As Babloo wanders off to chat to a couple of tough-looking inmates, a young boy with a dusty face and short hair comes up to Mohan and touches his feet. He smells of dirt.

'Arrey, who are you?' Mohan shrinks back.

'They say you are Gandhi Baba,' the youth says hesitatingly. 'I came to pay my respects and ask for a favour. My name is Guddu.'

'What are you in for?' Mohan asks.

'I stole a loaf of bread from a bakery. Now I have been here five years. They beat me every day, make me clean the toilets. I want to see my mother. I miss her very much. I know only you can get me out,' he says and starts sobbing.

'Hato. Hato.' Mohan tries to wave him away. 'Look, there is nothing I can do. I am a prisoner too, like you. I have to get out myself before I can think of others. And don't spread this nonsense about my being Gandhi Baba, OK?'

He moves to the other side of the field and is almost immediately accosted by an old man with an aquiline nose and twinkling grey eyes.

'Yada yada hi dharmasya glanirbhavati bharata,' the man intones in Sanskrit, and then translates for Mohan's benefit. 'Whenever there is a fall of righteousness, you arrive to destroy the forces of evil. I bow to you, O great Mahatma. Only you can save this country.'

'And who might you be?' Mohan asks wearily.

'Dr D. K. Tirumurti at your service, Sir. Sanskrit scholar from Madurai.'

'Also professional cheat, you forgot to mention,' Babloo speaks up from behind.

'Let's go, Babloo, I've had enough fresh air.' Mohan tugs at the gangster's sleeve. 'There is one chap who wants me to save him, another who wants me to save the country. Is this a jail or a lunatic asylum?'

Babloo chuckles. 'Actually there is very little difference between the two. Stick with me if you don't want to join the loony brigade.'

The food at dinner time is the same bland fare. But by now Mohan is so famished, he polishes off all four rotis and slurps up the cold vegetable stew. Babloo, he notices, eats very little, sniffling most of the time.

'How do you manage on so little food?' he asks the gangster.

Babloo gives a crafty smile. Wiping his runny nose with the sleeve of his kurta, he lifts the mattress and brings out a hypodermic syringe. 'My food is this.' He tests the syringe before plunging it into his arm.

Mohan winces. 'So you are a drug addict?'

'No. Not an addict,' Babloo says with sudden vehemence. 'I control the cocaine. The cocaine doesn't control me.' He completes the injection and exhales. 'Ahh… this is paradise. I tell you, nothing can beat the rush of crack. Want to try? It will make you forget Scotch.'

'No thank you.'

'I take only one dose at night. And that keeps me going all through the night and all through the next day.'

'Then how do you sleep?'

'I pop some sleeping tablets.'

'Thankfully I don't need sleeping pills to get to sleep,' Mohan says and pulls the blanket over his head.

'Good night, Sir,' Babloo calls out and for no apparent reason bursts into a fit of laughter.

It takes an immense effort on Mohan's part to begin the slow process of adjusting to jail life. He learns to get up at five thirty a.m. for the head-count of prisoners, to sit on the stinking toilet without holding his nose, to tolerate the insipid tea and inedible rotis, to attend the prayer assemblies and yoga sessions and even watch the soaps on TV, which most inmates are completely addicted to. He becomes acquainted with Punjabi murderers and Gujarati arsonists, Nigerian drug-pushers and Uzbek counterfeiters, South Indian cheats and North Indian rapists. He begins playing chess and carrom. He borrows three books a week from the jail library and starts maintaining a diary of prison life.

Throughout this period, he is sustained by Babloo's largesse with his Scotch whisky, the punctilious delivery of Shanti's tiffin every Wednesday loaded with mutton curry and chicken biryani, and the soothing assurances of his lawyers that he will be out soon.

He develops an uneasy friendship with Babloo Tiwari. He is revolted by the criminal's crassness, his ignorance of world affairs, but also amazed at the power he wields in jail. Babloo is the uncrowned king of Tihar, each and every official having been bribed or bullied into servicing him. He runs his empire from inside the jail, spending half his time talking to his henchmen in low whispers, arranging abductions and demanding ransoms, receiving contraband consignments of liquor, cocaine and SIM cards, doling out rewards to pliable policemen and bribe-taking bureaucrats. He has a shrewd sense of their weaknesses, knowing whom to lure with a call girl and whom with cash. But he reserves his ultimate display of power for New Year's Eve, when he organizes a 'private concert' for the jail staff and his cohorts.

In the reading room, the tables and chairs have been pushed to the corners and a makeshift wooden stage erected next to the wall. The central space is covered with white sheets and scattered with foam cushions. Two bottles of Johnny Walker Black Label are placed in the middle and salted nuts in stainless steel bowls are laid out at strategic intervals.

Babloo Tiwari reclines against a bolster, takes a sip of whisky from the glass tumbler in his hand, pops a cashew nut into his mouth and gazes at the fair young woman on the stage. Dressed in a knee-length lehnga and a tight choli, she is busy aping the moves of Shabnam Saxena to a taped medley of her film hits.

On Babloo's left sits the warden and on his right is Mohan. Immediately behind them are the other jail staff, and behind them the fifteen inmates granted the privilege of attending the 'show'. The girl thrusts her ample bosom at the men, who leer at her, address her as 'jaaneman' and 'darling' (Professor Varshney calls her 'Lolita') and make vulgar gestures with their fingers. As the night progresses and the level of inebriation increases, some of the jail staff climb on to the stage and join in the dancing. A constable grinds his hips suggestively while another tries unsuccessfully to catch the girl's flared skirt. Babloo also lurches up to the dancer and showers her with a wad of hundred-rupee notes. The warden looks on benignly, occasionally glancing at the Rolex watch on his wrist which Babloo had given him that morning.

'Fantastic, Babloo Saab! I could never have imagined such a spectacle inside a jail,' Dr Tirumurti compliments the gangster.

'My motto has always been Live and Let Live,' Babloo says smugly and looks at Mohan. 'So Kumar Sahib, what do you think? Is Tihar a bad place to celebrate the New Year?'

'I think you are right,' Mohan agrees. 'Tihar isn't such a bad place after all. Cheers!'

'Tender is the night,' chimes Varshney.

Just before midnight, Mohan feels the urge to take a leak. He leaves the hall, shivering as a gust of cold wind hits him in the face. It is a chilly night but the sky is alive with the colourful bursts of firecrackers and rockets. As he is crossing the courtyard he hears a faint rustling sound and suddenly a large hand clamps his mouth from behind. He struggles frantically to free himself, but something cold, hard and metallic is thrust into the small of his back. 'One move and the gun will blast your intestines, understand?' Two other shadows materialize out of the darkness, flanking him. He sees their faces and feels his mouth drying. They are the terrorists belonging to the dreaded Lashkar-e-Shahadat. The Army of Martyrdom.

The three men propel him towards the gate. The courtyard is deserted – the sentries are all enjoying the dance programme whose faint sounds can still be heard. There is a lone guard on duty at the main gate. He is watching the fireworks in the sky, his rifle resting against his leg. The leader of the group tiptoes up to the guard. In one swift move, he grabs him by the neck and wrestles him to the ground.