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In the late 1950s, Bombay was rocked by the murder of a Sindhi
playboy by a handsome and highlydecorated Parsi naval commander.
Kawas Nanavati shot dead family friend PremAhuja when he learnt
ofhis intimacy with his beautiful English wife, Sylvia. Because of
its cosmopolitan dramatis personae andelite social geography
involving Malabar Hill and Cuffe Parade, the trial, which came to
be known as theNanavati case and which involved some of the best
legal minds of that era, had Bombay hooked. TheNanavati case was
also Indias first media trial and goaded by a highly charged, often
skewed, coverage bythe tabloids of the time, the Parsis took to the
streets in support of Nanavati. There were also reports of arift
between the influential Parsi and Sindhi communities. It was not
just the psyche of the city that itimpacted, the trial also
hastened the abolishment of the jury system. In many ways, it was a
raucousharbinger of things to come. On the 50th anniversary of the
Nanavati case, MW walks down fadingmemory lane.
Love, Death And Scandal In Bombay
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By Murali K Menon Issue October 2009
On the afternoon of April 27, 1959 Commander Kawas Maneckshaw
Nanavati stepped outof his home in Cuffe Parade, Colaba, on a short
but tragically momentous journey. Alongwith him in his car were his
English wife Sylvia, 30, and two children. An alumnus of theRoyal
Navy College in Dartmouth, the handsome, well-built and well-liked
ofNicer wassecond in command of the Indian Navys Nlagship INS
Mysore. He had seen action onvarious fronts during WW-II, had been
awarded many medals for gallantry and was amongthose who were
especially recommended by Lord Louis Mountbatten as the
Britishmarched out of India. Just 37, Nanavati, who, it would seem,
embodied the ideal of anofNicer and a gentleman, had a lot to look
forward to. But just before lunch that day, hisworld came crumbling
down. Sylvia, whom Nanavati had met in England in 1949,
hadconfessed to him that she was in love with another man, a family
friend called Prem Ahuja.
As he drove their car past the Nishing boats at Badhwar Park,
through the pong of drying
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Nish, and along Azad Maidan, Nanavatis demeanour betrayed
neither the humiliation northe vengeance-fuelled anger of the
cuckold. As was previously decided, he dropped thekids and Sylvia
at Metro Cinema for a matinee show of Tom Thumb. He then drove
towardsBombay Harbour where his ship was docked, informed the
captain that he was leaving byroad for Ahmednagar and requested him
for permission to draw a revolver and six rounds.He put the gun
into an envelope and pointed his car in the direction of Universal
Motors, aWillys Jeep showroom owned by Ahuja, on Peddar Road in
south Bombay. But Ahuja hadgone home for lunch and was probably
still there. Nanavati got back into his car andheaded towards
Ahujas Nlat in Setalvad Lane off Napean Sea Road, near Malabar
Hill.
With wavy hair, thick eyebrows and an evolved sense of the
sartorial, Prem BhagwandasAhuja cut an attractive Nigure. Ahuja,
34, was an excellent dancer. He also had a history ofseduction and
a penchant for bedding the wives of ofNicers in the Armed Forces. A
regularpresence at many of Bombays British-era clubs and Services
parties, Ahuja ensnaredmany a forlorn woman with his rakish charm.
According to the Blitz, the racy left-leaningtabloid which folded
in the mid-1990s, Ahuja was a gay Lothario who loved to graze
inother peoples pastures. He had started his career as a
philandering playboy rather early inlife. Even in Karachi (the
Ahujas migrated to India after Partition and Ahuja stayed with
hissister Mamie) he had run away and gone through a form of
marriage with her It was alsosaid that Ahuja, the recipient of many
epistolary dedications and photographs, never wroteto any of his
lovers nor did he ever part with any of his pictures. Ahuja had
just Ninishedhaving his bath when Nanavati was let into his third
Nloor apartment by the housemaid.Nanavati walked into Ahujas
bedroom and closed the door behind him. A little later, threeshots
rang out. Ahuja, clad only in a towel, lay slumped on the Nloor.
