Chulliat’s office window looked onto a road which wore a different look that night. At ten in the night the traffic was already taking a curtain call. The light of the roadside sodium lamps looked more zestful than usual. Laced with an unearthly sheen, it reminded Chulliat of his childhood evenings, especially that yellow hour when shadows lengthened to ten feet.
Chulliat gave up the window to rest his pipe on the table. Though long put out, he had been persisting at it, sucking on it absently. Its hard tip lactated the viscously bitter saliva of fever. Whenever history was at a fork, Chulliat felt a fever coming on. On the night of August 14, 1947, when the Union Jack came down for the last time, it was malaria. Gandhi died with the thin red line on the thermometer touching 103.
“Mullik, I am done for the day. A touch of, ah well, more than a touch of fever,” Chulliat spoke into the intercom.
“Then the editorial?” Mullik asked.
“Editorial? I thought it was Viswanathan’s job.”
“But, today?”
“Viswanathan is fine.” Chulliat raised his voice in feverish impatience.
“All of us at the desk were wondering if there would be a front-page edit signed by you.”
“For God’s sake, no. By Viswanathan,...
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