03:02 (13 page)

As we dispersed, everyone got busy. Kundu had organized a small army of volunteers, some to scout out food supplies in nearby stores, and a smaller number to accompany Rani to Haiko. We were still not breaking into shops that were locked, and paying cash for what we took, but I wondered how long that would last before someone in some other building got desperate enough to start looting.

Nitish had his own set of volunteers and was going from society to society, trying to get their generators working; unfortunately, for the most part, they were poorly maintained to begin with and most societies were still going to be without any power.

Pandey had gathered a group of young men whom he was talking to about patrols at night and setting up checkpoints at intersections. Most of the kids looked terrified, and I wondered how they would hold up if there was any real trouble. Not very well, I suspected, but they were all we had. Trying to make myself useful, I joined Pandey and made the kids agree that if they saw any looters approach, they were not to confront them but to blow on whistles which we distributed. Each group of four had its own signal: one blast of the whistle for the Central Avenue team, two for the team near the private road towards Chandivali, and so on. If we heard the signal, we would rush to aid the team in need, armed with the two guns we had between us. The General had given me his remaining ammunition—all twenty-four rounds—but the mere presence of the guns made our volunteers look a lot more confident than they perhaps would have been otherwise.

The General was not happy that so many societies were not participating. ‘Bloody fools will realize only when it’s too late. Anyway, Pandey, have a team stationed at the old station near Delphi where the Hiranandani guards were based. They can watch three access roads, including the one from the lake. They will also be pretty far away from us, so instead of relying on the whistle alarms alone, have a roving group on bicycles that can shuttle between posts with news.’

Reassured that security was in the hands of people better qualified to deal with it than me, I began to walk away, but was stopped by Megha. ‘We never talked about healthcare. People will fall sick, and someone or the other is bound to get hurt. Let’s reopen the hospital. I’m there, Dr Guenther and his wife will help, and there are at least three doctors among the residents of the societies who’re joining us.’

It was something we had missed, but the idea of the hospital reopening didn’t appeal to me. It was set off away from any housing society, with dark access alleys that could never be guarded. Then I realized that my instinctive dislike for the idea came from the thought of Megha there all alone and with little protection.

‘Why don’t you guys operate out of the Forest Club? Get the medicines from the hospital and set up there. It’s closer to all our societies and easier to protect.’

The Forest Club was the largest club in the neighbourhood, with a swimming pool, tennis court and a gym. It was a large building and very centrally located compared to the hospital.

Megha nodded and said in passing, ‘I’ll also find a spot there to sleep.’

As she walked away, something in me wanted to ask her to stay at my place, but I stopped myself. We barely knew each other, and I was nobody to ask such a thing of her. I had never even asked if she was married or had a boyfriend or not. Then I reminded myself to stop thinking about my non-existent love life and worry about more immediate concerns, like helping Pandey draw up the roster for the patrols that would begin that evening.

General Lamba and I were taking a rare break, sipping tea in front of my building. It was four in the evening and we thought we’d take a breather before night fell and security once again became our top priority. Kundu arrived, followed by over a dozen people, and a rather animated debate followed involving, of all things, shit. Honestly, shit. Kundu said that several toilets were already backing up because the sewage systems were connected to pumps that were no longer working, so—especially for apartments in the higher floors—using toilets was already an issue. Kundu also had a very strong point of view on something, but the others didn’t agree with him.

‘Do you even know how much water is used every time you flush? We need to prioritize water for drinking, first and foremost, and then for cleaning, both ourselves and our utensils. That’s what we need to focus on, and with us needing to get water for all our families, we can’t take supply for granted.’

Someone looked to the General, as if seeking support.

‘Sir, he is saying we should go to the bathroom in the open. We are not animals.’

Kundu put up his hands in exasperation. ‘Rohit, I said no such thing. All I said is that we should use common bathrooms and on the ground floor. The gardens have public toilets which we should use. Those won’t require the pumping stations to work as they are at ground level and I can probably figure out some manual system to pump out waste.’

