Slumdog Millionaire

After Jai has gone, I look around the room. It is full of strange-looking gadgets: microphones like tiny sunflowers and miniature cameras like disembodied eyes. There are pads saying 'Cipher' with nonsense combinations of numbers and letters. There are some books: The Art of Espionage, Essentials of a Good Counter Agent, Spying for Dummies. There are papers bearing labels like 'Top Secret' and 'For Your Eyes Only', drawings of various kinds, one saying 'Advanced Technology Vessel nuclear reactor design' and another 'submarine schemata'. And there is a drawer full of miniature VHS tapes. I look at the labels on the tapes, arranged alphabetically: Ajay, Bhagwati, HC, Jeevan, Jones, Maggie, McGill, Raj, Ramesh, Rebecca, Roy, Shanti, Stuart. And Thomas. Hidden inside the second drawer is a portable video player.

With trembling hands I pull out my tape and insert it into the player. The screen comes alive with images from my room. I see myself reclining on my bed; writing in my red diary; talking to Ramu; sleeping. I fast-forward to see whether there are any pictures of Shantaram on the tape. I then insert the tape with Mrs Taylor's name. She is sitting on her bed. A man enters surreptitiously and takes her in his arms. I can only see his back. He kisses her long and hard.

Suddenly there is a knock and the man whirls around and looks me straight in the eye. I almost die of fright. It is the High Commissioner. I hastily take out the tape and switch off the video player. For a couple of minutes I stand absolutely still, worried that a secret camera might be in action even in this room. Then I breathe deeply. Now I know how Colonel Taylor became The Man Who Knows. He has bugged the whole house and probably the whole High Commission.

He is a spy. But I'm not Steve Nolan from Spycatcher. I get 1,500 rupees a month, which I have totted up to 43,500 rupees in my red diary. And I don't want all this money to remain only in a diary. I want to touch the bundles of currency, feel the smooth surface of the crisp new notes. So I will keep my mouth shut. And smile whenever Sahib and Memsahib smile.

I call up Colonel Taylor on his cellphone number. 'I am sorry to disturb you, Sir, but there has been a robbery in the house. Jai has taken away the VCD player and the three-in-one. And he also broke into the Den.'

'What???'

'Yes, Sir. I am sorry, Sir.'

'Look, Thomas, this is what I want you to do. I want you to secure the Den immediately. Take out the broken padlock. You don't have to enter the room. Just put any lock on the door and do not allow anyone to enter it. It is very important that you don't call the police. If the alarm sounds, just punch in the following code on the keypad on the door: 0007. You got it? 0007 and it will stop. I am taking a flight back immediately and should be in Delhi by tomorrow afternoon, but till I arrive I want you to make sure that no one enters the Den. Have you understood?'

'Yes, Sir.'

Colonel Taylor returns to Delhi without even attending his mother's funeral. He rushes into the Den as soon as the taxi pulls up outside the house. He comes out looking relieved. 'Thank God, nothing has been taken from the room. Well done, Thomas. I knew I could rely on you.'

* * *

Over the next six months, my life slips back into the same groove as before. A new cook is hired who has not been within a thousand miles of Tihar Jail. Bhagwati is dismissed for taking the car without permission for a wedding in his family. Maggie's new boyfriend James is discovered and banned from entering the house. Roy is caught taking drugs and given a thrashing. Mrs Taylor and her husband continue to speak to each other with icy formality. Colonel Taylor, I presume, continues to meet Jeevan Kumar in lonely alleys and deserted car parks.

* * *

Maggie and Roy are playing Scrabble in the living room. They ask me to join them. I have learnt many new words playing this game with them, such as 'bingle' and 'brekkie' and 'chalkie' and 'dosh' and 'skite' and 'spunk'. Maggie always wins these games. Her vocabulary is really good.

She is the only one who knows eight-letter words and once she even made a nine-letter word. I am the worst. I make words like 'go' and 'eat' and 'sing' and 'last'. Once in a blue moon, I do get six- or seven-letter words, but I still end up with the least points. Sometimes I think Roy invites me as a third player just so that he doesn't come last. Today, my letters have not been good. Lots of Xs and Js and Ks and Ls. The game is about to end. Maggie has 203 points, Roy has 175 and I have 104. My last seven letters are G, P, E, E, S, A and I. I am thinking of making 'page' or 'see'.

Then Roy uses an O from one of Maggie's words to make 'on' and I latch on to it in a flash. I put E, S, P and I before O and A, G and E after N. 'Espionage'. That's a total of seventeen points, and triple that for putting it on a red square and add fifty points for using all seven tiles. 101 points.

Take that, Maggie!

* * *

I have been hovering around the phone all day. Maggie is expecting a call from James and she has instructed me to pick up the phone before her father does from the Den. The phone finally rings at seven-fifteen pm. I lift the receiver in a flash. But Colonel Taylor has already beaten me to it. 'Hello,' he says.

There is heavy breathing at the other end. Then Jeevan Kumar's voice floats over the static. 'Meet me tomorrow, Thursday, at eight pm at the Kwality Ice Cream Shop near India Gate. I have dynamite stuff.'

'Good,' says Colonel Taylor and disconnects the line.

Colonel Taylor sits with his stubby of Foster's in the living room, watching the latest episode of Spycatcher. This time Steve Nolan is in a real dilemma. He has discovered that his best friend, the one he went to college with, the one who was best man at his wedding, is a Commie spy. He is very sad. He doesn't know what to do. He sits in a bar in a dishevelled condition and drinks loads of whisky. Then the bartender tells him, 'It's a dirty world out there, but if no one agrees to do the washing, the whole country goes down the shit house.' Steve Nolan hears this and gets all charged up. He rushes to the Commie spy's house in his red Ferrari. 'You are a good man, doing a bad job,' he tells his friend, before taking out his gun. 'Friendship is important. But the country comes first. I am sorry,' he says and shoots him dead.

* * *

The next night a police jeep and an Ambassador car with flashing red lights come screeching to the house at ten pm. The same Inspector who arrested Ramu gets out, together with the Commissioner of Police. Colonel Taylor is with them, looking like Steve Nolan in the bar.

Within ten minutes, the High Commissioner also arrives, looking very grim. 'What's all this?' he asks the Police Chief. 'Why has Colonel Taylor been declared persona non grata and asked to leave within forty-eight hours by the Foreign Office?'

'Well, Your Excellency, we have evidence of your officer indulging in activities incompatible with his diplomatic status. I am afraid he will have to leave the country,' the Police Chief replies.

'But what's the charge against him?'

'We caught him red-handed taking sensitive and top-secret documents from a man by the name of Jeevan Kumar, who is a clerk in the Ministry of Defence.'

Colonel Taylor looks ashen. He doesn't say these Indians are bloody fibbers. He just stands in the middle of the drawing room with his head bowed.

The High Commissioner lets out a sigh. T must say this is the first time in my long career that any of my officers has been PNG'd. And believe me, Charles is no spy. But if he has to go, he has to go.' Then he takes the Police Chief aside. 'Mr Chopra, I have sent you many cases of Black Label over the years. Can you do me a favour and answer one question?'

'Sure.'

'Just for my information, can you tell me how did you come to know about Charles's meeting today? Did this fellow Kumar lead you to him?'

'Funny you should ask. It was not Jeevan Kumar. Quite the contrary, it was one of your own guys. Called up Inspector Tyagi this morning and told him to go to India Gate at eight pm to catch Colonel Taylor receiving some secret documents.'

'I don't believe it. How can you be so sure it was an Australian?'

Inspector Tyagi steps in. 'Well, Mr Ambassador, the accent was a dead give-away. The man said something like, "G'day maite, go to India Gaite, tonight at aite." I mean, only an Australian would speak like that, wouldn't he?'

* * *

The next day, Colonel Taylor leaves Delhi alone on a Qantas flight. Mrs Taylor and the kids will follow later. I am leaving the Taylors, too. With three keyrings, six T-shirts, thirty Australian Geographic magazines which I will sell to a kabariwalla. And 52,000 rupees. In crisp new notes.

I say my hooroos to the Taylor family. Roy behaves like a whacker. Since he started taking drugs he has kangaroos loose in the top paddock. Maggie's pashing James. And I am not worried about Mrs Taylor. With the HC around, I know she'll be apples. As for me, I'm off to meet Salim in Mumbai. It'll be a bonzer!

* * *

Smita looks at her watch. It shows the time as one-thirty am. 'Are you sure you want to carry on?'

I ask.

'Do we have a choice?' she replies. 'They will file formal charges against you by tomorrow.' She presses the 'Play' button again.

* * *

We are in yet another commercial break. Prem Kumar taps his desk. 'You know what, Mr Thomas, your luck has finally run out. I am ready to bet you that you cannot answer the next question. So prepare to use one of your Lifeboats.'

The signature tune begins.

Prem Kumar turns to me. 'We now move on to question number five for fifty thousand rupees.

This one pertains to the world of diplomacy. When a government declares a foreign diplomat persona non grata, what does it mean? Is it a) that the diplomat is to be honoured, b) that the diplomat's tenure should be extended, c) that the diplomat is grateful or d) that the diplomat is not acceptable? Have you understood the question, Mr Thomas?'

'Yes,' I reply.

'OK. Then let's have your reply. Remember, both Lifeboats are still available to you. You can get A Friendly Tip, or you can ask me for Half and Half and I will remove two wrong answers, leaving you with just two choices. What do you say?'

'I say D.'

'Excuse me?'

'I said D. The diplomat is not acceptable.'

'Is that a guess? Remember, you stand to lose the ten thousand rupees you've already won if you give the wrong answer. So if you want, you can quit right now.'

'I know the answer. It is D.'

There are gasps from the audience.

'Are you absolutely, one hundred per cent sure?'

'Yes.'

There is a crescendo of drums. The correct answer flashes.

'Absolutely, one hundred per cent correct! You have just won fifty thousand rupees!' declares Prem Kumar. The audience stands up and cheers. Prem Kumar wipes the sweat from his brow. 'I must say, this is remarkable,' he says out aloud. 'Tonight Mr Thomas really seems to be The Man Who Knows!'

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HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTONS

'Khallas. Finished,' I say, speaking in monosyllables. 'No more whisky. Bar closed now. Go home.'

'Noooo. Plizz don't say that. Ged me one m-more peeeg. Lasht one,' the customer pleads and holds out his empty glass. I look at my watch. It is twelve forty-five am. Technically, the bar does not close till one. With a grimace I pick up the bottle of Black Dog rum. 'Hundred rupees, please,' I demand. The man takes a crumpled note from his shirt pocket and I pour a carefully measured peg into his glass.

'Thang you, b-b-b-artender,' he says, takes a swig of the rum and crashes down on the table, shattering his glass on the floor, spilling the bottle of soda and overturning the bowl of mint chutney. Within seconds he will be fast asleep. Now I not only have to clear up the big mess he has created, but also call a taxi, help him to his feet and somehow send him home. And though I was smart enough to charge him for the drinks in advance, I can forget about getting any tip from this customer.

Perhaps I myself am to blame for getting into this situation. The customer was displaying all the tell-tale signs of crashing out any minute. But I thought he could stomach one last peg. As usual, I was wrong.

Even after two months at Jimmy's Bar and Restaurant, I am unable to assess accurately a drinker's capacity. I have, though, evolved a rough classification system for drunkards. Top of my list are the horses. These can hold as many as eight pegs without slurring their speech. Then come the asses, who start braying and babbling after just two or three, or become maudlin and sentimental and begin crying. Then come the dogs. The more they drink, the more they want to get into an argument or a fight. Some of them also get frisky with Rosie. Below them are the bears, who drink and then drift off to sleep. And at the bottom are the pigs. They are the ones who vomit after their last peg. This classification is not watertight. I have seen customers who start like horses but end up like pigs. And dogs who turn into bears. Mercifully, this customer has ended up a bear rather than a pig.

I get rid of the last drunkard and look at the clock on the wall. It is one-ten am. Ever since Rosie and her dad pushed off to Goa for a holiday, I have been returning to my cubby-hole of a house in Dharavi after midnight almost every night. This is partly my fault. If I had not told the manager that I knew how to mix drinks and measure whisky by the peg, that I could tell the difference between a Campari with Soda and a Bloody Mary, I wouldn't have been asked to officiate as the bartender in Alfred's absence.

Jimmy's Bar and Restaurant in Colaba has fading prints on the walls, mirrors behind the bar, sturdy wooden furniture, and the best menu in South Mumbai. Because the food is so good and the prices so cheap, it attracts customers from all walks of life. On any given day you can find a top-level executive nursing his drink at the bar next to a lowly factory worker. The manager insists that we strike up conversations with customers at the bar, because people drink more when they have company. Rosie's dad, the doddery bartender Alfred D'Souza, is adept at chatting up patrons. He knows most of the regulars by name and sits with them for hours, listening to their tales of woe and adding steadily to their liquor bill. Rosie herself is becoming quite an expert bar girl. She sits at the bar wearing a low-cut blouse and a tight skirt, occasionally bends down to display some cleavage and entices the customers into ordering expensive imported whisky instead of the cheap Indian brands. Sometimes, though, her antics land her in trouble with boorish customers who fancy her as a cheap lay. I then have to act as informal bouncer.

Mr Alfred D'Souza thinks there is something brewing between Rosie and me and watches me like a hawk whenever she is around. He is completely mistaken. Rosie is a sweet girl. She is short and bosomy. The way she tilts her head at me and occasionally winks, I feel she might be trying to give me a signal. But my brain is now incapable of receiving it. It is overloaded with memories of just one person: Nita. The doctors in Agra have said it will take at least four months for Nita to recover from her injuries. And I know Shyam will never allow me to meet her. That is why I have returned to Mumbai: to exorcise the ghosts of Agra, both of the living and of the dead. But I cannot escape my own history in this city. Memories of the past waylay me at every intersection. Shantaram, the failed astronomer, mocks me in the streets. Neelima Kumari, the actress, calls out to me on the local train. And Salim, my friend, looks down at me from every billboard. But I have taken a conscious decision not to meet Salim. I do not want him to get sucked up in the vortex of my crazy life and my crazy plans.

* * *

I live in a corner of Mumbai called Dharavi, in a cramped hundred-square-foot shack which has no natural light or ventilation, with a corrugated metal sheet serving as the roof over my head. It vibrates violently whenever a train passes overhead. There is no running water and no sanitation.

This is all I can afford. But I am not alone in Dharavi. There are a million people like me, packed in a two-hundredhectare triangle of swampy urban wasteland, where we live like animals and die like insects. Destitute migrants from all over the country jostle with each other for their own handful of sky in Asia's biggest slum. There are daily squabbles – over inches of space, over a bucket of water – which at times turn deadly. Dharavi's residents come from the dusty backwaters of Bihar and UP and Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. They came to Mumbai, the city of gold, with dreams in their hearts of striking it rich and living upper-middle-class lives. But that gold turned to lead a long time ago, leaving behind rusted hearts and gangrenous minds. Like my own.

Dharavi is not a place for the squeamish. Delhi's Juvenile Home diminished us, but Dharavi's grim landscape of urban squalor deadens and debases us. Its open drains teem with mosquitoes.