Nanavati walked out ofthe apartment, past the anguished cries of
Mamie. He then drove down Malabar Hill, askeda police constable at
the gates of Raj Bhavan for directions to the nearest police
station andupon being directed, drove to the nearby Gamdevi Police
Station to surrender himself.
Below: The dramatis personae: (top left to right) Commander
Kawas Nanavati, the cuckold;Sylvia Nanavati, his beautiful English
wife; Prem Ahuja, the playboy paramour; (bottom leftto right) Ram
Jethmalani, the lawyer consulted by the prosecution; Reginald
Pierce, the onlyjuror who voted against Nanavati
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The sequence of events triggered by Sylvias confession and which
ultimately led to Ahujasdeath birthed an episode that is still
unparalleled not just for the tremendous recall it has50 years
since, but also because of the seismic impact it had on the psyche
of the city andthe legal system. Like similarly eventful and
inNluential trials across the world, theNanavati case had many
layers. On the one hand, the case, involving as it did adultery
onthe part of a rich, beautiful blue-eyed woman from south Bombay
and the murder of herplayboy paramour by her dashing husband, was
salacious fodder for cocktail gossip, oftenfuelled by speculative
reporting by tabloids and newspapers. It stirred emotions,
provokedmoral judgments, caused a rift between the Parsi and Sindhi
communities and boughtterms such as honour killing back into vogue.
And yet, it also acquired the halo of a Greektragedy. Here was
Nanavati, an upright, accomplished naval commander undone
bybetrayal and an inability to rein in his rage. In public trials
held in Bombays raucous chai
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shops, genteel bars, and well-appointed homes behind Art Deco
facades, Nanavatissupporters, as a counter to those who proclaimed
the rule of law above all else, would haveput this question to
their opponents across the table: What would you have done if
youwere in his shoes?
For every man who had enormous faith in the codes that govern
modern society, therewere others who believed that Nanavati was an
honourable murderer. In its two-and-a-half year journey from the
Greater Bombay Sessions Court to the High Court and fromthere to
the Supreme Court, the dramatis personae ballooned from the
original three toinclude other prominent players, including lawyers
like Ram Jethmalani, and the shadowypresence of Vijayalakshmi
Pandit, Jawaharlal Nehru and V K Krishna Menon. And perhaps,one
should also add Russi Karanjia here. The Nlamboyant editor of the
weekly Blitz, andfriend to Nehru and Menon, among others,
championed the cause of his fellow Parsi,turned the murder trial
into a Night between the middle-class values of Nanavati and
thebourgeois depravation of Ahuja, and put up an impassioned,
though biased, defence of theCommander. Here is P R Lele, Blitzs
constitutional expert, in a December 2, 1961 articleheadlined The
President must pardon Nanavati: If a member of the Fighting
Forcesalways has to entertain the fear that some moneyed and
leisured man might be consolinghis wife, in his absence, he will be
more worried than if his pay is not sufNicient to meet theregular
expenses of his household People want to ask the top authorities to
considerwhat will be the moral effect on those whom you invite to
join the Defence Forces if andwhen they observe that those in
authority take a technical view of the invasion by thewealthy of
their unprotected homes.
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Gyan Prakash, a professor of history at Princeton and the author
of the upcoming BombayFables, calls the Nanavati case Indias Nirst
media trial, its own OJ case . The lead rolehere must be credited
to Russi Karanjia. It was Blitz that turned this case into a trial
ofpatriarchy and patriotism, and elicited the people on behalf of
Nanavati. In terms ofmedia history, Blitzs role was a pioneering
one. In the age before television, it was theclosest one would come
to an image-saturated coverage. Blitz, says Prakash, covered
thecase with an abundance of photographs and graphic illustrations
that imprinted the caseas a picture in peoples minds.
