by Mainak Dhar
Shaikh spoke from the Powai Lake checkpoint and Ronald from the Ghatkopar one. They both had similar news—there was no enemy movement discernible anymore. That did not mean they were not out there, planning the next move.
Early the next morning, we laid our fallen to rest. Two were buried in keeping with Islamic traditions and eight were cremated. It had been a night without much sleep for anyone and, all around me, I could see people walking with the slouched gait of the defeated. The enemy had shown us that they could hit us at will, in our own homes, and we had no means of retaliating.
After the funerals we all headed back to our duties. I was planning to review our security in light of the night’s events, but before I had gone too far, Kundu came running towards me, huffing from the exertion. He stood before me, trying to catch his breath, his hands on his hips.
‘We…we have a big problem.’
I hailed Mahadev and we drove to the lake and I immediately saw what he was talking about. Down the road, perhaps five hundred metres out, stood a Humvee with a small black flag flying above it, its heavy machine gun pointed at the road ahead which we would need to cross to get to the lake.
Pandey, who had come there in our captured Humvee and had hidden it out of sight behind a building, said, ‘Sir, see that black box on top? That Humvee has an anti-tank missile launcher on it. It’ll slice through our Humvee like a knife through butter.’
‘Can you get it with the RPG from here?’
He shook his head sadly. ‘That RPG has a range of, at most, three hundred metres with any accuracy. Beyond that, we may as well be lobbing it in the air and hoping it hits them.’
Kundu knelt down beside me and pointed at the crossing ahead. ‘We had set out for our morning water supply run and this bastard showed up. We’ll be sitting ducks if we try and cross the road in the open, that too carrying buckets and barrels of water.
‘How much water do we have stored?’
He thought it over. ‘I’d say enough for three days. If we get people to stop taking baths and use water for drinking and cooking only, then maybe a week, but even that’s stretching it. It could be much less than that, since we’ve had a lot of newcomers join us.’
Ronald, who had got word of what was going on, joined us. I turned to him and said, ‘They know that attacking us with infantry will cost them lives, so they’re putting us under siege. They’re trying to starve us out and bomb us from afar to break our spirits.’
‘Why don’t they just move on?’
I pointed to the Indian flag that still flew proudly atop the building where we had placed it. ‘They cannot. They need to make an example of us, otherwise how will they tell their people that they are setting up their Caliphate in this country if we sit here, defying them, so close to their headquarters and where their Caliph is?’
‘Any ideas? Shaikh could take out that guy with his sniper rifle.’
I looked at the Humvee through my binoculars and saw the masked, black-clad man standing at the turret, manning the machine gun.
‘No, then they may just move the Humvee back and put in a few snipers of their own. Then they would just pick off our supply teams. I do think we’ll need Shaikh to work his magic, but we have to do something else as well.’
‘What?’
I put the binoculars down and looked at Ronald. ‘The only thing we can do when the enemy is trying to dictate terms and show us that he is in control. We find a new way of messing with his mind.’
The enemy had been used to us slinking around at night, well this time we would walk up to them in broad daylight. We had the uniforms of the two men we had captured, and when I told Akif about my idea, he was delighted. Akif put on the Arab’s uniform, both because they were similar in size and because he needed to pretend to be the officer if he was to do the talking. We didn’t tell too many people about what we were planning, simply because we wanted to move fast while there was just the single Humvee on the road.
We jogged past the main access road and through small shops. This was an area which we had totally blocked off with overturned cars and a large abandoned truck, and we scrambled over those to enter an area none of us had seen since the Blackout. There were a few housing societies, but they seemed to be largely abandoned, and the small shops nearby had all been ransacked. We turned right through a small alley and emerged below the flyover which the Humvee would have taken to come to its current position. We climbed over the side of the flyover and approached the Humvee from behind. I tried to control my breathing and calm myself. We were now no more than ten metres from the enemy, and if this was to work, then we had to walk casually, without giving them any cause for alarm.