Its stinking, excrement-lined communal latrines are full of rats, which make you think less about the smell and more about protecting your backside. Mounds of filthy garbage lie on every corner, from which rag-pickers still manage to find something useful. And at times you have to suck in your breath to squeeze through its narrow, claustrophobic alleys. But for the starving residents of Dharavi, this is home.

Amidst the modern skyscrapers and neon-lit shopping complexes of Mumbai, Dharavi sits like a cancerous lump in the heart of the city. And the city refuses to recognize it. So it has outlawed it.

All the houses in Dharavi are 'illegal constructions', liable to be demolished at any time. But when the residents are struggling simply to survive, they don't care. So they live in illegal houses and use illegal electricity, drink illegal water and watch illegal cable TV. They work in Dharavi's numerous illegal factories and illegal shops, and even travel illegally – without ticket – on the local trains which pass directly through the colony.

The city may have chosen to ignore the ugly growth of Dharavi, but a cancer cannot be stopped simply by being declared illegal. It still kills with its slow poison.

I commute daily from Dharavi to Jimmy's Bar and Restaurant. The only good thing about working in Jimmy's establishment is that I don't have to come to work till at least midday. But this is more than offset by the late nights spent serving drunken louts from all over the city and listening to their pathetic tales. The one conclusion I have reached is that whisky is a great leveller. You might be a hot-shot advertising executive or a lowly foundry worker, but if you cannot hold your drink, you are just a drunkard.

After my traumatic experience with Shantaram, I thought I would never be able to tolerate a drunk. But Jimmy's was the only establishment that offered me a job. I console myself with the thought that the smell of whisky is less pungent than the stench from the communal latrine near my shack, and that listening to a drunkard is less painful than listening to the heartrending stories of rape, molestation, illness and death that emanate daily from the huts of Dharavi. So I have now learnt to fake an interest and say 'Ummmm' and 'Yes' and 'Really?' and 'Wow!' to the tales of cheating wives and miserly bosses that are aired every night at Jimmy's Bar and Restaurant, while simultaneously encouraging customers to order another plate of Chicken Fry and another bowl of salted cashew nuts to go with their drinks. And every day I wait for a letter to arrive from the W3B people, to tell me if I have been selected to participate in the show. But the postman delivers nothing.

A sense of defeat has begun to cloud my mind. I feel that the specific purpose for which I came to Mumbai is beyond me. That I am swimming against the tide. That powerful currents are at work which I cannot overcome. But then I hear my beloved Nita's cries and Neelima Kumari's sobs and my willpower returns. I have to get on to that show. And till that happens, I will continue to listen to the stories of the drunkards in this city. Some good. Some bad. Some funny.

Some sad. And one downright bizarre.

* * *

It is past midnight, but the lone customer at the bar refuses to budge. He has come by chauffeur-driven Mercedes, which is parked outside. He has been drinking steadily since ten pm and is now on his fifth peg. His uniformed driver is snoring in the car. Perhaps he knows that his employer will not come out in a hurry. The man is in his early thirties and is dressed in a smart dark suit with a silk tie and shiny leather shoes.

'My dear brother, my dear brother,' he keeps repeating every two minutes, in between sips of Black Label whisky and bites from the plate of shammi kebabs.

The manager snaps his fingers at me. 'Thomas, go and sit with him and ask him about his brother. Can't you see the poor fellow is distraught?'

'But . . . Manager Sahib, it is past midnight. We should tell him to leave or I'll miss the twelve-thirty local.'

'Don't you dare argue with me or I'll break your jaw,' he snarls at me. 'Now go, engage the customer in conversation. Get him to order the Scottish single malt which came in yesterday. He has come in a Mercedes.'

I glare at the manager like a schoolboy at a bully. Reluctantly, I return to the bar and slide closer to the customer.

'Oh, my dear brother, I hope you will forgive me,' he moans, and nibbles at the shammi kebab.

He is behaving like an ass, but at least he is in the lucid phase, with a couple of pegs in his system and words bubbling out of his mouth.

'What happened to your brother, Sir?' I ask.

The man raises his head to peer at me with half-closed eyes. 'Why do you ask? You will only increase the pain,' he says.

'Tell me about your brother, Sir. Perhaps it will lessen your pain.' 'No. Nothing can lessen the pain. Not even your whisky.' 'Fine, Sir. If you do not want to talk about your brother, I will not ask. But what about you?'

'Don't you know who I am?'

'No, Sir.'

'I am Prakash Rao. Managing Director of Surya Industries. The biggest manufacturer of buttons in India.'

'Buttons?'

'Yes. You know, buttons on shirts, pants, coats, skirts, blouses. We make them. We make all kinds of buttons from all kinds of materials. We use mostly polyester resins, but we have also made buttons of cloth, plastic, leather and even camel bone, horn-shell and wood. Haven't you seen our ad in the newspapers? "For the widest range of buttons – from fastening garments to pulling drawers – come to Surya. Buttons R Us." I am quite sure that the shirt you are wearing has buttons manufactured by my company.'

'And your brother, what is his name?'

'My brother? Arvind Rao. Oh, my poor brother. Oh, Arvind,' he starts moaning again.

'What happened to Arvind? What did he do?'

'He used to be the owner of Surya Industries. Till I replaced him.'

'Why did you replace him? Here, let me pour you a peg from this single malt which we got direct from Scotland.'

'Thank you. It smells good. I remember going to Mauritius for my honeymoon, to Port Louis, and there I had my first taste of single malt whisky.'

'You were mentioning replacing your brother.'

'Ah yes. My brother was a very good man. But he had to be replaced as MD of Surya Industries because he went mad.'

'Mad? How? Here's a fresh bowl of cashew nuts.'

'It is a long story.'

I use one of Rosie's lines. 'The night is young. The bottle is full. So why don't you begin?' 'Are you my friend?' he says, looking at me with glassy eyes. 'Of course I am your friend,' I reply with a toothy grin.

'Then I will tell you my story, friend. I am drunk, you know. And a drunken man always speaks the truth. Right, friend?'

'Right.'

'So, friend, my brother, my dear, dear brother Arvind, was a great businessman. He built Surya Industries from scratch. We used to sell beads in the Laadbazaar market of old Hyderabad. You know, the one near Charminar. It was he who painstakingly built up the business empire which I have inherited.'

'But you must have helped your brother in his business.'

'Hardly. I was a failure. Couldn't even complete my matriculation. It was my brother's greatness that he took me under his wing and employed me in the sales division of his company. I did my best and, as time went by, my brother's confidence in my abilities increased. Eventually he made me Head of International Sales and sent me to New York, where our international office is located.'

'New York? Wow! That must have been great!'

'Yes, New York is a great place. But I had a tough job, going out every day, meeting the dealers and distributors, processing the orders, ensuring timely delivery. I was busy from morning till night.'

'OK.

So what happened next? Just hold on for a minute while I bring you another plate of shammi kebabs.'

'Thank you, friend. It was in New York that I met Julie.'

'Julie? Who is she?'

'Her real name was Erzulie De Ronceray, but everyone called her Julie. She was dark and sultry with thick curly hair and pouting lips and a slim waist. She worked as a cleaner in the apartment block where I rented my office. She was an illegal immigrant from Haiti. Have you heard of Haiti?'

'No. Where is it?'

'It is a tiny country in the Caribbean, near Mexico.'

'OK. So you met Julie.'

'Well, I would occasionally exchange a greeting with her. One day, the INS caught her working without a green card. She begged me to show her as my employee so that her stay in the US could be regularized. In a fit of generosity I agreed to sponsor her. In return, she gave me love, respect, and the most mind-blowing sex I had ever had. Believe me. I am drunk. And a drunken man always speaks the truth. Right?'

'Right. Why don't you take another peg? This single malt from Scotland is really good, isn't it?'

'Thank you, friend. You are very kind. Much kinder than Julie. She really manipulated me, you know. Preyed on my weaknesses. I was a lonely man in a large city. One thing led to another and I ended up marrying her.'

'And then you went for your honeymoon to Port Louis, correct?'

'Correct. But when I returned from the honeymoon I discovered there was a different, darker side to Julie. I visited her flat for the first time after we got married and found it to be full of strange stuff – rum bottles decorated with sequins and beads, a whole bunch of weird-looking dolls, stones of various shapes, crosses, rattles and even parchment made of snake skin. She also had a black cat called Bossu, which was very mean and nasty.

'The first time I discovered that there was more to Julie than met the eye was when I was attacked in the Bronx by a mugger with a knife. I was lucky to escape alive, but received a deep gash in my arm. Julie wouldn't allow me to go to the hospital. Instead, she applied some herbs to my arm and recited some chants, and within just two days the wound was completely gone, not even a scar remaining. And then she told me that she was a voodoo priestess.'

'Voodoo? What's that?'

'You don't want to know, my friend. Voodoo is a religion in Haiti. Its practitioners worship spirits called loas and believe that the universe is all interconnected. Everything affects something else. Nothing is an accident, and everything is possible. That is why people who know voodoo can do all kinds of amazing things. Like bringing a dead man to life.'

'You must be joking.'

'No, not at all. These dead people are called zombies. I told you I am drunk. And a drunken man always tells the truth, right?'

'Right.' By now I am drawn completely into his story. I forget to ply him with more whisky and cashew nuts.

'Julie turned my life upside-down. She had been a poor cleaning woman, but now she wanted to be a part of high society. She forgot that she was married to the brother of a rich industrialist, not the industrialist himself. She wanted money all the time. Money which I couldn't give her because it didn't belong to me. It belonged to my brother, to the company.

'She forced me into stealing. It started with trifling things – a few dollars pocketed from a false taxi claim. Then it moved on to bigger things. Money received from a client and not shown on the ledger. A contract signed, the advance received and not sent to head office. Over time, the embezzled amount became half a million dollars. And then my brother, who lived here in Mumbai, discovered it.'

'Oh, my God! What happened then?'

'Well what do you think? My brother was furious. If he had wanted to, he could have got me arrested by the police. But blood is thicker than water. I begged for mercy and he forgave me. Of course, he transferred me from America, put me in a small office in Hyderabad and insisted that I repay at least half of the embezzled amount over a twenty-year period out of my salary.

'I was quite happy to accept these terms. Anything to avoid going to jail. But Julie was furious.

"How can your brother behave with you like this?" she egged me on. "You have an equal stake in the company, you must fight for your rights."

'Over time, her constant nagging began to have an impact. I started thinking of Arvind as a devious and cunning man who had given me a raw deal. Then one day Arvind came to Hyderabad to visit my small office. He found evidence again of some petty thievery and lost his temper. In front of all the staff he abused me, called me names, said I was good for nothing and threatened to terminate my association with the company.

'I was devastated. For the first time I felt like hitting back at my brother. I recounted the incident to Julie and she became incandescent with rage. "The time has come to teach your brother a lesson," she told me. "Are you ready now to take your revenge?" "Yes," I replied, because my brain had been numbed by his insults. "Good, then get me a button from one of your brother's unwashed shirts and a little snippet of his hair." "Where will I get a snippet of his hair from?" I asked. "That's your lookout," said Julie. Hey, why don't you give me another peg?'

I hastily refill his glass. 'So how did you get your brother's hair and a button from his shirt?'

'Simple. I visited him for a day in Mumbai, stayed at his house and pulled a button from a shirt he had just put in the laundry basket. Then I found the barber he used and bribed him to give me a lock of his hair the next time he had a haircut. I told him I needed it for an offering to Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupathi.

'So within a month I got Julie both the button and the hair. What Julie did next was amazing. She took a male doll made of cloth with all kinds of funny black lines on it. She stitched the button over the doll's chest and stuck the hair on the doll's head. Next she killed a rooster and drained all its blood in a pan. She dipped the doll's head in the rooster's blood. She then took it into her room, uttered various incantations and applied strange-looking herbs and roots to the doll. Then she took out a black pin and said, "The voodoo doll is ready. I have infused it with your brother's spirit. Now, whatever you do to the doll with this black pin will happen to your brother in Mumbai. For instance, if I press this pin on the doll's head, your brother will have a splitting headache. And if I stick it deeply into the button, your brother will have severe chest pain. Here, try it." I thought she was joking, but just to humour her I pressed the black pin into the white button on the doll's chest. Within two hours I received a call from Mumbai to say that Arvind had had a minor heart attack and had been admitted to Breach Candy Hospital.'

'My God! That's amazing,' I cry.

'Yes. You can imagine my shock. Not because Arvind had had a heart attack, but because now I knew that Julie had indeed created a black-magic voodoo doll.

'Over the next two months, the doll became a little secret toy for me. I poured all my frustration, all my latent resentment against my brother into it. I took a perverse pleasure in causing him pain and suffering. It became a source of demented amusement for me. I would take the doll to Mumbai and watch Arvind squirm on his lawn while I gently teased the button on the doll with the black pin. Gradually I started employing the doll on occasions when others were also present.

I took it with me to a five-star hotel where Arvind was entertaining some Japanese clients. I sat unobtrusively at a corner table. I heard my brother speaking. ". . . Yes, Mr Harada, we do have plans to open a subsidiary in Japan, but the response from Nippon Button Company has not been very positive. We are also—" Suddenly I inserted the black pin into the doll's head.

"Owwwwwww!" my brother screamed and caught his head with both hands. His foreign clients left without having dinner.

'I took the doll to a family wedding in Bangalore to which I had been invited with my brother.

Just when Arvind was about to bless the bride and groom, I used the black pin. "May God bless both of owwwwwwwwwwwww!" he screamed, and headbutted the groom to the chagrin of all the guests. Many people commiserated with me that evening, saying how sorry they were that Arvind was slowly going mad.

'I took the doll to a function where my brother was to receive an award for best entrepreneur.

Arvind was giving his acceptance speech with the gleaming crystal trophy in his hands. "Friends, I feel really very honoured to be holding this beautiful trophy. All my life I have believed in the motto that hard work and owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" The glass trophy slipped from his hands and broke into a million pieces.

'Arvind went to a doctor, who did an MRI scan and found nothing physically wrong with his head. The doctor advised him to consult a psychiatrist.

'Finally, I took the doll to the annual shareholders' meeting, and sat in the very last row. Arvind was giving the MD's report. "And my dear shareholders, I am happy to report that our company's performance in the last quarter represented a significant increase in our gross owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" There was utter pandemonium thereafter, with the agitated shareholders demanding an immediate resignation from the mad MD. He was forced to resign within a week. I became the new MD and my brother was locked up in a mental institution.

'My brother remained in the mental asylum for two years. During this time I became wealthy beyond my imagination. Julie finally had everything she had ever wanted. She summoned her mother and brother from Port-au-Prince to come and live with us in Mumbai. But as I acquired all the trappings of a rich man, I also started contemplating my life, the means I had adopted to gain all this wealth. And then I met Jyotsna.'

'Who's she?'

'Officially she's just my new secretary, but actually she is much more than that. She is my soul-mate. I have so much in common with her that I will never have in common with a foreigner like Julie. She's the exact antithesis of Julie. It is Jyotsna who made me realize the terrible injustice I had done to my elder brother. I resolved to get Arvind out of the mental asylum.'

'So were you able to get him out?'

'No. It was too late. They tortured my brother in the asylum, gave him electric shocks. Two weeks ago, he died.'

