The police did their worst to get information from me but they failed. I am proud to have been able to serve my God and my country. We should exploit this little service I have done to our best advantage. Greetings to all the comrades in arms.

Long live the Revolution.

Your brother,
Sher.

He put the letter in an envelope and sealed it. ‘This is private, sub-inspector Sahib. I shall be grateful if the inspector does not read it before it is forwarded.’

‘What will you say when you are a great man? Wali Dad did me a little service,’ said the sub-inspector. He shook Sher Singh with both hands and put the letter in his pocket.

Sher Singh was flushed with excitement. At long last it had come. An imprisonment and a heroic stand against torture by the police. What more could anyone ask for? He would be the hero of the city for the next few days. If he kept up the citizens’ interest and faith in him, a political career was his for the asking. What about his father? The Government could not penalize him for something it had been unable to prove against his son! He would make it up to him by his success. And his father had almost certainly more than made it up with Taylor. All was well. Sher Singh knew his star was in the ascendant once more. He hardly thought of his mother’s illness. In fact, he did not believe there was any truth in it. It must be another canard let loose by his father to get round Taylor.

Madan did not fail his friend. He spent the whole of Christmas Eve going round to all the college hostels and telling the boys to turn up at the police station at the crack of dawn. He informed the Nationalist Party office and persuaded them to hire a brass band and get an open car to take Sher Singh in procession. He got hold of press photographers and newspaper correspondents, all of whom had been obliged to him for exclusive interviews and pictures of sporting events. In publicizing Sher Singh they were on a safe wicket. Father, a senior magistrate—son, a student leader on the road to fame and power.

From the early hours of the morning crowds of students carrying garlands of marigolds and roses began to collect outside the police station. By eight o’clock, the crowd had swelled to three or four thousand. An open car decorated with buntings and flowers drew up and took its place behind the brass band made up of retired Sikh soldiers. When the gate of the police station was opened there were thunderous cries of ‘Long live the revolution’ and ‘Long live Sher Singh’. There were no white sergeants on duty on Christmas Day, and the Indian police officers were not unduly perturbed at an unlawful assembly at their doorstep. All said and done, it was to honour the son of a magistrate.