Before the first Molotov cocktail reached us, before the mob arrived with knives, machetes and wooden sticks, it was a big rock that invaded our lunch table. It passed near my left ear and bounced onto our table, scattering food everywhere and hitting the glass window of the restaurant in front of me. It happened so fast that at first I thought it was a bug, like a praying mantis buzzing past. But the sound of breaking glass and the subsequent screams of the restaurant staff made our hearts skip a beat – everything we had been avoiding for the past few weeks was here. The riot was at our doorstep. Minati and I had decided to go to the Easy Go department store outside the campus to get groceries, and as we were going back with our driver, Satpal, a young man of about twenty, we stopped at a roadside dhaba owned by a friend of his. We were very tired of eating in the campus mess. Due to the curfew imposed and violence happening outside the campus gates, we were confined inside the thirty-acre university campus for two weeks and spent most of the time inside our apartments, waiting for normalcy to return. Spring break was extended indefinitely, and the university advised students not to return to campus until further notice.
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It wasn’t my idea to go there for lunch. I wanted to reach a safe place immediately, but Minati said it would be fine; Satpal knew the owner, and the media, university officials, the university campus security office, and his associates had all assured him that the violence on the streets had been controlled and law and order had been restored.
After the first, more rocks came like hail. Within a few seconds, the glasses of four cars were shattered into pieces. Our own car was parked a few feet away, and I looked helplessly towards Minati – maybe we would have to run. Nearby, a family who had just begun eating pulled up to their small car. The man put a bag around his neck, the woman screamed and flapped her arms, and the young teenage boy pulled at his sister, who appeared stunned.
“Rohit, take care!” Minati screamed.
I immediately covered myself with a steel vessel to protect myself from the flying rock, which caused the rice to scatter on the concrete floor of the restaurant’s courtyard. “run!” I yelled, and we headed to my car.
Just then we heard the sound of screaming. A rock had shattered the family’s rear windshield where the woman and little girl were sitting. Minati started moving towards them, but stopped when a bottle hit the gap left near the broken window and burst into flames.
“Get some water!” Minati shouted pointing towards the jug kept on our table and ran towards it.
But as the smoke and the family’s screams mingled together, the car went off the road. I didn’t have time to think about whether they would be able to do it if their car burst into flames in the middle of the road. I turned around, saw the abandoned shiny leather and pink duffel bag that had belonged to the family, and felt something tighten in my heart. Did they do the right thing? What was the right thing to do in this situation? Should we run to our car?
The sounds of the angry crowd were getting closer – as if the entire market, shouting and bargaining, was moving towards us like a swarm of bees.
Satpal suddenly came out of the dhaba building and shouted, “Madam, we have to go.”
“What happened Satpal?” Minati was standing near our table holding a fork, a piece of chicken still hanging from it.
“I saw from the roof! They’re armed!”
Satpal pulled us back into the building through a heavy iron door that led to a storage room, followed by four stairs to the roof of the dhaba. It was filled with broken chairs, strips of clothing, and a rotten mattress propped against the waist-high wall that marked the ceiling limit. There was a huge water tank near the edge of the roof. It seemed as if a giant hippopotamus was sitting vertically on the wall, defying gravity. A ladder leaned against it.
“Where will we hide?” I asked
On the persuasion of the crying Satpal, we climbed into the water tank with the help of the ladder. Then Satpal covered it with a big concrete lid, leaving us in darkness so black that I couldn’t see my palms. The first thing I felt was ice-cold winter water. We were knee-deep in water and were immersed in an eerie, cold stillness. I didn’t know how long we were inside; It was difficult to hear what was happening on the streets and on the ground floor. I heard a noise from outside. But it was just noise: the noise of people panicking, worried, screaming for help. It felt as if all that noise, all that cumulative noise, was coming from a distance; Very far. As if the cold water tank had transported us to another dimension.
“Minati, are we going to die here?” I whispered. “Rohit, nothing will happen to us. We will be fine.”
We heard a male voice on the terrace. “Look over there, under that rotting mattress!”
Minati closed my mouth. I took out my phone from my back pocket. In the dim light from the phone, I could see the whites of his eyes widen.
My feet started hurting from the icy water. They became as stunned as if they had melted into water, and I was just floating; It felt as if nothing beyond my thighs existed. My feet started burning. Then I felt it: something warm, splashing icy water. Fresh water was entering the tank. Had one of the miscreants entered the kitchen below and started the motor? It looked very cute. The warm fresh water was moving inch by inch towards my thighs, then to my waist, then to my chin. My legs came to life. The pain of icy water had gone away.
Is it How it feels To Drown?
I shouldn’t have come back home. Everyone told me to take the job I was offered in rural Minnesota. But if I had not returned to India, I would never have fallen in love. I had just started my life. And in turn, my heart was broken. I deserved some time to improve it. I deserved to experience the heaviness of a broken heart.
Is this how life ends?
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From How to date a fundamentalist By Aruni Kashyap and reprinted with permission of HarperVia, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2026.