'What?'

'Yes. My poor brother is dead,' he wails. 'My dear brother is dead.' He holds his head in his hands. 'And I killed him.'

I snap out of my stupor. Mr Rao is rapidly degenerating from an ass into a dog.

'That bitch Julie, I will now expose her. I will throw her fat mother out of the house and get rid of her goodfor-nothing brother. I will kill her mean cat and I will kick Julie out of Mumbai. Let her rot in hell in Haiti. Ha!'

'But how do you plan to do this?'

There is a sly glint in his eye. 'You are my friend, and I am drunk. A drunken man always tells the truth. So I should tell you that I have already met a lawyer and drawn up the divorce papers.

If Julie accepts it, well and good, otherwise I have something else as well. See.' He takes out an object from his trouser pocket. It is a small, snub-nosed revolver, very compact, no bigger than my fist. The metal is smooth and shiny with no markings at all. 'Look at this beauty. I am going to use this to blow her head off. Then I will marry Jyotsna. You are my friend. I am drunk. And a drunken man always speaks the owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!' He suddenly screams in agony, clutches at his heart and crashes face-down on the table, upturning the bottle of single malt and scattering cashew nuts all over the floor.

Looks like I have missed out on my tip once again.

* * *

The police jeep with the flashing red light arrives after half an hour. An ambulance comes with a doctor in a white coat, who pronounces Prakash Rao dead owing to a massive heart attack. They go through his pockets. They discover a wallet full of banknotes, a picture of a beautiful Indian girl, a sheaf of papers saying 'Divorce'. They do not find any gun. In any case, dead men don't need guns.

* * *

Smita is looking at me with an amused expression on her face. 'You don't expect me to believe this mumbo-jumbo nonsense, do you?'

'I make no judgement. I merely related to you what was told me by Prakash Rao. What I heard, what I saw.'

'Surely there can be no truth in such things?'

'Well, all I can say is that at times truth is stranger than fiction.'

'I cannot believe that Rao was killed by someone pricking a voodoo doll. I think you made up this story.'

'Fine, don't believe in the story, but then how do you explain my answer to the next question?'

Smita presses 'Play'.

* * *

Prem Kumar taps his desk. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we now move on to our next question, question number six for one lakh rupees. This is the perennial favourite in all quiz shows. Yes. I am talking about countries and capitals. Mr Thomas, how familiar are you with capital cities?

For example, do you know the capital of India?'

The audience titters. They are prepared to believe that a waiter might not even know the capital of his country.

'New Delhi.'

'Very good. And what is the capital of the United States of America?'

'New York.'

Prem Kumar laughs. 'No. That is not correct. OK, what is the capital of France?'

'I don't know.'

'And the capital of Japan?'

'I don't know.'

'How about the capital of Italy. Do you know that?'

'No.'

'Well, then I don't see how you can answer the next question without making use of one of your Lifeboats. So here comes question number six for a hundred thousand rupees. What is the capital of Papua New Guinea? Is it a) Port Louis, b) Port-au-Prince, c) Port Moresby or d) Port Adelaide?'

The suspenseful music commences.

'Do you have any clue at all, Mr Thomas, about this question?'

'Yes, I know which are the incorrect answers.'

'You do?' Prem Kumar says incredulously. The members of the audience begin whispering amongst themselves.

'Yes. I know it is not Port-au-Prince, which is the capital of Haiti, or Port Louis, which is in Mauritius. And it is also not Port Adelaide, because Adelaide is in Australia. So it has to be C. Port Moresby.'

'This is amazing. Are you absolutely, one hundred per cent sure?'

'Yes, I am.'

There is a crescendo of drums. The correct answer flashes.

'Absolutely, one hundred per cent correct! It is Port Moresby. You have just won a hundred thousand rupees, you are now a lakhpati!' declares Prem Kumar. The audience stand up and cheer. Prem Kumar wipes more sweat from his brow. 'I swear the way you are giving these answers, it's almost like magic'

* * *

Smita laughs. 'It's not magic, you idiot,' she tells Prem Kumar on the screen. 'It's voodoo!'

Suddenly her eyes dart down to something lying on the bedroom carpet. She bends to pick it up.

It is a small button with four slits. The type used on shirts. She looks at my shirt. The third button is indeed missing. She hands it to me. 'Here. Better hold on to your buttons.'

MURDER ON THE WESTERN EXPRESS

New Delhi's Paharganj railway station is humming with sound and crawling with people. The grey platforms are bathed in white light. Train engines belch smoke and whistle like impatient bulls.

If you were to search for me in this crowded maze, where would you look? You would probably try to find me among the dozens of street children stretched out on the smooth concrete floor in various stages of rest and slumber. You might even imagine me as an adolescent hawker, peddling plastic bottles containing tap water from the station's toilet as pure Himalayan aqua minerale. You could visualize me as one of the sweepers in dirty shirt and torn pants shuffling across the platform, with a long swishing broom transferring dirt from the pavement on to the track. Or you could look for me among the regiments of red-uniformed porters bustling about with heavy loads on their heads.

Well, think again, because I am neither hawker, nor porter, nor sweeper. Today I am a bona fide passenger, travelling to Mumbai, in the sleeper class, no less, and with a proper reservation. I am wearing a starched white bush shirt made of one hundred per cent cotton and Levi jeans – yes, Levi jeans, bought from the Tibetan Market. I am walking purposefully towards platform number five to board the Paschim Express for Mumbai. There is a porter trudging along by my side carrying a light-brown suitcase on his head. The porter has been hired by me and the suitcase on his head belongs to me. It contains a few clothes, some old toys, a bunch of Australian Geographic magazines and an electronic game for Salim. The suitcase does not contain any money. I have heard too many stories about robbers on trains who drug you at night and make off with your belongings to take the chance of keeping the most precious cargo of my life in the suitcase – my salary from the Taylors. The manila envelope full of crisp thousand-rupee notes – fifty of them – is therefore with me, hidden in a place where no one can see it.

Inside my underwear. I have used the remaining two thousand to finance the trip. From it I have paid for my clothes, my ticket and the game for Salim, and now I will pay the porter and buy some food and drink. I take a quick look at the loose notes in my front pocket. I reckon I will have just enough to take an auto-rickshaw from Bandra Terminus to Salim's chawl in Ghatkopar.

Won't Salim be surprised to see me arrive in a three-wheeler instead of the local train? And when he sees the game, I hope he doesn't faint from happiness.

Platform number five is more crowded than Super Bazaar. Hawkers are out in as much force as touts outside a government office. Passengers hunt for their names on the reservation chart with the same fervour as students scanning examination results. I find that the railway department has completely mangled my name, making it T. M. Ram. I am happy, nevertheless, to see that I have been allotted lower berth three in coach S7.

The coach is almost at the end of the long train, and the porter is tired and sweating by the time we enter it. I settle down on my designated berth, which is right next to the door, and arrange the suitcase neatly in the space underneath. I pay the porter twenty rupees. He argues for more, points out the long distance from the station's entrance to the coach, and I tip him a further two rupees. Having disposed of the porter, I survey the scene around me.

My cabin has a total of six berths. One above me, two in front of me and two on the side. Sitting on the lower berth opposite me is a family of four, a father, mother and two children – a boy, around my age, and a girl, slightly older. The father is a middle-aged Marwari businessman dressed in the trademark black waistcoat and black cap. He has bushy eyebrows, a pencil moustache, and a stern expression on his face. His wife is of a similar age and is equally grim looking. She wears a green sari and a yellow blouse and looks at me with suspicious eyes. The boy is tall and gangly and looks friendly, but it is the girl sitting next to the window who draws my attention like a magnet. She is thin and fair, wearing a blue salwar kameez with the chunni pulled down over her chest. Her expressive eyes are lined with kohl. She has a flawless complexion and lovely lips. She is the most beautiful girl I have seen in a long time. One who demands a second look. And a third. I think I can lose myself in those bewitching eyes of hers.

But before I can reflect on her beauty any further, my attention is distracted by a baby who starts crying loudly. It is a baby boy, just a few months old, sitting on the side berth in his mother's lap.

The mother is a young, morose-looking woman wearing a crumpled red sari. It looks as if she is travelling alone. She tries to calm the baby with a rubber pacifier, but the baby continues to wail.

Finally she pushes up her blouse and offers a breast to the baby's lips. He suckles contentedly and she rocks him to sleep. From my seat I glimpse the underside of her plump brown breast and it makes my mouth dry, till I catch the Marwari businessman looking directly at me and I shift my eyes to the window behind her.

A tea vendor enters the compartment. I am the only one who asks for a cup. He dishes out tepid tea in an earthen receptacle, which tastes vaguely of mud. He is followed by a newspaper boy.

The businessman purchases a copy of the Times of India. His son buys an Archie comic. I buy the latest issue of Starburst from my fast-dwindling change.

The train gives a final whistle and begins to move off, an hour and a half behind schedule. I glance at my watch, even though I can clearly see 18:30 displayed on the platform's digital clock.

I shake and twist my wrist, hoping that the others, particularly the girl, will notice that I am wearing a brand new Kasio digital watch, made in Japan, with day and date, which cost me a whopping two hundred rupees in Palika Bazaar.

The father immerses himself in the newspaper, the son in his comic. The mother starts making arrangements for the family's dinner. The other young mother has gone off to sleep, the baby still glued to her breast. I pretend to read the film magazine. It is open at the centrefold, which displays the latest sex symbol, Poonam Singh, in a bikini, but I have no interest in her vital assets. I keep casting furtive glances at the girl, who is looking abstractedly at the urban scenery rushing past the window. She doesn't look at me even once.

At eight pm a black-waistcoated ticket examiner enters the compartment. He asks for all our tickets. I whip mine out with a flourish, but he doesn't even read it. He simply punches it and returns it to me. As soon as he has gone, the mother opens up rectangular cardboard boxes containing food. Lots of it. I see shrivelled puris, yellow potatoes, red pickles and dessert. The mouth-watering aroma of home-made gulab jamuns and barfees fills the compartment. I am beginning to feel hungry too, but the pantry boy has still not come to take orders for dinner.

Perhaps I should have picked up something from the station.

The Marwari family eats heartily. The father gobbles puri after puri. The mother polishes off the golden-yellow potatoes, taking a juicy chilli pickle after each bite. The boy makes a beeline for the soft gulab jamuns and even slurps up the sugary syrup. Only the girl eats lightly. I lick my lips in silence. Strangely enough, the boy offers me a couple of puris, but I decline politely. I have heard many stories of robbers disguised as passengers who offer drug-laced food to their fellow travellers and then make off with their money. And there is no reason why boys who read Archie comics cannot be robbers. Though if the girl had offered me food I might – no, I would – have accepted.

After finishing dinner, the boy and girl start playing a board game called Monopoly. The father and mother sit side by side and chat. They discuss the latest soaps on TV, something about buying property and travelling to Goa for a holiday.

I pat my abdomen gently where fifty thousand rupees in crisp new notes nestle inside the waistband of my underwear, and feel the power of all that money seep insidiously into my stomach, my intestines, my liver, lungs, heart and brain. The hunger gnawing at my stomach disappears miraculously.

Looking at the typical middle-class family scene in front of me, I don't feel like an interloper any more. I am no longer an outsider peeping into their exotic world, but an insider who can relate to them as an equal, talk to them in their own language. Like them, I too can now watch middle-class soaps, play Nintendo and visit Kids Mart at weekends.

Train journeys are about possibilities. They denote a change in state. When you arrive, you are no longer the same person who departed. You can make new friends en route, or find old enemies; you may get diarrhoea from eating stale samosas or cholera from drinking contaminated water. And, dare I say it, you might even discover love. Sitting in berth number three of coach S7 of train 2926A, with fifty thousand rupees tucked inside my underwear, the tantalizing possibility which tickled my senses and thrilled my heart was that I might, just might, be about to fall in love with a beautiful traveller in a blue salwar kameez. And when I say love, I don't mean the unrequited, unequal love that we profess for movie stars and celebrities. I mean real, practical, possible love. Love which does not end in tears on the pillow, but which can fructify into marriage. And kids. And family holidays in Goa.

I had only fifty thousand rupees, but every rupee had a technicolour dream written on it and they stretched out on a cinemascope screen in my brain to become fifty million. I held my breath and wished for that moment to last as long as it possibly could, because a waking dream is always more fleeting than a sleeping one.

After a while, the brother and sister tire of their board game. The boy comes and sits next to me.

We begin talking. I learn that his name is Akshay and his sister is Meenakshi. They live in Delhi and are going to Mumbai to attend an uncle's wedding. Akshay is excited about his Playstation 2 and his computer games. He asks me about MTV and surfing the Internet and mentions some porn sites. I tell him that I speak English, read Australian Geographic, play Scrabble and have seven girlfriends, three of them foreign. I tell him that I have a Playstation 3 console and a Pentium 5 computer and I surf the Internet day and night. I tell him that I am going to Mumbai to meet my best friend, Salim, and I will be taking a taxi from Bandra Terminus to Ghatkopar.

I should have known that it is more difficult to fool a sixteen-year-old than a sixty-year-old.

Akshay sees through my deception. 'Ha! You don't know anything about computers. Playstation 3 hasn't even been released. You are just a big liar,' he mocks me.

I cannot resist it. 'Oh, so you think it is all a big lie, eh? Well, Mr Akshay, let me tell you that right here, right now, I have fifty thousand rupees in my pocket. Have you ever seen so much money in your life?'

Akshay refuses to believe me. He challenges me to show the money, and the prospect of impressing him is too tempting for me. I turn around, push my hand into my pants and bring out the manila envelope, slightly damp and smelling of urine. I surreptitiously take out the sheaf of crisp thousand-rupee notes and flutter them before him triumphantly. Then I quickly put them back and deposit the envelope in its former resting place.

You should have seen Akshay's eyes. They literally popped out of their sockets. It was a victory to be savoured for eternity. For the first time in my life, I had something more tangible than a dream to back up a claim. And for the first time in my life, I saw something new reflected in the eyes that saw me. Respect. It taught me a very valuable lesson. That dreams have power only over your own mind. But with money you can have power over the minds of others. And once again it made the fifty thousand inside my underwear feel like fifty million.

* * *

It is ten pm now and everybody is about to turn in for the night. Akshay's mother pulls out bed linen from a green holdall and begins preparing the four berths her family will use. The young mother with the baby is sleeping on the side berth, without worrying about pillows and bed sheets. I don't have bedding and I am not that sleepy, so I sit next to the window and feel the cold wind caress my face, watching the train tunnel through the darkness. The lower berth directly opposite me is taken by Akshay's mother, the upper by Meenakshi. The father climbs up on the berth above me and Akshay takes the upper berth on the side, above the mother and child.

The father goes to sleep straight away – I can hear him snoring. The mother turns on her side and pulls up her sheet. I crane my neck to catch a glimpse of Meenakshi, but I can only see her right hand, with a gold bangle on her wrist. Suddenly she sits up in bed and bends down in my direction to drop her shoes. Her chunni has slipped and I can clearly see the top of her breasts through the V neck of her blue kameez. The sight sends an involuntary shiver of pleasure down my back. I think she catches me watching her, because she quickly adjusts her chunni over her chest and gives me a disapproving look.

