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  He gestured towards me, and all eyes in the room turned to me. I involuntarily took a step back. It was ironic: in my career, I had spent years seeking the limelight, seeking out recognition, seeking out badges of progress, but now that real lives were at stake and not, as Dhruv had so presciently said, numbers on a spreadsheet, those seemed like trifles.

  The General got up. ‘Mr Sinha, thank you for joining us. Certainly, together we are stronger than if we were alone. We have been managing as a committee, but to be honest, we are struggling. None of us has experience of leading a large community, but you do, both in leading a billion-dollar business empire and as an elected leader. You could help us, and I think many of us would welcome you joining our leadership team.’

  Mr Sinha looked at me, a twinkle in his eye. ‘That young man also taught me that being a true leader does not mean having a position or title.’

  That day was spent in the daily routine of activities that defined our schedules—gathering water, helping with the planting of crops, conducting training on how to deal with emergencies, and so on. To be honest, I thought people were focusing on whatever task they could find at hand to keep their anxieties from overcoming them. All of us had seen the fires the previous night, and even now we could see several pillars of black smoke rising over the horizon. Once in a while people would stop, gaze at the smoke and wonder aloud what had happened, but none of us had any answers to offer.

  Nitish did manage to get us all to focus on immediate problems when he shared the fact that keeping the lifts powered all the time would mean that we would run out of diesel for our generators in less than a week. While some people still moaned and groaned, and it took a debate that lasted more than an hour, ultimately we did manage on a compromise. The lifts would run every alternate hour during the day, and would be shut at night between midnight and six in the morning till we were able to get more fuel. People volunteered to have the diesel in their cars siphoned for a common pool, and Nitish and a few volunteers got to work.

  As we walked out, I saw Rani at work with her crew and once again had to smile at the out-of-shape, middle-aged executives and office-dwellers working under her strict supervision. I asked her what she was planting.

  ‘Things that will grow fast so we have some food supply soon,’ she said. ‘Things like beet. In a month we can have something. Also some things we’ll need but will take more time, like potatoes.’

  It was late afternoon when I could finally walk to the club to check on Megha. She was sitting against a wall, looking totally drained.

  ‘Aadi, we lost another patient and there has been one more suicide.’

  I sat next to her and let her talk and get the frustration out of her system. Sometimes that was the best you could do.

  ‘Healthcare was something we took for granted. But now that we’re back to where we were perhaps a hundred years ago, illnesses that were no more than minor inconveniences are becoming killers. We’re struggling to keep some stocks of insulin under refrigeration, but it’s draining the hell out of our generator, and we’ll run out soon enough. So diabetics will be at severe risk. Two people have died of heart attacks; if we had a full-fledged hospital with defibrillators running they may have lived. And at least one of the suicide cases was on antidepressants which ran out and we had no resupplies.’

  We were fast moving into the kind of society none of us had experienced. The world we had lived in was considered civilized largely because our advancements in technology and science had helped even those who were unwell have a shot at a full and healthy life. In the black world we inhabited now, it was much more Darwinian, truly a survival of the fittest, and the sick and the old were being hit first and hit hardest.

  ‘In a city the size of Mumbai, there must be stocks of drugs out there.’

  No sooner had I said the words when I realized just how difficult a proposition it would be to scout such a huge area on bicycle, especially if there were looters or terrorists around.

  ‘I just wish there was one goddamn car that was working.’

  We sat in silence for a while, holding hands, savouring the comfort our company was giving each other in the midst of all the gloom. When I got up to leave, planning to do a round of the checkpoints before night fell, my ears caught a sound I had not heard in many days.

  The sound of an automobile engine.

  As I rode the bicycle towards the checkpoint near the lane that led into the Nahar area next to SM Shetty School with Megha behind me, I could hear shouts of excitement and people milling on the streets. A few days earlier, nobody would have thought anything of a vehicle driving through the crowded streets, but now it was as if people had never seen or heard a car before. As we reached the checkpoint, I could see a crowd already gathered there, staring at an auto-rickshaw. The driver was a thin man wearing white clothes which had turned sooty brown from dust and dirt and was grinning at us.

  ‘Let me in and point that bloody gun somewhere else.’

  I realized that that one of the guards was pointing his pistol at the vehicle, and I gently touched his shoulder and asked him to lower it. I also noticed that in his excitement and nervousness, he had forgotten to flick the safety off. Clearly we needed more than just guns to defend ourselves, and we would need to train our folks much more. I walked towards the auto-rickshaw.

  ‘How the hell did you get this to work?’

  The driver looked at me with a slightly sheepish grin.

  ‘Ever since they made us put on the fancy meters and gadgets, I’d found a way to mess with them and connect the engine directly, the old-fashioned way. When my auto-rickshaw would not start the morning after the lights went off, I tried it the other way and it worked.’

  It seemed to tally with what Nitish had said about the generators as well. Anything with modern electronics or circuits had been fried, but rewiring them the way they had been before modern computers and circuits seemed to work.

  ‘Can you fix other auto-rickshaws?’

