We had been on the terrace a quarter of an hour, silently sipping our cold drinks, when my cousin Vinil muttered, ‘Look.’

‘Look where?’ I said. There was plenty to look at. It was 8 pm on Diwali; the streets were exploding with fireworks. Showers of sparks flew up from the driveways on every side of us. The sky, even as it darkened, was lit up unrelentingly.

‘There.’

He was pointing towards my neighbor’s house. I looked, and then I shielded my eyes theatrically. The whole palatial building was slathered in neon. So were the two parked Mercedes outside, and every square inch of the garden that was swept continually by a ripple of yellow. Through the high window on the top floor, I could see Mr. Malhotra’s five year old grandson, dressed up in a kurta-pyjama and engrossed in his action figures. He was a sweet boy; shy of the noises and the bright lights. But down in the living room there was more glitter, much of it in motion. My neighbor’s wife and their extended family were an agitated blur of silk, sequins, gold and silver.

‘They’re having an argument,’ said Vinil. ‘Can you see? It’s a good thing we came up here.’

The terrace did give us a vantage point. But I wasn’t keen on spying.

‘I think they’re just happy,’ I said. ‘This is how they must express it. Forget it.’

Vinil, however, didn’t shift his gaze. ‘Wait’, he murmured. ‘Wait, this is interesting.’

I spotted it then – that look, that gleam in his eye. I knew it well. I knew it from the time we were six, when he had taken apart my beloved clockwork Tigger to see what made him roar; from when we were thirteen and he had insisted we explore the abandoned house near my grandfather’s home in Naintal; from the last day of Chemistry Practicals when everyone had left and he stood poised to drop a chunk of sodium in a bath of water – I will not say what happened next; from just the previous hour, as we had walked in our new clothes from candle to candle, lighting each flame, and my father had asked him what he planned to do after college.

My cousin had always had his own ideas. Now he said decisively, ‘There’s been a theft. Something’s got stolen.’

I watched along with Vinil as the commotion spilled outdoors. My neighbor, Mr. Malhotra, was leading a kind of charge, with his wife close behind, his son trying to catch up – but detained by his own clinging young boy – and a whole posse of guests and relatives in tow. They came in their finery out from the drawing room, which looked today even more like a durbar, then they marched past the glittering walls of the house and the two decorated cars, while overhead a conflagration of sparks seemed to celebrate the riches on display.

At the gate of the house stood the chowkidar, twirling a phooljhari enthusiastically. His enthusiasm faded when he saw the parade approaching. Moments later, Malhotra was barking out questions that we could hear all the way from our terrace.

‘Kissi ko dekha? Ghar se koi bhaaga?’

The chowkidar looked bemused. I saw him shake his head. Malhotra continued wildly.

‘Meri sone ki moorti chori ho gayi! Chaar kilo ki sone ki moorti!’

Now he had got the whole colony listening. People stood and stared from the houses across the street. Even the explosions ceased momentarily. Only the blue-grey smoke stayed drifting, on the hazy night sky.

My parents, big believers in neighborly relations, had stepped out to be solicitous. I saw my mother making concerned inquiries from across the boundary wall.

After that, I couldn’t really tell what was happening. The Malhotra clan broke into urgent confabulations of twos and threes. The stricken chowkidar was being harangued by Malhotra’s son. Someone said they should check on the catering staff. Someone else was calling the police.

Vinil had moved away from me. He wasn’t watching the tumult below. He was staring into space, and when I followed his gaze it seemed to go all the way to the murky white moon.

‘What happened?’ I asked him. ‘What’re you doing?’

‘I’m thinking,’ he said.

A few minutes later, my mother came running up the stairs.

‘Robbery!’ she announced, catching her breath at the terrace door. ‘There’s been a robbery at the Malhotra’s!’

I asked her why she sounded so pleased. My mother was not amused, but more than that she was eager to share the details.

‘Malhotra had bought a gold statuette,’ she revealed. ‘A little idol of Ram – but solid gold!’

