When the Old Man comes out for his afternoon meeting he seems very happy. And why not! He has one arm resting on one girl, the other on another. Both girls are young and pretty. He jokes with them. His jokes are very silly. One girl gives him a carrot. ‘So you are giving me cattle-food!’ says he. Everyone laughs.

He pulls out his watch from the fold of his dhoti. ‘I am late by ten minutes. I hate being late. I like to be at the prayer punctually at the stroke of five,’ he says.

I edge up closer to him. I like being close to him because I get into the pictures in the newspapers and show them to my mother. People stand up to greet him. Someone shouts ‘Bolo, bold’; others respond ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai’. The Old Man grins and says namaskar.

And then everything happens so quickly that I have to go over it again and again to make sure I really saw it happen. A stout, young fellow muscles his way through the crowd, pushes aside a girl who tries to stop him, bends down as if to touch Gandhi’s feet, draws a revolver from the fold of his dhoti and before anyone can guess what he is up to pumps three bullets into the Old Man, thah, thah, thah.

Gandhi’s hands remain joined as if he is bidding namaskar to the world. He says, Ram, Ram. Then he crumples down in a pool of his own blood.

A fit of madness comes over me. I jump on the man and bring him down. I tear the hair off his scalp; I bash his head on the ground and call him all kinds of names: mother-fucker, dog, bastard, son of a pig. A policeman grips me by the neck, pushes me aside and grabs the fellow. There is a lot of confusion. I jostle my way out of the crowd and run away. I start crying—running and crying, crying and running. I sit down on the pavement and slap my forehead with my hands and yell hai, hai, hai. A crowd of people gather round me. They ask me very kindly: ‘Son, why are you crying?’ I look up at them through my tears and reply: ‘My Bapu is dead.’ They make clucking sounds of sympathy. One says, ‘You must be brave. You must stand by your mother. You must carry on whatever work your Bapu was doing.’ Then he becomes more serious and asks, ‘How did your Bapu die? Was he very ill?’

‘No, he wasn’t ill at all, I killed him with my own hands, I killed him.’ Then I slap my forehead and yell, ‘Hai, hai, I murdered my Bapu.’

Bhagmati