Diya

I’m so tired. Being frightened all the time makes you very tired. All I want to do is lie down and go to sleep. But I don’t dare. Beside me, the young mother, Malini, is struggling to manage both the toddler and the little boy. The toddler has fallen into a broken sleep. He keeps waking up and whining in a thin voice. The little boy keeps bombarding her with questions.

‘When will we go home? Why are they keeping us here? Who are these men?’

I try to keep the boy occupied. His name is Manu. His mother is trying very hard not to burst into tears. She knows she shouldn’t cry, or it will terrify the children.

‘We are going to be out of here soon,’ I say.

‘How soon?’ he wants to know.

‘Just a few hours.’

‘You’re lying,’ he announces. ‘The man with the gun is going to kill us all. I don’t mind dying. My dadaji died, and my mother said that he is now in a place where he gets everything that he ever wished for. I want a horse.’

‘We are not going to die,’ I say. ‘The police are going to come and save us.’

‘Will they have guns? I want a gun.’

Malini is very close to hysteria. ‘I came in here to buy diapers,’ she says. ‘We had run out. We really need diapers. The children need to be fed.’ Neither of us dares to ask for anything. We sit there on the floor, struggling to keep the children quiet. Hoping that Salim does not look our way.

Manu is fidgety and restless. He is fascinated by Salim’s gun. Salim sits a little distance away, deep in thought, turning the gun over and over in his hands. He comes out of his reverie and looks up. When he notices Manu staring at his gun, he smiles and gestures at the boy to come over.

His mother notices too late. She tries to grab his arm, but he ducks and runs to Salim’s side. She thrusts the toddler at me and scrambles to her feet, but another man with a gun steps between her and Salim. She sits down, trembling, watching with her hand over her mouth.

Salim takes the gun and puts it in the little boy’s hand. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

The gun is heavy. Manu struggles to hold it.

Malini clutches my hand. She is shaking. ‘Make Manu come back. Please, please,’ she is whispering under her breath.

Salim strokes the gun. ‘I call her “ammijaan”. She gives me everything I want.’

‘A gun can’t be your mother,’ says Manu. ‘You need a real live mother.’

‘Why?’ asks Salim.

‘To love you,’ says the little boy.

‘That’s what they say,’ says Salim. ‘They teach you that your mother loves you. That every mother loves you. Mother earth. Mother India. But the truth is that mothers don’t love their children equally.’

‘My mother loves me!’ says Manu.

Salim smiles a slow smile at the boy, then looks over at Malini. ‘Really? Let us see.’

He gets to his feet and comes towards us. I’m still holding the toddler. Salim leans over and grabs him from my arms. Malini gives a despairing wail and tries to get her child back. Another terrorist fields her, laughing, and holds her back.

Salim walks back to where Manu is holding the gun. He takes it from the boy’s hand and puts the gun to the toddler’s head. He turns to where Malini is kneeling, breathless with terror.

‘Go on, Mother. Choose. You can have only one child. This one. Or this one. Come on, choose. I’m going to kill one of them. Choose!’

He moves the gun from the head of one child to the other and back again, in a hypnotic dance that we all watch in silence. The toddler is shrieking in distress. Malini is frozen, staring from one child to the other. Then she stumbles forward and touches Salim’s feet. ‘Please!’ she whispers. ‘Don’t make me choose. I beg of you.’

‘Choose! NOW!’

Malini crouches there at his feet, unmoving. Then she gets up with a convulsive movement. She grabs the screaming toddler and holds him to her chest. Manu stares up at his weeping mother, betrayal on his face.

‘See?’ says Salim. ‘We are all Mother India’s children. But she loves some of them more than the others. To some of them she says, “This land is yours.” To others she says, “Live within your aukaad. Put your head down.” When she shares the roti, she doesn’t break equal tukdas. And her children grow up and grow angry. They say, “We want our fair share.”’ He puts the gun in Manu’s hand. ‘When you don’t get your fair share, you must take it.’

Manu stares at the gun and then looks at the man who had handed it to him. Salim smiles encouragingly. Struggling to hold the gun steady, Manu puts the barrel against Salim’s stomach. A sudden stillness descends on everyone. Nobody dares to move. The terrorist nearest to Salim starts forward, but Salim shakes his head, stopping him.

Manu speaks into the silence, his voice trembling on the edge of tears. ‘You are a bad man,’ he says. ‘You made my mother cry. You made her afraid!’ His finger is on the trigger.

Salim does not move. He keeps talking in a calm voice. ‘You’re angry. Good. Now are you going to shoot me?’

Manu doesn’t know what to do. He holds the gun there, his lower lip trembling, tears heavy in his eyes.

‘Go on. Are you going to shoot me?’ Salim’s voice is gentle, coaxing.

The other terrorists are standing around, tensely watching the situation. Everyone’s fingers are on their triggers.

Malini whispers, ‘Don’t. Please, Manu, don’t. Look at me! Don’t!’

Manu turns his head to look at his mother. She shakes her head, pleading with him with her eyes. Manu makes his own difficult choice. He drops the gun on the floor.

‘Good boy.’ Salim picks it up. He points the gun at Manu and pulls the trigger.

Malini’s scream rocks us all. But the gun does not fire. Salim holds it out again. ‘Safety catch,’ he explains to Manu. ‘You have to pull that down before the gun will fire. Understand?’

Manu nods, bewildered. Then Salim raises his hand and slaps him so hard across the face that the boy goes sprawling.

Malini reaches for her son. Salim turns to her and grabs her by the hair. He slaps her face repeatedly. Her head jerks back and blood spatters from her mouth. When he lets her go, she drops limply to the ground. Then he simply walks away.

In that moment, everyone sees him for what he is. I think we all realize that there is not much hope of us getting out of here alive. A deep silence of terror spreads across our little group.

Manu crawls over and puts his arms around his dazed mother. He tries to wipe the blood from her mouth. His little brother cries and cries.

How can people terrify little children? How can they look at another human being and pull the trigger? How can they kill and then carry on as if it is a perfectly normal thing? Humans. We are the most terrifying animals that walk the planet.