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‘Just as I don’t give myself the right to decide for everyone here, I don’t believe Mr Suri should have the right to decide for all of you.’

I could see a change in their demeanour almost instantly. Where there had been looks of resentment and hostility a minute earlier, I saw some openness.

‘I cannot tell you what to do, but I can share what I believe. This is our country and our city, but even if talk of patriotism doesn’t mean much, this is our home, the place we have lived for years, where we have formed friendships, built careers, and for many of you, built your dream homes. There is an enemy out there who is threatening all of that. They have already destroyed the world as we know it, and we know that they do not hesitate to murder the unarmed and helpless. I have seen little boys with their brains blown out. We can expect no mercy from them.’

I let that soak in before I continued.

‘But the question is, how do we react when our homes and families are threatened by such an enemy? Do we run or do we fight? I know what I will do. I will fight. I have no family here, but every single person here is now part of my family, and I will not leave. Can we win this battle? I don’t know. But someone I respect a lot once told me that it doesn’t matter if you stand a chance or not, but whether it’s a fight worth fighting. And if our homes and families are not worth fighting for, then what is? When do we stop being cautious and become cowards? And think of this—here we at least have each other. I will not be petty. Take the bus and the food, but what will you do if looters attack you? What will you do if the terrorists aren’t just here but in other areas as well? You can decide what you want to do, but know that if you stay, I and many of us will die before we let your families and children come to harm. I have seen the enemy face-to-face and they are but men, and men can be killed. I intend to kill as many of them as I can before I die. When you’re out there in the bus, away from our community, who will die for your families?’

I walked away then, and asked Mahadev to drive me home. I was drained, and wanted to focus my energy on preparing for the attack we knew would come sooner or later. Also, I wanted nothing more to do with Suri. As I was getting into the auto-rickshaw, the General stopped me.

‘All but four of them are staying. Suri, his family, and three others are leaving. Poor buggers won’t last a day out there. One bus and some food wasted, but I can bet you nobody else will bug out after what you said. And one more thing, my boy, before you go. Don’t talk of dying, son. Let’s kill the bastards if they come for us.’

I had come to accept my job as being a jack of all trades, other than security of course, so in the free time I had, I was trying to make myself useful with whichever group could use an extra pair of arms and legs. That morning it happened to be Kundu and his supply corps, as some of us had started to call it. It was a joke, but born out of genuine admiration for the military precision with which he ran his teams. It was in large part due to his planning that we had faced no water shortages, and while people grumbled at times about having only canned food and bhaji, nobody had gone hungry.

That day, he was overseeing the creation of a bona fide warehouse for food stocks. Till then, we had kept our food stocks where we could, but the fact that he was putting a lot of effort in creating a more systematic storage space spoke both to his organizational skills and also the fact that we all now knew we were in this for the long haul.

‘Guys, we need a clear separation between products based on shelf life. Anything with a shelf life of twelve months or more goes in the far corner. Then comes nine months, and so on. All perishable stocks come closest to the sorting table. Then, remember, daily cleaning rosters are up on the door. We cannot have rats or pests get to these.’

One of the kids grudgingly passed on several packs of cookies to be put in the far corner. Kundu saw his look and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Varun, taste can’t be our first priority now. We have to consume items which will spoil first.’

The boy, who was probably no more than fifteen years old, looked at the squash courts that were acting as our warehouse and then at Kundu. ‘Do you think things will be the same even after twelve months? What happens when we run out of this stuff? I guess there aren’t factories churning out packaged food anymore.’

I had been helping stack some of the heavier boxes and I smiled at Varun. ‘By then, we’ll have freshly-grown onions, tomatoes, potatoes, beetroots and god alone knows what else Rani has planned. Also, just wait for Mohit to nail his solar-powered or biogas systems, and we’ll be having hot baths.’

The kid’s eyes seemed to light up and he got back to work.

‘What day is it today, Aadi?’

