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Fool’s Mate VS. Scholar’s Mate

Conjeevaram J Nandakumar

    Life is a game of chess making our moves within the 64 blocks. We all play that game throughout our lifetime whether we play by the rules or not. Aren’t we all? The players are keen on winning the game by calculating their own and the opponent’s moves, but never minding the game-keeper on whose arena it’s played, the real formidable opponent, the game changer, and the only one who knows how the game will end.

    The success of this egocentric gentleman’s ingenious speculation exceeded even his most sanguine hopes. He too played this game and has been on a winning streak in acquiring wealth, but never cared to toss a shilling to any destitute soul, leave alone proffering a helping hand to his siblings, or to bequeath his property to any of his own family members and felt no urgency in doing so with an undue confidence upon his lifespan to outlive everyone, but breathed his last before a few months shy of attaining his four and sixtieth blessed birthday.

    The tossed baton was picked up by his wife, typically with the same mental frame of her husband to pursue with the game till the end.

    The registrar offered a seat in front of him to the visitor and greeted her, “Yes, madam how can I help you?” with a smile and great show of cordiality quite contrary to the demeanour of any government officials in India.
    “I come to the point straight away. I am here to get the legal heir certificate for me and my two children. Whatever the formalities and procedures are I would like to get done with it right away. You know, I’ve got to catch the early morning flight to my country tomorrow.”
    However, the registrar could deduce his visitor’s entire life history that was written in her heavy features and pompous manner, but he wasn’t to be blamed and could hardly know how the lady could have acted otherwise, though her abrupt method of doing it was undoubtedly regrettable. A typical attitude of a woman, who had once ventured offshore, as a carpet bagger to seek her fortune, got on very nicely upon an income of acquiring properties, and eventually obtained the citizenship of that country under the flag bearing the Union Jack, with stars and stripes.
    The registrar shook his head solemnly and asked, “Why are you in such a hurry madam? I need few more details which I should desire to know before I decide upon our course of action,” said the registrar with his fingertips together and his eyes to the ceiling.
    May I ask you for what purpose you need the certificate ma’am, is it for claiming a property as a rightful successor?”
    “Yes.”
    “Whose property is that?”
    “It’s my husband’s sole property.”
    “Has he nominated any one for his property or is there any will written stating that you’re the legal heir?”
    “No, he didn’t write any will.”
    “Oh, then I see, then it’s an intestate property. Is your husband’s father or mother alive?”
    “His father is no more, but his mother is still alive.”
    “Then you must include his widowed mother too, as a legal heir to the property.”
    The visitor’s countenance knitted itself into a variety of expression that was not quite easy to discern whether it was perplexity, or wonder, or anger. Bewildered with alarm and apprehension she said in a tone that disputed the probability of that event happening, “Why should I include my mother-in-law as his legal heir? The property is acquired by the sole earnings of my husband and not inherited.
    “So I see,” the other answered with the utmost coolness and continued with unchanged deliberation.
    “Listen carefully ma’am. According to Hindu Law, when a Hindu male dies intestate, his property is devolved upon his class-1 legal heirs, which are his mother, wife, son, and daughter. So being a class-1 legal heir you will inherit your deceased husband’s property in equal share, along with other legal heirs. That is law.
    The dear woman had yet one question to ask and had been earnestly hoping to hear something which would be favorable to her intention, but understanding fully the situation after the momentary agitation made no further questioning and sat silently throughout the entire process of completing the formalities and procedures.
    She reluctantly came out of the registrar office, low in spirit, and thoroughly dejected. She is a kind of personality who suffers from her own ill whims. It is beyond the limits of human ingenuity to comprehend her capricious mind that is constantly hallucinating that everybody around her was plotting to occupy her property and that her explanations for her hypothesis founded rather upon conjecture and surmise than that of absolute logical proof.
    “What did it matter,” she said still. With a scornful self-reliance she soon devised a means. “What anything matter,” she asked herself. Suddenly a happy thought seized her.
    “Everybody will get an equal share of the property according to the law. Oh yeah. What if I don’t sell the property at all as long as my mother-in-law is alive? Nobody can force me to sell the property,” she uttered in a tone that could be quite audible to any straining ears around.
    The thought seemed best calculated to dissuade the presumed motive of her importunate mother-in-law’s family members. She said with a smile of triumph, “Never say die,” and walked on jubilantly with long strides.