Rohit was clearly not convinced. ‘There are hundreds of families here. We can’t all use a few public toilets, and honestly, every time I need to take a dump, do you expect me to climb downstairs and walk to one of those toilets?’

‘Yes,’ Kundu said. ‘Or you keep using your bloody toilet and wait for it to clog up. There won’t be a bloody plumber you can call to fix it. At least I hope you realize it, and I also hope you realize what a selfish pig you’ll be for flushing down water that could be enough for a person to drink for a full day every time you take your precious dump.’

Rohit looked angry, but said nothing. The General stepped in. ‘Folks, what’s clear is that it is no longer business as usual. It’s been four days and we need to be ready for the fact that this is just the beginning. The more we stick together and the more we trust those among us who know about things we don’t, the better we’ll fare. To be honest, I had never thought of toilets and water supply, but what Kundu says makes a lot of sense. So I would let him lead us in this matter.’

As the group left, the General chuckled speaking softly, almost to himself, ‘My, my, the things that we need to deal with now.’

With the others gone, I took the chance to ask the General something that had been on my mind. ‘General, do you think someone actually exploded nukes in the atmosphere? Who could it have been? How would they get missiles?’

‘Aadi, I don’t know if they did, though based on what we see happening around us and what the pilot said, it’s possible. Who could have done it? Any number of people—terrorists, rogue states like North Korea, jihadi elements in the Pakistani Army, or indeed, a combination of any and all of those.’

‘But why would they do it? Everyone’s back in the medieval ages now.’

The General looked at me and I began to see fear creep into his eyes. ‘Don’t you get it? That suits people like these terrorists perfectly. They would be happy turning back the clock and recreating what they view as an ideal society, what we would see as medieval and barbaric. Also, now there’s no air power, no drones, no tanks. If it comes down to men with guns in the darkness, they’ve levelled the playing field.’

It wasn’t that cold but I shivered involuntarily. It was one thing to deal with a small gang of looters, but we were not prepared or equipped to deal with armed terrorists.

‘Do you think they’re out there?’

‘If they did this, I’m sure they are out there. Hell, they would have had sleeper cells in place even in normal times, and if this was planned, then they’re all going to be active now. I suppose, though, that they’ll be seizing the port, airports, hitting military installations and so on as priority instead of worrying about housing societies.’

The way he said the last sentence made me feel like he was reassuring himself as much as me.

‘But General, we will fight back, won’t we?’

‘Sure we will. The Americans will have all their submarines running and most of their nukes are on them. If they find out who did this, you can be sure cruise missiles and perhaps nukes will be flying soon. I’m sure the military will get the technology up and running soon. The question is whether they will be fast enough. And, if they’re dealing with all that, they will not be able to regroup in time to do much about law and order on an everyday basis.’

We sat there wondering what was indeed happening in the world that lay beyond our small neighbourhood. However, one thing was clear. No matter what happened there, and the extent to which this was indeed a global problem or not, for the immediate future, we were well and truly on our own.

That night was uneventful, though I barely got any sleep. Insomnia seemed to be the new normal and I wondered how long I would manage without more than a couple of hours of sleep each night. What had kept me up was the knowledge that, while our patrols were out, the reality was that they were scared kids or middle-aged office-goers, and if a gang did show up again, chances were they would either fold and run or get hurt trying to stop them. So, when I was supposed to take a break, I felt a bit guilty leaving them out there. I borrowed a bicycle and rode most of the night from one position to another, checking on things, and sometimes just chatting with them.

Near the entry from the Ghatkopar road, I recognized one of the boys Pandey had placed there.

‘Hey Yash, how are you holding up?’ I called out.

He got up and bowed, which to anyone else would have appeared silly. Yash was a college student and a brown belt I had met at the dojo I used to train at. He was all confidence and swagger at the dojo but now I could see he was scared.