After a while I, too, drift off to sleep, dreaming middle-class dreams of buying a million different things, including a red Ferrari and a beautiful bride in a blue salwar kameez. All with fifty thousand rupees.

* * *

I am woken up by something prodding my stomach. I open my eyes and find a swarthy man with a thick black moustache jabbing at me with a thin wooden stick. It is not the stick which bothers me. It is the gun in his right hand, which is pointed at no one in particular. 'This is a dacoity,' he declares calmly, in the same tone as someone saying, 'Today is Wednesday.' He wears a white shirt and black trousers and has long hair. He is young and looks like a street Romeo or a college student. But then I have never seen a dacoit outside a movie hall. Perhaps they look like college students. He speaks again. 'I want all of you to climb down from your berths, slowly. If no one tries to act like a hero, no one will get hurt. Don't try to run, because my partner has the other door covered. If all of you cooperate, this will be over in just ten minutes.'

Akshay, Meenakshi and their father are prodded similarly and made to climb down from their berths. They are groggy and disoriented. When you are woken up suddenly in the middle of the night, the brain takes some time to respond.

We are all sitting on the lower berths now. Akshay and his father sit next to me, and Meenakshi, her mother and the woman with the baby sit opposite us. The baby is getting cranky again and begins to cry. The mother tries to soothe it but the baby begins crying even more loudly. 'Give her your milk,' the dacoit tells her gruffly. The mother is flustered. She pushes up her blouse, and instead of one, exposes both breasts. The dacoit grins at her and makes a show of grabbing one of her breasts. She screams and hastily covers it. The dacoit laughs. I don't get titillated this time.

A loaded gun pointed at your head is more riveting than an exposed breast.

Now that the dacoit has everyone's undivided attention, he gets down to business. He holds aloft a brown gunny sack in his left hand, with the gun in his right. 'OK, now I want you to hand over all your valuables. Put them in this sack. I want the men to hand me their wallets and watches and any cash in their pockets, the ladies to hand me their purses, bangles and gold chains. If there is anyone who does not comply with my instructions, I will shoot him dead instantly.'

Meenakshi's mother and the young mother scream simultaneously when they hear this. We hear cries coming from the far side of the compartment. The dacoit's partner is, presumably, issuing similar instructions to passengers on his side.

The dacoit takes round the open sack to all of us one by one. He starts with the mother and child.

With a terrified expression she takes her brown leather purse, opens it quickly to remove a pacifier and a bottle of milk, then drops the bag into the sack. Her baby, whose breastfeeding has been interrupted momentarily, begins wailing again. Meenakshi looks stunned. She takes off her gold bangle, but as she is about to put it in the sack, the dacoit drops the sack and grabs her wrist.

'You are much more beautiful than a bangle, my darling,' he says as Meenakshi desperately tries to escape the man's vice-like grip. The dacoit lets go of her wrist and makes a grab for her kameez. He catches her shirt by the collar, she pulls back, and in the process the shirt almost tears in half, exposing her bra. We all watch, horrified. Meenakshi's father can take it no longer.

'You bastard!' he cries and tries to punch the dacoit, but the man has panther-like reflexes. He releases Meenakshi's shirt and hits her father with the butt of his pistol. A deep gash opens up instantly on the businessman's forehead, from which blood starts oozing out. Meenakshi's mother starts screaming again.

'Shut up,' the dacoit growls, 'or I will kill all of you.'

These words have a sobering impact and we all become absolutely still. A lump of fear forms in my throat and my hands become cold. I listen to everyone's laboured breathing. Meenakshi sobs quietly. Her mother drops her bangles and her purse into the sack, her father puts in his watch and his wallet with shaky fingers, Akshay asks whether he should put in the Archie comic. This infuriates the dacoit. 'You think this is a joke?' he hisses and slaps the boy. Akshay yelps in pain and begins nursing his cheek. For some reason I find the exchange rather funny, like a comic interlude in a horror film. The dacoit berates me. 'What are you grinning at? And what have you got?' he snaps. I take out the remaining notes and change from my front pocket and drop them in the sack, leaving only my lucky one-rupee coin. I begin to unfasten my wristwatch, but the dacoit looks at it and says, 'That is a fake. I don't want it.' He appears to be satisfied with the haul from our cabin and is about to move on when Akshay calls out, 'Wait, you have forgotten something.'

I watch the scene unfold as if in slow motion. The dacoit whirls around. Akshay points at me and says, 'This boy has got fifty thousand rupees!' He says it softly, but it seems to me the entire train has heard it.

The dacoit looks menacingly at Akshay. 'Is this another joke?'

'N-no,' says Akshay. 'I swear.'

The dacoit looks underneath my berth. 'Is it in this brown suitcase?' 'No, he has hidden it in his underwear, in a packet,' Akshay replies, smirking.

'Ah ha!' the dacoit exhales.

I am trembling – I don't know whether from fear or anger. The dacoit approaches me. 'Will you give me the money quietly or should I make you strip in front of all these people?' he asks.

'No! This is my money!' I cry, and instinctively protect my crotch like a footballer blocking a free kick. 'I have earned it. I will not give it to you. I don't even know your name.'

The dacoit gives a raucous laugh. 'Don't you know what dacoits do? We take money which doesn't belong to us, from people who don't even know our name. Now are you giving me the packet or should I pull down your pants and take it out myself?' He waves the pistol in my face.

Like a defeated warrior, I surrender before the might of the gun. I slowly insert my fingers into the waistband of my pants and pull out the manila envelope, sticky with sweat and smelling of humiliation. The dacoit grabs it from my hand and opens it. He whistles when he sees the crisp new thousand-rupee notes. 'Where the fuck did you get all this money from?' he asks me. 'You must have stolen it from somewhere. Anyway, I don't care.' He drops it in the gunny sack. 'Now none of you move while I meet the other folks in your compartment.'

I just stare dumbly and watch fifty million dreams being snatched away from me, dumped into a brown gunny sack where they jostle with middle-class bangles and wallets.

The dacoit has moved on to the next section of the compartment, but none of us dares to pull the emergency cord. We remain rooted to our seats, like mourners at a funeral. He returns after ten minutes with the sack on his back, its mouth tied, the gun in his right hand. 'Good,' he says, hefting the sack to show us it is full and heavy. He looks at me and grins, like a bully who has just snatched someone's toy. Then he looks at Meenakshi. She has covered her front with her chunni, but through the gauzy fabric the white cloth of her bra is visible. He smacks his lips.

The dacoit's partner shouts, 'I am ready. Are you ready?'

'Yes,' calls our dacoit in reply. The train suddenly begins to slow down.

'Hurry!' The other dacoit jumps down from the train.

'I am coming in a second. Here, take the sack.' Our dacoit sends the sack – and fifty million dreams – spinning out of the door. He is about to jump down, but changes his mind at the last second. He comes back to our cabin. 'Quick, give me a goodbye kiss,' he tells Meenakshi, waving the gun at her. Meenakshi is terrified. She cowers in her seat.

'You don't want to give me a kiss? OK, then take off your chunni. Let me see your breasts,' he orders. He holds the gun with both hands and snarls at Meenakshi. 'Last warning. Quick, show me some skin or I'll blow your head off before I leave.' Meenakshi's father closes his eyes. Her mother faints.

Sobbing and weeping, Meenakshi begins to unfurl her chunni. Underneath will only be a piece of white fabric. With two straps and two cups.

But I am not seeing this happening. I am seeing a tall woman with flowing hair. The wind is howling behind her, making her jet-black hair fly across her face, obscuring it. She is wearing a white sari whose thin fabric flutters and vibrates like a kite. She holds a baby in her arms. A man with long hair and a thick moustache, wearing black trousers and a white shirt approaches her.

He points a gun at her and grins. 'Open your sari,' he barks. The woman begins to cry. Lightning flashes. Dust scatters. Leaves fly. The baby suddenly jumps from the mother's lap and leaps at the man, clawing at his face. The man shrieks and pulls the baby away, but the baby lunges at his face again. The man and the baby roll on the ground while the woman in the sari wails in the background. The man twists his hand and points his gun at the baby's face, but today the baby is blessed with superhuman powers. With tiny fingers he pushes at the barrel of the gun, reversing its direction. Man and baby wrestle again, going left and right, rolling on the ground. They are locked in a death struggle. At times the man gains the upper hand and at times the baby appears to be winning. The man finally manages to free his gun-carrying arm. His fingers curl round the trigger. The baby's chest is directly in front of the barrel. The man is about to press the trigger, but at the last moment the baby manages to twist the gun away from himself and towards the man's own chest. There is a deafening explosion and the man rears back as if hit by a powerful blast. A scarlet stain appears on his white shirt.

'Oh, my God!' I hear Akshay's voice, like an echo in a cave. The dacoit is lying on the floor, inches from the door, and I have a pistol in my hand, from which a thin plume of smoke is drifting upwards. The train is beginning to gather speed.

I have still not quite understood what has happened. When you are woken up suddenly in the middle of a dream, the brain takes some time to respond. But if you have a smoking gun in your hand and a dead man at your feet, there is little room for misunderstanding. The dacoit's shirt is suffused with blood, the stain darkening and expanding all the time. It is not like they show you in the movies, where a bullet produces an instant little red patch and it remains like that till they cart away the body in an ambulance. No. The blood doesn't even come out at first. It begins to seep out very gradually. First there is a tiny red dot, no bigger than a thumbtack, then it becomes a circular patch the size of a coin, then it grows as large as a saucer, then it expands to the size of a dinner plate, and it just keeps growing and growing till the flow becomes a torrent. I begin gasping for breath and the whole compartment is about to drown in a red river when Akshay's father shakes my shoulders violently. 'Snap out of it, I say!' he shouts, and the redness lifts.

I sit on my berth with a crowd of people around me. Virtually the entire compartment has come to see what has happened. Men, women and children crane forward. They see a dead dacoit, whose name nobody knows, lying on the ground with a dark-red patch on his white shirt, a father with a gash on his forehead, a terrified mother from whose breasts every drop of milk has been squeezed by a famished baby, a brother who will never read Archie comics on a train again, a sister who will have nightmares for the rest of her life. And a street boy who, for a brief moment, had some money, and who will never have middle-class dreams again.

The yellow light in the cabin seems unusually harsh. I blink repeatedly and hold the gun limply in my hands. It is small and compact with a silver metallic body and a black grip. It says 'Colt' in chiselled letters and has a picture of a jumping horse on either side of the inscription. I flip it over. On the other side of the muzzle it says 'Lightweight', but it feels ridiculously heavy. The pistol has some letters and numbers engraved on it which have become faded. I make out 'Conn USA' and 'DR 24691'.

Meenakshi glances at me furtively. She looks at me like Salim looks at film stars. I know that at this moment she is in love with me. If I propose to her now, she will marry me. Happily have my children. Even without the fifty thousand. But I don't return her glances because everything has changed. I look only at the pistol in my hand and the face of the dead dacoit, whose name I don't know.

He could have died in any number of ways. He could have been shot dead in the middle of a crowded market in a police encounter. He could have been butchered by a rival gang as he sipped tea at a roadside stall. He could have died in hospital from cholera, cancer or AIDS. But no, he did not die from any of these. He died from a bullet fired by me. And I didn't even know his name.

Train journeys are all about possibilities. But a hole in the heart has a certain finality to it. There is no more travelling for a dead body. Perhaps to a funeral pyre, but it will definitely not meet any more hawkers or ticket examiners. I, however, am likely to encounter not just hawkers and ticket examiners, but also the police. How will they treat me? As a hero who protected the modesty of a girl and rid the world of a notorious dacoit, or as a cold-blooded killer who shot dead a man without even knowing his name? I know only one thing: I cannot gamble on finding out. And then Colonel Taylor's words crash into my consciousness like a bolt from the sky.

'CYTLYT, Confuse Your Trail, Lose Your Tail.' I know exactly what I have to do.

Just as the train is about to pull into the next station, where, without doubt, a posse of policemen will be waiting for me, I leap out of the door with the gun still in my hand. I race across the track and jump into another train which is about to steam away from the platform. I don't sit in any compartment; just hang out at the door. As the train passes over a cantilever bridge, I send the gun spinning into the dark river. Then, as the train comes to a stop at the next station, I hop out and find another train going somewhere else. I do this the entire night, moving from station to station, train to train.

Cities go by in a blur. I don't know whether I am travelling north or south, east or west. I don't even know the names of the trains. I just keep changing them. The only thing I know for certain is that I cannot go to Mumbai. Akshay might have told the police about Salim and they could arrest me in Ghatkopar. I also don't want to get off at a dingy, deserted station and attract needless attention. I wait for a station with plenty of light, sound and people.

At nine o'clock in the morning, the train I am travelling in steams on to a bustling, crowded platform. I alight wearing a hundred-per-cent-cotton bush shirt which is torn and has three buttons missing, Levi jeans which are caked with soot and grime, and a fake digital watch. This city seems like a good place to hole up for a while. I see a big yellow board at the edge of the platform bearing its name. It proclaims in bold black letters: 'AGRA. Height above mean sea level 169 metres.'

* * *

Smita holds her hand over her mouth. 'Oh, my God,' she says. 'So all these years you have been living with the guilt of having killed a man?'

'Two men. Don't forget how I pushed Shantaram,' I reply.

'But what happened in the train was an accident. And you could even justify it on the grounds of self-defence. Anyway, I'll first find out whether a case was even registered. I don't think the other passengers would have wanted to implicate you. You rescued them, after all. By the way, what happened to that girl, Meenakshi? Did you see her again?'

'No. Never. Now let's return to the show.'

* * *

In the studio, the lights have been dimmed again.

Prem Kumar turns to me. 'We now move on to question number seven for two hundred thousand rupees. Are you ready?'

'Ready,' I reply.

'OK. Here is question number seven. Who invented the revolver? Was it a) Samuel Colt, b)

Bruce Browning, c) Dan Wesson, or d) James Revolver?'

The music commences. I go into deep thought.

'Have you heard any of these names?' Prem asks me.

'One of them sounds familiar.'

'So do you want to withdraw or would you like to take a chance?'

'I think I will take a chance.'

'Think again. You might lose the one lakh rupees you have won up to now.'

'I have nothing to lose. I am ready to play.'

'OK. So what is your final answer?'

'A. Colt.'

'Are you absolutely, one hundred per cent sure?'

'Yes.'

There is a crescendo of drums. The correct answer flashes.

'Absolutely, one hundred per cent correct! It was indeed Samuel Colt who invented the revolver in 1835. You have just doubled your winnings to two lakh rupees!'

I can't believe it. I have won back my fifty thousand rupees with three times interest. Thanks to a swarthy dacoit, whose name I didn't know.

There are 'oohs' and 'aahs' from the audience. The signature tune is repeated, but the only sound reverberating in my ears is the relentless piston movement of a train travelling from Delhi to Mumbai, via Agra.

Prem Kumar suddenly leaps out of his chair to shake my hand, but finds it limp and unresponsive. If you are taken by surprise in the middle of a game show, the brain takes some time to respond.

