They run away a little distance and shout back at me: ‘Bugger off.’ Bhagmati and I proceed up the paved pathway through the ruins: gun emplacements, mosques, markets and up to the highest point. We survey the landscape: the Qutub Minar to the west, Ghiasuddin Tughlak’s tomb to the south, the ruins of the Qasr-i-hazaar-Sutoon palace and Shahr-i-Nau to the east. We retrace our steps and turn off on a path, thread our way through the debris and goats nibbling at vasicka bushes. We are at the edge of the battlement. A hundred feet below us is a pool full of water buffaloes. This is all that remains of what was once a moat encircling the citadel of Tughlakabad. And what goes by the name of Tughlakabad today is a huddle of flat-roofed brick-houses and mud-huts. The rest of the landscape is a rocky, treeless plain dotted with ruins among which new buildings are erupting like red fungus.

Bhagmati takes my hand.

‘Arre! She’s taken the Sardar’s hand.’ The bastards are still there. Bhagmati takes over. ‘Will you get away from here or do you want a rod up your arses?’ she asks striding towards them. They run away as fast as they can with the goats scampering after them. Bhagmati comes back triumphantly. We sit down on the rampart. She nestles her head on my chest. ‘Tell me why are some monkeys’ balls and behinds red?’

‘I don’t know. I am told they become red when they are randy.’

‘Do your balls become red when chotey mian (the little gentleman) becomes badey mian (big gentleman)?’

It takes me a while to catch on. ‘I have never looked; besides I am not a monkey.’

‘Our fathers’ fathers were,’ she pronounces very scholar-like. ‘I must look next time. I’ll bring a flashlight with me.’

We sit and talk and look at the world below us. Bhagmati nibbles my ear and feels my middle to make sure that chotey mian is still there.

The sun’s rays lose their sting. The sun becomes a large, orange balloon. Lines of crows flap their wings towards the city. Flocks of parakeets streak across the grey sky. From Tughlakabad village a million sparrows rise, wheel over the tops of keekar trees and then settle down on them in a bedlam of twitters.

The orange sun goes down in a haze of dust. Village lads urge their buffaloes to get out of the pond. Their shouts mingle with the chirruping of the sparrows and the forlorn barking of dogs. Then an eerie silence descends on the ancient ruins. Even Bhagmati has run out of words. I tell her of the varieties of silence in a language she does not understand.