By the time the trial came to a close in the winter of 1961
Nanavati, who was sentencedto life imprisonment by the Supreme
Court, was suddenly granted a special pardon by thegovernment, but
more on that later the city was never the same again. Bombay of
thelate 1950s-1960s, says Prakash, was the twilight of the late
colonial and early post-colonial
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Mumbai Police Historian Deepak Rao
city in which the elite south Bombay social ideal still had some
resonance. The trial andparticularly its sensational coverage by
Karanjia, built on voyeuristic interest, and thesetting up of the
people on the street, supposedly concerned over patriarchal
andpatriotic honour, against the people that the state represented
in the court, was of far-reaching signiNicance. It showed in
advance what was to come later the populistmobilisation of the
people on the street against the ideals of the liberal democratic
orderin which the rational deliberations of law in the court were
supreme. The trial was alsothe last case in Bombay to be tried by a
jury. The jury system was abolished since it wasbelieved that the
members of the jury had been inNluenced by the medias portrayal
ofNanavati as a martyr to the cause of honour.
Mumbai police historian Deepak Rao calls the trialthe most
prominent case in the citys history. Rao,56, a tall, lean man with
a walrus moustache andinquisitive eyes that leap out from behind
his brownspectacles, remembers how, as a child, he wouldlisten to
his parents and their friends animatedlydiscuss the minutiae of the
case and follow itstwists and turns in the pages of the Blitz
andCurrent. The Raman Raghav case was a major onebut this was a
potboiler. There were all kinds of
rumours about why the government was supporting Nanavati, it was
said that he was to bethe commander of Indias Nirst nuclear
submarine and in possession of naval secrets, saysRao. It was the
talk of the town, from race-goers to members of posh clubs to the
localpan-wallah, everybody had an opinion on it.
Like the Raman Raghav case, the Nanavati trial appears to be
part of received memory forevery Bombayite, even those from todays
generation, passed on father to son orgrandmother to
grand-daughter. A Google search throws up, besides several articles
on thelegal ramiNications of the case, posts by bloggers revolving
around the recollections of theiraged relatives, which elicit
comments from readers who quote from inherited memory. Nottoo many
know of its exact import, but like a myth the case still shines in
the gloaming of areceding collective memory.
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On yazadjal.com Ankh, a contributing blogger, writes, in a
sidelight to a post on theNanavati case, This case is some kind of
a legend in my family. My grandmother, thenworking for Tata Steel,
went during her lunch hours to see the trial in action. I used to
lovehearing all her stories about the handsome Commander Nanavati.
(Methinks she too wassmitten). Fashion photographer Farrokh Chothia
is, by his own admission, a Nanavaticase junkie. Hes read up on
every available piece of literature on the case on the
internet,wants to, when he has more time, access court documents
relating to the case andencourages people like this writer to tell
the story of the Nanavatis to a new generation ofreaders. To me,
Nanavati was this cliched, Elizabethan character suddenly hurled
into thisdramatic turmoil and I try and put myself in his place,
says Chothia, who, for a whileduring his childhood, used to stay
near Setalvad Lane. I suppose my interest in the case isalso
because of nostalgia. Bombay, in the 1960s, was a different place,
with different valuesystems and maybe, also because Nanavati was,
like me, a Parsi.
Above: The trial inspired several books, Nilms and plays,
including Indra Sinhas (right) TheDeath of Mr Love, (left) Ami
Natya Velar, a Konkani play
The case also inspired many interpretations, both literary and
celluloid. If R K Nayars YehRaaste Hain Pyaar Ke (1963), with Sunil
Dutt playing an Indian Air Force pilot, Leela Naiduas his
Paris-born wife and Rehman as her paramour, turned out to be a
typically obliqueBollywood attempt at portraying a real-life
incident involving adultery, GulzarsAchanak(1973) ended with an
open-ended question. Ranjeet Khanna (Vinod Khanna), a muchdecorated
major is hunted down by cops for the murder of his wife (Lily
Chakraborty) and
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Gulzars Achanak starring Vinod Khanna
her lover. Khanna, who is badly injured during thecourse of the
pursuit, is nursed back to health byDr Chaudhary (Om Shivpuri). As
Khanna is ledaway to the gallows, the credits roll with DrChaudhary
mouthing a rhetorical why? AuthorIndra Sinhas The Death of Mr Love
(2002), builtaround the case, introduced a Nictional tale about
asecond crime linked to the Nirst that destroys thelife of another
of Ahujas lovers, while Nanavatieven makes a cameo as Commander
Sabarmati inSalman Rushdies Midnights Children. And until
asrecently as 2006, Ami Natya Velar, a Konkanitranslation of a
Kannada play written byRamachandra Churya, used to be regularly
stagedby theatre troupes in Mangalore. Daya Victor Lobo is among
the many directors to havestaged the play. The message he sent
through his interpretation of the play? Society isresponsible for
the welfare and well-being of the families of ofNicers in the Armed
Forces.