A SOLDIER'S TALE

Like clockwork, the air-raid warning siren wails at precisely eight-thirty in the evening, leading to frenzied activity in the chawl. Residents follow the instructions which were announced by loudspeaker the whole of last week in anticipation of an outbreak of hostilities. Switch off all the lights, disconnect all gadgets, turn off the gas, close the house, make an orderly file and proceed to the bunker.

The bunker is beneath the school building. It is a large, rectangular hall with subdued lighting. It has a faded and dusty red carpet on the floor, and the only furniture consists of a couple of rickety chairs and an old metal table, on which stands a fourteen-inch television set. The bunker feels hot, suffocating and claustrophobic, but it is for our protection, so we cannot really complain. Though there are rumours that the one in Pali Hill has a thirty-two-inch TV, Dunlopillo cushions and air conditioning.

The residents gather in front of the television set, which is tuned to the news channel. I look around the hall. Almost the entire chawl is here. The Gokhales, the Nenes, the Bapats, Mr Wagle, Mr Kulkarni, Mrs Damle, Mr Shirke, Mrs Barwe . . . Only Mr Ramakrishna the administrator is missing. He must be busy counting his rent receipts and fixing fused bulbs, leaking taps, broken railings.

First there are the advertisements. This war is sponsored by Mother India Toothpaste and Jolly Tea. Then we have a broadcast by the Prime Minister. Indian forces are winning the war, he tells us earnestly, and it is only a matter of days before the enemy surrenders completely. This war will be a fight to the finish, he says in a high-pitched voice. There will be an end to terrorism.

And hunger. And poverty. Contribute generously to the Soldiers' Benefit Fund, he urges us.

After the Prime Minister's speech, a young actress comes on TV and says the same things, but in filmi style. The women gawk at the actress. How young she looks, they say, and how beautiful.

Is her sari silk or chiffon, they ask each other. How does she manage to keep her skin so soft?

Which soap does she use? She is so fair. She doesn't need Fair and Lovely cream.

The men are full of anger. Those bastards have caused enough problems for us, they say. Enough is enough. This time we should destroy Pakistan completely.

Mr Wagle is the resident expert on the war. A lecturer at the University, he is the most educated person in our chawl. Pakistan has missiles and atom bombs, he tells us. That is why we are in this bunker – so that we are protected from radiation. But there is no real protection against the atom bomb. When the bomb falls, he says, the water will become air. The air will become fire.

The sun will disappear. A huge mushroom cloud will rise in the sky. And we will all die, he concludes solemnly.

But death is difficult to visualize when you are a twelve-year-old like me and Putul or ten like Salim and Dhyanesh and this is your first war. We are full of enthusiasm and curiosity. We camp before the television set, mesmerized by the images of battle.

We don't know and don't care about radiation. We are interested in more important things. Such as:

How much noise does an atom bomb make?

Can we see jets flying over our houses?

Will it be like Diwali?

Wouldn't it be nice if a missile landed next to our chawl?

* * *

It is the third night of the war. Our life in the bunker is falling into a predictable pattern. The women have begun to bring their vegetables and knitting to the hall. They sit in a group, chop tomatoes and potatoes, make sweaters, separate chaff from lentils, extract healthy leaves from spinach and coriander bunches, and exchange the latest gossip. Do you know Mrs Goswami has bought a new twenty-five-inch TV? Heaven knows where her husband gets all his money from!

Looks like Mr Bapat and his wife had a big fight the other night.

Practically the entire neighbourhood could hear it! Have you seen the latest Starburst? It says Armaan Ali might be gay!

The men listen intently to the news and discuss the latest rumours. Is it true that a state of emergency is about to be declared? They say Pathankot has been completely destroyed by bombing. Many civilians have died. Mehta has reliable information, straight from the Ministry, that petrol is to be rationed. Onions and tomatoes have virtually disappeared from the market.

Better start hoarding milk.

We youngsters have our own gang. We run around the large hall shouting and screaming and trip over each other, much to the consternation of the women. We play I Spy till we tire of it. Then Putul invents a new game. It's called, appropriately enough, War and Peace. The game is quite simple. We divide ourselves into two teams, one led by an Indian General and the other by a Pakistani General. The two teams have to tag each other. Whoever is caught first becomes a prisoner of war and can only be released in exchange for another prisoner from the opposite team. Tagging the General counts for two prisoners. The team with the largest number of captured prisoners wins the game. There is only one problem: no one wants to be the Pakistani General. Eventually they get hold of Salim. 'You are Muslim,' they tell him, 'so you become Pakistani.' Salim doesn't agree at first, but is bought off with the promise of two packs of bubblegum. I join Salim's team and we thrash the Indians.

After all our games are played, we gather in a corner, resting from our physical exertion, and discuss the war.

'I love this war,' I say. 'It's so exciting. And my employer Neelima Kumari has given me the week off, because of the curfew.'

'Yes,' says Putul. 'My school has also been closed for a week.'

'I wish we had a war every month,' says Dhyanesh.

'Stop this nonsense, I say!' a man thunders behind our backs.

We turn around in alarm to see an old Sikh on crutches standing behind us. He is thin and tall, with a small, whiskery moustache on a weather-beaten face. He wears an olive-green turban to match his army uniform with lots of pockets and a big belt. He looks at us sternly and raises a finger accusingly. 'How dare you trivialize a war? War is a very serious business. It takes lives.'

Only then do we notice that he has a leg missing.

We learn that he is Lance Naik (retd) Balwant Singh. That he recently moved into our chawl, that he lives alone, and that he lost his leg in combat.

Having disciplined us, Balwant Singh hobbles forward on his crutches and sits down in the chair directly in front of the TV set.

The television is broadcasting live pictures of the war. The screen is cloaked in a hazy green light. We are shown a rocket launcher with a rocket loaded in it. A soldier presses a button and the rocket shoots off in a blaze of fire. After half a minute, we see a flash of greenish-yellow light far away in the distance and the sound of an explosion. 'We have hit the target perfectly,' declares an army officer standing next to the rocket launcher. He grins. His teeth seem unnaturally green. Within ten seconds another rocket is launched. The reporter turns around and says right into the camera, 'This was our live and exclusive coverage of the war in the Rajasthan sector. I am Sunil Vyas of Star News, embedded with 5th Division, returning you back to the studio.' We are not told what the target was, whether it was hit, how many people died in the attack, and how many survived. A famous singer comes on and begins singing old patriotic songs with gusto.

Lance Naik (retd) Balwant Singh gets up from his chair. 'This is not a real war,' he says in disgust. 'It is a joke. They are showing you a soap opera.'

Mr Wagle is not amused. 'Well, what is a real war, then?' he asks.

Balwant looks at Wagle with a soldier's contempt for a civilian. 'A real war is very different from this children's film. A real war has blood and guts. A real war has dead bodies and hands chopped off by enemy bayonets and legs blown off by shrapnel.'

'Which war did you fight in?' asks Mr Wagle.

'I fought in the last real war, the one in 1971,' Balwant Singh says proudly.

'Then why don't you tell us what a real war feels like?' says Mrs Damle.

'Yes, tell us, Uncle,' we clamour.

Balwant Singh sits down. 'You really want to know what a real war feels like? OK, then I will tell you my story. Of those fourteen glorious days when we won our most famous victory over Pakistan.'

We cluster around the old soldier like wide-eyed children before their grandfather.

Balwant Singh begins speaking. His eyes acquire that dreamy, far-off look people get when speaking of things long past. 'I will now take you back to 1971. To the most fateful period in the history of the Indian nation.'

A hush falls over the audience in the bunker. Mr Wagle turns down the volume on the TV set.

No one protests. The second-hand live report on TV is no match for the first-hand account of a real soldier.

'The last real war began on the third of December, 1971. I remember the date well because on the very day that war was declared, I received a letter from Pathankot, from my beloved wife, informing me that she had given birth to a baby boy, our first child. My wife wrote in her letter, "You are not with me, but I know you are fighting for your motherland, and this fills my heart with pride and joy. I will pray for your safety and, together with your son, I will wait for your victorious return."

'I cried when I read that letter, but these were tears of happiness. I was not crying because I was far away from my family at such a time. I was happy that I was going into battle with the blessings of my wife and fortified by the arrival of my newborn son.'

'What did she name your son?' asks Mrs Damle.

'Well, we had decided long before the birth that if it was a girl we would call her Durga, and if it was a boy we would name him Sher Singh. So Sher Singh it was.'

'How did the war begin?' asks Mr Shirke.

'On the night of December the third there was a new moon. Under cover of darkness, the cowardly enemy launched pre-emptive air strikes on a number of our airfields along the western sector – Srinagar, Avantipur, Pathankot, Uttarlai, Jodhpur, Ambala, Agra – all were strafed. The air strikes were followed by a massive attack on the strategic Chhamb sector in the north.'

'And where were you posted when war broke out?' asks Mr Wagle.

'Right there in Chhamb, with 13th Infantry Division. I belong to the Sikh Regiment and my battalion – 35 Sikh – was deployed at Chhamb in the middle of a brigade group. Now you must understand why Pakistan attacked us in Chhamb. Chhamb is not just a village on the west bank of the river Munawar Tawi. It is also the lifeline to the districts of Akhnoor and Jaurian. You capture Chhamb and you pose a threat to the entire state.

'So that night Pakistan launched a three-pronged attack against us. They came in with a heavy artillery barrage. Guns and mortar. The firing was so intense that in just a few hours nearly all our bunkers were badly damaged and three of our border patrols had been taken out.

'I was in command of a forward post with three men when the attack started. My post was attacked by the enemy in vastly superior strength. You must remember that we had only three battalions across the Munawar Tawi, which faced a division of Pakistani infantry, the 23rd Infantry Division, with a brigade of armour, about one hundred and fifty tanks, and about nine to ten regiments of artillery. Pakistan had more artillery in Chhamb than in the whole of the Eastern Front.

'The three men under me at that time were Sukhvinder Singh from Patiala, Rajeshwar from Hoshiarpur and Karnail Singh from Ludhiana. Karnail was the best of the lot, a tall, muscular man with a booming voice and an infectious smile. He had no fear of war. He had no fear of death. But there was one fear that nagged him each and every day.'

'And what was that?' asks Mr Kulkarni.

'The fear of being buried. You see, we had heard that these Pakistanis, if they found the dead bodies of any Indian soldiers, would never return them to us. Instead, they would deliberately bury them according to Muslim tradition, even if the Indian soldiers were Hindu. Karnail was a God-fearing and devout man, and he was terrified that if he died in battle, his body would be buried six feet under the ground instead of being cremated. "Promise me, Sir," he said to me a week before the war started, "that you will ensure that I am cremated properly if I die. Otherwise my soul will never find peace and will be forced to roam the depths of the netherworld for another thirty-six thousand years." I tried to reassure him, telling him he was not going to die, but he was adamant. So, simply to stop his nagging, I told him, "OK, Karnail, if you die, I promise I will have you cremated with full Hindu rites."

'So, on the night of December the third, we were in a forward bunker – Karnail, Sukhvinder, Rajeshwar and me – when the firing started . . .'

He is interrupted by Putul. 'Uncle, did your bunker have a TV, like ours?'

The soldier laughs. 'No, my son. Our bunker was not as luxurious. It didn't have a carpet or a TV.

It was small and cramped. Only four people could crawl into it. It was infested with mosquitoes and sometimes even snakes would come to visit us.'

Balwant's tone becomes more serious. 'Now I don't know whether any of you is familiar with the topography of Chhamb. It is a flat area, but is known for its grey stones and the sarkanda – elephant grass – so tall and thick it can camouflage a tank. Through this thick grass, the enemy came at us under cover of darkness. Before we knew it, mortars were exploding to our left and right. It was pitch dark and I could not see a thing. A grenade was launched at our bunker, but we were able to scramble out before it exploded. As we ventured out of the bunker, a spray of automatic fire from a light machine gun greeted our every step. Quietly, we began advancing on foot, walking in a straight line, trying to determine the source of the firing. We made good headway and had almost reached the Pakistani bunker from where the firing was being directed, when a mortar bomb exploded just behind me. Before I knew it, Sukhvinder and Rajeshwar were dead and Karnail was bleeding from a shrapnel wound to his stomach. I was the only one to escape with superficial injuries. I quickly informed my company commander of the casualties. I also told him that there was an LMG position which was belching deadly fire from the enemy bunker and that if it was not stopped it would cause heavy damage to the company. My CO told me that he could not spare another sub-unit, and asked me to somehow neutralize the LMG position.

' "I am going towards the enemy bunker," I told Karnail. "You provide covering fire for me."

'But Karnail blocked my way. "This is a suicide mission, Sir," he told me.

' "I know, Karnail," I replied, "But someone has got to do it."

' "Then let me do it, Sir," Karnail said. "I volunteer to neutralize the enemy machine gun." Then he told me, "Saab, you have a wife. You have just been blessed with a son. I have no one in my family. No one behind me. No one in front. I might already be dying from this wound. Let me go and do something in the service of my motherland. But don't forget your promise, Sir." And before I could even utter a word, he snatched the rifle from my hand and rushed forward.

"Bharat Mata ki Jai – Long Live Mother India," he shouted and charged the enemy bunker, bayoneting three enemy soldiers to death and silencing the LMG. But as he stood with the gun in his hands, he received another fatal burst of rifle fire in his chest, and before my eyes he toppled to the ground, with the gun still in his hand.'

The hall goes very quiet as we try to visualize the violent scene of battle. The sound of gunfire and mortar seems to echo around the room. Balwant continues.

'I stood rooted to the same spot for close to two hours. I was under instruction to return to the company, but the promise that I had made to Karnail kept ringing in my ears. His body was now lying in enemy territory and I had no idea how many Pakistani soldiers were still around. I was the only one left in my section.

'By three am the firing stopped completely and there was a deathly silence. A sudden gust of wind rustled the trees nearby. I inched towards the Pakistani bunker, no more than two hundred feet away. Suddenly, in front of me, I heard the sound of muffled footsteps. I strained to hear over the pounding of my heart as I raised my rifle. I cocked it, ready to fire, but hoping that I wouldn't have to use it. Firing in the darkness produces a bright muzzle flash that would betray my position to the enemy. I tried to suppress even the sound of my own breathing. Something thin and slippery crawled over my back. It felt like a snake. I had a desperate urge to shake it off, but fear of alerting the enemy made me close my eyes and hope that it would not bite me. After what seemed like an eternity, it slithered down my leg and I heaved a sigh of relief. My back was drenched in sweat and my arms were aching. My rifle felt as if it was made of lead. The footsteps started again, coming closer and closer. I peered into the darkness, trying to decipher the outline of the enemy, but could see nothing. I knew that death was lurking close by. I would either kill or be killed. A twig crunched and I could even detect faint breathing. It was an agonizing wait. I debated whether I should fire or wait for the enemy to make the first move.

Suddenly, I saw the flare of a match and the back of a head floated into view, like a disembodied ghost, not more than ten feet away. I immediately leapt out of the grass and rushed forward with open bayonet. It was a Pakistani soldier, about to urinate. I had almost knocked him down when he turned around, dropped his rifle and pleaded with me with clasped hands, "Please don't kill me. I beg you."

' "How many of you are still in the area?" I asked him.

' "I don't know. I got detached from my unit. I was just trying to go back. Please, I beg you, don't kill me," he cried.

