The streets were deserted and the pavements littered with debris and refuse. Row after row of shops had been stripped bare, down to their walls. The road was strewn with an ensemble of objects that mobs had vandalized but were unable or unwilling to carry with them – plumbing fixtures, remnants of broken furniture, utensils, shards of glass, electrical wires, gas cylinders, construction beams and the odd strip of colourful hosiery. As they left the more insulated areas of the city, bodies appeared – burnt and charred, some bludgeoned, others mutilated and disfigured. The ones that lay intact were distended. Dogs sniffed and tugged at them, no longer interested in the cars casting long, fleeting shadows. Driving through Babu Bazaar, they passed a group of men by the side of the road, sipping tea and wolfing down bread. A couple of them pointed to the car and picked up bricks. The driver said nervously, 'Chhoto-babu ...perhaps we should return home. I kept saying this was a terrible mistake ...'

No one answered him. A morbid fascination took over as they travelled on, journeying towards a perilous tryst. A truck appeared in the distance, full of men shouting and jeering. It was impossible to hear what they were saying. They seemed triumphant – an odd set of smiling faces on a grisly, decomposing terrain.

At four in the afternoon, they entered the familiar stretch that led to Jyotirmoy's clinic and stopped where the narrow road began. It was uncharacteristically crowded. Almost everyone who lived in the adjoining houses and hovels had taken to the street, excited and nervous,titillated by the promise of something unexpected, possibly macabre.

People started pointing at Jyotirmoy as soon as he stepped out of the car. They had been expecting him. 'Wait here,' he said to the driver. 'We will go on in and see what is going on first. 'The guard refused to budge. 'I'll guard the car.'

Jyotirmoy walked confidently toward his clinic. A group of about a dozen men – clearly not from the neighbourhood – were milling around. Haggard and angry in appearance, they wielded enough weaponry to fight a small battle. But the local crowd that had gathered seemed unafraid of them. They wouldn't kill their own.

'Your saviour has come at last!' cried out one of the men as he walked up to them. Badol bounded out of the clinic. He was sweating profusely. The man leading the group, who stood with a hand on his green, tattered, blood-stained pyjamas, let out a maniacal laugh. 'Look! He's just a man in a dhoti!'

'This is our doctor,' said Badol.

'What a small man! I thought that we would witness the arrival of Krishna or Vishnu or one of your great gods. The streets would part and he would come to us. So tell me, am I not seeing something yet, are you divine?'

'No,' said Jyotirmoy. 'I'm just a person who helps here.'

'I see. What a person you must be then. We have been on a spree all morning, you know,getting rid of people. Sending them upstairs,' he pointed at the skies. 'But here, all of a sudden,a whole mohalla-ful of people asks us to spare lives. Your lives! So we said, "Let's stop operations, we need to see this magician, this man who can walk in to a Muslim neighbourhood fearlessly and start a shop," didn't we?' The man turned to the mob and they nodded,entertained by the theatrics – some respite from a strange day of mayhem.

'I am no magician. Everyone here

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