Page 67 of A Shimla Affair
‘Get to your positions!’ Noor yelled.
In that moment, I looked outside the window: three of Ripon’s men had tried to break through a window at the side of the building. Now they lay whimpering on the ground, blown away from the bomb that had successfully exploded.
‘We warned you not to force your way in!’ Noor said over the megaphone.
At her voice, Ripon ordered a round of firing, making us all retreat. The torrent of bullets didn’t terrify me as much as it had before, and the thought made me sad: one could get used to violence as easily as anything else. Ripon was no longer acting rationally, and anger could make the most sensible of men do the stupidest of things.
The firing finally stopped and Ratan Babu insisted that we match their actions with ours. It would be a real pity if, after all this, one of us died in a mindless show of anger. No, if we were going to go down, it would be as heroes.
One by one, Ratan Babu brought each of the hostages, except Charles, and tied them to the windows, letting them see out of the fortress that had become the hotel.
‘Shoot now,’ Ratan Babu said, into the speaker, ‘And you will shoot upon them.’
I would not deny it was barbaric. We had left them tied to the windows like animals. As an example, a warning. Left them to live, left them to die. We used their lives to shield ourselves and our agenda, we used their helplessness to prove a point. But what else could we do?
Hours began to slip by, and silence fell, so much so that, at one point, we could hear the crickets outside. The apparent calm was comforting and deceptive. What were they doing? What was their next move? Would they bend or attack? For the moment, the inside of the hotel felt like a sanctuary but, eventually, its borders would be breached. Either we would kill, or we would die, but there would certainly be a breaking point.
The walls around us seemed frailer by the minute, they were the only things standing between us and weapons desperate to blow us up.
When dawn broke, I went up to the highest floor and looked out the window. In excitement, I ran right back down to tell the others: a crowd had begun to gather on the road leading up to the hotel. The people had come out, and word seemed to have spread. Shimla wanted to know what was going on, the moment of reckoning was here.
Pressure was mounting, the only thing that stopped Ripon from storming the hotel was the Viceroy. As long as he lived, we lived.
With first light, was another announcement on the speaker, ‘Lord Ripon would like a face-to-face meeting.’
24
‘Think of the situation as that of a pressure cooker. With more time, with more heat, the pressure will increase to an exploding point. In a way, the negotiations should not be very different from trying to get the best bargain at the market.
‘You will start with feeling out the other party, surveying them. Here you will find out the most crucial details—who wants it more? Who has more at stake? Who will be willing to give up more? Who can be pushed more? Don’t reveal your desperation.
‘Know that this, just like with any good bargain, is ultimately not about the price. It’s about the ego. You want them to agree to you, not because of what is at stake, but also because you have come too far to back out now. You identify this point and, just as in life, you don’t make it about yourself.’
It was a risk we had to take; a risk we had committed to taking. If there was one thing we had learnt by now, it was this: the opposite of freedom was not a cage but fear, and the realization of this fact the only way forward in life.
After discussion, we finally agreed that only three of us would go outside for the meeting. Two would be too few, and one more than three would mean that only one of us remained inside to take care of the hostages. Noor would go for the talking, Afreen because she was the best shot in a quick situation and Ratan Babu because he would fare the best in a physical combat. Khushilalji and I would stay inside and defend our position.
It seemed as though we were at the threshold of all that ever was and all that could be, and every single action would spell out the rest of our life.
I walked around to where our hostages sat huddled, leaning against the wall, some with their eyes closed, some still in shock. I stood next to Charles, the only one without a cloth around his mouth, the only one allowed to speak had nothing to say.
Noor came close to me, where I stood next to him. She held me by my shoulders tightly, and we discussed our signals for when we should shoot and give them cover, for when we should throw grenades for distraction and in the last, absolute worst-case scenario, which I refused to accept, when we should grab the Viceroy and make a run for it.
Charles interrupted us.
‘Ripon is playing you.’
Noor glared at him. ‘How?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what he is planning, but I would be careful. You should not be going out.’
‘He wouldn’t dare try anything. We have the Viceroy. We have all the others. We even have you.’
Charles stared at her so intensely, his deep blue eyes almost turned dark. I wished in that moment that I could dive deep into his mind and read his myriad thoughts. He worked in the Viceroy’s office, he knew how these things worked. Perhaps he was even aware of the protocol of what would happen in case of such a situation. But regardless of what had passed betweenus, I could not trust him fully. What if he was trying to mislead us? Trust might be the first rule of love, but it was the last one of politics. I turned away from him towards my sister, her constancy, her protection, her doubtless intentions.
The two parties would be seated opposite each other, eight feet apart, on chairs, no table between them. There would be one guard with Lord Ripon.
Noor and Afreen redid each other’s sari drapes, and Ratan Babu retied his turban. They prepared themselves to go, pulling the Viceroy with them and making him stand at the window next to me.