    So much for the temperamental attitude of the property owners, the property itself, though it became an apple of discord among the family members, as well as strangers, never seemed to stop the comments of the passers-by or the beholders. The house was tall and still possessed of a ruined dignity, but many of its rooms were empty save for the dust and the spider. Nobody would believe it now that it was once teeming with lively family members of the egocentric gentleman before leaving his country for good and in due course kicked out his siblings from the house one after the other, but kept his mother alone not out of tenderness and kindness, but to maintain his house from her pension. His unfinished business was now successfully carried out by his wife, who kicked out the last remaining soul in the house and was here to decide upon the further course of action.
    It’s an intriguing old bungalow, standing in a little garden of its own. Up the front of the house grew a huge mango tree, smutty, dirty, begrimed, but yet a mango tree that attracted too many stones from the pelting kids. It never cared for itself nor was cared by the inmates of the house. Whether their minds good or evil their words sour or bitter, every year it kept giving delicious mangos that were so sweet and was a treat to the birds and squirrels. Unlike the desolate house bereft of life the mango tree was swarming with life with various birds with colorful plumage perching on its high branches. The tree attracted different migratory birds because across the crows fly distance from the tree there is a huge lake and many a dotted marshlands that acted as the feeding grounds for the birds. Particularly the herons built their nests on the mango tree during the breeding season on the month of November. Eventually the property has become a landmark for the people to call it as a mango tree house.
    The next day the dear lady handed over the house key to her sister-in-law who with an easy air of geniality which she could readily assume to be the janitor of the house took it, as if the power of attorney on the property itself has been bestowed upon her. She diligently carried on with her duty by thwarting any attempts of others entering the house under any pretext rather than to keep the house neat and tidy. She employed a maid servant to clean only the peripheral of the house surrounding the mango tree.
    There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans. Ten years elapsed fleetingly and there were several major changes carried out about that time in India. The new government revoked the law of dual citizenship benefits to its NRI citizens to curb the black money market. Many a prospective buyers were vying with each other to buy the property to transform it into a multistorey apartment, that would fetch a whooping profit, and desperately trying to communicate with the rightful owner of the property. At the same point in time quite a few shadowy events took place around the property and far end places.
    The maid servant reported to the sister-in-law that one fine morning she saw a man alighting from a big car and climbed over the compound wall and took many photos of the mango tree from different angles and a week later two policemen came and enquired about the whereabouts of the property owner. Somewhere in a different place at the Ministry of Environment a petition was filed on the property by a social welfare person.
    All these latent developments were interconnected to each other for an unexpected outcome that was surely going to be a bolt from the blue for the property owners.
     The hearing on the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) case proceeded seamlessly in the court as there were no defendants to challenge the trial since they were deprived of their fundamental rights to do so having forfeited their citizenship of the country under the new law.
    Thus the magistrate pronounced the final verdict as follows, “The court hereby directs the Ministry of Environment to acquire the aforesaid property to convert the area as a park to be served as a sanctuary to the birds under the conservation policy to ensure the welfare of birds and the prevention and abatement of pollution. Further under the new land acquisition act 2013 the government is entitled to acquire the land and no consent of the property owner is required if it is for the public interest.”
    Now the problem to the government was to determine as to whom the compensation amount to be given. Since the class 1 legal heirs were all foreign citizens and the only surviving Indian legal heir citizen having been deceased the compensation went to the treasury of the government.
    The game of chess came to an abrupt end as the dear lady making her hasty moves with deploying the strategy of Fool’s Mate keen on winning the preliminary rounds, but in the final game the immovable mango tree, which was in no way connected to the game patiently waited and deployed its strategic move of Scholar’s Mate and sprang as a dark horse triumphantly by winning the game.
    The mango tree as if in mute assurance stood there still and arched over the people under it whispering its true love and heart for them.

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