  He smiled at me, and I saw the glint in his eyes. ‘Yes, I can, but for that you need to let me in and let me stay here.’

  ‘Wait here and I’ll be back.’

  We had a ten-minute debate on it, and several of the society leaders talked about how we had turned refugees back before. That was when Mr Sinha stepped in. ‘Part of dealing with crises is being pragmatic and being able to change as circumstances change. Yes, we’ve turned people back before, but this man brings a skill we don’t have here and which could improve our chances of getting through this. Let’s allow him in and deal with other refugees as they come.’

  As I looked around the room, I realized that perhaps most of the people there agreed with Mr Sinha, but they had been waiting for someone to make that decision for them.

  The driver, who told us his name was Mahadev, was soon in front of us, looking pretty awkward at all the attention he was getting. Mr Sinha was explaining the rules to him. ‘Stay here and find a spot inside the club or one of the common areas to sleep. Help fix as many auto-rickshaws as you can find and you’ll then be in-charge of our transport department, helping ferry people and supplies. But remember one thing. Your messing with the meters would have got you jailed in the old world. If you get any ideas about bending the rules or laws here or perhaps stealing something, you’ll get much worse than jail. This young man will put a bullet in your head.’

  It took me a second to realize Mr Sinha was talking about me. Mahadev looked long and hard at me, and at the pistol tucked into my belt. Then he shuffled out to get to work, and several people in the room broke out into grins.

  ‘Thanks for making me the resident executioner.’

  Mr Sinha grinned back at me. ‘We are all old fogeys and unlikely to scare anyone. To set the rules, whether in an office, a municipality or in the neighbourhood we call home, you need the carrot and the stick; the motivation and the muscle.’

  If only for a short while, it was easy to forget just how brutal and hard our lives had bec
ome. People were lining the streets. Someone was passing around drinks from a previously concealed stash of beer, and in the absence of any working music system that would be loud enough to be heard in such a large open area, a group of kids had decided to entertain us with their badly off-key rendition of One Direction songs. It was loud, it was chaotic, but most importantly, it was to celebrate the return of one aspect of what we had taken for granted.

  The ability to drive and be driven from one place to another.

  Mahadev, either to demonstrate that he could indeed earn his keep, and perhaps out of fear at seeing me constantly shadow him, armed with my pistol, had attacked his new job with gusto. We had found five auto-rickshaws, the drivers of which were around, either having lived nearby or, in the case of three of them, having slept in them after a late-night ride. Mahadev had managed to jury-rig the vehicles and now he was leading them in a procession down Central Avenue to the delight of the cheering crowds lining the street.

  He stopped just in front of where I was standing. ‘I did it, didn’t I?’

  ‘That you did. The question, my friend, is where you have been and what you have seen. Let the circus get over and then we’ll have a little chat.’

  His grin disappeared as he slunk back inside the auto-rickshaw and continued his parade.

  Ten minutes later, Mahadev and I were sitting near our checkpoint overlooking Powai Lake. I had asked the guards there to give us some space, but certainly having four men nearby, one of them armed with a sten gun, made Mahadev even more uncomfortable than he already was.

  ‘So, Mahadev, tell me your story. We have no idea what’s going on out there in the city and you’re coming from there. Tell me what you’ve seen and done.’

  He shuffled a bit uncomfortably as he replied. ‘I woke up that morning and everything was black. My auto-rickshaw wouldn’t start either. Like so many people, I waited for things to get back to normal, but nothing happened. When people started panicking, I tried fixing my auto-rickshaw and it worked.’

  I leaned in closer to him.

  ‘I’ve heard that story, and I’ve said nothing so far because I wanted you to help fix a few more auto-rickshaws. Which part of Mumbai were you in?’

  ‘I was in Juhu.’

  ‘Really? And was it peaceful there? With the only running auto-rickshaw around, didn’t you attract any attention from looters?’

  He looked down as if thinking through his answer. ‘Yes, it was fine. I mean, there were some looters around, but with my auto-rickshaw, nobody caught up with me. I saw the lights on here in the night and drove over to seek refuge.’

  I grabbed him by his collar and pulled him towards me.

  ‘If you lie, I won’t shoot you but I will smash every single one of your teeth out with my bare hands. Think very carefully before you answer.’

  His eyes were wide as he looked at me now.

  ‘Explain the two bullet holes in the side of your auto.’

  He froze, looking left to right as if that would somehow save him from having to answer. I repeated the question, this time pulling him towards me so his face was inches from mine.

  ‘When I was in Juhu, I saw a group of masked men carrying guns. They took a shot at me and I tried to drive out of there but they stopped me. Some of them were speaking in a strange language, but others were locals. They asked me to drive them around and I did. I was shit scared, what else could I do?’

  ‘How did you get out alive?’

  ‘One night when they were sleeping, I made a break for it. They got a couple of bullets in the auto but I made it out.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything about this before?’

  His eyes were now even wider, and it was clear that the fear of being shot or beaten by me was far overshadowed by the fear those men had put in him.

