I just finished reading the late Prof. Eachara Varier’s book. I mean, the book in English. On these pages. It was published in Malayalam in 2004, a couple of years before the bereaved father himself passed away. It was translated into English the same year by Neelan, and published by the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong, with the cooperation of Jananeethi, in Trichur. "Which is denser—the pain of the son at the death of his father or the pain of the father at the death of his son?" This is an anguished and unanswerable question the father asks in this book. Ah! What a book it is! Excellent English. This is a must-read for any Malayalee, whether Congress or not. This puts me deeper in emalayalee’s debt. In reproducing this work in its entirety, emalayalee has done a very, very great service to its worldwide-readers. Read it, please, at least up to page 71—the rest is court verdicts ( in all, only 121 pages). During the historic Emergency (June 1975-Feb 1977), the Kayanna police station was broken into at night by a group of people, who snatched a rife. A manhunt was on, operated from the infamous Kakkayam Camp set up for that specific purpose. The cops had supposed info that one of the perpetrators was a youth named Rajan, but Prof. Varier’s son was attending a youth Festival at Farooqe College at the time of the attack on the precinct office. You will Read: …sure that its remoteness was the reason that Mr. Jayaram Padikkal selected it.. Maybe he decided that the cries from the camp should not even reach the clouds. … Mr. Jayaram Padikkal would sit on a chair and pass orders, while police jeeps rushed in and out and youngsters were dragged forth. They were beaten, and then tied to a wooden bench with their hands and legs down. A heavy wooden roller would be rolled over their thighs; many could not stand the pain, and fell unconscious. To prevent them from crying out, the police pushed cloth into their mouths. Afterwards, they would be bought before Mr. Jayaram Padikkal. While questioning them, he would roll a sharpened pencil in his hands; suddenly he would stab the pencil into the muscles worked loose from the bones on the thighs of the tortured. …Mr. Pulikkodan Narayanan began kicking him in his stomach with his heavy police boots. With a loud cry he fell back and writhed on the floor, then became quiet and motionless. The policemen started to worry when they were sure that Rajan was dead. I hope someone like Suddhir will write a detailed critique, which is not my cup of tea.