‘Aadi, this is too weird to be real. Do you really think we’re going to be like this forever?’

He was there with two more kids and an adult who was sitting, reading a novel by the light of his torch.

‘Yash, forever is a big word—sooner or later things will start looking up. The Army will mobilize and help will reach us. But we are a huge country, and there will be lots of people out there without food, medicine and security. We need to hold out the best we can till things do improve.’

I gently tapped the adult on the shoulder. There was no point being hard on anyone as everyone was freaking out, but he did need to know that we could no longer take things for granted. ‘I wouldn’t read that novel now. You’re using up batteries that we can’t exactly pick up at any store we want anymore—and you’re giving away your position to anyone looking in towards you.’

He immediately switched off the torch and looked out towards the blackness of the night, wondering, as we all were, who might be out there.

As I left, I thought about the other thing that was making me restless: how was Megha holding up? So, in the morning, I went to the club, carrying a thermos filled with tea. Judging from the way she looked, she had not had much sleep either. She accepted the tea and we sat next to the swimming pool as we talked.

‘Nobody will be swimming here for some time. Kundu’s got a smart idea of using this as our reserve of water to be shared among all the societies.’

She nodded, but her thoughts were somewhere else.

‘A penny for your thoughts?’

She smiled, though I could see the tension in her eyes.

‘A night without chaos is sometimes not a good thing. It gives you time to think. To think of my parents in Kolkata. To think of my sister in New York. I have no idea how they are holding up.’

As we sat there, talking about our backgrounds, our families and what we had done with our lives before being thrown together by this chaos, I was struck by just how much one could learn about and connect with a person in one single conversation. No, we were not ‘liking’ each other’s Facebook posts, no we were not ‘tagging’ each other, and no we were not taking selfies together. In short, we were not doing any of the things we used to do that passed for connecting with someone. In the process we had missed out on simple conversations like this; what we had taken to be connections were merely electronic crutches that could be taken away by the flick of a switch.

Turned out Megha’s father had been in the Air Force, and she had spent her childhood moving from one base to another. So we did have something in common, after all.

‘That explains your fighting spirit,’ I said.

She smiled. ‘Just give me a bottle to throw and I’m deadly.’

I would have wanted to do nothing more than sit and chat, share numbers and then perhaps ask her out. Maybe later in the week, we’d catch up over drinks after work, then see where things led. Of course, there was no point in sharing phone numbers since our phones did not work, there were no restaurants open where we could grab a meal, and indeed, no office for me to go to. She caught me gazing off into the distance.

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Asking you out to lunch.’

I had said the words without thinking and now quickly glanced at her to see if she was bothered by them, and if I should apologize. Instead, she smiled.

‘Sure. I would have said your place or mine, but my place is out there in Goregaon and I don’t know when I’ll get back and how my flatmate is doing. So your place it is. How about dinner?’

I nodded. Things had taken an unplanned turn, and for a change, considering what the last few days had been like, it had been for the better.

Of course, I was brought back to reality when I went to the meeting room and saw Kundu sitting at the table, his ham-like hands rubbing the sides of his temple and Rani standing next to him, tears welling up in her eyes. I knew they had planned a trip to Haiko early in the morning to get supplies, and wondered what had gone wrong. Mrs Khatri and Nitish were there and it seemed everyone other than me was in a foul mood. What had happened?

Rani looked at me and spoke through sobs. ‘Someone broke into Haiko. They took a lot of the food. What will I tell my boss when we reopen?’

I didn’t know whether to be touched or amused by her display of loyalty to a chain that perhaps no longer really existed.

I turned to the General, who was sitting in a corner. ‘Looters?’ I asked.

‘Can’t be. None of our patrols saw anyone sneak into the neighbourhood, and while we don’t have the manpower to cover every inch of the area, they would have noticed a group making off with that much stuff.’