As Mohan puts the phone down, there is a knock on the door. At first he doesn't hear it, so heavy is the rain outside. But the knock is insistent. With an irritated frown he gets to his feet, puts on his slippers and opens the door.
Brijlal stands in front of him, his eyes bloodshot, his clothes completely drenched.
'What are you doing here?' Mohan demands.
'It is all over… It is all over,' Brijlal mumbles, shivering slightly.
Mohan wrinkles his nose. 'You are reeking like a pig. Are you drunk?'
'Yes, Sahib, I am drunk.' The driver gives a hollow laugh. 'What do you expect from country hooch? It will smell. But it gives a kick which your expensive imported whisky can never give.' He lurches into the room.
'Out… out,' Mohan gestures, as if reprimanding a dog. 'You are spoiling the carpet.'
Brijlal doesn't heed the instruction and advances towards the bed. 'I am only spoiling your carpet, Sahib, but you have spoilt my life. Do you know what day it is today?' He speaks in a slurred, off-key voice.
'Yes. Today is Sunday, the second of December. What's so special about it?'
'Today my Ranno was to get married. Today I should have been listening to the sound of shehnai. My house should have been ringing with laughter and happiness, but instead I have been listening to the sobs of my wife and daughter. All because of you.'
'Me? What did I do?'
'You are the one who had me accosted like a common thief and paraded before the whole of Khan Market. You are the one who demanded the return of the money. So I had to take the dowry back from the groom's family. I have never been more humiliated in my life. And what was my fault? The bottles were going to be destroyed in any case. If I made some money from them, what harm did I cause anyone? You big sahibs cheat your wives and have affairs with other women. You booze and gamble and don't even pay tax. But it is poor people like me who get insulted and arrested.'
'Enough, Brijlal. You have lost your senses,' Mohan says sternly.
The driver continues as if he has not heard him. 'The relationship between master and servant is a very delicate one, separated by a lakshman rekha. You crossed the line, Sahib. The groom's family has called off the wedding completely. Now you tell me what should I do? Allow my Ranno to remain a spinster all her life? How can I face my wife, who slaved day and night in preparation for the wedding?'
'I am warning you, Brijlal. You are really exceeding your limit.'
'I know I am exceeding my limit, but you, Sahib, have exceeded all decency. You deserve to be stripped naked, hung upside-down and then lashed with a whip till you feel the pain which I am feeling now.'
'Enough, Brijlal,' he bellows. 'I am ordering you to leave right now.'
'I will go, Sahib, but only after settling the score. You have wealth and power, but I have this.' He inserts his hand into his kurta and draws out an old knife. Its dull steel fails to catch the chandelier's light.
Mohan Kumar sees the knife and gasps. Brijlal advances further into the room; Mohan shrinks away till his back collides with the window overlooking the garden. A bolt of lightning rips across the sky, causing the window panes to shudder.
'You are drunk, Brijlal,' he appeals again. 'If you take any foolish action now you might regret it later.'
'I am a desperate man, Sahib. And a desperate man doesn't care for consequences. My wife and daughter, in any case, will commit suicide. My son will find a job somewhere or other. As for me, after I kill you I am going to kill myself.'
The true extent of Brijlal's desperation is slowly becoming evident to Mohan. 'OK… OK… Brijlal, I will personally ensure that Ranno's wedding takes place,' he blabbers. 'You can take my house, or I can book the ballroom of the Sheraton. And I will give away Ranno myself. After all, she is just like my daughter.' The words gush out of his lips in a torrent.
'Ha,' Brijlal snorts. 'A man confronted with death can make even a donkey his father. No, Sahib, I am not going to fall into your trap again. I am going to die, but first you are going to die.' He grips the knife tightly in his right hand and raises his arm. Mohan shuts his eyes tightly.
The arc of the knife slices through the air and bears down on Mohan's chest, breaking centuries-old barriers, sweeping aside the cobwebs of rank and status. But just as it is about to pierce Mohan's chest, Brijlal falters. He is unable to breach the final frontier of loyalty. The knife slips out of his grip, his hands drop limply to his sides, he sinks to the carpet, throws back his head and lets out a piercing wail, a requiem for his frustrated defiance.
Meanwhile, a slow change is coming over Mohan Kumar. The tension in his face is dissolving, as if a shadow is lifting. He opens his eyes and finds Brijlal at his feet.
'Arrey, Brijlal, what are you doing here?' He speaks in a slow, ponderous manner. Then, as if remembering something, he taps his forehead. 'Of course, you must have come to invite me to your daughter's wedding. Ah, Ba is here.' Shanti bursts into the room. 'What happened?' she asks breathlessly. 'I thought I heard a scream.'
'Scream? What scream? You are imagining things, Ba. I was just talking to Brijlal about his daughter's wedding. Wasn't it supposed to be today?'
Shanti looks at Brijlal, who is still on the carpet, sobbing in short gasps. She wrings her hands. 'I don't know what is wrong with you. One day you are the saint, and the next day you become the devil, then you become a saint again. Are you even aware that Brijlal had to cancel his daughter's wedding?'
'Really? How could that happen, Brijlal? If there has been some mistake from my side I ask your forgiveness with folded hands.' He brings his palms together.
Brijlal falls at Mohan's feet. 'Please don't say this, Sahib. I am the one who should be asking for forgiveness. I came to harm you, yet you have forgiven me. You are not a man, you are God, Sahib.'
Mohan lifts him up. 'No, Brijlal. God is vast and boundless as the ocean, and a man like me is but a tiny drop. And what is all this talk about you trying to harm me? Have you also started imagining things? Oh! What is this knife doing here?'
The board meeting begins promptly at four o'clock inside the premises of Rai Textile Mill in Mehrauli.
The boardroom has the metallic smell of fresh polish. Its large oval table is made of burnished teak with green felt place mats. The walls are decorated with corporate art.
Mohan Kumar enters the room wearing a white dhoti kurta and a white Gandhi cap. Vicky Rai, dressed in a blue pinstripe suit, greets him at the door. 'Very clever, Kumar,' he whispers. 'This outfit will fool the unions completely.'
'Where am I sitting?' Mohan Kumar asks him.
'You are my right-hand man, so you sit on my right side.' Vicky Rai winks at him. 'And next to you I have put Dutta.'
Five men and a lone woman take their places around the table. Vicky Rai sits at the head of the table, in front of a projector screen. 'Well, members of the board, for today's meeting there is only one item on the agenda, the restructuring of Rai Textile Mill,' he begins briskly. 'As you all know, we purchased this factory from the government two years ago as a sick unit. Drastic measures are needed to make it healthy.' He gestures to a short, fair man with steel-rimmed glasses sitting on his left. 'I will now ask Mr Praveen Raha, the CEO, to unveil the new corporate strategy for the board's approval.'
Raha adjusts his glasses and pushes keys on a laptop till a Technicolor picture full of charts and graphs is projected on to the white screen behind him. 'Honourable members of the board, let me begin with a stark fact,' he says. 'Last year the company suffered a net loss of rupees thirty-five crores.'
'Total lie.' A slim man sitting next to Mohan in kurta pyjamas and thick black-rimmed glasses speaks up in a gravelly voice. 'According to the figures compiled by the workers' union on the production achieved, we believe the company should have made a profit of rupees two crores.'