Read Online The Solitude of Emperors by David Davidar - Free Book Online Page B

of the victims, a man dying from sword cuts or blows from a lathi. I could almost see the article in my head now, but the final piece of the picture eluded me, the dying man, and I realized that I had no visual reference to fuel my imagination. Nothing I had seen of these riots in print or television portrayed images of the dying, all that they showed was the dead. No, there was no substitute for actually being present at the scene of a killing. Rao, who was very talkative, had been chatting to me while I had been lost in my thoughts, and now he shook my arm impatiently, almost upsetting my drink.
    ‘What are you thinking about, man, you’ve scarcely touched your drink?’
    ‘Oh, nothing really…’
    ‘See, I knew you weren’t listening, fucker, what’s the matter with you?’
    The waiter had reappeared at our table, and I noticed Rao had finished his drink. I took a prolonged swallow at my own, gagging slightly as the rum flooded my throat. Although I had started having the occasional drink almost as soon as I arrived in Bombay, I was still in the process of acquiring a taste for the stuff.
    ‘Saab, we’re closing in fifteen minutes, manager saab says no more orders after this one.’
    ‘What’s wrong with you people? There have been riots before, nothing will happen to us here,’ Rao said irritably.
    ‘It’s not my rule, saab,’ the waiter said stubbornly.
    ‘OK, two large Old Monks each, jaldi,’ he said.
    ‘I can’t drink that much,’ I protested, ‘I’ll puke for sure.’
    ‘No problem, I’ll drink three, man—I need the buzz. This is bloody exciting.’
    I was briefly sickened by his callousness, but I needed him, I couldn’t do this on my own. And besides, who was I to moralize? I wasn’t going out to save lives, I was hoping to use the riots for my own purposes.
    Soon, the shutters were clattering down, and the waiter reappeared to tell us it was time to leave. But we lingered, now afraid to step into a world where the old certainties didn’t hold. I found my courage ebbing away and was fully prepared to walk back to the hostel but Rao, fuelled by four rums, urged me on. It took us a while to find a taxi, the black and yellows seemed to have vanished, and when we eventually managed to flag one down the driver refused to take us to where we wanted to go. Finally, we managed to strike a deal—we would pay him a hundred rupees more than the fare, and he would drop us off a safe distance from an area where riots had recently occurred.
    The taxi driver was a large man, almost filling the front seat. As we got into his vehicle I was immediately struck by the absence of religious objects the dashboard would normally have been crammed with—depending on the faith of the driver or owner, verses from the Koran, small crucifixes, reproductions of a variety of Hindu gods and goddesses or pictures of Guru Nanak. Sometimes, if the driver was hedging his bets, you would have portraits of the syncretic saint Shirdi Sai Baba, or an assortment of artefacts from every faith, divine protection to guard against suicidal driving and a variety of other dangers that could hurtle out of the Bombay night. As we drove along, I found myself wondering about the faith of our driver. Was he Hindu or Muslim? Would he take to the streets later tonight to kill, or would he be in hiding?
    We were dropped off as agreed, and began walking. As we went deeper into the maze of streets, heading away from the storm of light and noise of the main thoroughfare, there were fewer and fewer people. In my memory the streets of the neighbourhood we passed through are a bluish grey, burned a dusty gold here and there by the occasional street lamp that worked. Although it was still only slightly after ten, I had never walked streets so deserted in all the time I had lived in the city. I grew ever more excited. And nervous. Beside me, I could hear Rao breathing heavily. After we had walked for about fifteen minutes, the city still and