Having outlasted his wife and with his children in the United
States, John Lobo, 84, spendshis time listening to the melancholy
sighs of the sea from the balcony of his Nlat thatoverlooks a
wave-battered promenade in Bandra, Mumbai. In the late 1950s, Lobo,
adiminutive matter-of-fact man, served as one of the citys several
deputy commissioners ofpolice. He was also the man Nanavati
surrendered himself to. Fifty years ago is anotherlifetime for
Lobo, but, aided by my photocopy of a chapter of his memoirs,
Leaves from aPolicemans Diary, he determinedly pieces together a
bygone era, imploring his memory tothrow at him scraps of his own
past.
On the evening of April 27, Nanavati, unfamiliar with the
location of the Gamdevi PoliceStation, drove up to the residence of
the naval Provost Marshal, a Commander Samuel, andcalled out to him
from downstairs. When Nanavati told him of the shooting an
alarmedSamuel asked him to head straight to the Commissioners
ofNice at Crawford Market andmeet Lobo. At around 5 pm that day
Lobo got a call from Samuel, which was followed byanother call from
an inspector of the Gamdevi Police Station and so Lobo was
alreadyexpecting Nanavati.
http://www.mansworldindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Vinod-Achanak-007.jpg
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His was an imposing Nigure and he had the air of a man used to
giving orders. I have shota man, he told me, says Lobo. Nanavati
turned pale when I told him that the man he hadshot was dead. He
then asked for a glass of water. Instead of the police lock-up,
whichhoused ordinary felons and criminals, Nanavati was
accommodated in one of the ofNice-rooms which was where Sylvia
would often meet him. We were witness to some of theirmeetings and
there were attempts at reconciliation as well. Nanavati mostly
stayed quiet. Iremember Sylvia once telling them to let bygones be
bygones. Lobo remembers Sylvia, asa very attractive lady, who used
to attend the trial daily.
As Nanavati adjusted to a new reality, the great wheel of
Bombays law and orderapparatus started turning. Lobo got several
calls that day from the Navys lawyers askinghim to hand over
custody of Nanavati, but he stood his ground (later, though, he
wasremanded to naval custody). The crime scene, Ahujas apartment at
Jeevan Jyot building,swarmed with police ofNicers and newspaper
staffers, as idle crowds milled outside. In hisbook Lobo writes: On
the Nloor (of the room) was laying the empty brown envelopebearing
the name of Lt.-Commander K M Nanavati. The evil that men do lives
after them it leaves footprints on the sands of time. Two spent
bullets were recovered but therewas no trace of bullets having
ricocheted off the walls. The assailant had surprised hisvictim and
done a quick job.
For the rest of the duration of the trial Lobo met Nanavati just
once and that was on theday he testiNied against him in the
Sessions Court. He was being led into the courtroomand I told him
that I was sorry but I had to testify against him. I think he
simply said, Dontworry about me, just go and do your duty. He was a
Nine man, who just happened to do thewrong thing.
The Nanavati trial began in the court of city sessions judge R B
Mehta the next month. KarlKhandalavala was the defence lawyer, and
assisting him were Rajni Patel, who was to laterbecome a prominent
Congress politician, and S R Vakil. The public prosecutor was
ChanduTrivedi and Ram Jethmalani was retained by Mamie to assist
the prosecution. (Jethmalaniswatching brief meant that while he
could advise the prosecution, he could not speak incourt.) The
chosen jury was cosmopolitan and comprised two Parsis, one
Anglo-Indian,one Christian and Nive Hindus. While Jethmalanis role
in the case remained of a
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Russi Karanjia, editor of Blitz which was Nirmlybehind
Nanavati
consultative nature throughout, he would play a decisive role,
both during the trial andafter it. The case also marked a watershed
in his professional life. Jethmalani was anupcoming lawyer when he
was handed the watching brief, the ensuing two years saw
himconsolidate his place in the countrys legal Nirmament.
