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Sikh is going to take pictures. Those who want to save him, we kill you.’ He kicks the ‘sister-fucker’ journalist in the balls, snatches the camera, destroys the roll. I remain paralysed on my spot. He snatches our professor’s suitcase. ‘Sardar-ji, our mother is dead and you are not crying? Cry, behnchod. Gadar kay londay, beat your chest.’ He unzips the suitcase, rummages through the contents, old and new, pulls out something that looks like a souvenir for Nelly, and a Pahari doll (most likely for his daughter) and a Himachali achkan (most likely for his son). ‘Nice wristwatch.’ Then the thug gestures for other lumpens to go ahead; the lumpens spray gasoline from the journalist’s scooter on our teacher, slip a rubber tyre around his neck. ‘Let me go. What have I done?’ I can hear Professor Singh shout. The tyre constrains his arms. ‘Sardar, you sister-fucker, you killed our mother. Gadar, now we kill you.’
    ‘Stop it,’ I say, ‘you can’t do this, he is our teacher.’ ‘Khoon ka badla khoon say . . . saala sardar ki aulad . . . gadar ki aulad.’ Although it is early morning, his breath stinks of rum. Half of my class fellows disappear, others repeat the same thing over and over: ‘This is madness.’ I urge the cops to help, I tell them that I happen to be the son of a senior police officer, the most senior. At this point the chief lumpen laughs and spits in Professor Singh’s face, douses the tyre with more hydrocarbons and strikes a match. A senior Congress leader, his Nehru – Gandhi khadi clothes fluttering in the wind, is standing close to the station master’s office on the platform, guiding the mob like the conductor of a big orchestra. Khatam kar do sab sardaron ko. Khatam kar do saanp kay bacchon ko. Finish them, children of snakes. Destroy them all . He is not very tall and wears black glasses. I will never forget that Congress-wallah’s black glasses. I feel like confronting him, but stand on my spot, paralysed. ‘This is the way to teach the Sikhs a lesson,’ says a bystander. I take a deep breath. The black glasses are gone. The photojournalist is still trembling; they spare his Vespa, and we keep hearing the screams. I still hear those screams. I can’t hear enough. We couldn’t do a thing. I could do nothing. The only thing I was able to save was a shoe and that too was lost in the commotion that followed.
     

     
    It was sickening, you had to see the horror to believe the horror and it was so unreal I almost didn’t believe my own sense organs. But the fire and the smoke were so absolutely real, different from the way they are done in the movies. During the combustion I could not use my knowledge of chemistry and physics to extinguish the flames. How fast they engulfed his entire body. I could do nothing. I was a mere onlooker. In the end all that remained along with the ashes were a few bones and a steel bracelet. Black like a griddle.
    If Primo Levi had witnessed the moment he would have written the chapter called Sulphur differently. Sulphur is used to vulcanise rubber that is used in tyres.
    Primo Levi survived the German Nazis and Italian Fascists because he helped them prepare Buna rubber during the war. In India my compatriots slipped rubber around Professor Singh’s neck and set him on fire.
    My father had sent an official jeep to pick me up at the station and drop me at the IIT campus. Two of my classmates accompanied me.
    As the jeep passed Tolstoy Marg I saw dozens of Sikh bodies on fire. Smell of burning wool and rubber tyres and human flesh. I saw taxis being smashed. And the black cloud of smoke touched the sky. This was our Eiffel Tower. This was our carnival. Our periodic table of hate.
    We passed by the church. The Bishop was standing by the giant black-painted cast-iron gates, preventing the mob from entering the church. Thousands of children, women and men had taken refuge inside.
    It was a Thursday. The jeep driver was in tears, he had seen