Book Review: Unbroken by Indrani Mukerjea

An acclaimed entrepreneur, a media baron, the indomitable Indrani Mukerjea, accused of murder of her daughter Sheena Bora, pens her story. Embracing a new chapter, she is actively engaged in improving the lives of female prison inmates in undertrial prison, counselling them and providing legal aid

“There is only one truth. There cannot be two truths. It is hard to live with no truths, with scraps of truth, with a half-truth. A partial truth is no truth at all.” Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate.

Cover of Unbroken, the Untold Story by Indrani Mukerjea

Quoting from the famous Russian author, Indrani Mukerjea has left us stupefied about what actually happened on April 24, 2012 that led to her arrest in 2015. Though, she does say that legal bindings prevent her from sharing the details. However, we ask ourselves, if this case too shall become one of the unsolved mysteries of the 21^st century. Will Sheena Bora ever come out in public? According to the memoir, she was never murdered, and last spotted at the airport in Guwahati. The evidence also points that the body recovered by the police has not been clearly identified, there is no DNA evidence.

Looking at Indrani Mukerjea’s petite figure dancing on Instagram, it’s difficult to imagine the atrocities she has undergone. Her memoir, which she says is a response to all those who condemned her to hell, is a shocker.

Family is haven, home is sanctuary. But home becomes hell and the haven disappears when 14-year-old Indrani is raped by her father. As everything must always be brushed under the carpet, the mother only changes her school and leaves her with the grandparents. The crime is hushed up. The father is never reprimanded or counselled or held accountable. Indrani, then called Pari, is taken to a doctor to fix her up, labelled as an indiscriminate teenager who has given into her hormones with a boy her age.

From thereon begins the saga of damage. Indrani’s confusion, guilt, shame is eventually submerged under the pressure of studies and growing up. No one discusses this incident. She turns out to be good in academics. After an year, she is brought back home, even though she stays away from her father. But evil hasn’t died, the father rapes her again when she is 16 and in love with a family friend’s son.

The damage is complete, Indrani is pregnant. The mother takes an even more bizarre step. Indrani’s best friend, Siddharth, steps in, offers to marry her when she turns 18 and accepts the child also. After Sheena is born, Siddharth and Indrani become intimate and another child is born, Mekhail. At 18, Indrani is the mother of two children, both born out of wedlock and in dire circumstances—one is rape and the other is emotional exhaustion.

This entire passage makes us question innate values and belief system. Why didn’t the mother take the rational route of getting the child counselled and hold the father accountable? Why wasn’t all this treated like an emergency? Why didn’t the mother stand by her daughter and get the second child aborted? Why didn’t any adult think of how this was impacting Indrani’s childhood, psychology and eventual adulthood? How would it shape her life?

The mother gets back with the father, adopts the two children, forfeiting Indrani’s rights as a biological mother and then covers it all up by telling the world that the two are Indrani’s siblings. Indrani’s pain is left in the dark—no one wants to hear her side of the story. Why do people cover the truth? Why are their actions emanating out of fear? Fear of what? There are no answers.

Indrani does say she forgives her parents. Her memoir only has facts, a steady narration without drama or high-strung emotions. There is no blame game in this book. However, it’s difficult to understand how broken emotions can be healed until the truth is fully accepted by all the people concerned. Watching her interviews on YouTube, the book almost feels like her way of processing the way her life turned out. There’s a calm about her, an acceptance of the darkness, which she expresses in her book as well.

Indrani gives up on Siddharth, moves from Guwahati to study economics and computer programming in Kolkata, hiding the fear until she falls in love with a famous businessman Sanjeev Khanna. The closet is opened for Sanjeev. He is shown the skeletons, but the evil father again tries to destroy his young daughter’s love. Nevertheless, the marriage happens and a child, Vidhie, is born. It fails for numerous reasons. In the meanwhile, Indrani has become an entrepreneur.

The stage is set for a bigger situation that crops up with Peter Mukerjea, then CEO of Star India, eventually after 13 years of marriage. In her memoir, she finally comes out with the fact that she suspects Peter of foul play and playing a major hand in her arrest. Everyone had warned her about Peter’s reputation with women, even his ex-wife Shabnam gives Indrani cautionary advice. But she doesn’t listen. Vidhie Khanna becomes Vidhie Mukerjea, before Indrani Khanna becomes Indrani Mukerjea.

They live the high life, both husband and wife have their pictures are splashed on the covers of magazines and newspapers. They even become directors of INX Media, which collapsed and rumours of alleged siphoning of billions of dollars do the round. All this is listed on Wikipedia.

The climax happens in 2015 when Indrani is arrested for the murder of her daughter, Sheena Bora; her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyamvar Rai are co-conspirators. Later, Peter, is also arrested. All of them are now out on bail.

Isolation is a powerful catalyst. It will either change you for the better or kill you. As Indrani spends more time with herself in prison and layer after layer falls off, she reaches a point of no return with everyone she has known. The children malign her, the husband destroys her, cheats her financially and the parents die. All that money can buy her is freedom from this imprisonment and she works on that.

In between, she finds empathetic inmates, helpful guards, sympathetic doctors, good lawyers. Her world changed and she now works with an NGO, Insaniyat, to provide legal aid to women in jail or those who can’t navigate the system. She works on rehabilitating women and regaining her strength.

Her memoir highlights important issues such as gender bias, the shame that suspected women have to undergo, how they are abandoned by their families and live a stigmatised life, how society looks down upon ambitious women and how the conditions in jail vary for different prisoners. She also gives an idea about life in an undertrial jail, the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the protocol for meetings with family or lawyer and what they have to wear for that, the human rights issues, the lost innocence, the camaraderie and the need to stand by their beliefs. We also learn legal terms and the sections of charges, the length of a chargesheet, and behaviours of jailers and wardens. Her memoir is also a reminder of an important clause that most of us never follow: Read the documents, terms and conditions carefully before signing anything.

By the time, you come to the end of her story, you will have learned quite a lot about the ways of the world, fair-weather friends, jealousies and gossip, the deep hurt caused by children and family, the power of prayers and the advantage of being wealthy. It will also make you wonder why Indrani didn’t give up her father’s surname or Peter’s surname. Why would a strong woman like her need to cling to the devil’s identity?

And it will leave you with a desire to know Sheena Bora’s side of the story.

Book Details

Publisher: ‎HarperCollins India
Language: ‎English
Paperback: 400 pages
Price: Rs 599, Kindle edition available