' "Why shouldn't I kill you?" I demanded. "After all, you are the enemy."

' "But I am also a human being, like you," he said. The colour of my blood is the same as yours. I have a wife who is waiting for me in Mirpur. And a baby girl who was born only ten days ago. I don't want to die without even seeing her face."

'I softened on hearing this. "I also have a wife, and a baby son whose face I have not seen as yet,"

I told the enemy soldier. Then I asked him, "What would you have done in my position?" He went quiet for a while, then he replied haltingly, "I would have killed you."

' "See," I told him, "we are soldiers. We have to be true to our profession. But I promise you this.

I will have your body properly buried," and then, without blinking an eyelid, I pushed my bayonet through his heart.'

'Ugh . . . chi chi . . .' Mrs Damle closes her eyes in disgust.

Mr Shirke is also unnerved. 'You really don't have to be so graphic,' he tells Balwant as he tries in vain to cover Putul's ears with his palms. 'All this killing and blood, I worry my son may start having nightmares.'

Balwant snorts. 'Ha! War is not for the squeamish. In fact, it is good for these youngsters to understand what it is all about. They should know that war is a very serious business. It takes lives.'

'What happened afterwards?' asks Mr Wagle.

'Nothing much. I went to the enemy bunker, where the bodies of the three Pakistani soldiers were lying alongside Karnail. I picked him up and trudged back to my company base with his body over my shoulders. The next morning we cremated him.' Balwant's eyes are wet with tears. 'I told the CO about Karnail's supreme act of bravery, and on his recommendation Karnail Singh was awarded a posthumous MVC. '

'What's an MVC?' asks Dhyanesh.

'Maha Vir Chakra. It is one of the highest military honours in our country,' replies Balwant.

'And which is the highest?'

'The PVC or the Param Vir Chakra. It is almost always given posthumously.'

'Which award did you get?' Dhyanesh asks again.

There is a pained expression on Balwant's face. 'I didn't get any for this operation. But this is not the end of my story. I still have to tell you about the famous battle of Mandiala Bridge.'

Mr Wagle looks at his watch. 'Oh, my God, it is past midnight. Chalo chalo, I think we have had enough excitement for the day. The curfew is over. We should now return to our houses.'

Reluctantly, we disperse.

* * *

The next day, we are in the bunker again. Today Mr Bapat's son Ajay is here too. He must have returned from his grandmother's place. He is a big show-off, always boasting about his toys, his computer, his skates, and his numerous girlfriends. We all hate him, but keep it to ourselves. We don't want to quarrel with a fifteen-year-old who looks seventeen. Today he has got a little diary.

He calls it an autograph book. He is showing the other children some scribbles. 'This is Amitabh Bachchan, this is Armaan Ali, that one is Raveena's, this one is the famous batsman Sachin Malvankar's signature.'

'And what about this one?' asks Dhyanesh. He points to a dark squiggle which is completely indecipherable. Ajay thinks about it, and then says sheepishly, 'This is my mother's. She was testing the pen.'

Putul is carrying something with him too, but it is not an autograph book. It is a writing book.

His dad has told him that no school does not mean no studies. Now every day he will have to sit in the bunker and write essays. Today's topic is: 'My cow', even though Putul doesn't have a cow.

On the TV, a military spokesman is giving a briefing. 'Pakistani air strikes against Indian air bases in Ambala, Gorakhpur and Gwalior were successfully neutralized. Indian forces have taken Baghla and Rahimyar Khan. Pakistani forward bases at Bhawalpur, Sukkur and Nawabshah have been completely destroyed and the Shakargarh bulge is under our control. In Chhamb sector, our soldiers have repulsed a massive Pakistani attack to take the Mandiala Bridge.'

We cheer wildly. There is a lot of clapping and shaking of hands.

Balwant Singh is sitting, as before, in front of the TV. 'So they have attacked Mandiala again,' he says with a shake of the head. 'These Pakis never learn from their mistakes.'

It seems to me that Balwant is waiting for someone to ask him about the Mandiala Bridge, but no one takes the bait.

The TV programme changes to a studio debate. Some experts are discussing the war. A bearded man with glasses is saying, 'We all know Pakistan has close to forty nuclear warheads. Just one fifteen-kiloton fission bomb explosion over an urban area with a population density of about 25,000 per square kilometre is sufficient to kill about 250,000 people. Now if you extrapolate this data to Mumbai, where – ' Mr Wagle says, 'The water will become air. The air will become fire. A mushroom cloud will burst into the sky. We will all die.'

Mr Kulkarni switches off the TV. 'This is too depressing,' he says. 'Why don't we listen instead to the inspiring story of our war hero. Balwantji, you were mentioning the battle of Mandiala Bridge yesterday. Please tell us about it.'

Balwant perks up, stretches his arms and hitches up the sleeves. He scratches the stump of his leg, swivels his chair around to face the group, and begins.

'There is a very high escarpment across the Munawar Tawi called Mandiala North. This is where the enemy attacked on the nights of the third and fourth of December, and because we had virtually no troops holding that particular feature, our posts were overwhelmed. Then the Pakis began moving forward with both tanks and infantry towards Mandiala Crossing where I was deployed with 35 Sikh, alongside 19 Para Commando.

'By then we had understood that the key objective of Pakistan's 23rd Division was to capture Mandiala Bridge. Once that happened, we would be forced to abandon Chhamb and all the area west of Tawi. So by midday on the fourth of December we had begun fortifying our position. 31

Cavalry was reinforced by one squadron of the 27th Armoured Regiment, and 37 Kumaon were despatched from Akhnoor to launch a counter-attack to recapture Mandiala North. But tragedy struck when the CO of 37 Kumaon was killed instantly by Pakistani artillery shelling before he could join us. So the battalion was rendered leaderless and reached Tawi only after last light. It was therefore diverted to the east bank, overlooking Mandiala Crossing. And so when night fell only 35 Sikh and the para company of 19 Commando were guarding Mandiala Crossing, together with the tank troops of 31 Cavalry, who were holding Mandiala South.

'Two Pakistan battalions – 6 POK and 13 POK – launched a ferocious attack across Tawi at around 0300 hours on December the fifth. They came in with their American Patton tanks and Chinese T-59s, guns booming. Jets from the Pakistani Air Force screamed overhead, strafing the area, dropping thousand-pound bombs on our positions. I saw vehicles burning everywhere, shells exploding, and tanks moving towards us like giant steel insects in the tall elephant grass.

The artillery firing was so heavy that within fifty minutes it had gone through the entire depth of our positions. 13 POK ran into our 29 Jat unit and dispersed it. As they advanced, they captured Point 303 after killing the CO.

Defence of this feature was also entrusted to 35 Sikh, but unfortunately some of my compatriots did not respond to the call of duty. They just fled in the face of a sustained barrage by enemy artillery. Having secured Point 303, the Pakistanis ordered their reserves to move forward and consolidate the bridgehead. By first light, they had overrun Mandiala Bridge. It appeared that only a miracle could save us now. Can someone get me a glass of water?'

Balwant Singh is an accomplished storyteller. He emphasizes the right words, pauses at the right places and asks for a glass of water at the perfect time, just when the suspense is getting unbearable.

Someone hastily brings him a Styrofoam cup filled with water. We crane forward. Balwant resumes after taking a gulp of water.

'It was at this point that the Commander of 368 Brigade personally joined us from Akhnoor.

When he arrived he saw a scene of utter destruction and confusion. Soldiers were running hell for leather from the scene of battle. The ground had become a cratered wasteland, scarred with dead bodies, rubble and the burning wreckage of our tanks. There were fires raging everywhere.

The waters of the Tawi had turned scarlet with the blood of soldiers. It was total pandemonium.

Not like they show you on TV, where you press a button, you launch a rocket and then sip tea.

'The CO, who knew me, said, "Balwant Singh, what is happening? Where have all our men disappeared to?" And I answered him with a heavy heart, "I am sorry to report, Sir, that many have deserted the scene of battle and fled to safety. They could not withstand the overwhelming force deployed by the enemy." We had lost three tanks and many men.

'The CO said, "If we all start thinking like this, how will we win this war?" Then he sighed. "I think this situation is hopeless. We should retreat."

'I immediately protested. "Sirjee," I said, "the motto of our regiment is Nischey Kar Apni Jeet Karon – I Fight For Sure to Win. I will never give up without a fight."

' "That's the spirit, Balwant." The CO thumped me on the back and told me to rally the remaining men. My platoon commander had also deserted, so the CO put me in charge of the platoon. Our battalion was given the task of moving forward immediately to recapture the bridge. The Delta company of Gurkha Rifles was also ready for assault, together with the remaining tanks of 31 Cavalry.

'The morning erupted in cannon and machine-gun fire. Mandiala Crossing became an inferno, a cauldron of fire, concussion and explosion. With sniper bullets whizzing past our heads, machine guns spewing out continuous and deadly fire, enemy aircraft wailing overhead and bombs crashing all around us, we charged from our position with fixed bayonets, shouting the Sikh battle cry, "Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal." We fell upon the advancing enemy and bayoneted many to death in bloody hand-to-hand fighting. This bold action completely demoralized the enemy.

The tide began to turn in our favour. We started pushing the enemy back.

'At that point, the enemy decided to bring their tanks across the Tawi river. So far, they had remained on the other side. The moment they crossed the bridge and came over to our side, we would have been completely exposed. It was essential that we stop them from crossing the bridge. Now our T-55 tanks belonging to 31 Cavalry and the 27th Armoured Regiment came into action. At first our tanks withstood the enemy onslaught well, but when the Pakistani Patton tanks began rolling across the bridge, two of our chaps abandoned their tanks and ran away.

'I don't know what came over me. I just ran towards one of the abandoned tanks, opened the hatch and slipped inside. I knew about tanks, but I had never driven one before. Still, it took me only a couple of minutes to figure out the controls and very soon I had put the T55 into motion.

As my tank started up, it came under heavy fire from the enemy concealed in bunkers. So I moved my tank towards the enemy trench. They thought I would give up in the face of their sustained firing, but I kept moving relentlessly towards the bunker, till they jumped out and fled.

One of them tried to clamber on to my tank. I immediately put the turret on power traverse, swung the 100 mm rifled gun around and knocked him away like a fly from milk. Meanwhile, our other tanks had begun targeting the enemy, and within twenty minutes only one enemy Patton tank was left. I chased it as it tried to get away. My tank received a direct hit from it and went up in flames. But my gun was still functioning. I kept chasing the Patton and shot at it, barely fifty yards from my position. The enemy tank stopped suddenly and reeled backwards, its turret spinning around like a drunken man. Finally it stopped turning and the tank burst into a ball of flame. I got on to the Bravo-I set to my CO and said, "Eight enemy tanks destroyed, Sir. Situation under control."

'Mandiala Bridge was now almost within our grasp. The enemy had scattered. Its tanks were destroyed, but there were still isolated pockets of resistance. The enemy had sited some machine guns and rocket launchers around the bridge which were still active. And, most important of all, the Pakistani flag was still flying atop the bridge. I had to tear it down. Dazed by concussion and ripped and bloodied from shards of flying metal, I began inching towards the Pakistani bunker.

All around me, I saw corpses in the churned and muddy ground. I kept on moving forward and advanced to within ten yards of the enemy bunker, which was ringed by a tangle of barbed wire.

I then lobbed a smoke grenade into the bunker and three Pakistani soldiers tumbled out, dead and bleeding. There was only one soldier remaining. As I raised my rifle to shoot him, I realized suddenly that it had jammed. The enemy soldier also saw this. He smiled, raised his gun and pressed the trigger. A hail of bullets hit my left leg, and I fell to the ground. He pointed the gun at my heart and pressed the trigger again. I said my prayers and prepared to die. But instead of a deafening blast, there was just a hollow click. His magazine had finished. "Narai Takbir – Allah O Akbar!" he shouted and rushed at me with naked bayonet. I met him shouting, "Jai Hind" and neatly side-stepped his charge. I then clubbed him to death with the butt of my rifle. Finally, I leapt at the enemy flag, tore it down and replaced it with the tricolour. When I saw our flag fluttering atop Mandiala Bridge, it was the happiest moment of my life, though I knew I had lost one leg.'

Balwant Singh stops speaking, and we see that his eyes are drenched in tears.

Nobody stirs for almost a minute. Then Putul goes up to Balwant Singh and holds out his exercise book. The soldier wipes his eyes. 'Arrey, what is this? I cannot do your maths homework for you.'

'I don't want you to do my homework,' says Putul.

'Then what is this book for?'

'I want your autograph. You are our hero.'

Everyone claps.

Dhyanesh raises the same question again. 'So which award did they give you for this battle?'

Balwant goes silent, as if we have touched a raw nerve. Then he says bitterly, 'Nothing. They gave out two MVCs and two PVCs to 35 Sikh. Three of my colleagues got Sena medals and a memorial was constructed in Jaurian. But they didn't give me anything, not even a mention in despatch. There was no recognition of my valour.'

He lets out a sigh. 'But not to worry. I take satisfaction when I see the flame burning over Amar Jyoti, the memorial to the Unknown Soldier. I feel it burns for people like me.' Turning philosophical, he recites a poem in Urdu: 'Unheralded we came into this world. Unheralded we will go out. But while we are in this world, we do such deeds that even if this generation does not remember, the next generation cannot forget.'

Everyone goes quiet again. Suddenly, Mrs Damle begins singing, 'Sare jahan se achcha Hindustan hamara . . .' Pretty soon everyone else joins in singing the patriotic song. I don't know what comes over us youngsters, but we organize a spontaneous march past. We form a single line and file past Balwant Singh, our right fists clenched tightly in a gesture of salute to this brave soldier.

This was our war. He was our hero.

Balwant Singh is so overcome with emotion, he starts crying. 'Jai Hind!' he shouts, and shuffles out of the room, leaving us alone with the rustle of elephant grass, the sound of exploding bombs, the acrid smell of cordite, and the stench of death.

Mr Wagle comes to the dais and makes an announcement. 'Dear friends, I have the honour of informing you that tomorrow we are being visited by a team from the Soldiers' Benefit Fund, SBF for short. Our beloved Prime Minister has made an appeal to all Indians to contribute generously for the benefit of our soldiers, who sacrifice their lives so that we may live in freedom with honour and dignity. I hope all of you will dig deep into your pockets to help the SBF.'

'But what about the soldier in our own midst? Shouldn't we do something to help him as well?'

Mr Shirke shouts.

There are cries of 'Hear! Hear!'

'Yes, you are absolutely right. But I think the biggest service we can do to Balwantji is to get his achievements in the 1971 war recognized. We will give a memorandum to the people from the SBF who come here tomorrow.'

We are all excited. It looks as if finally we are also contributing to the war effort.

* * *

There are three of them who come. A tall man, a short man and a fat man. All three are ex-officers; the tall one is from the navy, the short one is from the army and the fat man is from the air force. The short man gives a long speech. He tells us that our soldiers are doing a great job.

Our country is great. Our Prime Minister is great. We are great. And our donations should also be great. They pass around a basket. People put money in it. Some put five rupees, some ten, some one hundred. One of the ladies puts in her gold bangles. Salim doesn't have any money. He puts in two packets of bubblegum. Balwant Singh is not present. He has sent word that he has a touch of flu.