A remote relative of Ahuja, Jethmalani says he met him at a
party about a week or twobefore he was murdered. I dont think he
just slept with the wives of senior naval ofNicers,he must have
also bedded the wives of the Army and the Air Force chiefs, says
the formerUnion law minister who, at 86, views the case with
detachment and often, mildamusement.
Since Nanavati had already confessed, the trial hinged on one
crucial point: on whether itwas a case of murder under section 302
of the Indian Penal Code or culpable homicide notamounting to
murder. The former would invite a life imprisonment or death
sentence,while in the case of the latter, there was a maximum
punishment of ten yearsimprisonment. If the defence lawyer could
convince the jury that his client had actedunder a grave and sudden
provocation, Nanavati could get away with a lighter term oreven get
off scot-free.
With the newspapers, especially the Blitz, whippingup emotions,
support for Nanavati was strong,particularly and naturally among
the Parsis, andyoung women. In his book Lobo writes: Not onlydid
they overNlow the restricted accommodationavailable in the
courtroom but large numbers,particularly of the fair sex, lined the
route aroundFlora Fountain as the van carrying the prisonerdrove up
to the court. Understandably, theirsympathies were with the
unfortunate naval ofNicer.Flower petals and currency notes were
thrown by
his admirers. There were reports in the Blitz of
lipstick-smeared 100-rupee notes Nloatinggently down on Nanavati
every time he left the Sessions Court and about how he
receivedmarriage proposals from infatuated women, who hoped for a
ruling in his favour, a divorce
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from Sylvia and marriage with him thereafter. Later on during
the trial, when Sri Prakasa,the then governor of Bombay, decreed
that Nanavati should be put under naval custodyand his life
sentence suspended, the powerful Parsi community closed ranks and
over8,000 people gathered at the Cowasji Jehangir Hall in south
Mumbai, as a show of support.
On the Nirst day of the trial, Trivedi, who also happened to be
Jethmalanis friend, bungled.He horriNied Jethmalani by delivering a
totally different opening speech than the oneprepared for him by
the latter. His remarks, recalls Jethmalani, made it look as if he
werearguing on behalf of the defence. At the end of the day I told
him, Chandubhai, Im notcoming to court again, says Jethmalani, who
ultimately gave in to Trivedis whinypersistence and assumed charge
once again. (Apparently, Trivedi acted as he did becausehe had been
assured Nanavati would plead guilty and that getting a conviction
would beeasy.) After Trivedi presented his witnesses, including
forensic experts, the defence openedtheir counter with Nanavati
himself occupying the witness box. Dressed in full navalregalia,
Nanavati told the judge that his gun had accidentally gone off
during a scufNle withAhuja and that if he had really intended to
kill his adversary, it would have taken him justone bullet and not
three. He was followed by the eminent surgeon Dr A V Baliga,
whoseturgid proclamations were intended to establish a case of
accidental Niring and rubbish theevidence presented by forensic
experts. Baliga, though, later wilted under Trivedisrelentless
cross-examination, which was orchestrated by Jethmalani. As the
trial neared toa close the prosecution, with its contention that
the offence was premeditated, appeared tohave the upper hand there
was a gap of three hours between Sylvias confession andAhujas
murder.
On the Ninal day, judge Mehta discussed the evidence with the
jurors and waited for themto reach a conclusion. The jurys verdict
was not guilty, by a majority of eight. Only oneperson dissented.
