It is November 1, 2070. Recently released, 94-year-old Roop Robinson has been in prison for 61 years on charges of sexual abuse, rape and paedophelia on girls and women between the ages of 14-21. He was in solitary confinement in a San Quentin-like prison.
His first warden, William Hutchinson lent him his battery operated laptop to “write your book that'll show the world your side, face up. Everyone, both here and in your place, is so carried away by the press, the judgement and the media, and no one hearing them has the patience to get down to the truth, the nitty gritty.”
In his manuscript that he takes many years to complete, Roop Robinson reflects upon his life and the circumstances that brought him to gaol. He was born into an aristocratic family of Kerala, his grandmother who narrated her flower stories told in the memory of the king of Mahabali and kept herself busy with stitching and tailoring. In fact, it was she who gave Roop, her painter boy, a pair of scissors to be creative with.
Later he won the Sylverstone Grand Jury Award with a flower design concept, a silk line embroidered with heavy flower motifs — “softness of green white water lilies, emboldened with the redness of the hibiscus, and layered down with the magnificence of pink-white lotuses.”
Meteoric rise
He discusses the philosophy of his aesthetic sensibility and the fashion line, LoveLuck, where it may deal with a dry textile like denim, but he is preoccupied with beauty and its translation into design. He takes to heart his village priest's advice that “when you look at things beautiful, look at them as though god is there in them, and when you make beauty out of nothing, make it beautiful for god.”
Roop had a meteoric rise in the world of international fashion. After graduating from International Fashion School, he was offered a post as member of faculty, Department of Fashion Technology, Washington. He declined it. His dream was to start a fashion design company and then a fashion school.
Fortunately, he got a break when Vino Rino offered him a space in his store to sell his designs like “Wing'd Sword” that were appealing because of the expressive creative fusion. He worked hard in the marketing and promotion of his line.
He searched for fresh new faces like Mariah Celine, his muse, by browsing on the internet and interviewing scores of wannabes. He was assisted in this task by his friend, flat-mate and soon, right hand person, “seventeen-year-old” Hazel, with whom he even shared his email passwords for accessing and sorting out the candidates. He was even awarded US$12 million grant by Worldfashion Inc.
Soon, this wonderful cozy world of a successful fashion designer fell apart, when he was arrested for raping an underage girl, Jessica. These accusations of being a serial rapist increased manifold when the Ring, he attributes to Hazel, consisting of girls and women between the ages of 14-21 began to bear witness against him. The law made it mandatory that Roop be awarded a life sentence as he was accused in multiple cases of sexual assault.
Presumed Guilty is Gopi Kottoor's thinly veiled fictional account of the Anand Jon Alexander case. It is based on empirical data collected from Anand's life and his case. Gopi or Gopikrishna Kottoor is better known as a poet. This is his first novel. A poet venturing into prose is a pleasure to read, especially in their descriptions that are so rich in detail. It could be a landscape or a flower or even the elaborate ceremonies at a temple.
Tedious read too
Except for these momentary flashes of brilliance, Presumed Guilty is painfully tedious to read and this is not a reflection upon the content of the novel. The sentences are awkward, the tenses change continuously (and once again, it has nothing to do with the shifts in time or use of colloquial language. For example, “I knew now I was getting headed there.”).
Even if allowances were made for the plot to move on the basis of conversations and not character development, the storytelling is still tedious. To add to the woes, it is very poorly edited and proof read. For instance there are glaring errors like, “lap top”, “out let”, “grape vine”, and “Rum-pel-stilt-skin”. If as the title suggests, Presumed Guilty is an attempt at presenting Anand Jon's point of view as being a victim of a well-orchestrated smear campaign, then it is unsuccessful. It may have worked better as a long poem rather than a novel.
Jaya Bhattacharji Rose is a consultant editor.