Then the inquisition starts. 'Did you fight in any war yourself?' Kulkarni asks the army man, a retired Colonel.

'Yes, of course. I saw action in two great wars, '65 and '71.'

'And where did you serve during the 1971 war?'

'In Chhamb, which perhaps saw the greatest battles.'

'And which was your regiment?'

'I am from Infantry. The great Sikh Regiment.'

'Did you get any medals during the 1971 war?'

'Well, as a matter of fact, I got a Vir Chakra. It was a great honour.'

'What did you get this great honour for?'

'For the great battle of Mandiala Crossing, in which 35 Sikh did a great job.'

'What kind of person are you? You take medals yourself and deny others, without whose support you would never have regained that bridge.'

'I am sorry, I don't understand. Who are you referring to?'

'We are talking about our own soldier, who was a hero during the 1971 war at Chhamb, who lost a limb. Who should have got a Param Vir Chakra, but only got tears. Look, Colonel Sahib, we are civilians. We don't know about your army rules and regulations, but a grave injustice has been done here. Can you see whether something can be done even now? It is never too late to honour brave soldiers.'

'Where is this great soul?'

'He is right here in our chawl.'

'Really? That's great. I would love to pay my respects to him.'

So we escort him to Balwant Singh's room. We point out his door and watch as the Colonel goes in. We loiter around, unable to resist prying.

We hear loud voices, like an argument. Then a banging sound. After ten minutes or so, the Colonel comes rushing out, seething with anger. 'Is this the man you were complaining didn't get a PVC? He is the greatest scoundrel I have ever seen. I wish I could wring the swine's neck here and now.'

'How dare you talk about our war hero like this!' admonishes Mrs Damle.

'He, a war hero? That's the greatest joke in the world. He is a bloody deserter. Ran away at the first sight of trouble in the Chhamb sector. I tell you, he is a bloody blot on Sikh Regiment. He should have had fourteen years' Rigorous Imprisonment. Unfortunately, desertion cases are closed after five years, otherwise I would have reported him even now.'

We are astounded. 'What are you saying, Colonel? He recounted to us in great detail his exploits at Chhamb. He even lost a leg in combat.'

'That's a complete lie. Let me tell you his true story, which is actually quite pathetic.' The Colonel adjusts his belt. 'Balwant Singh was not in a good frame of mind when war broke out, because his wife had just given birth to his first child in Pathankot. He was desperate to be with his family. So great was his longing that at the first sign of trouble in Jaurian, when Pakistan attacked with artillery in full strength, he deserted his post and ran away. He managed to reach Pathankot and hid in his ancestral house. He must have thought he had left the war far behind, but the war did not leave him. Two days after his arrival, the Pakistani Air Force strafed Pathankot air base. They didn't hit any of our planes, but two thousand-pound bombs fell on a house close to the airfield. Turned out that the house was Balwant's. His wife and infant son perished instantly in the attack and he lost a leg to shrapnel.'

'But . . . how could he re-create the scene of battle in such great detail?'

The Colonel grimaces. 'I don't know what stories he told you, but twenty-six years is a long time to read up on great battles. The bastard crawled out of the woodwork after all these years just to fool you people and earn some cheap thrills through his fake tales of valour. Meeting him has spoiled my mood completely. It has not been a great day. Goodbye.'

The Colonel shakes his head and walks away from the chawl, flanked by the tall man and the fat man. We return to the bunker. It has not been a great day for us, either. We wonder what

Balwant Singh is doing. He does not come out that evening.

* * *

They find him the next morning, in his one-room lodging in the chawl. A can of milk and a newspaper lie untouched on his doorstep. His crutches are stacked neatly against the wall. The wooden bed has been pushed into a corner. There is an empty cup on the nightstand containing a residue of brown tea leaves. The only chair in the room lies upturned in the centre. He hangs from the ceiling fan with a pink piece of cloth tied to his neck, wearing the same olive-green uniform, his head bowed over his chest. As his limp body swings gently from side to side, the ceiling fan makes a faint creaking noise.

A police jeep arrives, its red light flashing. Constables rummage through his belongings. They chatter and gesticulate and question the neighbours rudely. A photographer takes pictures with a flashgun. A doctor in a white coat arrives with an ambulance. A big crowd gathers in front of Balwant's room.

They wheel out his body on a stretcher, covered in a crisp white sheet. The residents of the chawl stand in hushed silence. Putul and Dhyanesh and Salim and I peer diffidently from behind their backs. We stare opaquely at the dead man's body and nod, in fear and sorrow and guilt, as a liquid understanding spreads slowly through our numbed minds. Those of us for whom this was our first war, we knew then. That war was a very serious business. It took lives.

* * *

Smita is looking grim and serious.

'Where were you during the war?' I ask.

'Right here, in Mumbai,' she replies and hurriedly changes the topic. 'Let's see the next question.'

* * *

Prem Kumar swivels on his chair and addresses me. 'Mr Thomas, you have answered seven questions correctly to win two lakh rupees. Now let us see whether you can answer the eighth question, for five hundred thousand rupees. Are you ready?'

'Ready,' I reply.

'OK. Question number eight. Which is the highest award for gallantry given to the Indian armed forces? I repeat, which is the highest award for gallantry given to the Indian armed forces? Is it a) Maha Vir Chakra, b) Param Vir Chakra, c) Shaurya Chakra or d) Ashok Chakra?'

The suspenseful music commences. The time bomb starts ticking louder.

There is a buzz in the audience. They look at me with sympathy, preparing to bid goodbye to the friendly neighbourhood waiter.

'B. Param Vir Chakra,' I reply.

Prem Kumar raises his eyebrows. 'Do you know the answer, or are you just guessing?'

'I know the answer.'

'Are you absolutely, one hundred per cent sure?'

'Yes.'

The drumming reaches a crescendo. The correct answer flashes.

'Absolutely, one hundred per cent correct!' shouts Prem Kumar. The audience is exultant. There is sustained clapping and cries of 'Bravo!'

I smile. Prem Kumar doesn't.

Smita nods her head in understanding.

LICENCE TO KILL

There are many hazards of walking in an absentminded manner on the roads of Mumbai. You can inadvertently slip on a banana peel and go skidding. You can find that without warning your foot has sunk into a pile of soft dog shit. You can be rudely jolted by a wayward cow coming from behind and butting into your backside. Or a long-lost friend you had been avoiding meeting can emerge miraculously from the chaotic traffic and suddenly hug you.

That is what happened to me on Saturday 17 June, in front of Mahalaxmi Racecourse, when I bumped into Salim Ilyasi. After five years.

* * *

When I first arrived in Mumbai from Agra three months ago, I had resolved not to contact Salim.

It was a difficult decision. I had missed him during my years with the Taylors in Delhi and my travails in Agra, and to be in the same city as him and not see him was indeed a heavy burden to carry. But I was determined not to involve him in my plan of getting on to the quiz show.

'Mohammad!' Salim exclaimed the moment he saw me. 'What are you doing in Mumbai? When did you come? Where have you been all these years?'

Meeting a long-lost friend is similar, I suppose, to eating a favourite dish after a long time. You don't know how your taste buds will react after all this while, whether the dish will still taste as good as it used to. I met Salim after five long years with mixed emotions. Would our reunion be as warm as our friendship used to be? Would we still be as honest with each other?

We didn't speak much at first, but sat down on a nearby bench. We didn't listen to the squawking of the seagulls circling overhead. We took no notice of the little boys playing football on the road. We didn't see the throng of devotees going to the Haji Ali dargah. We just hugged each other and wept. For the times we had spent together, for the time we had lost. And then we talked about all that had happened in between. Rather, Salim talked and I listened.

* * *

Salim has become taller and more handsome. At sixteen, he looks as good as any Bollywood film star. The hard life of the city has not corrupted him like it corrupted me. He still loves Hindi films and worships the stars of Bollywood (with the obvious exception of Armaan Ali). He still goes to the shrine of Haji Ali every Friday to offer prayers. And, most importantly, the prediction of the palmist is finally about to come true. He no longer works as a dabbawallah, delivering tiffins to Mumbai's middle class, but has enrolled himself in an expensive acting school where he is learning to become an actor.

'Do you know who is paying for my acting classes?' he asks me.

'No.'

'It is Abbas Rizvi.'

'The famous producer who has made all those blockbusters?'

'Yes, the same. He has offered me the role of a hero in his next film, which will be launched in two years' time, when I have turned eighteen. Till then he is getting me trained.'

'But that's wonderful, Salim. How did all this happen?'

'It is a very long story.'

'No story can be long enough for me, Salim. Quick, now, tell me from the beginning.' So this is the story narrated by Salim, in his own words.

* * *

'After you went away so suddenly, I was left all alone in the chawl. I continued with my life as a dabbawallah for four more years, collecting and delivering tiffins, but I also continued to dream of becoming an actor.

'One day, while I was collecting a tiffin from the wife of a customer called Mukesh Rawal, I noticed that the walls of his house were decorated with pictures of himself with famous film stars. I asked Mrs Rawal whether her husband was in the film industry. She said he was just a sales officer in a pharmaceutical company, but worked in films part-time, as a junior artist.

'I was amazed to hear this. I rushed to Mukesh Rawal's office the same afternoon and asked him if I too could become a junior artist like him. Mukesh looked at me and laughed. He said I was too young to become an actor, but that sometimes they had roles for schoolboys and street kids, for which I might be right. He promised to refer me to Pappu Master, the junior-artist supplier for whom he worked, and asked me to provide him with several glossy eight-by-six photographs of myself in a variety of poses. If Pappu liked my photos, he might choose me for a bit role in a film. Mukesh told me that for a junior artist, acting skills were not required, but I had to look smart in a suit, menacing in a ruffian's outfit and charming in a school uniform. He insisted that I get the photos professionally taken at a studio.

'That night I couldn't sleep. I went to a photographer's shop the very next morning and enquired about the cost of the pictures. The photographer quoted me an astronomical sum, almost equal to my full month's earnings. I told him, "Arrey baba, I can't afford so much money." So he advised me to buy one of those cheap, disposable cameras and take my own pictures, which he could then blow up. I did as he told me. I bought a camera and requested passersby to take my picture.

I sat on somebody's motorcycle in front of Churchgate and tried to look as cool as Amitabh Bachchan in the film Muqaddar ka Sikandar. I posed sitting on a horse on Chowpatty Beach, just like Akshay Kumar in Khel. I stood in front of Sun 'n' Sand hotel, posing like Hrithik Roshan in Kaho Na Pyar Hai. I held an empty Johnny Walker bottle in my hands and tried to look as drunk as Shahrukh Khan in Devdas. I grinned in front of Flora Fountain like Govinda does in all his films. I got almost twenty pictures taken of myself, but the roll took thirty-six and I had to finish it before I could get the pictures developed. So I decided to take pictures of interesting buildings and people. I took pictures of Victoria Terminus and the Gateway of India, I clicked a beautiful girl in Marine Drive, snapped an old man in Bandra and even took a close-up of a donkey in Colaba. My final picture was of a swarthy, middle-aged man in Mahim sitting on a bench and smoking. His fingers were adorned with different-coloured rings. Only after I had pressed the shutter button did I realize whose picture I had taken, and I froze.'

'What do you mean?' I ask Salim. 'Was he a famous film star? Was it that swine Armaan Ali?'

'No, Mohammad, it was a man you know equally well. It was Mr Babu Pillai, alias Maman. The man who brought us here from Delhi and almost blinded us.'

'Oh, my God!' I cover my mouth. 'Did he recognize you?'

'Yes, he did. "You are Salim, aren't you? You are the boy who ran away from me. But you won't get away from me this time," he cried and lunged at me.

'I didn't even think. I just turned around and ran towards the main road. A bus was pulling away and I jumped on it just in time, leaving Maman panting behind me on the road.

'I was sitting on the bus, thinking what a lucky escape I'd had, when guess what happened?'

'What?'

'The bus stopped at a traffic light and a group of ruffians wearing head bands and armed with swords, spears and tridents got on.'

'Oh, my God! Don't tell me it was a mob.'

'Yes, it was. I realized then that we had landed in the middle of a communal riot. The wreckage of a smouldering vehicle lay directly in front of us. Shops had been reduced to rubble, splashes of blood could be seen on the pavement, stones, sticks and slippers littered the street. The driver immediately bolted from the bus. My mind went numb with fear. I had thought I would never have to see such a horrifying sight again. I heard sounds which I thought I had forgotten. My mother's shrieks and my brother's cries echoed in my ears. I began shivering. The ruffians told everyone on the bus that a Muslim mob had set fire to Hindu houses and now they were out for revenge. I learnt later that the whole trouble had started over a simple quibble about a water tap in a slum. But people's minds were so full of hate that within hours buses were being burnt, houses were being torched and people were being butchered.

' "Each one of you say your name. All those who are Hindu are allowed to step down from the bus, all those who are Muslim should keep sitting,' the ruffians announced. One by one the trembling passengers said their names. Arvind. Usha. Jatin. Arun. Vasanti. Jagdish. Narmada.

Ganga. Milind. The bus started emptying. The ruffians watched each of the passengers with hawk-like eyes. They checked the vermilion in the partings of the ladies' hair, asked some of the men further questions to establish their religion, and even forced a little boy to open his shorts. I was nauseated by this barbaric display, but was also quivering in my seat. Finally, only two passengers were left on the bus: me and a man sitting two seats behind me.

'You know, Mohammad, in films when such a scene happens, the hero stands up and appeals to the humanity of the mob. He tells them that the blood of both Hindus and Muslims is the same colour. That it doesn't say on our face which religion we belong to. That love is preferable to hate. I knew so many dialogues, any of which I could have recited before those ruffians, but when you actually stand face to face with such savagery, you forget all words. You only think of one thing. Life. I wanted to live, because I had to fulfil my dream of becoming an actor. And now the dream and the dreamer were both going to be set ablaze in a Mumbai bus.

' "What is your name?" the leader asked me.

'I could have said Ram or Krishna, but I became tongue-tied. One of the attackers pointed to the tabeez around my neck. "This bastard is definitely a Muslim, let's kill him," he urged.

' "No. Killing him would be too easy. We will burn this motherfucker alive in this bus. Then he and his community will learn never to touch our homes," said the leader, and laughed. Another man opened a can of petrol and started sprinkling it inside the bus. I used to love the smell of petrol, but since that day I associate it with burning flesh.

The man sitting two rows behind me stood up suddenly. "You have not asked for my name. Let me tell you. It is Ahmed Khan. And I want to see the bastard who will touch this boy," he said.

'There was momentary silence from the ruffians, before their leader spoke. "Oh, so you are a Muslim too. Very well then, you will also be torched along with this boy."

'The man was unperturbed. "Before you torch me, have a look at this," he said, and took out a revolver. He pointed it at the ruffians.

'You should have seen the faces of all those rowdies. Their eyes popped out of their sockets.

They left their swords and tridents in the bus and ran helter-skelter for dear life. My life was saved. I had tears of gratitude in my eyes.

'The man saw me crying and asked me, "What is your name?"

' "Salim . . . Salim Ilyasi," I replied, still sobbing.

' "Don't you know how to lie?" he said. "But I value people who speak the truth even when confronted with death."

