Then, this little old lady stands up and begins asking questions. The leader wearing the black headband suddenly turns around and kicks her. All kinds of things start falling out of the old lady’s clothes. Turns out she’s a shoplifter. She picked a bad day to be stealing, I guess. We all sit there listening to her struggling to breathe. No one tries to help.

‘That guy is really badass,’ says the fat boy, terror in his voice.

‘No,’ I say. ‘The really badass guy is that one.’ I indicate the grey-haired man who had spoken quietly and politely to all of us. He radiates such authority that I have no doubt who the real power and the real badass in the group is. He is handling the whole operation without raising his voice once. Leaving the violence to the guy with the headband. As if he’s above and beyond fighting, and belongs in a whole other zone of scary.

‘That guy?’ says the fat boy. ‘What I can’t understand is why he looks familiar.’ I’m wondering the same thing.

The old man who had given his name as Mahendra Shyam Bhonsle gives a sudden snort. ‘Young people. Ignorant! Don’t you read? Don’t you know anything? He was in the headlines yesterday.’

I haven’t seen a newspaper in a month, but the fat boy has. ‘It’s that guy!’ he exclaims. ‘The one who planted the bombs in the trains. When so many people died.’

‘Yesterday the court sentenced him to death,’ says Mr Bhonsle. ‘Today they were shifting him out to Yerawada jail. His name is Salim Mukhtar.’

Salim Mukhtar. Shit. If I had really managed to choose a God, I would have prayed. The bombs in the trains are only one of the long litany of things he’s done, in a career marked with death and violence. He’s evaded the police and stayed at the top of the Most Wanted list for over a decade. They had caught him by sheer accident. A regular raid that ended with the trapping of a very big fish. And they wasted no time delivering a death sentence via a fast-track court.

Salim is kneeling in a quiet corner, saying a quick prayer. When he finishes, he is handed a mobile phone. Every eye is on him. All the hostages seem to have figured out who he is. A little ripple of relief runs through the room as he goes into the next corridor. A private phone call. I wonder who he is calling.

The terrorists take up spots around the room. There seems to be nothing to do except wait.

I turn to the fat boy, who is now praying.

‘So do you think we’ll get a discount if we shop now?’ I say.

He looks at me like I’m crazy. ‘Did you just make a joke?!’

I nod. He is not amused. ‘Seriously, man, some death-row crazy is going to shoot us in the head and you’re making jokes.’

‘I think I’d like to die laughing,’ I say. He doesn’t find that funny either. He edges away from me. That takes him closer to the old man muttering angrily to himself. Mr Bhonsle is a very angry old man.

Five minutes later, the boy leans towards me and whispers, ‘I don’t know what the old man’s problem is, but he’s seriously pissed off.’

‘We’re being held hostage by terrorists,’ I say. ‘I can understand him being pissed off.’

‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ he says. ‘I mean, I didn’t even come in here to buy anything. I just wanted to look at some jeans. A few sizes smaller, you know, for when I came off my diet. Just looking. What were you doing?’

‘Just looking,’ I say. Looking at the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen. Who just happens to be my best friend’s girl.

Mr Bhonsle joins the conversation in a burst of indignation. ‘This is all wrong,’ he says. ‘I only came in here to buy a few envelopes. Today’s the day I retire. I knew all the staff had got together to organize a lunch. They were going to give me a clock. They give everybody a clock.’ He looks really upset. ‘All I came in here for was some envelopes to put thank-you notes in. This is really irregular.’

I try to hide a grin. Irregular. I would call it a bloody disaster. The fat boy rolls his eyes. He looks at me and tries to smile. ‘Hey, man, my name is Harish,’ he says.

‘My name is Kabir.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he says. ‘We all heard. Is it really Kabir?’

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘You were pretty brave.’ Harish shrugs. ‘I’m not brave. And I don’t want to die.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘Those porn magazines.’

This time he really smiles. It’s a small, scared smile, but it’s a smile.

Salim comes back into the room. He looks at the group of frightened people huddled on the floor. Some are praying. Some are crying. He laughs. ‘Do not be afraid. We will not harm you. You are our passports to get out of here.’

He seems exuberant. ‘Everybody up,’ he says. ‘We are going to see ourselves on TV.’