Govinda gasped for air. He stopped watching. Something warm was running from his wrist. He blinked, looked down and saw he had bitten his wrist hard enough to draw blood. Now he had an opportunity to talk to the hijra. He would step up from behind the crumbling wall and say something and accept whatever would happen to him.

‘Calcutta Maharaja, come out.’

Govinda stood and looked down.

‘I know you like to watch me. So I will tell you a few more things. They killed that cook Mumbles Singh. They made him cry. They hit him and he flinched like a coward. They doused petrol on him. He went on his knees. In the same way I went on my knees. You remember? They lit his shirt and he went up in flames, you know,’ shrieked the hijra who wore red lipstick, raised his palms together, bowed, turned slowly and then walked away. Govinda looked on as his saree dragged across the ground.

The house had never been so quiet. Outside the servants argued in a fretful way with each other.

‘I have every right to his body,’ Mumble’s wife was crying. Her children clutched to her. ‘But I am destitute. All I have is enough to go to Amritsar to see my family.’

There was knocking at the door. The gatekeeper had come. He said he was sorry for interrupting but a politician was at the gate and he wanted to know if all was well in the school compound. Behind him entered Ali Khan.

‘I can help you,’ said Ali Khan. ‘Mumbles Singh is dead. What a positive nuisance. There is nothing you or I can do. The Sikhs are like us but they are misunderstood in India.’

They wandered down to the spot where Mumbles lay. His body looked charred and grotesque. Parts of an arm and a hand and bits of legs endured.

‘Strictly speaking the deaths in West Bengal were few. Delhi was worst,’ said Ali Khan.

‘Is that the official line?’ asked Sunil Seth.

‘We have a lot to be grateful for. Our chief minister was swift to act and condemn any violence against Sikhs. It could have been much worse.’

‘What do we do about this mess?’ Sunil Seth demanded.

Ashok wanted to cremate the remainder of Mumbles and a few of his things. ‘Cremation is best,’ he said. Everyone was fighting over the body of Mumbles Singh but there was not much left of him. Govinda recalled the elephant and how long it took to burn. He remembered how bits of the elephant remained well after they had tried burning it.