I was away in Lahore attending the scintillating Lahore Literature Festival when the Pachauri scandal broke in India. Was I shocked/surprised? Naah. The one time I shared a stage with the Nobel Laureate (during a TERI initiative), I had got a distinctly dirty vibe from the man. Most women - young girls, too - have an in-built instinct when it comes to men like Pachauri. Such men don’t have to do anything… touch you, for example… just the body language plus the expression in their eyes give away their character. I was repulsed by Pachauri and found him pompous, vain and power/publicity-hungry. Well, it took a 29 year-old female research associate to finally nail this pest. Frankly, I really don’t care what happens next to the man - he really should have thought about his blocked arteries and aorta much earlier (like when he was systematically stalking his victim) instead of now pleading ill health just to stay out of jail. Had he spent more time looking after his heart and less on dyeing his hair jet black, perhaps he wouldn’t have reduced himself to this pitiable creature who has lost everything he has worked his entire life for - his prestigious posts, but mainly his self-respect, because of his despicable conduct.A cursory look at his exchanges (WhatsApp messages, SMS texts, emails) with the victim, show the desperate levels he had descended to while trying to browbeat a junior into submission. At 74, Pachauri bleats, pleads and sulks with a woman young enough to be his daughter. A woman who repeatedly rejects him and states clearly, “I cannot give you anything you seek from me.” He goes on to taunt her, attempts to kiss her, and demands that she accept his “tenderness” without confusing the purity of his love for lust and sex! Right! How could this world-renowned scientist have been such a monumental fool and staked everything for a woman who was consistently not interested? It’s a common story and there must be thousands of creepy crawlies like Pachauri harassing junior colleagues in offices across the country and the world. Do they not possess mirrors? More important: Don’t they possess a basic moral code? A sense of decency? By all means, try your luck if there is a chance of some reciprocation. But the Pachauri style of sexual bullying has just one apt description: Abuse of power. He preyed on the woman’s (assumed) powerlessness. He miscalculated.It takes courage for a woman to take on someone at Pachauri’s level. As she has said, he is an international figure with highly powerful influential friends, while she is nobody. A dispensable cog in a gigantic wheel. Pachauri may have tried his tricks with others in the past but this time he made the fatal mistake of falling for a woman who refused to play ball. As a thwarted suitor, he continued to plague her, threatening to go on an indefinite fast if she didn’t respond favourably to his overtures. In her complaint, she says she emphatically turned down Pachauri’s “carnal and perverted” desires... But don’t be too surprised if critics turn around and counter- question her for staying on in this job for two years after the harassment started when she could have looked for another one! Huh????? Why should the victim look for another job and let the perpetrator off the hook? What absolute nonsense!Of course, there will be the standard attempts to tarnish the woman’s reputation and dig up her past. Pachauri’s sympathisers will locate old boyfriends (if any) and start a campaign to suggest she led the boss on. They will say she is to blame for “encouraging’’ the man and it is she who has a “loose character”. In other words, the woman asked for it! Oh no, she didn’t! She endured the harassment up to a point perhaps hoping the bully would back off. It was only when the pressure became unbearable that she filed an official report. Pachauri is charged under sections 354, 354A and 354 D, for molestation, stalking and sexual harassment.Aman who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, stands exposed as a cheap, third rate sexual predator. He may have evaded arrest (till March 27, at least), but he has been barred from entering the TERI office. He cannot travel overseas, either. His broken heart is being mended in a private hospital. Pachauri’s career is over. Kaput! Finito!But what happens to his victim? As a scientist herself, where does she go from here? Will she be ostracised for daring to speak out?What an irony! A much-feted environmental scientist lost it all for not being able to keep it in his pants. The climate change this man needs is inside his own head and heart.