Budh Singh is very angry with Gandhi and his dhoti-topee gang as he describes the Mahatma’s followers. They want the British out of India. Budh Singh wants them to stay. He is setting up a British Retention League. He has invited H.M. the King of England to become its chief patron. He has nominated me as honorary treasurer and designated my apartment as the headquarters of BRL. He has started a signature campaign and proposes to send a scroll of a million Indian names protesting the transfer of power from the King to the dhoti-topeewallas.

So far he has only succeeded in persuading Bhagmati. She can’t write so he’s made her affix her thumb impression against which he has inscribed her name, sex and profession. Bhagmati—Sex: neutral Hijda; Profession: prostitute. Proudly he displays the scroll to me and asks me to be the second signatory. I try to reason with him. I tell him all the events he wants changed took place a long time ago and there is nothing he can do about them. He looks at me as though I am mad so I decide to adopt his line of thinking and try and deflect him using an argument he will understand. I say: ‘The British themselves want to leave India. Didn’t you read in the papers that they will give Muslims their Pakistan and go away on the 15th of August?’

‘That is all buk buk,’ he retorts with disdain. ‘This Lord Mountbatten is a Gandhi chela. I have written to Buckingham Palace about his mischief.’

‘He is related to the king. His nephew is married to the king’s daughter.’

‘It is the traitor within who brings down the castle.’

‘Don’t you want India to be free?’

Budh Singh hasn’t given the problem much thought. He mumbles in his beard: ‘What freedom? Freedom for what? Loot, kill. Everyone talks freedom, freedom—don’t know what freedom means.’

The doorbell saves me from Budh Singh. ‘Let me think over it,’ I say and go to open the door. It is my friend the Sikh journalist. Before he can explain the aims and objects of the British Retention League to my visitor, I gently push Budh Singh out. ‘Another time, after I’ve had time to think. One should not decide such important matters in a hurry.’