'What jihad saab?' Kasab breaks down. No tears. Just the face contorts as a rhythmic, nasal sound of crying comes out.

'There is no point in crying now,' Ghadge sounds a little sympathetic. 'Ordinary people, just like you, have been killed... Why didn't you think earlier? Where else have you waged jihad before coming here?'

'Nowhere. Nowhere,' Kasab interrupts his crying.

'What were you told?'

'Just keep shooting, keep shooting till you die,' he now stops crying.

'What were you supposed to get in return?'

'Money. Zaki chacha was supposed to give money to my family.'

'How much money have you got for this?'

'He would give money to my family. He had promised to give a big amount to my family for this.'

'How does Zaki look?'

'He has a black beard with strands of white. His age would be forty to forty-five years. He went to Afghanistan and finished Roos (Russia),' Kasab reiterating the legend of Zaki he must have heard a thousand times.

'What lecture he used to give?'

'He would give lectures only once in a while. Bada masroof rahta tha. (He would keep very busy.) "You are Muslims. You have to get rid of poverty. Look at India. They have raced ahead of us. They kill your people. You have to wage jihad against India'."

'What is the meaning of a jihadi?'

'I don't know.'

'Just try explaining it to me?' Ghadge insists.

Kasab keeps mum.

'If you don't know then why have you come here?'

'Because he used to give me money. Otherwise you tell me, khate-peete ghar ka bhala koi jaayega? (Will a well-to-do person go for such work?)' Kasab blames his poverty again.

'What has Zaki chacha got in return?

'He is a jihadi... he does this for jihad.'

'What is the meaning of jihad?' Ghadge returns to his original question.

'To try to do something for the Muslim religion,' Kasab tries explaining seeing that the policeman won't relent.

'What do you understand from jihad?'

'Don't know, we just got money. You don't have clothes to wear, don't have food to eat, and Zaki chacha would throw davats (feasts), for the first few months we just ate, poor boys, not-so-poor boys, we all just ate and had fun. And then he picked a selected few and sent us for the training. But all who came were poor,' Kasab returns to his favourite topic, his poverty, having failed to elucidate the theological cum religious subject of jihad.

'Where were you before you came to India?'

'We stayed in a lodge in Karachi. We would go fishing and have fun. I thought I would continue to work as a security guard there. Family back home was also getting some money. Suddenly one day he summoned all of us and said that the time had come to do big deeds, to become big. We would get money. We would get sabaab.'

'You got shabaab?'

'Dekho babu. Agar masrufiyat na ho, ghar me khane ko na ho to kya karoge? (See, if you are not busy with work, there is not enough to eat, what will you do?)'

'So did you get shabaab in Pakistan?' asked Ghadge, confusing sabaab with shabaab, the former implying reward, the latter women, finally unable to resist the question on account of the repeated mention of the word.

'What sabaab? What to say saab?' Kasab fails to comprehend the query.

'No. But did you get shabaab? Majaa kiya? (Did you enjoy?)' Ghadge puts it across explicitly. (Later, he told this journalist he wanted to know if the terrorists had also been lured with women.)

'Chee, chee. Gande kaam main nahi karta. (I don't do dirty things.) Sabaab maane ajar. (Sabaab means virtuous deeds).'

'What kinds of weapons were you trained in?'

'Peeca-meeca, grenade, pistol, kalashan and the equipment that fits in Kalashan.'

'Peeca-meeca?'

'Peeca... peeca.'

'After training were you allowed to take the weapons with you?'

'No.'