Neelima Mathur

CLAY FEET AND CRUMBLING PEDESTALS – Neelima Mathur We need people to look up to. It keeps idealism alive. Over years, many such in my life showed they had feet of clay. The pedestal crumbled before my eyes…and today once again… This man was an ideal, who I would have termed as gentleman then. When I had the ‘honour’ of working closely with him, he was one of the keenest brains I had ever met. Almost all I know of climate change, alternative energy, inspiring citizens with positivity, was derived from him. Today, I see this man in his mid-70s at the cross-roads, accused of sexual harassment by a girl under thirty. No, I did not have any ugly sexual experience…but yes, there was an indication of power reflected in what a second complainant has mentioned. When she put in her resignation for a job abroad, this man allegedly threatened her that from the airport to the university, he had ‘friends’. I can verify – to myself – this is possible. We took a stand on the project we were working on with this man. He said, “Think about it. If you do not agree, we will be forced to look elsewhere.” We did not agree. It all just stopped overnight. So, then, it is really difficult for me to doubt what this second complainant says. About her neither being the first nor the last woman with whom ‘cases’ of sexual harassment have been continuing openly at the concerned prestigious organisation. A reader’s online comment to a report in a daily says, “everyone knows this…The police just has to go there and speak to the employees.” I took all the crying-out-foul facts of the first complainant with a pinch of salt. I just wanted to believe it was all wrong. Alas, ‘facts’ were staring me in my face. I dug in for the better part of 48 hours. For all the uncalled-for and power-driven clout that led to partial media gagging, I found clinching information. You can still read the SMSes. The man was chairing an international meeting abroad and ‘surreptitiously texts’ this girl as ‘proof’ of his ‘love’. Another where he promises to go on fast till she accepts his romance as divine and true. A Canadian investigative journalist rubbishes the argument of hacking over the past 17 months. These are the same devices on which work was done for the controversial climate change document a while ago. Maybe the man’s lawyer, also a cyber-law expert, thought this would cyber derail the investigations! The re-printed parts of a book review was an eye-opener. No one who reads the excerpts will have any doubt that this man has something sexually gone wrong with him since ever. The obsession with voluptuous breasts, naked bodies and lust of all kinds is revealing. A creeping thought came in. I recall this man proudly telling me, the only god he believes in – and for whom he fasts all day – is Lord Krishna. Okay. So, here we have the aura of Divine Lover, several Radhas, endless Raas Leela…Only, in the case of Krishna, it was the milkmaids who swooned on him. This earthly sexopath beckoned and stalked the girls. What a romanticised divine image of the SELF! I bet Alfred Nobel is turning in his grave...and the committee is squirming…