I was momentarily stumped. Days and dates no longer really mattered. There was no weekday or weekend, no office day or day off, and certainly none of us had social calendars beyond the immediate neighbourhood. I calculated the days and nights that had passed. It seemed like it was in a different life that I had been celebrating my promotion with my colleagues from work. That had been a Saturday.

‘I think it is Tuesday. No, wait, it’s Wednesday.’

Kundu stopped what he was doing. ‘It’s been almost two weeks, hasn’t it? My god, how things have changed in just a few days. Before the Blackout, I would be in office on a Wednesday morning, wondering why the weekend couldn’t come faster.’

I smiled as I put a carton of chocolate cookies in the far corner of the room. From obsessing about stock options and bonuses to ensuring we’d have food to eat a few months down the line. Things surely had changed, hadn’t they?

I heard three loud whistle blasts and then I was running outside. Mahadev was there with his auto-rickshaw and I jumped inside.

‘Where?’

‘Ghatkopar.’

He drove like a maniac, literally flying off some of the speed bumps and landing with bone-jarring impacts, but I wasn’t complaining. The whistle had been blown three more times. There was some big trouble and our guards there needed help. We hadn’t heard any gunshots, so it couldn’t be an attack, could it?

When we reached the checkpoint, we saw all four boys there looking totally rattled. Akif and Ismail were there as well, and the first thing they did when I reached was apologize profusely. Akif looked down, as if unable to meet my eyes. ‘Sorry, we screwed up. One of us should have been here at all times. We were changing over when he came.’

‘Who came?’

I walked over to the four kids. Two of them were carrying pistols and the others had hockey sticks. Why would the arrival of one person spook them so much?

‘Yash, what’s going on?’

Gone was the cocky demeanour I had come to expect from Yash at the dojo before the Blackout. Even with all that had happened, he’d managed to keep his spirits up, and been a great help in training others in unarmed combat. Now his face was pale and he seemed to be on the verge of breaking down.

‘Yash, what happened?’

He composed himself before responding. ‘A guy came by on foot. He looked like just another refugee and he was all alone so we didn’t think much of it when he walked up to the checkpoint. Then he said he was a messenger and had come to deliver a message.’

‘A message? From whom?’

With shaking hands, Yash held out a sheet of paper. ‘He said they would come later for our answer.’

I saw the black emblem on top of the paper with white Arabic text within, then I read the contents, which had been handwritten in English. I looked at Yash.

‘This is not the time to get scared, kid. This is the time to get seriously pissed off.’

In return for your continued safety and existence as subjects in our Caliphate, you are required to pay tax in any one or all of the following forms: food stocks, drinking water or willingness to help our warriors as guides. Failure to pay tax will invite suitable punishment including taking of girls of a suitable age as brides for our warriors or conscription of boys into our forces.

I read out the notice to the hundreds of people who had gathered at Central Avenue and the paper was passed around from one incredulous reader to another, wanting to make sure that what they had heard was true.

‘That’s why they punished the society we saw being attacked this morning.’

‘Oh my god, they have rockets. What can we do against that?’

‘Is this serious? How the hell can they ask for these things?’

I waited for it to sink in. It was a lot for people to deal with. It is one thing to reconcile with the fact that there is evil in the world, but quite another to come face to face with it. One thing to read about victims in the news but quite another to realize that you could be the next mark.

I saw Bhagat in a corner, his face pale. He had a twelve-year-old daughter, and no doubt he was thinking of her. I looked around the room and saw the same look on many faces. Many kids were there as well, and while some were perhaps too young to fully comprehend what was happening, I could see a few teenage girls begin to break down and cry. Bhagat caught my look and stood up. ‘What can we do? You saw what they did to the airplanes this morning and how they destroyed Raheja Vihar. We are not soldiers, and even if we do have a few guns, we cannot hope to stand against that kind of firepower.’

Ketan was also standing up now. I knew he had a teenage girl. ‘We’ve tried to adapt to the situation we find ourselves in. Believe me, we’ve tried. We’re cleaning toilets, we’re planting food, and we’re ferrying drums of water. We have done as we were asked and whatever was needed to take care of our families and our community, but what can we do if an enemy of this sort comes? We’ve all heard about your chat with Suri this morning, and I know it’s probably no safer anywhere else, so leaving isn’t an easy option, but what do we do?’

