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‘A penny for your thoughts.’

I smiled at her. ‘Fat lot of good that will do. Money doesn’t mean much now anyway, does it?’

She smiled back but then turned serious. ‘With all that’s been going on, I never got a chance to thank you.’

I looked at her. If only we had met under different circumstances. If only we had met when I still lived the life I used to, perhaps I would have asked her out. She was attractive, sure, but what I was really drawn to was her spirit. I smiled involuntarily as I thought about how Baba would say that indeed the world had to end for me to find a girl I wanted to be with. With that came the sobering thought that Baba was all alone, dealing with the chaos we were faced with. At least he lived in a society filled with his friends and colleagues, but they were all fairly old.

‘You okay?’

I reached out and held her hand. There was so much on my mind that I didn’t know how to put it all into words. Perhaps it was the same with her, because she didn’t probe further. We sat there till Pandey came up to us. Saluting, he said, ‘Sir, a group from the Glen buildings has come—the society want to join us.’

As I got up, I murmured to nobody in particular, ‘Why does he keep saluting me?’

The ‘group’ Pandey had referred to seemed to consist of every single resident of each of the five towers that made up the Glen society, including a sizeable number of foreigners who lived in the newest of the towers. While they had rebuffed us the previous night, it was clear that a lot of them had witnessed the confrontation and had come to the conclusion that safety, in this case at least, did lie in numbers.

The man who had turned us away the previous day was there, and extended a hand towards Mrs Khatri. ‘I’m Biren Bhagat, the secretary of our society, and we would like to join in with your societies.’

Bhagat had a slightly sheepish expression that indicated that the conciliation was perhaps more a result of the other residents pushing him after the events of the previous night, and he looked visibly shaken up. I greeted him, but he seemed so distracted that he barely nodded at me. All that was fine with me. The last thing on my mind was trading polite niceties with him. As long as they were willing to play ball, we could help secure the immediate neighbourhood for all of us.

General Lamba filled in the newcomers on what we had learned from the pilot and I could see the same mixture of shock and disbelief that had crossed the faces of many of our own residents.

In the meanwhile, Kundu had been working something out on a piece of paper and he called out to all of us.

‘Aadi, we can get water from the lake sure enough. The problem is transport. How much water can we carry back on a cycle, after all? Carrying it by hand will be time consuming and tiring. How I wish we had one single car that still worked.’

That would have been nice indeed, but we had to make do with what we had and Kundu had worked with clinical efficiency, writing out a roster of water duty that he now stuck on the notice board. As I glanced at the list, I realized he had been pretty smart. Each family was to contribute to the effort once a day so that nobody could complain about bearing too much of the load. On the roster were families from the other societies who had joined in as well, including Glen, and each family was to bring back water for the tanks of their own buildings, so that we avoided any squabbling over who had got more water or less.

The first water gathering party was to head out in thirty minutes, and people got ready with buckets, some with two buckets tied together with a rope slung across their shoulders. Pandey was there, carrying the rifle we had recovered from the gang.

‘Sir, I’ll go out and escort the convoy.’

I had not noticed it in the chaos of the night before, but now I could see it: a level of animation I had never noticed in Pandey’s eyes before. As a guard in a housing society, he had always looked bored, but now, perhaps getting a chance to relive being a soldier, to be doing something worthwhile, he was more alive than I had ever seen him. I asked him to take Subin, Prashant and a couple of the guards from our neighbouring society with him, just in case the gang caused trouble.

Trouble, as it were, came not from a gang but from within. As the people were loading up to set out on the journey, I heard a sudden commotion. When I pushed through the crowd, I saw a middle-aged man wearing a dapper polo t-shirt and jeans arguing with a young woman wearing an old, faded sari.

‘Soni, I asked you to go and get water. How can you refuse?’

The woman held her ground. ‘Who are you to order me? Go and get water yourself if you want. Your name is on the list.’

