Chottu seems irritated. ‘For that you’ll have to stay off the brown for a bit, you know. Finishing someone off requires brains and energy. You have neither in the state you’re in right now.’

Sadiq tells Chottu not to be deceived by appearances. He says he is ready, that he is an able and strong man—as a boy he fought a cobra with his bare hands; as a young man he fathered no less than four children.

Chottu says, ‘Okay, I trust you. We’ll need some of that old vigour tomorrow. Not that Mrs Bindra’s a cobra, but still ...’

By evening I had been taken into confidence. Initially I was a little apprehensive, even paranoid. Why were they sharing this with me? Had they stumbled upon something related to my own past? But that was impossible. As far as I knew they had no friends or acquaintances in Bombay. Had the police come snooping around then?

But as they talked amongst themselves I realized it had nothing to do with me: it was all about them and their plans for freedom. They just trusted me. We had been hanging out together for the last few months. They knew our backgrounds were different. Still, I didn’t behave like other men of my class; I didn’t even seem to know any. Chottu and Sadiq were fully aware that they were the only friends I had. No one came to visit me and I hardly left my room. I suppose a strange kind of desperation bound us together, gave us the illusion of belonging to each other’s worlds.

The plan was simple. Mrs Bindra was supposed to return from Bombay the next afternoon. Chottu would go to Palam and pick her up. He would serve her lunch, after which Mrs B would lie down to rest. Sadiq was supposed to arrive around this time and park his rickshaw further down the road. When Mrs B was fast asleep, Chottu would give the all-clear sign to Sadiq. He would then slip in through the open front door; together they would overpower and kill the old lady. They would break open the almirah in her bedroom—that, according to Chottu, was where Mrs B kept all her cash and valuables. They would stuff the booty in two empty bags, get on Sadiq’s rickshaw, and head up to the main road to catch a bus to New Delhi Railway Station.

They wanted my opinion. I said the plan sounded okay. They didn’t tell me where they were going to go afterwards. I didn’t particularly want to know.