No God in Sight by Altaf Tyrewala Page B

goggle-eyed at the Breaking News team. ‘These are the heroes of the day!’ Balbir Pasha pointed to the policemen. ‘My fearless team. Are we going live?’
    ‘Uh… ya…’ GK managed to answer. He, Punita, and the cameraman were transfixed by the row of bodies.
    ‘We were tipped off by an anonymous caller this morning. I gathered my unit and we combed the entire park for two hours before we came upon this clearing where this bunch was sitting in a circle planning their attack on the prime minister. You know he’s in the city for a week. My unit surrounded these jehadis from all sides. We wanted to capture them but they reached for their guns so we fired andfinished the whole lot. It’s a proud day for the Mumbai police force and a proud day for the country.’
    Punita visualized the angle. Long shot? Overhead? Something zany or something still? She glanced at the bodies. Fly-infested. Mud-spattered. They were all dressed in shirts and trousers. Some had beards, some didn’t. There were no pools of blood drooling from the carcasses. No remnants of gore. For men who had been shot just a few hours ago, these fifteen looked rather comfortable in their deadness.
    Balbir Pasha pointed to an open trunk strewn with stick-like sten guns. ‘AK-somethings,’ he said. ‘Our experts are still trying to figure out the make.’
    And then Balbir Pasha went and stood by the head of the first corpse. ‘We have their names,’ he announced, referring to a clipboard. ‘This first one is Sohail Tambawala.’
    And then he walked past each corpse and read out its name: ‘Farid Khan, Rizwan Mohammad, Altaf Hussein Sheikh, Salim Itmadi, Irfan Shah, Rizwan Khambati, Munna Ismail…’
    Punita’s cell phone rang, interrupting Pasha’s morbid name-calling.
    ‘Really? Shut up! No
way!
This is
great!’
    Punita clicked her cell phone shut.
    ‘We have to go.’ She tapped Girish on his shoulder. ‘Come on, we have to get to Santacruz.’
    ‘What? But…’ Balbir Pasha stuttered.
    ‘What but, but! Prime minister slapped chief minister! We have to be there!’
    The Breaking News trio returned to the van, slammed the doors shut and begged the driver to get them to Santacruz as fast as possible.

What Happened Next
    The sight of the Breaking News van escaping at top speed stunned the Assistant Commissioner of Police.
    Balbir Pasha imagined what it would be like if all nineteen news channels refused to report this police–terrorist encounter. There would be no media clamor for exclusive interviews, no public approval or disapproval, and no commission reports or judicial inquiries to divert himself with.
    Like the director of a failed stage show, he would be left alone in this stinking park with his cast of twenty brain-dead officers and their gruesome props of fifteen rotting corpses.
    The vision so terrified Balbir Pasha that he crumpled and fell to the ground, weeping like a motherfucking newborn.

What Really Happened Next
    The sight of the Breaking News van escaping at top speed stunned the Assistant Commissioner of Police.
    With expletives ricocheting inside his skull, Balbir Pasha dialed the first news channel that came to mind.
    Studio staff at MCBC News were rather amused by the Assistant Commissioner of Police’s desperate call for coverage. All field personnel had converged at Santacruz; would a rookie news team do?
    ‘Send them! Send them!’
    The MCBC News van arrived at the park.
    In a matter of minutes the country’s TV-owning population—the only one that really mattered—was regaled with a badly scripted, eighty-second report on Balbir Pasha’s heroics as well as his unit’s stealth and precision. The names of the fifteen dead jehadis were ticker-taped.
    As planned, the slap-happy prime minister incorporated the police–terrorist encounter into his rally speech.
    Troublesome activists raised uncomfortable questions in comfortable living rooms.
    Poll analysts predicted a second run for the ruling party.
    Balbir