"What's this? A lover's quarrel, perhaps?" Didier asked, inviting himself to sit down.
"Oh, fuck you, Didier!" Vikram laughed, pulling himself together.
"Ah, well, it's a touching thought, Vikram. But, perhaps when you are feeling a little better. And how are you today, Lin?"
"I'm fine," I smiled. Didier was one of three people who'd burst into tears when they saw me, flesh-withered and still ripped with cuts and wounds, soon after my release from Arthur Road Prison.
The second was Prabaker, whose weeping was so violent that it took me a full hour to console him. The third person, unexpectedly, was lord Abdel Khader, whose eyes filled with tears when I thanked him: tears that flowed on my neck and shoulder when he hugged me.
"What'll you have?" I asked him.
"Oh, very kind," he murmured, purring with pleasure. "I believe that I will begin with a flask of whisky, and a fresh lime, and a cold soda. Yes. That will be a good commencement, no? It is very strange, and a very unhappy business, don't you think, this news about Indira Gandhi?"
"What news?" Vikram asked.
"They are saying on the news, just now, that Indira Gandhi is dead."
"Is it true?" I asked.
"I fear that it is," he sighed, suddenly and uncharacteristically solemn. "The reports are not confirmed, but I think there is no doubt."
"Was it the Sikhs? Was it because of Bluestar?"
"Yes, Lin. How did you know?"
"When she stormed the Golden Temple, to get Bhindranwale, I had a feeling it was going to catch up with her."
"What happened? Did the KLF do it?" Vikram asked. "Was it a bomb?"
"No," Didier answered, gravely. "They say it was her bodyguards- her Sikh bodyguards."
"Her own bodyguard, for fuck's sake!" Vikram gasped. His mouth gaped open, and his gaze drifted on the tide of his thoughts.
"Guys-I'll be back in a minute. Do you hear that? They're talking about the story, right now, on the radio, at the counter.
I'll go and listen, and come back."
He jogged to the crowded counter where fifteen or twenty men pressed together, arms around shoulders to listen, while an almost hysterical announcer gave details of the murder in Hindi.
Vikram could've listened to the broadcast from his seat at our table-the volume was switched up to the maximum, and we heard every word. It was something else that drew him to the crowded counter: a sense of solidarity and kinship; a huddled need to feel the astounding news, through contact with his countrymen, even as he listened to it.
"Let's have that drink," I suggested.
"Yes, Lin," Didier answered, pouting with his lower lip, and offering a flourish of his hand to dismiss the distressing subject. The gesture failed. His head lolled forward, and he stared vacantly at the table in front of him. "I can't believe it. It is simply not believable. Indira Gandhi, dead... It is almost unthinkable. It is almost impossible to force myself to think of it, Lin. It is... you know... impossible."
I ordered for Didier, and let my thoughts wander while we listened to the plaintive screech of the radio announcer.
Selfishly, I wondered first what the assassination might mean for my security, and then what it might do to the exchange rates on the black money market. Some months before, Indira Gandhi had authorised an assault on the Sikh holy-of-holies, the Golden Temple, in Amritsar. Her goal was to drive out a large, well armed company of Sikh militants who'd entered the temple and fortified themselves there under the leadership of a handsome, charismatic separatist named Bhindranwale. Using the temple complex as a base, the militants had launched punitive attacks against Hindus, and those they described as recalcitrant Sikhs, for many weeks. Indira Gandhi, on the eve of a fiercely contested general election, had been deeply concerned that she would appear weak and indecisive if she failed to act. In what many judged to be the worst of her admittedly limited options, Indira had sent the army into battle with the Sikh rebels.
The army operation to dislodge the militants from the Golden Temple was known as Operation Bluestar. Bhindranwale's militants, believing themselves to be freedom fighters and martyrs for the Sikh cause, met the army force with reckless and desperate resistance. More than six hundred lives were lost, and many hundreds of people were injured. In the end, the Golden Temple complex was cleared, and Indira emerged as anything but indecisive or weak. Her goal of reassuring the Hindu heartland of voters had been achieved, but the Sikh struggle for a separate homeland, called Khalistan, was rich in new martyrs. And across the world, Sikh hearts clenched around their determination to avenge the profane and bloody invasion of their holiest shrine.