Jubilation surged through most of those present in the courtroom
andthe crowd gathered outside. The case would have been considered
closed had it not beenfor the courageous judge Mehta. After the
exultations of triumph from Nanavatissupporters had abated, Mehta
announced that he did not accept the jurys verdict anddeemed it
perverse. He referred the case to the Bombay High Court, where
after reviewingthe evidence, the judges upheld the verdict of the
Sessions Court. Nanavati, who wassentenced to life imprisonment on
March 11, 1960, then appealed to the Supreme Court.But, and we
bypass a sea of legalese here, Jethmalanis and Trivedis ship of
reason sailed
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Vijayalakshmi Pandit, then governor of Bombay,who pardoned
Nanavati
through. The SC dismissed the appeal and conNirmed the sentence
of life imprisonment inNovember 1961. Karanjia went into overdrive
and Nired one volley after another, includingprinting a mercy
petition in the December 2 edition of his paper. As things stood,
Nanavatiwas heading towards a life behind bars, but unbeknownst to
him, a twist in the story wasbeing given shape. It was a
development that would see Jethmalani using his persuasivepowers
yet again, this time to free Nanavati.
The destinies of men often intertwine in thestrangest of ways.
As Nanavati languished in prison,Vijayalakshmi Pandit, who became
governor ofBombay in 1962, received a mercy petition Niled by
aSindhi leader, Bhai Pratap, in March that year.Pratap, whose
businesses included the import ofsports goods, had been imprisoned
for the misuse ofthe goods. It was an absolutely fake case,
claimsJethmalani, and the two bureaucrats (B BPaymaster and R L
Dalal) scrutinising the case foundBhai Pratap to be innocent.
Jethmalani says that theplan that was to unfold in the next few
days couldpossibly have been Paymasters, on account of his being a
Parsi. What the government, stillunder pressure from various
quarters to release Nanavati, wanted to do was simple:pardon
Nanavati, and then, to appease the Sindhi community, pardon
BhaiPratap as well.
Towards the end of March, on a typically muggy Bombay evening,
Jethmalani opened thedoor of his Panchshila apartment in Cuffe
Parade to unexpected visitors. Among them wasRajni Patel, the
defence lawyer in the case, and Sylvia (She was a looker!). Patel
told methat the government wanted to pardon both Bhai Pratap and
Nanavati. All I had to do wasconvince Ahujas sister Mamie. It was
political expediency at its best, but Jethmalani didhis bit. He
convinced Mamie. Both the accused were pardoned soon after.
As always there are stories within stories. In the case of the
Nanavati trial, one amongthem is that of Reginald Pierce and it is
a story that has seldom been told. Pierce was theodd one out among
the members of the jury that found Nanavati innocent, the only
one
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Domestic GoddessSushil Kumar
who remained impervious to the blinding power of emotion and
said, plainly, that He didit. I met him last month at his home in
Bandra, Mumbai. Pierce is 102, but is probably theNittest member in
his family. He has a head full of noble, silver hair, still goes
for his eveningwalks around his Mount Mary neighbourhood and was
impeccably dressed for a dinner hehad to attend. The secret of his
longevity, says his son-in-law Alex, could be that he neverlies.
Pierce was selected as a jury member after he responded to an
advertisement in TheTimes of India and he still recalls the
ferocious attitude of his counterparts. They had nohonour, he says.
They were tremendously against me and berated me relentlessly after
Ihad made my stand clear. If the crowds outside had known who the
lone dissenter was,they would have lynched me. But I saw the
evidence and it was apparent that he killedhim. Then, he asks me
about the whereabouts of the Nanavati family. I tell him of
thefamilys migration to Canada and of Nanavatis death in 2003. He
was a Nine fellow, veryintelligent. I knew I was condemning him but
rightfully. I think he was an honourablemurderer, but a murderer
all the same.
A month or so after he was pardoned Nanavati left along with
Sylvia and their children forCanada. They never returned to Bombay
again nor have they, as far as I know, spokenabout that tumultuous
episode in their lives to anyone. The Nanavati trial, though,
keepssurfacing in the Indian media every decade or so, as it does
now, on its 50th anniversary.But I often wonder what Sylvia, now a
sweet, portly granny, would have to say if she everchooses to speak
about the case. We will never know, but I suspect that deep down
shesees what a lot of us never have. That, in spite of love,
betrayal and death, the noise and thefury, and all those mighty men
the trial involved, it was also, perhaps, a story of lettingbygones
be bygones.
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