Then she heard it again. This sound was definitely not fireworks. It was more like the crackle of machine-gun fire.

Tarlok.

The packet of peanuts fell from her hand. The people around her started running helter-skelter. The panic was palpable, descending on them like a shroud.

‘Terrorist attack!’ shouted someone.

‘Run!’ shouted another man. He grabbed his young daughter by the hand, and as he did so, her doll fell to the ground. Within seconds, it was mangled under the feet of the stampeding crowd.

Toshi felt emptied to the pit of her stomach. It was as if the same nightmare born of hatred was replaying itself. Toshi’s doll, Nanhi, lying on the ground trampled underfoot by a frenzied mob. Toshi could almost see her six-year-old brother standing amidst the chaos, alone. Except, this time, she wasn’t going to let him be alone.

She started running towards the hotel, as fast as her arthritic legs would carry her.

‘Don’t go that way,’ shouted a well-meaning vendor, who was hurriedly collecting his wares and fleeing the scene.

Toshi took no heed. Whatever this was, this time around she would not leave Tarlok’s side. She rushed through the hotel lobby and towards the restaurant where Tarlok had headed to make the booking. The smell of gunpowder hung ominously in the air.

As she entered the restaurant, from the corner of her eye, Toshi saw a man being gunned down. She stopped—rooted to the spot in a stunned stupor. A familiar terror uncoiled like a sludge to pulse through her veins, as the man collapsed in a pool of blood. Slowly, Toshi forced herself to turn around to look at him.

What struck her first was that it wasn’t Tarlok. What struck her next was that the man’s eyes were wide open, his mouth forming an oval as if he had been abruptly cut off mid-sentence. The blood from his temple dripped in a steadily increasing pattern on to the napkin that was still on his lap. Like a tap that hadn’t been fully shut off. Around him were bodies of other people. Women, men. Just stacked on top of each other in a tangle of limbs.

The image of a train went through Toshi’s head. The blood-drenched platform at Rawalpindi when she was ten. That was what this reminded her of. She recoiled from that memory, as if someone had physically struck her in the face. Her breath became laboured. She could hear her heartbeat pound against her eardrum. But one thought eclipsed everything else.

Tarlok.

She had to find Tarlok. Getting down on her hands and knees, Toshi made her way behind the tables, crawling slowly through the room, pushing past lifeless bodies, her eyes searching for Tarlok. There was the sound of gunshots again. The gunmen were in the room. Toshi shut her eyes and lay flat on her stomach, not knowing where or whom the shots would hit. And then, as she opened her eyes, she spotted Tarlok sitting at the far end of the room. Her spirits soared. Tarlok was alive and safe. He saw her too and smiled. Toshi waited for the gunshots to subside, and then she quietly crawled towards her brother and sat beside him, careful not to make a sound.