‘And obscenely expensive?’ I said.

‘Haan, I’m sure. He said he’d bought it especially for Diwali.’

‘Especially to show off,’ I added.

‘Well, the Malhotras are like that.’ My mother was like that – diplomatic. Then she continued, ‘He said he had locked the statue away last night but then he brought it out today so that everybody could see. They have a little annex near their living room where they’ve kept all the new Diwali utensils and things. So this was kept along with them, and he says it was there today afternoon but now, when he took everybody in to see it, it was gone. Nobody knows where or how.’

Vinil had moved up closer to us. He was listening in a noncommittal way.

‘Does Malhotra suspect anyone?’ I asked.

‘The caterers, I think,’ said my mother. ‘They have caterers over. Because the chowkidar, poor fellow, he’s certain nobody else has come or gone. Accha so are you two coming down now?’

‘Why should we?’ I demurred instinctively.

‘Because everybody’s downstairs and it’s rude to stay away.’

And before I could reply that she needn’t lead me by the nose, my mother was hurrying out of sight.

I turned to see Vinil leaning on the parapet wall. As I came up beside him, sparks scattered in the sky, and for a moment his face was aglow. It was drawn tight in concentration – concentration, and something else that moved the corners of his mouth.

We both watched Malhotra growing increasingly apoplectic. He had assembled the catering staff in his garden and ordered the chowkidar to search every man. His guests watched anxiously, his little grand-son stared round-eyed. The neon lights kept blinking while Malhotra repeated to the world at large the value of the gold statue, the gravitas of the crime.

‘Malhotra sounds like he’s ready for murder,’ I said. ‘If the thief is there, he must be scared stiff.’

‘That’s why he won’t confess,’ said Vinil.

The search too was proving futile. The chowkidar was searching pocket after pocket in vain. I could see the scorn on the faces of the suspected men.

‘They can’t find it,’ I said. ‘It must be hidden somewhere.’

‘It’s not hidden,’ said Vinil.

Something in his voice caught my attention. I looked at him.

He continued softly, ‘That statue isn’t hidden. It’s just resting. It’s just fought a great battle, it’s vanquished a great evil.’

‘Is there something in your coke?’ I said.

‘That’s what this festival is all about, isn’t it?’ Vinil turned to me with a sudden eagerness. ‘The victory of good over evil! It’s not about the price of gold, is it? That statue has found an owner who truly understands it.’

‘What… are you saying?’

‘That the guilty person here is really the most innocent.’

I didn’t understand him, not at first. But then I looked again at the tableau below. My gaze flitted over the fuming Malhotra, the worried relatives, the staff quietly suffering their outrage. And then, finally, it rested on the little child with his thumb in his mouth and his innocent eyes opened wide. I heard a low, melodious sound from beside me. Vinil was laughing.

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Wait a minute… How do you know this?’

‘Didn’t we see him?’ said Vinil. ‘Just half an hour ago, playing in his room? Making believe with his action figures? The heroes and the villains, locked in battle. And now he had found a new hero, so shiny and powerful, the most powerful of all – so he had been told.’

I peered across the terrace and up into the boy’s bedroom. The room was empty now, but the lights were still on. A jumble of objects lay on the bedcover.

‘But did you see it?’ I squinted hard. ‘It could be there, but I can’t… I can’t see it.’

‘Let us learn from this little boy,’ said my cousin, ‘and trust our imaginations.’

I stood silent for several moments, until suddenly I grew aware of the rumbling of an engine. It spurred me into action.

‘The police are here,’ I said. ‘Come on, let’s go tell everyone before this gets ugly.’

Vinil said nothing.

‘Come on!’ I repeated. ‘Or this will go on all night!’

‘But why?’ he protested suddenly. ‘Why should the statue be returned to someone who doesn’t value it? Isn’t it far better if it stays with the child?’

That was the trouble with my cousin. He was always questioning the settled scheme of things. Or maybe that was the reason I admired him.

I took him by the arm, and led him to the door.