'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.'

Raha frowns at him and punches a button on the laptop. A new chart appears on the screen. 'Well, the audit report certified by Messrs R. R. Haldar does not support your contention, Mr Dutta.'

'The audit report is a fraud, like you,' Dutta sneers.

Raha decides to ignore the taunt. 'Anyway, as I was saying, our operating environment continues to remain difficult. The totally illegal strike by workers last May resulted in a loss of thirty-five man days.'

'Please don't blame the strike on the workers,' Dutta intervenes again. 'The management was solely responsible for the strike by unilaterally withdrawing the transport allowance.'

Raha continues as if he has not heard Dutta. 'It is Mr Rai's dream to make this mill one of the biggest players in the textile field in India. Our eventual objective is to modernize the mill in two phases, with the installation of hi-tech state-of-the-art textile machinery. For the restructuring plan to work we are required to bring down non-performing assets and interest-bearing debt. We would need to maximize the use of capital intensive machinery, with the concomitant need to… er… rightsize some of the other parameters.'

'And what might these other parameters be, Mr Raha?' Dutta asks.

'This will require us to downscale the workforce to an optimum degree.'

'Oh, you mean men will be sacked to make way for machines?'

'Well, Mr Dutta, I wouldn't put it quite so starkly. And, in any case, the restructuring plan will have in-built provisions for matching of competencies and payment of motivational wages and productivity-linked bonuses, together with other incentivization packages which-'

'Stop this charade, Raha.' Dutta pushes back his chair and stands up. 'On behalf of the unions, I totally reject the restructuring plan.'

There is a fizz of silence in the room. All eyes look at Vicky Rai, who drums his fingers on the table, his face inscrutable. 'Well, in that case, I think we should put the proposal to a vote. All those in favour, please say yes.' He stares at a middle-aged man with a long nose on his left. 'Mr Arora?'

'Yes.'

'Mrs Islamia?'

'Yes.'

'Mr Singh?'

'Yes.'

'Mr Billmoria?'

'Yes.'

'Mr Dutta?'

'An emphatic no.'

'Mr Kumar?'

Mohan has an impish smile on his face. 'Well, I must say this has been a most fascinating and thought-provoking discussion. I will make only three submissions. First, that the principle of majority does not work when differences on fundamentals are involved.' He glances at Vicky Rai, whose eyebrows go up a fraction.

'My second submission is that each and every one of you should consider yourself to be a trustee for the welfare of our fellow labourers and not be self-seeking,' he says, emphasizing each word. 'Where there are millions upon millions of units of idle labour, it is no use thinking of labour-saving devices. This company cannot function with greed as its only motive. It has to serve a higher purpose. And this brings me to my third submission.'

Vicky's face is now etched with worry lines. 'What the fuck is Kumar up to? Is he speaking in our favour or against us?' he whispers to Raha.