'Blind?' Natu peers at Champi's eyes. 'She doesn't look blind to me.'

'She is, I am telling you,' I say, trying to hide the desperation in my voice.

'OK, let me test,' says Natu and taps her left breast. Champi whimpers in protest and moves her head from side to side, trying to determine the location of her tormentor. Natu claps his hands. 'This is fun. She has solid tits. What do you say, Brijesh, do I have your permission to enjoy a little?'

'Don't you dare touch my sister.' I glare at Natu and strain against Brijesh like a dog on a leash. 'If you touch her I will kill you, motherfucker.'

Natu slaps me across the face with his open palm and Brijesh stuffs the handkerchief back into my mouth. This is all the encouragement the short man needs. He grabs Champi and clamps his hairy palm over her mouth. With his free hand he begins lifting up her shirt as she flails against him like a goat about to be butchered.

Terror, like toothache, cannot be described. It can only be experienced. I stand in Brijesh's grip like a quivering lump of flesh and watch Champi about to be raped.

I wish the earth would open up and swallow me whole, because I know I am directly responsible for the scene unfolding before me. And I have a good inkling of what will happen to Champi after Natu is through with her. She is already blind, now she will become deaf and dumb as well. The whole day she will just sit outside, fanning herself slowly, with a demented look on her face. At night, she will suddenly scream in her sleep. Nightmares will plague her all her life. It is a fate I would not wish on my worst enemy.

For twenty-one years I have lived without faith in God, but at this moment I become a believer. I start praying – to all the gods I know and even those that I don't – making just one appeal, to please, please save my little Champi. I remember all those films in which God responds to prayer and works his magic. But I don't hear the pealing of temple bells; I don't see the floor shake.

Denial is the final refuge of the powerless. Even as Natu is fumbling with the cord of Champi's salwar, there is a voice in my head repeating like a stuck record, 'She is not my sister, She is not my sister, she is not my sister… She's a worthless Muslim whore.'

All of a sudden, an image flashes through my mind. It is of Lallan strung upside-down in the police lock-up and being tortured by the Butcher of Mehrauli. I had been unable to save him either. But if he was closer than a brother to me, then Champi is closer than a sister. Ties of the mind are stronger than ties of blood.

Like a wounded soldier making his last stand, I muster every ounce of my remaining strength and lash out with my right leg at Natu, catching him at the knee. He is startled into releasing Champi, who tumbles down with a piercing scream. Natu snarls at me and takes out a bicycle chain from his trouser pocket, wraps it around his fist and swings it hard at my face. I try to duck and the metal crashes into the back of my skull. I imagine the door bursting open before I sink into that deep oblivion which is black and fathomless and very, very welcome.

When I come to my senses I find myself in a hospital room. My left hand is in plaster and there is a throbbing pain in the back of my head. I feel it gingerly, expecting to touch sticky blood. But my fingers graze soft fabric. They must have bandaged it. I see Mother lying in the bed next to me, being tended to by Champi, who is wearing a black amulet around her neck.

'What… what happened?' I ask Champi groggily.

'A miracle,' she replies cryptically.

A doctor comes in and tells me that I am lucky to be alive. 'You have suffered severe concussion. All five fingers of your left hand are broken. You will need to keep them immobilized in plaster for at least six weeks before they can heal.'

'Is my mother OK?' I ask him.

'She will live,' he says and begins examining a chart attached to the side of the bed.

'How long have I been in hospital?'

'Two days.'

'How much do I need to pay you?'

'Nothing,' he smiles. 'This is a charitable hospital where everything is free, including the MRI scan, the X-rays and the medicines.'

'Thank you,' I say. 'Can I go now?'

I walk back from the Dayawati Hospital to the temple, ignoring the doctor's warnings and the searing pain in my head. My room looks like it has been visited by a hurricane. Even the wooden desk is in pieces. I take the two first-class train tickets from the pocket of my Benetton jacket and proceed to the railway booking office to cancel them. I am not going to Mumbai any longer. Like Delhi, it too is a show-off city, flaunting its Mercedes and mansions. And it belongs only to the rich. There is no place for the poor in our metropolises. Doesn't matter how honestly you earn a living; you can still get accused of thieving and thrown into a cell simply because you are poor and powerless. As long as I had the briefcase full of money I had power. I knew I could take care of Ritu, fulfil my dreams. With the briefcase gone, so have my grand dreams.

Life suddenly seems brittle and pointless. Surprisingly, I don't feel much anger towards my tormentors, the people who took away the briefcase. It wasn't mine to start with. My rage is directed instead at Vicky Rai. The man who dared to hurt Ritu. The man who took my father's life. Love can make you blind, but despair can make you reckless. I decide to buy a gun.

The biggest criminal gang in our area is the one run by Birju Pehelwan. I know several gang members who swagger through the Sanjay Gandhi slum, flaunting their revolvers like fashion accessories. It is Pappu, a recent entrant to the gang, who directs me to Girdhari, an illicit arms-dealer in Mangolpuri.

The arms-dealer does not display his wares in an airconditioned showroom. I have to go to a smelly alley and climb three flights of stairs to a dim and dingy cubicle, where he sits in front of a massive steel safe. 'I need a cheap gun,' I tell him. He nods and takes out a desi katta, a locally made improvised pistol with just one round. 'This costs only eleven hundred rupees,' he grins.

'I want something better,' I tell him.

'How much have you got?' he asks and I produce the 4,200 rupees returned to me by the railway clerk.

He opens the safe and takes out something wrapped in a white cloth. He carefully opens the cloth to reveal a black gun inside. 'This is also a katta, but a very good one. Looks just like a Chinese Black Star pistol, but costs only four thousand. Try it.' He hands me the gun, butt first.

I hold the gun in my hand, feel its weight, its raised edges, its long, smooth barrel. It gives me goose bumps. I am fascinated by its promise of violent, instant death. 'I'll take it,' I say.

'Unfortunately I have run out of bullets,' the dealer says regretfully. 'At the moment I have only five cartridges for this gun. Can you come again tomorrow?'

'No, I am happy with five bullets. Actually, I'll need just one.'