The man exploded in rage. ‘You are our servant. You need to do as I say.’

The woman looked him straight in the eye and then spat at his feet, causing the man to jump back to prevent the spittle from landing on his expensive-looking loafers.

‘Servant? Your money means nothing now, and why should I listen to you? Everyone has to work now. Go and get water for your family and I will help, but why should I alone do all the hard work for all of you?’

The man was stumped for a second and looked around, seeking support. There were several more maids and domestic helpers around and they were gathering behind Soni. This could get ugly unless someone intervened. Then I saw a familiar figure step in between them.

It was Megha.

She introduced herself to the man, who said his name was Ketan Shah.

‘Mr Shah, she does have a point. All of us need to chip in and if she was your employee before, now she is no longer obligated to work for you.’

Shah burst out in indignation. ‘I am the CFO of a multinational. I cannot lug around buckets of water. She lives in my home and has been living off my salary. I see nothing wrong in her doing the domestic chores as she always has.’

Megha’s voice was calm but firm. ‘Sir, try and understand that things are different. What position you once had doesn’t really matter. All of us need to help out and as for staying in your home, let’s ask Soni.’

She turned to the maid. ‘Soni, I get the fact that you aren’t obligated by salary to work for him or his family anymore, but you are staying in his apartment and taking advantage of the security this society complex gives you. So you do also need to chip in. Is that fair?’

Soni nodded but pointed at Shah saying, ‘I am willing to do my share and more in terms of cooking and cleaning in return for staying in this society. But to expect me to do everything, and for them to do nothing to help—that is not fair.’

Megha turned to Shah. ‘Sir, the only fair solution is that you, your wife and Soni alternate in getting water. Think of it this way—she is staying with you, and is paying her rent by helping get supplies and water. If you want, she can of course leave. It is your home, after all.’

Mrs Shah came up and whispered something into her husband’s ear. He looked at Megha and, seeming a bit deflated, said, ‘Okay, okay. I can go today and she’ll go tomorrow.’

That seemed to satisfy everyone and as she stepped away from the group, I smiled at Megha.

‘That was something. You really helped sort things out there.’

She smiled and winked at me. ‘I’m learning from someone who seems pretty good at it.’

The world ending or not, my heart skipped a beat.

As the first group left to get water, some of us buried the pilot in the park next to our building. This was not the first body I had buried since this began, and I wondered how many more final rites I would have to help with before it was over.

As we got back, sweaty and tired, I saw Mrs Khatri, General Lamba, Bhagat and a few others in what seemed to be an animated conversation. When I went up to them, the General was speaking in a polite but firm voice, ‘Water supply is important for sure, but we need to take care of food and security as well. And we cannot let that be an ad hoc effort.’

I sat down next to them and asked what was going on.

Bhagat spoke up. ‘The General is saying we should form a committee to oversee affairs for our societies and then sub-committees for security, food and water. The problem is getting us all to agree on who will represent us, and can be trusted to look after the interests of all our societies. Plus there are dozens of other societies in the neighbourhood, and if we are to be truly secure, we need to enrol all of them. How will we ever agree on a committee that represents all of us?’

It seemed to me that focusing all our energies on new elections and campaigns was not the best way to spend our time, so I ventured a suggestion. ‘Every society has an elected leader. Why don’t we just start with a council comprising them? Right now that would mean Mrs Khatri, Anu and Mr Bhagat. We do need groups to take care of water, food, electricity and security. For those I would just put the person or people best qualified to help. Kundu seems like a good person for the logistics and supplies of both food and water; for electricity Nitish has been the best person we have among us so far; and Pandeyji can help with security. They can choose whom they want to help them.’

They all nodded and then Bhagat pointed at me. ‘What position do you want?’

I was a bit flummoxed by the question. ‘Nothing. I’ll help wherever I can, but I don’t want any position.’

