Sonia Faleiro knew the man as a college student in Delhi. Back then, he showed signs of what he was to become

While other students groped for the meaning of life, Amit was already aware of his. He walked the slow walk of a contemplative tortoise

In 1995, Amit Jogi could not have known that self-inflicted infamy would corrode his name and the political career he had nurtured since his undergraduate days. He was a fresher in the History department of Delhi University’s St Stephen’s College. Unlike his classmates, Amit showed no trepidation in a new, seemingly adult environment. The white, starched kurta pyjama he wore six days a week, the sense of surety and calm he demonstrated is visible even now, when cramped between a rigid knot of policemen and lawyers, hounded by television crews, demeaned as a thug and murderer.

While other students groped for the meaning of life and their place in it, Amit was already, with intimidating clarity, aware of his. He walked the slow walk of a contemplative tortoise. On his face, was the omnipresent smile that defines father and son. The type of smile a good man with perhaps one too many clever plans for his own good, has for himself and the people around him.

Yet, he has always wanted to help others. He was the boy who would make the call, arbitrate between friends, counsel the student who didn’t know any better. By getting things done for anyone at any time, and thereby taking control, Jogi attained the demeanour of an old soul. While his classmates ran or high-fived one another, Amit walked down the corridors of St Stephen’s slowly, silently. He rarely laughed; he smiled. He didn’t just listen, he thoughtfully introspected. He didn’t share; he was generous to a fault, taking increasingly large groups of boys — one of who Rahul Tyagi, is now his lawyer — for lavish meals. This was the life he had learned watching his father in Ranchi. A life in which numbers equal power. This was the lesson he acted upon when he allegedly, ham-handedly, bribed bjp mlas after last year’s Assembly elections.

In Delhi, leaving his parents behind and his sister in Welhams Girls School, Dehradun, Amit lived alone in a two-storey house in Shahjahan Road. He was a child with adult opinions and ambitions, constantly surrounded by adults who did his bidding. The chauffeur of the white Ambassador car in which he was driven to college, the security personnel who huddled around him, the secretary who put through his calls, and the clerk who accompanied him when he enrolled in Residence, and brought him his meals. Amit made a clear statement of who he was and how he expected to be treated. At 17, he had overturned the conventional relationship of adult and child. In every situation he was the adult to be contended with.

After Amit graduated, he and his mother, who had moved to Delhi for a while, lived in Chhattisgarh Bhavan. He studied international relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University, he studied law, and was rumoured to be preparing for the civil service examinations. While the official line stated that Amit was a student, and assisted his father only when necessary; the people of Chhattisgarh told a different story, alluding to helicopter visits to the state, the nurturing of a second-in-command.

However, the degrees came in handy. Jogi would say, “There are so many sons of other politicians snatching this or that political post. I have not got any such post. I will have to go back to being a student.” Even when it was revealed that the de facto chief minister had US citizenship, Amit, who had spent his young life calmly arguing his way out of controversy, managed to turn it into an issue of family duty and an example of youth responsibility: “There was only one reason for my coming back — my sister’s death. I am the only son in my family and I had to support them.”

At the age of 28, Amit has lived fast, hard and lawless. He bargained with the big boys, traded places with a chief minister, and made the front page of every newspaper in the country. He is a headline. Ten years ago seem a lifetime away. From the sanitised walls of a St Stephen’s classroom to the paan-stained grub of a prison cell. The outcome of his trial and his future remain to be seen, but for the prince who would be king at any cost, it was too much too soon. A bright young man more than intellectually and temperamentally capable of growing into political maturity, was gifted someone else’s power and corrupted. Instead of growing into power he chose to shrink into alleged murder and evident disrepute.