‘She lived with Ravan in Lanka. Ravan wasn’t a Hindu. Okay, he was a devotee of Shiva but he wasn’t a Hindu. When he took the form of a raven and abducted her, he touched her, didn’t he? Then? Didn’t that pollute her? Naturally Shri Ram exiled her. Touch pollutes. In our family we keep away from these Sindhis. Understand?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Good. You have to go now. I have taken up too much of your time today. But these are important things for the future of our country. Where are you going today?’

‘To a friend's.’

‘The gora aadmi? The Englishman?’

‘I’ve told you before. He's one of us. A Parsi.’

‘How is that one of us?’

‘Indian.’

Ramprasad laughs in relief. ‘Oh, Indian? That's different. Many people are Indian. We must accept that.’

Haridas stands up. Outside the wadi, he hails a cab. He puts the horn beside the driver when he gets in. ‘Do please blow that when you need to.’ A cabby's life is full of risks. One of them is not knowing what kind of a nut is going to be your next fare. ‘Fear nothing and nobody,’ Haridas says. ‘Blow with a generous hand. This is not your common or garden horn. This is art. Blow it once and you won’t want to stop.’

Wary of Haridas, the cabby blows the horn tentatively, just to be safe. If the passenger is one of those loose-screw fellows, he might just hit you on the head with something. But this passenger turns out to be chatty. Soon the cabby is narrating the story of his life to him, from Jaunpur to Mumbai. Haridas is full of curiosity. The journey from Prabhadevi to Altamount Road is long. Along the way he makes many sympathetic noises. At the end of the journey the cabby says, ‘Thank you, sir.’ As a sign of gratitude, he blows the horn once more. ‘I like this thing of yours. Otherwise it's the same old cab and the same old horn.’ As he takes the fare he even asks, ‘How long will you be, sir? I can wait if you want to go back.’

‘No. I don’t wait for anybody and nobody waits for me.’

This line strikes the cabby as thought-provoking. ‘You’ve said an important thing, sir. I will think about it for the rest of the day.’ The cabby salutes Haridas, turns the cab and drives off.