The man standing in the hatch on the Humvee manning the machine gun suddenly turned towards us, perhaps having heard movement. Akif raised a hand in greeting and we kept walking towards the vehicle. He shouted something in Arabic and Akif responded calmly, adding what could only be a joke; he laughed and I saw the man visibly relax.
We were now just a few feet from the vehicle and the rear door opened and two men began to get out, stretching their muscles. Akif went towards the nearest man, greeting him effusively and reaching out to shake his hand. As the man extended his hand, Akif brought his left hand out from his pocket and slit the man’s throat. The second man was looking at them wide-eyed in shock and didn’t even see me lunge at him. I stabbed him in the throat and brought him down. The man who had been standing at the machine gun was starting to shout to the driver when his head exploded in a mist of red and he slumped forward. Shaikh had shot him with his sniper rifle and, with a silencer attached, we had not even heard the shot.
I entered the Humvee through the rear door and the driver turned towards me, pulling a pistol out of a shoulder holster as he did so. I grabbed him around the neck and, as he struggled, I pulled him back. By then, Akif was inside the vehicle and he stabbed the man in the neck repeatedly. I felt his warm blood spray over my hands and his body convulse before he went still.
The man I had stabbed was still alive but barely, grabbing at his neck and making gurgling noises before he finally died. We pulled all the bodies inside, both because we figured we could use their uniforms and kits and also because we wanted to keep the enemy guessing as to what had happened to their men. Akif started the Humvee and we rolled forward towards our checkpoint.
From the first stab to the last, the whole battle had taken just about two minutes. The radio crackled to life and someone said something in Arabic and then switched to accented English.
‘Abu-Amriki, why haven’t you checked in?’
Akif glanced at me, ‘One of these is an American recruit.’
As the voice on the radio repeated the question, I thought about it and decided that the time for subterfuge and playing in the shadows was gone. These people had declared war on us—they needed to know whom they were fighting against. I pushed the transmit button on the radio.
‘To all terrorist fighters out there, this is Commander Aaditya of the Indian National Army. Abu-Amriki and his friends are dead and we are taking their vehicle back with us. Go back home while you can and stop following your leaders. All you will find here is death.’
We disposed of the bodies and cleaned up the Humvee before we took it inside the society. Our people had seen the horrors of war first-hand, but somehow it felt important that I still try and shield them as far as I could. There was no reason for children to see the blood and gore that had been inside the Humvee.
Shaikh found a small Indian flag with which we replaced the black flag that had been flying above the Humvee. When we turned into Central Avenue, I was standing at the turret and saw hundreds of people had lined up. Almost none of them had got any sleep the previous night and many were still mourning the loss or injury of loved ones, yet I could see smiles among the crowd. This was a good sign: it was important that we believed that the war was far from lost, that we could still fight back.
As I got out of the vehicle, I called
Ronald over. ‘This thing has a missile launcher on it and a few missiles on board. Any idea how to use it?’
Ronald looked in. ‘As far as I can tell, this is an American TOW anti-tank launcher. I have no idea how to use it, but I’m sure there will be people on the radio who will. I’ll get on it right away.’
The time we had to celebrate was limited because there was work to be done. Kundu commandeered an old water tanker which Mahadev had been working on and set off on the water run, accompanied by both Humvees. I hitched a ride on the water tanker, as I was sure the enemy would retaliate, but by late afternoon, there had been no attacks. With our water supplies replenished and the new weapons we had recovered distributed among more volunteers, I decided to take a break and sat down in the meeting room at my society.
Mr Sinha brought over a cup of tea and asked, ‘What plans for tonight?’
‘The same, Mr Sinha. People need to be in the parking lots or on the ground floor in rooms like this. I’m sure the enemy will try and attack again. We’ve embarrassed them today and they will definitely be back.’
