‘And you great pen-pusher, what’s your Qutub Minar been up to?’ I ask the journalist. He’s a big fellow with pubic-sized growth on his face. He also replies in verse. ‘When I get a woman I copulate. When I don’t, I masturbate. No complaints. The great Guru is in His Heaven and the mashooka in my bed!’ He plucks a hair out of his beard and examines it with philosophic detachment. A third friend joins us. He is an Upper Division Clerk in the Ministry of Defence. He is utilizing his unutilized sick leave. He disapproves of this kind of talk! ‘Five million Indians are dying of hunger in Bihar and all you fellows can think of is women.’ He shakes his foot, then jerks his legs like the arms of a nutcracker. He puts his feet on the chair and continues to amuse himself. A fart escapes his fat arse: poonh He is embarrassed. He puts his feet down and apologizes: ‘Sorry, it was a slip of the tongue.’

Another of our cronies comes along. He is a politician of sorts and our political expert. He made a name during the last famine by organizing a ‘miss-a-chappati-a-week’ movement. Now he is contemplating a similar campaign for family planning based on the slogan ‘If you want good luck: In one week only one . . . .’ The slogan hasn’t got off the bed yet. We return to sex and corruption and inefficiency and five million starving in Bihar. We drink many cups of coffee and nibble many plates of cashewnuts. So passes the morning.

A heavy depression overtakes me. I take leave of my coffee-house friends and drive along the Ring Road which skirts the old city. I pass along the Mughal city wall and Zeenat Mahal’s mosque. I slow down at the electric crematorium. No customers, no smoke. I move on through the arches of three bridges to Nigambodh Ghat cremation ground on the Jamna. I park my car and go in.

What’s happened to the Delhiwallas? They are not even dying as they used to! Only one pyre burning and three heaps of smouldering ashes. No mourners. I walk up to the edge of the bank to see if there is any life there. Quite a scene!