‘Shut up –’ said the young man to Maan viciously. ‘Just because you like circumcized cocks do you think we’ll let the Mussalman go?’ Again he prodded Firoz and drew another smear of blood down his sherwani.
Maan ignored him and continued to address Nand Kishor. He knew that the time for dialogue was short. It was miraculous that they had been able to speak at all – that they were still alive.
‘You teach my nephew Bhaskar. He’s part of Hanuman’s army. Do you teach him to attack innocent people? Is this the kind of Ram Rajya you want to bring about? We’re doing no one any harm. Let us go on our way. Come!’ he said to Firoz, grabbing him by the shoulder. ‘Come.’ He tried to shoulder his way past the mob.
‘Not so fast. You can go, you sister-fucking traitor – but you can’t,’ said the young man.
Maan turned on him and, ignoring his lathi, caught him by the throat in sudden fury.
‘You mother-fucker!’ he said to him in a low growl that nevertheless carried to every man in the mob. ‘Do you know what day this is? This man is my brother, more than my brother, and today in our neighbourhood we were celebrating Bharat Milaap. If you harm one hair of my brother’s head – if even one hair of his head is harmed – Lord Rama will seize your filthy soul and send it flaming into hell – and you’ll be born in your next life as the filthy krait you are. Go home and lick up your own blood, you sister-fucker, before I break your neck.’ He wrenched the young man’s lathi from his grasp and pushed him into the crowd.
His face flaming with anger, Maan now walked with Firoz unharmed through the mob, which seemed a little cowed by his words, a little uncertain of its purpose. Before it could think its way out again, Maan, pushing Firoz in front of him, had walked fifty yards and turned a corner.
‘Now run!’ he said.
He and Firoz ran for their lives. The mob was still dangerous. It was in effect leaderless for a few minutes and uncertain what to do, but it soon regrouped and, feeling cheated of its prey, moved along the alleys to hunt for more.
Maan knew that at all costs they had to avoid the route of the Bharat Milaap procession and still somehow get to his sister’s house. Who knew what danger they might have to face on the way, what other mobs or lunatics they might encounter.
‘I’ll try to get back to the Imambara,’ said Firoz.
‘It’s too late now,’ said Maan. ‘You’re cut off, and you don’t know this area. Stay with me now. We’re going to my sister’s. Her husband’s on the Ramlila Committee, no one will attack their house.’
‘But I can’t. How can I –’
‘Shut up !’ said Maan, his voice trembling again. ‘You’ve put us through enough danger aheady. Don’t have any more stupid scruples. There’s no purdah in our family, thank God. Go through that gate there and don’t make a sound.’ Then he put his arm around Firoz’s shoulder.
He led Firoz through a small washermen’s colony, and they emerged in the tiny alley where Kedarnath lived. It was a mere fifty yards from where the stage had been set up for the Bharat Milaap. They could hear the sound of shouting and screaming from close by. Veena’s house was in an almost entirely Hindu neighbourhood; no Muslim mobs could range here.
They stared at Firoz as he stumbled into the room in his bloodstained white sherwani – and at Maan, clutching the blood-stained lathi in his hand. Kedarnath stepped forward, the other three shrank back. Old Mrs Tandon clapped her hands to her mouth. ‘Hai Ram! Hai Ram!’ she gasped in horror.
‘Firoz is staying here until we can get him out safely,’ said Maan, looking at each of them in turn. ‘There’s a mob roaming around – and there’ll be others. But everyone here is safe. No one will think of attacking this house.’
‘But the blood – are you wounded?’ asked Veena, turning to Firoz, her eyes distracted with concern.
Maan looked at Firoz’s sherwani and his own lathi, and suddenly burst out laughing. ‘Yes, this lathi did it, but I didn’t – and it’s not his blood.’
Firoz greeted his hosts as courteously as his own shock and theirs would allow.
Bhaskar, still tear-faced, seeing the effect of all this on his parents, looked strangely at Maan, who placed the long bamboo staff against the wall, and kissed his nephew on the forehead.
‘This is the Nawab Sahib of Baitar’s younger son,’ said Maan to old Mrs Tandon. She nodded silently. Her mind had turned to the days of Partition in Lahore and her memories and thoughts were those of absolute terror.