‘Any ideas on what we can do if they start firing mortars again?’
I had been thinking about just that and, to be honest, had no real answers. That was when Mohit, Nasir and a few of their friends dropped by.
‘Sir, I’ve been feeling like I’m wasting my time. What’s the point of generating solar power and getting bloody fridges working when people are dying and I can’t do anything about it?’
‘Mohit, don’t be so hard on yourself. Without you, we’d be living in darkness for much longer.’
He sat down next to me and I could see a look of excitement in his eyes. ‘Sir, I have an idea. We’ve been working on it since morning and I think we can try it out tonight.’
‘What is it?’
He took out a pad and began sketching. ‘Today we have only a couple of night vision glasses that Ronald and Shaikh bought along and the one we captured, but not enough to cover all checkpoints at all times, especially if you guys are out on missions and have taken them along. So, in most cases, we’re blind at our checkpoints and the enemy can see everything we’re doing with their night vision glasses. Also, our bombs are triggered by wires, which mean a pretty limited range.’
‘Mohit, if you’re trying to make me feel optimistic about our chances, you’re not doing a very good job.’
He chuckled and Nasir laughed as well and then picked up where Mohit had left off. ‘Sir, we want to help and, to be honest, we may not know how to kill a man with our hands or shoot someone at long range, but all of us have been putting our heads together all day to get some ideas. Believe me, we want to kill as many of those motherfuckers as we can.’
I saw him now, all humour gone, replaced by rage. I knew that Nasir had brought a boy to the clinic the previous night, his face nearly blown off by shrapnel. The boy had died in Nasir’s arms.
‘Sir, we’ve got four IEDs that will be triggered through the radios we have captured. I’ve tested them without explosive charges, and they have a range of at least one kilometre. We’ve placed the bombs at chokepoints on all our approaches and the explosive charge is more than double of what we’ve used before. If they come tonight, we can hit them at long range without any of us being exposed to their snipers. If we have lookouts on high rooftops with our night vision glasses, we should see them coming and pass on information to you to trigger the bombs. I feel responsible for those old men dying last night, and this is my way of getting back.’
Mohit was next. ‘There was a barn behind our colonies that was used for shooting TV serials, and we discovered several big spotlights there. I’ve got several solar panels that work and are being charged now. Instead of lighting up our homes, I’ll use them to light up those spotlights. Shaikh told me that their night vision will be ruined if they suddenly come across bright light. We’ll line up the approaches at the lake and Ghatkopar with the spotlights so their snipers no longer have such an easy job, and our own visibility is much better.’
I could sense the energy in the room, but we still didn’t have answers to everything.
‘What about the mortars? They can still keep lobbing them at us all night.’
Mohit didn’t have an answer to that but he had thought about it. ‘We turn off all our lights. Why give them easy targets? Let them be lit up by our spotlights while we stay in the darkness at night.’
I got Ronald on the radio.
‘Hey, what’s the range on their mortars?’
‘Could be up to five or more kilometres.’
I groaned inwardly. With that kind of range, they could be sitting comfortably halfway to the airport and lobbing shells at us all night. But something clicked in my mind.
‘How would they transport them?’
‘They’d probably bring them up in the backs of jeeps, Aadi.’
I looked at the students around me.
‘Guys, thanks for the ideas. Get them all in motion and I’ll go work on those mortars.’
‘What are you planning?’
I grinned at them. ‘We’ll go hunting.’
I had thought that Megha might object, that we might have another argument, but she just nodded when I told her what we were going to do. Then she came over and hugged me.
‘Aadi, even a few days ago, I would have asked you not to put yourself in harm’s way, but that would be selfish. I think I’ve lived twenty years in the last two weeks; I’ve found you, we’ve gotten married, and if I were to die today, I would have very few regrets.’
I shushed her, but she continued. ‘So, no regrets, Aadi. Do what you’ve got to.’
