I slipped away. Lakhi Rai saw me get up and followed me. ‘I have some work for you Jaitaji,’ he said, putting his hand on my shoulder, adding meaningfully, ‘if you are man enough to do it.’ This was the first time he had touched me. I was not sure of this rich contractor—one can never be sure of rich people. I replied, ‘I have to be on duty at the kotwali.’ Lakhi Rai said: ‘I will come with you. I also have business at the kotwali.’ What was his game? I really did not care to find out. However, I felt not Lakhi Rai’s but my Guru’s hand on my shoulder. I was not afraid of anyone in the world—not of the badshah or the behra qazi or that Jalaluddin; not even of the Mughal soldiers or the Kotwal and his constabulary.

Lakhi Rai had several bullock carts lined up on the road. They were loaded with bales of cotton. His eight sons were with him. As he was a government contractor, he and his family were allowed to carry weapons. All the men were armed with swords and spears. Lakhi Rai always guarded his caravans in this way and everyone knew him. We left Rikabganj in the afternoon.

When we reached Paharganj, the sun suddenly disappeared. The wind dropped. Hundreds of kites began circling above us. We could see a dark brown wall come sweeping in from the west. As we came to the city wall, the circle of kites moved overhead towards the Royal Mosque. Then the storm overtook us with a fury I would not have thought possible.

The guards at Ajmeri Gate had muffled their faces with the ends of their turbans and waved us on. The storm swept us through Qazi-ka-Hauz, through Lal Kuan and past Begum Fatehpuri’s mosque into Chandni Chowk. We arrived at the kotwali.

Who knows the inscrutable designs of the Guru? The dust-storm had turned the day into night. Every door and window had been shut against the dust. The guards had bolted themselves in their barracks. And the only sound was the howling of the wind.

I had no difficulty in finding the Guru’s body. I touched his feet and then slung his body over my shoulders. I took his head in my hands and walked through the blinding dust-storm. Lakhi Rai and his sons also touched the Guru’s feet. We laid his body and head on one of the bullock carts, piled bales of cotton over it and turned our carts around. The same storm that had driven us into Chandni Chowk drove us backwards through the same bazaar, out of Ajmeri Gate to Paharganj. When we arrived at Rikabganj, the wind suddenly dropped and the dust disappeared. The night had come on.