The Death of Vishnu

I’ve come to talk to you about,” Mr. Jalal said, and murmurs of surprise rippled through the crowd. “I spent last night sleeping on the landing. With Vishnu.” There were more murmurs, and Mrs. Jalal put her sari worriedly to her face. “The dupatta was already on him when I came. I have no idea how it got there.”
    Mr. Jalal paused to scan the crowd. The cigarettewalla, the paanwalla, the electrician—everyone was looking at him intently. How quickly fate had operated to bring him his audience. Surely this was another sign urging him to assume the role for which he had been chosen. He would make the most of it—he would try to win over the entire assembly, with this, his first sermon.
    “This has been a long and difficult journey for me,” he began, “and last night my quest brought me to Vishnu.”
    Mr. Jalal related his story. “A walnut, a walnut this big,” he exclaimed, holding up his fingers in front of the cigarettewalla and paanwalla’s faces, “right into my forehead.” He made his hand into a fist and slammed it into his head, noting with satisfaction the way their eyes widened. “That’s what allowed me to see.”
    He recounted the vision. “Imagine a body with so many arms that it could pluck every one of you from where you stand. Imagine a being with so many mouths that it could crush you all between its jaws.” The cigarettewalla took a step back as Mr. Jalal grimaced and flung his arms into the air. “With smoke in its nostrils and flame in every breath.”
    He was keeping their attention—they were hanging on his every word. A few of them had even set down their lathis and were squatting on their haunches, rapt in what he was saying. Why had he never recognized before this talent he had? This power to convince, this ability to hold an audience? As Mr. Jalal spoke, the crowd before his eyes began to multiply, until it was thronging down the steps and through the streets, all the way to Haji Ali.
    “And I am convinced, absolutely convinced, that there is only one course of action that can save us all—to follow the directive that Vishnu has asked me to convey to you. Wake up and recognize him, before it’s too late.”
    Mr. Jalal ended his account with a flourish. He beamed roundly at the assembly, like a politician finishing the speech that will get him reelected.
    Silence hung over the crowd. The cigarettewalla rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
    Then the electrician hissed, “You bastard.”
    People turned to look at him. The triumph on Mr. Jalal’s face gave way to confusion.
    “You damn bastard,” the electrician hissed again. “How dare you.”
    “Yes, how dare you,” the cigarettewalla hissed as well.
    “That was no dream. That was the Gita. The eleventh chapter. Did you think no one would recognize it? You made it all up about your dream, didn’t you? To save your own skin.”
    Mr. Jalal gaped at the electrician. He had no idea what the man was talking about.
    “How dare you make fun of poor Vishnu. How dare you throw our own Gita in our faces like that. What have you come here to do, you Muslim bastard, reveal Krishna to us?”
    A seed of recollection blew into Mr. Jalal’s brain. Yes, there was something in the Bhagavad Gita—something about Krishna revealing himself—to Arjun, was it? It had been so long since he had read it—but yes, there was a familiar aspect to the dream, now that he thought about it. “But I did dream it,” he said, “even if it is in the Gita. This just proves my point—it had to be Vishnu speaking, not me.”
    “Liar.” “Blasphemer.” “Cheat.”
    The voices from the back were getting louder, so the cigarettewalla decided he had better assert himself. “How dare you even think of quoting our holy book to us, you unbeliever,” he said, even though he had little personal knowledge of the Gita, having never had it read out to him. “What kind of fools do you make of us? We’ll take you to the police.”
    “Take him to the police?” the paanwalla said. “What rubbish—we’ll deal with him ourselves, right here, right now. What are you, too scared to punish this scoundrel yourself? If you can’t use that lathi, give it to someone who’s less of a coward.” With this, the paanwalla snatched the cigarettewalla’s lathi from his hands and gave it to a lathi-less person standing behind.
    The cigarettewalla, angered by this abrupt usurpation of his authority, lunged for the paanwalla’s lathi, managing to catch one