Next I went to gather my volunteers. Mahadev seemed to be an automatic inclusion, since he just tagged along with me the moment he heard we were headed out on a mission, without even asking what it was. However, I wanted everyone to have a clear idea of what we were getting into.
‘This time we’re not waiting behind our checkpoint for the enemy to attack, nor are we setting off a bomb from afar. We’ll be out there, among them, trying to disrupt them before they launch mortars at our community. There is a good chance all of us will not be coming back alive, but if we truly are the Indian National Army, then better it’s us out there, fighting the enemy, than the kids and elderly here facing their shells.’
I was a bit surprised when almost everyone volunteered, and in the end, we chose to take a few of our experienced fighters along, but leave some of them behind. Part of it, and the reason I gave them, was that in case the enemy attacked while we were out there, we needed them to lead the defences. But it was also because if none of us got back, then at least there would be some experienced fighters left.
Before we headed out, there was one more thing on my mind. I asked Ronald to walk with me.
‘Ronald, still no news from the convoy headed from Goa? They should have been here by now.’
He shook his head.
‘Where could they be?’
‘No idea, Aadi. There’s no response on the radio, but then their set may have malfunctioned. Their vehicles may have broken down or they may be clearing abandoned vehicles from some stretch of the road. Three of the MARCOS teams in the city have not checked in either, but three have, and they say they are going to make their way here.’
Neither of us brought up the possibility that the enemy had cells along the way which had attacked the convoy from Goa, or that they had run into looters or gangs. Their fate, and their likely arrival, was completely out of our hands.
As night fell, everyone who was not going to be at the checkpoints or on ambulance duty was shepherded into parking lots or ground floor common rooms. All our checkpoints were manned and the two Humvees were placed at the two likely attack points—the lake and the road leading to Ghatkopar—with Pandey in charge of one and Ronald in charge of the other. Both Pandey and Ronald had radios controlling the bombs Nasir had placed and we had lookouts with night vision glasses on three tall buildings to give them warning of
any approaching vehicles or men.
At eight in the evening, as planned, every single light in our community was killed, and the spotlights Mohit had placed along our approach roads were turned on. Using that sudden change, we ran out through the slums and by-lanes near the lake, six teams of two men each. Each of us was wearing a bulletproof vest and was armed with an assault rifle, a pistol, a knife and two of the tennis ball bombs. We were headed out to patrol areas and our goal was to get to the mortar teams before they fired.
I ran hard, trying to get as far into the blackness as I could before the enemy made any move. I had always been pretty fit and had run almost every day, but now, as I ran, I realized that the lack of any junk food, constantly being on edge and near daily fighting had hardened and toned my body like never before. I had been running for close to fifteen minutes without a break and looked back to see Mahadev, who was paired with me, a few feet behind me. With his thin, sinewy body, I figured that, in another life, he could have been a great marathon runner. Then I stopped myself. The life in which he had been an auto-rickshaw driver was over. We were all leading new lives, and he could be anything he wanted.
Finally, after twenty minutes of hard running, I stopped, taking cover behind a cluster of shops. Mahadev joined me and we stood there, hearing nothing but our own laboured breathing. I looked back towards Powai and smiled as I saw the one set of lights we had kept on in the buildings—two powerful spotlights that lit up the tricolour on the rooftop.
As our battle began, we wanted everybody for miles around to know who was waging this war, and on whose behalf.
I heard the distant thump of an explosion and my heart sank. The enemy had got off the first shot without us being any closer to finding them. Mahadev and I had been on alert for any sounds of vehicles that might be transporting the mortars into firing position, but we had not heard anything so far. A few seconds later, we heard another explosion and this time I saw the dull glow of an explosion coming from the direction of Hiranandani Gardens. That meant it was likely that a round had hit a vehicle or shrapnel had penetrated the fuel tank of an abandoned car. Given the large numbers of cars lying on the streets, there was no way we could have moved them all to cover.
