A procession of the city’s most grotesque inhabitants makes its way through busy streets. Beggars, their limbs amputated, their wounds oozing poison, hobble along as the mutilated body of Shankar — one of their own — is carried on a bamboo bier to the cremation grounds.
The cortège is attacked suddenly by a contingent of riot police that has received misleading information on the wireless. The commanding officer, who instructs his troops to withdraw when he realises the error, explains the swift act of violence: “They were mistaken for political activists in ...
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First Published: Fri, June 19 2020. 21:37 IST
