Kabir

There is no death. There is only me. And I am going to die. Some great thinker said that, and I had thought it was a really stupid thing to say, until now. I am going to die. And that makes it real. I don’t know if I care too much. It would be a relief, I think. I only care that she will be gone.

I close my eyes and try to imagine death. Going into the darkness. No. Death has never been darkness for me. Death for me has been white. A white stretch of snow. Cold and silent. A blanket for me to pull over myself and close my eyes.

The TV presenters are starting to look all tense. A babble of worry reaches us.

‘Only ten minutes remain in the deadline that the terrorists have set . . .’

‘New Delhi is yet to respond, though the prime minister has been in a special cabinet meeting for the last forty minutes . . .’

‘All of India is now waiting as the minutes tick by . . .’

‘There are only ten minutes left in the deadline that Salim Mukhtar has given for the death of another hostage . . .’

Ten minutes. And one of us in the room will be dead. I look around the room, wondering who will be chosen.

An old woman with a big heart. A security guard dying in agony. A young mother with two children. Two young and bewildered girls. An old and angry man. A young man who doesn’t want to be dead. A beautiful young girl filled with sadness. And me.

Eight minutes. The screens are showing shots of people holding candles and praying. There are people in temples, in churches, in gurdwaras, and even in mosques. People on roads, linking hands and praying. They hold up placards. One of them reads, ‘Killing innocent people is the problem, not the solution.’ Another says, ‘Spread love and peace, not guns.’

Seven minutes.

Six minutes.

Five minutes.

The damn prime minister stays silent. An election rally every day. Hours of speeches. And now, for this, he has no words.

Four minutes. ‘We have a special bulletin. The prime minister has appealed to the terrorists, saying that the government is working out the details. They will respond to the demands but need one more hour.’

What is the government waiting for? Some more dead people? There are reactions to the announcement. Tears.

Two minutes. Would it be us? Or someone from one of the other groups of hostages? It seems really shitty to hope for someone else to die. Through the door, we can see Salim pacing up and down. The hostages are being held in four different rooms. Which room will he enter? Which group will win the unlucky lottery?

One minute.

Salim enters the room. It’s us.

We all jerk in fright as the phones begin to ring again. Please let it be the prime minister. Let him have something to offer them.

Salim raises a hand. ‘Let them ring. I think they need to know that I am very serious.’

Malini shoves her children behind her. She’s praying loudly. The phones ring on and on and on.

‘We need a volunteer,’ Salim says. ‘Anyone feel like dying?’

Nobody moves. Beside me, I can hear Harish starting to breathe so hard, he sounds like he’s been running.

‘Come on,’ he says, smiling. ‘You’ll be on TV.’

He begins to walk slowly from one to the other, looking each person in the face. People cringe and look away or lower their eyes. He’s enjoying this. I guess it’s a kick to have people really be scared of you. Every schoolroom bully knows the feeling. I would really like to see what he’s like at the other end of a gun.

‘Let me see,’ he says. ‘Who’ll play out well on TV? Tug at their heart strings? Make them cry? The young mother who leaves behind two weeping children?’

Malini scrabbles away from him, desperately holding her children to her chest.

‘Or a young girl with her whole life before her?’ He stops in front of the two salesgirls. They cling to each other, too afraid to even weep.

He turns to where Diya sits. ‘How about a beautiful young college girl?’ Diya says nothing. My heart beats faster.

He smiles at Diya. ‘Has anyone told you that you really should be on TV? You have a very pretty face.’

I can’t help it. I stand up. ‘I’ll volunteer.’

Every eye turns towards me. Salim takes his time facing me.

‘Why?’ he asks.

‘All these people have someone waiting for them at home. I have no one to miss me.’

‘Oh,’ says Salim. ‘Shall we take it that you’re ready to die because you’ve been kissed?’ He leans forward and whispers, ‘So, who was it? I don’t think it was Mother India. Or the old buddhi.’

His eyes drop to Diya and he grins. ‘Congratulations. She’s pretty. Worth dying for?’ he asks.

I say nothing. He looks around the room, slowly and deliberately. All of us wait. Then he points. It’s not to me.

His men step forward and grab one of the salesgirls: the intern. The other girl shrieks and tries to hold on to her. They have to hit her to let go. She crawls back and makes another desperate grab, and is left holding a shoe as the girl is hauled out of the door, screaming for her mother.

We turn our eyes to the screens. The entrance to the mall blinks its neon and crystal sign. The door opens, and the girl is pushed out. She runs. She runs as fast as she can across no man’s land, towards the safety of the police cordon. She runs awkwardly with one high-heeled shoe off. She’s halfway there when a shot rings out. Her hands jerk into the air, and she spins around and falls.

We watch it all. We can’t not watch it, horrified fascination holding us wide-eyed. A group of policemen behind bulletproof shields run out and grab the body. They drag it away, and it leaves a long streak of blood in its trail.

There’s a young reporter on the spot. She speaks as the body is shoved into an ambulance, the urgent wail of its siren overlapping her words. She is wearing a black armband as she says, ‘Salim Mukhtar ignores the government’s plea for more time. This is the second hostage who has been killed. We are told the prime minister is in an emergency meeting with the home minister and top police officials. We are expecting an announcement soon.’

Salim turns to leave the room. Then he stops and points at me. ‘Majnu, you’re next,’ he says.

I walk back to my place and sit. Then I think I’m having a heart attack. While you’re doing the stuff, you stay calm. But when it’s over, your body kicks in and lets you know that it definitely doesn’t appreciate a hero. It takes ten minutes for my heartbeat to get back anywhere near normal.

The last thing I expect is for Diya to be furious.

‘Stop doing that!’ she hisses at me. ‘Stop trying to save me all the time. I don’t want you dying for me. I don’t want your life!’

I don’t know what to say. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why do you keep doing this? You don’t even know me!’

But I do.

‘Let me be!’ she says. ‘Just leave me alone. This is a really bad time to get a crush on me, all right? I am not going to—whatever!’

I feel like I should explain. ‘About the—what he was talking about—I’m sorry. It’s not what you think. When he said to give him one good reason to stay alive, I told him . . . er . . . that I had never been kissed.’

That makes her fall silent. She hastily looks away. We both try our best not to look at each other. Harish is listening to us avidly.

‘Me too, dude, me too!’ says Harish. He looks expectantly from her to me.

‘What?’ asks Diya.

‘You’re not going to kiss him?’ asks Harish. ‘He just risked his life for you.’

That idiot is trying to play cupid. He couldn’t have picked a worse time. I glare at him.

Diya snaps, ‘No, I am not!’

‘Stop it, Harish,’ I say. ‘Please forget it!’

‘Forget it?! I’m going to die a virgin. Unkissed. Un-anythinged. This is a really good time for a girl to have pity on a guy.’ He looks pleadingly at Diya. ‘I mean. You would be very kind.’

Diya stares at him in a kind of angry frustration. Then, unexpectedly, she begins to laugh. ‘Forget it, dude!’

I also start laughing. I know neither of us are laughing because it’s funny. We’re laughing because there is nothing else left to do.

Harish doesn’t laugh. ‘This is a bad way to die!’ he says earnestly.

The TV anchor is speaking. All our heads snap towards the screen. The change in tone is so obvious. ‘There has been a special communication from the Prime Minister’s Office.’

She reads out a long official statement. They are going to give Salim his plane. They are going to let him get away with it.

Harish leaps up and punches the air. ‘Way to go, PM!’ he shouts.

The rest of us just sit there blankly. I think we’re all too numb to even react.

I’m going to live. Longer than one hour. I’m going to live.