I looked at both of them; at their helplessness and their desperation. Then, without saying a word, I walked out of the meeting and back to my apartment. I passed Megha, who gently touched my arm. ‘Aadi, they need you. They’re scared.’

I smiled at her. ‘Megha, I don’t think I have the words to help reassure them, but I think I can at least do what I feel is right, and let them follow or not as they choose.’

Ten minutes later I was back, and I saw groups of people part as I walked between them. I saw Megha look at me with a strange expression on her face, and as I passed her, she squeezed my hand. Pandey saluted me as I walked by, as did Akif and Ismail. I could see Yash and a few of the youngsters visibly straighten. The General winked at me and Mr Sinha gave me a thumbs-up sign.

I had changed into black jeans and a black t-shirt, and put on one of the bulletproof vests we had appropriated. In my shoulder holster was the 9mm that the General had given me, and I was wearing the ammo pouch I had taken from the terrorist I had killed at Nahar, filled with spare clips. One of the terrorist’s knives was at my belt. I had applied black shoe polish on my forehead and across my cheeks.

My uncle had once told me about his raids in Kashmir and how they would steal out in the middle of night to do battle with fidayeen, often ending up in hand-to-hand combat. As a child I had been smitten with his tales of action and still remembered him showing me how to ‘dress’ for the part. I’d thought of him when I smeared the shoe polish on my face.
Mayukh kaka, what would you have done if you were in my place? What would you make of me if you saw me today?
Somehow, somewhere deep inside, I knew he would approve. I knew that if he had been in my place, he would have done exactly the same thing. Of course I was scared, and of course it’s only in the movies where people spout patriotic lines with no fear of death. But thinking of my uncle and how he would have reacted gave me strength as well as peace.

I stood before everyone, thinking of words that would work, and finally just said what was on my mind. ‘Forget all this has happened. Imagine that we’re back in the world that existed before last Sunday morning, before the Blackout. I am a vice president at a firm, one of you is a teacher, another an executive, someone else a homemaker. Each of us has the same identity that we had before the Blackout. The kids here go to school, we go to the mall to shop and watch movies, we can order pizzas and, yes, instead of standing in front of Chili’s talking about all this, we can go inside and take advantage of happy hours and drink beer.’

A few people chuckled, no doubt thinking of the lives they had led.

‘Now imagine that you’re back in your home, sitting in your living room, maybe watching TV. Bhagat, maybe your daughter is sitting next to you. Kundu, maybe your son’s playing video games in his room, and General, maybe you’re boring Anu with old war stories over Scotch.’

They smiled, and I could see a few eyes mist over.

‘Now, imagine a group of men breaks into your house. They are big, they are strong, and they are armed. They want to rob you, rape whoever they fancy and then leave. What will you do?’

The mood suddenly changed, and my voice was raised as I said the next few words. ‘Would you sit and wonder how you would resist? Would you call a committee meeting to decide on a course of action? Would you consider moving house?’

I could see anger on several faces.

‘Rohit, Yash, Kundu, all of you. I see you becoming angry, and yes I would be angry as well. Hell, I would be pissed off, and you know what I would do? I would fight as hard as I could and, even if I were to die, I’d make bloody sure I took as many of the bastards with me as I could. This is my home now, and these men are threatening all of us. I know what I am going to do, and those who want to join me are welcome. For the others, there is no shame in being afraid. I am not a soldier. I spent my whole career sitting in a cubicle making slides, but we are not defined by the jobs we do. We are defined by how we react when those who matter to us are in danger. The only label that counts in the world is whether you are a coward or not.’

The whistle was blowing from our checkpoint again, and I saw Mahadev drive in on his auto-rickshaw at a manic speed.

‘The son of a whore is back. Just the guy who came earlier, and now he says he is to convey our answer back to his masters.’