‘Everyone’s talking of how you dealt with the gang,’ he said, standing up. ‘They are looking to you to make decisions. We’re older and slower—people won’t follow us at a time like this. You need to be in charge.’

I could see that the events of the night had brutally brought home to him just how much things had changed, but I was reluctant to accept. I tried to explain. ‘Mr Bhagat, before this began, I didn’t even know the names of more than a couple of people who lived in my building, and knew nothing of what was going on there. I never bothered when the elections were and never showed up for any society event or meeting. If I had stood for a committee post then, nobody would have voted for me. So, no, I don’t want a post, but of course I’ll help in any way I possibly can, and if I am needed to step up to the front at any time, I will.’

As I walked away, Megha came up to me. She had overheard the exchange.

‘People are scared and they’re looking for someone who can keep them from giving in to panic. That’s why they’re putting their trust in you.’

I tried to put into words what was on my mind. ‘Megha, that’s what bothers me. When people are scared, they are usually in a hurry to give up power to the first person who stands up. I did what I did because it seemed right, but I know nothing of running a society with all the issues people will face. I don’t want to promise to be something I’m not.’

Pandey was back with the water crew, and he came over to me. ‘Sir, if we’re going to be serious about security, we need to get more societies in on it. I saw so many alleys and access roads from the lake, not to mention the road from IIT, the back road towards Ghatkopar, the side road headed into Chandivali—we’ll never have the numbers to secure all of them. Also, even if we found volunteers to stay out at night, they would have no weapons to speak of. We need to get other societies to join us in keeping watch.’

A couple of hours later, we were all gathered in the large gardens in front of the Glen complex. I had occasionally jogged here in the morning, when it was full of people exercising and doing yoga as well as geriatric members of the laughter club, laughing away their worries and stress. Now the worries and stress were perhaps higher than ever, but there was no laughing these away. Hundreds of families were gathered in the garden and, at last count, every building within a couple of kilometres was represented, all eager to hear what we had to share.

Mrs Khatri took them through all that we had learned: the attack on the Meluha, the confrontation of the previous night, and finally what the pilot had told us. I could see the shock on many faces, but perhaps an equal number were sceptic when she outlined a proposal for us to work together. The reality was that our building and our immediate neighbours had witnessed a lot of what had happened first-hand, but for the others, it still seemed too much to believe that things had changed so much.

Finally, someone from amidst the group came forward. He looked young, perhaps only a few years older than me, though he looked far fresher than I did and was wearing clean clothes. Over the last few days, changing my clothes had not exactly been on my mind, neither had shaving; and as he walked up, I was conscious of just how unkempt I looked compared to him. When he spoke, it was clearer why he was so opposed to our proposal of pooling resources. He lived in one of the more premium apartment complexes, further down the road from Haiko, which housed a good number of CEOs, senior executives and business tycoons. Someone next to me whispered that the man was the scion of one of the biggest business houses in India and this apartment was only one of many his family had in the complex.

‘Mrs Khatri, we understand what you’re saying, but our security is still in place and ours is a pretty self-contained pair of complexes with a single common entrance. We also have the small walking park next to us with a lake there, so water is not an immediate concern. Our security guards are also all on duty. We can manage for a few days, and don’t see the need to panic and put in place all sorts of committees and so on.’

What he was saying made a lot of sense—if we assumed things would be back to normal in a few days. I didn’t know how to convince him of my certainty that they wouldn’t. I realized that, for people like him, living a life already so far removed from the stresses and strains of ordinary folk, it was hard to comprehend that things could change so much. As he and the few of his building residents who had bothered to come along walked away, I only hoped that they saw the light before their food stocks began to run out or when their guards finally deserted them.

Our disappointment was repeated when several other buildings agreed to help in keeping watch at night, but felt we were overreacting in putting in place a committee or programme to pool water and food resources. Many of them simply said that they would prefer to wait and watch for a few more days. Some did, however, agree to join us, and we decided to get going with what we had.