi?” I asked.

He squinted at me through the smoke irritating his eyes. Maybe if he gave the cigarettes a rest, he might be able to see. But he loved chain-smoking his Chesterfields, and a minor inconvenience like dry, red eyes wasn’t going to discourage him.

“I just got off the horn with New York. Chuck’s going to take the lead on this story.”

“Chuck? Chuck who?”

“Kohlner. He’s a stringer, based in Bangkok. But he happens to be in Delhi now.”

“What does he do in Bangkok?”

“Besides sampling the local hookers, bargirls, and hash? He writes the occasional piece on Vietnam and the war.”

“The war’s over. And now he’s in Delhi?”