  ‘I felt guilty and ashamed for helping them. These guys were not ordinary looters. They carried big guns and spoke of missions and tactics. And one day…they attacked this police party and massacred them, and I helped drive them to their position.’

  I could see he was shaking. His story made sense given what the pilot had told us, and I wondered if this was the same group that had attacked the pilot and the cops with him. I let go of his collar. The pilot had told us this was an enemy attack, and of terrorists in the city. Hearing about them from Mahadev and having seen the flames in the city skyline at night now made that threat much more imminent and real. Faced with circumstances like that, I couldn’t bring myself to be angry with Mahadev. He had done what he needed to in order to survive, and if he had indirectly helped the enemy, he could certainly make amends now.

  ‘Mahadev, I need you to help us here. Take the other drivers and use them as your crew to drive the auto-rickshaws and ferry supplies, and I need you to convert a couple of the auto-rickshaws to patrol vehicles. Strip out the covering so that people inside can take a shot in any direction. Also, if older vehicles can work, can you look for any trucks or buses that you can start? I’ve seen many abandoned ones that look quite old. That would be a huge help to us in getting water supplies.’

  Relieved that he was off the hook, he thanked me profusely and got to work. I stood there, looking at the lake in the distance, its calm waters belying the storm that had engulfed our world. Inside our little community, we were trying to maintain security and give ourselves a sense of normalcy, but the city outside was anything but secure. I wondered when that danger would come knocking on our doors and whether we’d be ready to face it.

  It was six in the evening and I had done my rounds of our checkpoints, taken around by Mahadev who had somehow become my designated driver. He had corralled a group of seven drivers, including the five whose autos we had jury-rigged. As with the domestic help, most drivers had left after the first day or two, hoping to reach their families in Mumbai. The men who stayed back had no immediate families in the city and, in return for their stay in the neighbourhood, they now essentially formed a common pool of drivers for our use. Fuel was still something we could not take for granted, though we had voted on siphoning it from all stranded vehicles. The purist might have considered it theft, and it was one more small way in which we were leaving the standards and definitions of the old world behind.

  The priority task for the auto-rickshaws was to help with the water supply, and I could see big grins from Kundu and his teams. It had been a critical task, but an arduous one, to carry water from the lake in buckets tied behind bicycles. With one stroke our water supply system had been immensely improved. The second important task for the auto-rickshaws was to help us with security. Now, we had the capability of getting our guns to any checkpoint within minutes. We had two designated security auto-rickshaws, which Mahadev had stripped of all covering. Pandey, Akif, Ismail and I were to rotate roving duties to ensure at least one person with a gun was awake in an auto-rickshaw during the night.

  That night, Pandey had given me a knowing glance and suggested I take the duty that ended before midnight so I could get a good night’s sleep. Megha’s moving in with me was hardly a secret and I was glad that Pandey had cut me that much slack.

  ‘Sir, why don’t you use a sten gun instead of that little pistol?’ Mahadev asked as we ended our round.

  ‘In the NCC, we trained with pistols and rifles but I’ve never shot at anyone with a rifle before. I would probably just spray rounds here and there. Akif and Ismail have used assault rifles before in the military and will use them much more effectively,’ I replied. What I left unsaid was that I had persisted with the little .22, instead of taking one of much more powerful 9mm pistols we had recovered from Sinha’s guards, because it was the weapon that I had been blooded with in the confrontation with the gang. And having lived through my first terrifying firefight, I looked at it as a good luck charm of sorts.

  ‘Should I drop you at the club?’

  ‘Yes, and pick Pandeyji up for his rounds. We’ll need both auto-rickshaws up and running early morning, so try and get some sleep at night.
I suspect refugees won’t try and get through in the middle of night, but I do expect more to come when the sun rises.’

  We had turned back more than four groups of refugees that day, and in all cases, nothing more than some raised voices and pointing of guns had been needed. However, as the crisis dragged on, and people got more desperate, I wondered how ugly things might get. Could any of our people shoot innocent refugees? Could I?

  Earlier, we had gone out in three of the auto-rickshaws to explore nearby areas. One of our first destinations had been the Renaissance Hotel across the lake. We had seen some lights flickering there at night, seemingly candles that someone had lit, and we wanted to both see if anyone there needed help as well as check if there might be food and supplies. When we reached the hotel, we immediately turned back. The approach road was littered with corpses, several of security guards, and we saw three men standing near the gate, carrying knives and swords. They did not look like the men that had attacked us, but clearly another gang was operating in the vicinity. On the way back, we passed word to our checkpoints, especially the ones near the lake, that they were to stay alert.

  As I entered the club, I saw Megha sitting at the reception desk, her eyes blazing with anger.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked as I sat down next to her.

  She looked at me and I saw that there were tears welling up in her eyes. I put my arm around her, and I could tell that she was trembling.

  ‘Megha, what happened?’

  She buried her face in my shoulder. Dr Guenther and his wife, Marie, who had been helping out as a nurse, came out of one of the rooms inside.

  ‘Doctor, what’s going on?’