‘So, where do you want to go then?’ Salim asked. His face was bright and eager to show Kyle his wonderful wonderful city. This was a Salim Kyle had never seen before; Salim not-in-Cantonment, Salim in-his-own-place, Salim-among-his-own-people. This Mansoori seemed alien to Kyle. He was not sure he liked him. ‘There’s theNewBharatSabhaholydeerofSarnath DoctorSampunananandcricketgroundBuddhiststupaRamnagar FortVishwanathTempleJantarMantar…’

Too much too much, Kyle’s head was going round all the people, all the people, the one thing he never saw, never noticed from the roof-top look-out, under all the helicopters and cranes and military RAV drones, there were people.

‘River,’ he gasped. ‘The river, the big steps.’

‘The ghats. The best thing. They’re cool.’ Salim spoke to the driver in a language Kyle had never heard from his mouth before. It did not sound like Salim at all. The driver waggled his head in that way that you thought was no until you learned better, threw the phatphat around a big traffic circle with a huge pink concrete statue of Ganesh to head away from the glass towers of Ranapur into the old city. Flowers. There were garlands of yellow flowers at the elephant god’s feet, little smoking smudges of incense; strange strings of chillies and limes; and a man with big dirty ash-grey dreadlocks, a man with his lips locked shut with fishing hooks.

‘The man, look at the man ...’ Kyle wanted to shout but that wonder/horror was behind him, a dozen more unfolding on every side as the phatphat hooted down ever narrower, ever darker, ever busier streets. ‘An elephant, there’s an elephant and that’s a robot and those people, what are they carrying, that’s a body, that’s like a dead man on a stretcher oh man ...’ He turned to Salim. He wasn’t scared now. There were no bodies behind him, squeezing him, pushing him into fear and danger. It was just people, everywhere just people, working out how to live. ‘Why didn’t they let me see this?’

The phatphat bounced to a stop.

‘This is where we get out, come on, come on.’

The phatphat was wedged in an alley between a clot of cycle rickshaws and a Japanese delivery truck. Nothing on wheels could pass but still the people pressed by on either side. Another dead man passed, handed high on his stretcher over the heads of the crowd. Kyle ducked instinctively as the shadow of the corpse passed over the dome of the phatphat, then the doors flew up and he stepped out into the side of a cow. Kyle almost punched the stupid, baggy thing, but Salim grabbed him, shouted, ‘Don’t touch the cow, the cow is special, like sacred.’ Shout was the only possible conversation here. Grab the only way not to get separated. Salim dragged Kyle by the wrist to a booth in a row of plastic-canopied market stalls where a bank of chill-cabinets chugged. Salim bought two Limkas and showed the stallholder a Cantonment pog, which he accepted for novelty value. Again the hand on the arm restrained Kyle.