"Bahut bura hua, a lot of wrongs were committed," the auto driver told me as he drove me around Delhi.
He'd overheard my phone conversation with a friend on my impending visit to his home district in Muzaffarnagar. As soon as I hung up, he adjusted the rear-view mirror and changed his sitting position and started chatting with me. What he told me during that 45-minute ride set the tone for my Muzaffarnagar trip in early March this year.
"Bahut log mare, Madamji. Hindus aur Musalmaan dono. Musalmaan zyada. Us ek hafte mein log aise mare gaye, jaise mooli-gajar kate ho. Many people were killed, Madamji. Hindus and Muslims, both. More Muslims than Hindus. In that one week, people were killed like carrots and radishes are chopped."
The auto driver, a Hindu Jat, said he had gone home on one of the days when the Jat-Muslim riots had peaked but had returned the next day, unable to bear the sight of his peaceful village in flames. "I could not take it. The way they were on a killing spree. That image of a girl crying out for her father, 'Abbu, Abbu', still haunts me. Bahut bura hua, Madamji."