'He told me he had an import–expor t business and lived alone in a big house in the Byculla locality. He said he needed someone to do the cooking and cleaning, and generally look after the house whenever he had to travel on business. I did wonder why a businessman like him was carrying a gun on the bus, but he promised me double what I was earning as a tiffin carrier, and I instantly agreed to become his live-in servant.

'Ahmed had a large, spacious flat with three bedrooms, a good-sized kitchen and a drawing room with a thirty-six-inch TV. I did the cooking, cleaning and dusting, but I did not forget my ambition of becoming an actor. In a way, working for Ahmed was good, because he would be away from the house most of the day and sometimes even for a week or two. During that time I would do the rounds of the studios. I developed my roll of film and got excellent eight-by-six blow-ups made. I gave them to Mukesh Rawal, who in turn showed them to Pappu Master, the junior-artist supplier. Believe it or not, after just three months I received my first film offer.'

'Really?' I exclaim. 'Which role did you get and in which film?'

'It was as a college student in the Abbas Rizvi film Bad Boys starring Sunil Mehra.'

'Then let's go and see it right away. I would love to watch you on screen and hear your dialogues.'

'Well . . .' Salim hesitates. He looks down at his shoes. 'You see, my role was cut at the last minute. So on screen you see me for just three seconds, sitting at a desk in a classroom with thirty other students. The only dialogues in that scene are between the hero Sunil and the class teacher.'

'What?' I cry in disappointment. 'Just three seconds! What kind of role is that?'

'Junior artists are supposed to do just those kinds of roles. We are not heroes and heroines. We are merely part of the scenery. Remember those big party scenes in films? Junior artists are the extras who stand around sipping their drinks while the hero and heroine waltz on the dance floor.

We are the passers-by on the street when the hero chases the villain. We are the chaps who clap in a disco when the hero and heroine win a dance competition. But I didn't mind working as a junior artist. It allowed me to fulfil my dream of seeing behind the scenes. And it enabled me to meet the producer, Abbas Rizvi. He liked my looks and promised to give me a longer role in his next film.

'Over the course of the next six months, I discovered many things about Ahmed. All in all, he was a rather strange man. He had just two interests in life: eating good food and watching television. On TV he watched just two programmes – cricket and Mumbai Crime Watch. He was fanatical about cricket. Whenever a match was being played, with or without India, he had to watch it. He would get up at three o'clock in the morning if there was a match in the West Indies and at midnight if it was in Australia. He would even watch matches between novice teams like Kenya and Canada.

'He kept a diary in which he recorded every cricket statistic. He knew by heart the batting average of each and every batsman, the bowling figures of each and every bowler, the number of catches taken by a fielder, the stumpings done by a wicket-keeper. He could tell you the highest and lowest-ever scores in a match, the maximum number of runs scored in an over, the biggest victory margins and the narrowest.

'But he stored all this information for a purpose – to bet on cricket matches. I found this out during the India–Englan d series. Ahmed was watching the match on TV and trying to call someone on his mobile. So I asked him, "What are you doing, Ahmed bhai?"

' "I am about to play satta," he replied.

' "Satta? What's that?"

' "It is another name for illegal betting. Satta is organized by powerful underworld syndicates in Mumbai with a daily turnover of millions of rupees. Millions are bet on every cricket match, thousands on every ball. I am one of the biggest punters. This house that you see, this expensive TV, the microwave in the kitchen, the air conditioner in the bedroom, are all due to my winnings from satta. Three years ago, I made a killing in the India–Australi a match. You remember the famous match in Eden Gardens? At a time when India were 232 for 4 and staring at an innings defeat, and the odds were a thousand to one against India, I bet on Laxman and India and cleaned up ten lakh rupees!"

' "Ten lakhs!" My eyes popped out.

' "Yes. Today I am only betting ten thousand on India. I have been trying to ask my bookie for the odds, but his number is continuously engaged." He slapped his mobile a couple of times, looked impatiently at his watch and punched in the number once again. This time he got through.

"Hello, Sharad bhai? AK here. Code 3563. What's the rate on the match?" I heard the bookie's voice over the phone with a lot of static. I could hear the commentary in the background: "India already has a lead of 175 over England. Once the lead crosses 250, the odds will turn heavily in favour of India. With less than a lead of 250 it is fifty–fift y either way, but crossing the 250 mark will change that to three to one in India's favour."

' "And what are the odds on an England victory?" Ahmed asked him.

' "Are you crazy?" the bookie replied. "There is no way England can win; their best bet is to hold out for a draw. But if you ask for the odds, they are eight to one. Do you want to book now?"

' "Yeah. Put me down for ten thousand on India losing," said Ahmed.

I was astounded when I heard Ahmed place this bet, because India was in the lead. But Ahmed obviously knew more than the bookie, because by the end of play England had won the match, English flags were fluttering all over Lord's cricket ground, and Ahmed was punching his fists in the air and exulting, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" He called up his bookie again. "Kyun Sharad bhai, wasn't I right? How much have I cleaned up? Eighty thousand? Ha! Not a bad profit for a few hours' work!"

'Ahmed went out and got a bottle full of frothy liquid, and that evening I had my first sip of champagne.

'Ahmed's second interest in life was watching Mumbai Crime Watch. Have you ever seen it?'

I shake my head. 'No, it wasn't on the TV in Delhi.'

'Well, it is a very boring programme. It is like a news bulletin, except they don't tell you about floods and riots and war and politics. They tell you only about violent crime. Who has been murdered, who has been raped, which bank has been looted, who has escaped from jail, that kind of thing.

'Ahmed would sit in front of the TV with a plate of seekh kebabs and laugh loudly whenever he heard the bulletin on Mumbai Crime Watch. For some reason, he found it very amusing.

'From time to time, Ahmed would receive large yellow envelopes by courier. I had strict instructions not to touch his mail and to leave it on the dining table for him. One afternoon, a large yellow envelope was brought by the delivery boy just when I was having tea. By mistake I spilt tea on the envelope and went into a panic. I knew if Ahmed saw that I had spoilt his packet he would be angry. It might contain valuable commercial documents which could have been damaged. So I sat down and carefully prised open the gummed flap. I inserted my fingers and pulled out the documents . . . and whistled in surprise.'

'Why? What was there?'

'Nothing much. The packet contained just one glossy eight-by-six colour photograph of a man's face and half a sheet of neatly typed details. Even I could read that much. It said:

Name: Vithalbhai Ghorpade.

Age: 56.

Address: 73/4 Marve Road, Malad.

'That was all.

'I presumed these were the details of some businessman Ahmed had dealings with, and didn't think too much about it. I carefully resealed the flap and put the envelope on the dining table. In the evening, Ahmed came home and opened the envelope. He received a phone call shortly afterwards. "Yes, I have received the packet," is all he said.

'Almost two weeks later, Ahmed was sitting in front of the TV, watching Mumbai Crime Watch.

I was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, but I could hear the presenter speaking. ". . . In yet another gruesome incident in Malad, police are looking for clues to the murder of a prominent businessman named Vithalbhai Ghorpade, who was found murdered in his house on Marve Road." The name rang a bell. I glanced at the TV and almost cut my finger, because on screen was the same photograph that had been in the yellow envelope. The presenter continued, "Mr Ghorpade, who was fifty-six, was shot dead at point-blank range while he was alone in the house. He is survived by his wife and son. According to Malad police, robbery appears to have been the main motive as the house was ransacked and many valuables were missing."

'I noticed Ahmed laughing when he heard this. This, too, surprised me. Why should Ahmed laugh over the death of a business associate?

'A month later, there was another yellow envelope. Ahmed was out and I could not resist taking a peek at its contents. This time I steamed it open, so that no marks were left. I opened the flap and pulled out yet another glossy photograph. This one showed the face of a young man with a thick moustache and a long scar running from his left eye to the base of his nose. The typed sheet of paper said:

Name: Jameel Kidwai.

Age: 28.

Address: 35 Shilajit Apartments, Colaba.

'I memorized the name and put the photo back.

'Ahmed came home that evening and looked at the envelope. There was a phone call, as before, and he confirmed receipt of the packet. Exactly a week later, I heard the news on Crime Watch that a young lawyer called Jameel Kidwai had been shot dead while getting out of his car near his residence in Shilajit Apartments. The presenter said, "Police suspect a gangland motive in this killing, as Mr Kidwai had represented several mafia dons in court. An investigation has been launched, but there are no clues at present." Ahmed, sitting with a glass of whisky, guffawed when he heard this.

'I was now seriously worried. Why did Ahmed receive pictures of people in the mail and why did those people die soon afterwards? This was still a mystery to me. So when the next yellow envelope was delivered three weeks later, I not only took a peek at the photograph, which was of an elderly man, I also wrote down the address. It was of a house on Premier Road in Kurla. The next day, I followed Ahmed. He took a local train to Kurla and walked to Premier Road. But he didn't enter the house. He just passed it three or four times, as if checking it out. Two weeks later, Crime Watch announced that the same elderly man had been found murdered in his house on Premier Road in Kurla.

'I am not a fool. I knew there and then that Ahmed had murdered the man and that I was living with a contract killer. But I didn't know what to do. Ahmed had saved my life once and I couldn't even contemplate betraying him to the police. Meanwhile, Abbas Rizvi called me up and made a firm offer of a supporting role in his next film. When I heard this I ran all the way to the shrine of Haji Ali. I touched my forehead to the cloth covering the tomb and prayed for Rizvi's long life.

'For the next two months I lived an uneasy double life. If Ahmed was a contract killer masquerading as a businessman, I was an actor masquerading as a servant. Ahmed had licence to kill, but I knew that a day would come when he himself would get killed. I simply hoped that I wouldn't get caught in the crossfire. And then everything fell apart.'

'What happened?'

'It was four months ago – the twentieth of February, to be exact. I remember the day very well, because India was playing Australia in the last match of the series and Ahmed had just placed another bet. He used to bet on everything: not only on which team would win, but also the first wicket to fall, the bowler to take the first wicket, who would win the toss, whether there would be rain during the match. Sometimes he would bet on virtually every ball in the match – whether it would be a four, a six or a dot ball. That morning, Ahmed had just spoken to his bookie.

"Sharad bhai, Code 3563. How do you think the pitch will behave? Yesterday it was flat, but will the ball start turning from today? The weather forecast is good, but do you think it might rain later in the day?" Then he placed his bet. "Book me on Sachin Malvankar making his thirty-seventh century today. What's the rate?" The bookie said, "He is already on seventy-eight and everyone feels a century is a sure shot, so the odds are not very promising. The best I can do is thirteen to ten." "OK," said Ahmed, "then put me down for ten lakhs. This way I will at least make a profit of three lakhs."

That whole afternoon Ahmed sat in front of the TV set and watched Malvankar play, cheering his every run with loud whistles. As Malvankar inched towards his century, Ahmed became more and more excited. By the time Malvankar entered the nineties Ahmed was a nervous wreck, biting his fingernails, praying before every ball, cringing whenever Malvankar was beaten by a delivery. But Malvankar played like the master batsman he is. He moved from ninety-one to ninety-five with a magnificent straight drive for four. Then he took a single to reach ninety-six. Another single. Ninety-seven. Then Gillespie bowled a short ball and Malvankar pulled it majestically to the cover boundary. Hayden was running after it, trying to stop it from crossing the rope. Malvankar and his cobatsman Ajay Mishra were running quickly between the wickets. They took one run. Ninety-eight. Then they raced to complete the second.

Ninety-nine. Hayden gathered up the ball inches inside the cover boundary and sent in a looping throw, not to Adam Gilchrist, the wicketkeeper, but to the bowler's end. Malvankar saw the throw coming and shouted "Nooooo!" to Mishra, who was running towards him for the third run.

But that idiot Mishra kept on charging down the pitch towards Malvankar. In desperation, Malvankar was forced to set out to complete the third run. He had almost made it to the bowler's end when the ball from Hayden landed directly on the stumps! Malvankar was caught just six inches outside the crease and declared run out by the third umpire. On ninety-nine.

'You can imagine what happened to Ahmed. He had bet ten lakhs on Malvankar's thirty-seventh century and now he had lost it all by one run. He cursed Gillespie, he cursed Hayden, and most of all he cursed Mishra. "I want to kill that bastard," he growled and charged out of the house. He probably went to a bar to drown his sorrows.

'That same afternoon, another yellow envelope came. I was worried that it might contain the picture of a certain Indian batsman, but when I saw what was inside I almost died.'

'Why? What was inside? Tell me quickly.'

'Inside the envelope was a glossy, eight-by-six photograph of Abbas Rizvi, the producer, and a typewritten piece of paper containing his address. I knew that he would be Ahmed's next victim, and that with his death, my dream of becoming an actor would also die. I had to warn Rizvi. But if Ahmed found out, he would have no qualms about killing me either. After all, he was a professional hitman with a licence to kill.'

'So what did you do?' I ask breathlessly.

'I did what I had to do. I immediately went to Rizvi and told him about the contract on him. He didn't believe me, so I showed him the picture and the address which had come by courier. Once he saw the photo in my hand, all his doubts vanished. He told me he would run away to Dubai and lie low for a year or so. He was now so indebted to me, he promised that on his return he would make me a hero in his next film and till then he would get me trained. So that is why he is funding my acting course and why I am counting the days till I turn eighteen.'

'My God, what a story, Salim,' I say, letting out a deep breath. 'But by taking that packet to Rizvi, didn't you expose yourself to Ahmed? He would have received a phone call that evening and he would have known about the missing envelope.'

'No, I didn't expose myself, because Ahmed did get a packet on the dining table when he returned that evening.'

'But . . . then Ahmed would have killed Rizvi.'

'No, because the packet contained a new picture and a new address, which I got typed at the nearby typing institute.'

'Brilliant. You mean you gave a fictitious address? But how could you give a fictitious picture?'

'I could not. So I did not. I gave Ahmed a real picture and a real address, and he actually went and carried out the hit. But before he could discover that he had killed the wrong guy, I told him I had to go urgently to Bihar and left his employment. I hid here and there, I didn't enter Byculla, I even stopped going to Haji Ali, which is just opposite. And then last week I saw on Crime Watch that the police had shot a dreaded contract killer by the name of Ahmed Khan in a shoot-out near Churchgate Station. So today I came to Haji Ali to offer my thanks to Allah, and behold, who do I see when I come out but you!'

'Yes, it is an amazing coincidence. But I have just one more question. Whose picture and address did you give Ahmed?'

'The only one worth giving. I gave him a glossy eight-by-six photo of Mr Babu Pillai, and Maman's address!!'

* * *

Smita claps her hands. 'Marvellous! I know by now that you are a smart cookie, but I didn't know that Salim is also a genius. He got licence to kill by proxy, and he chose the perfect target. So what happened after? Did you tell Salim about your participation in the quiz?'

'No. I didn't reveal why I had come to Mumbai. I simply said that I was in Delhi, working as a servant, and was visiting the city for a couple of days.'

'So Salim has no clue about your appearance on W3B?'

'No. I was going to inform him, but before I could do so the police arrested me.'

'I see. Anyway, now let's see how the fortuitous meeting with Salim helped your fortunes on the show.'

* * *

In the studio, the lights have been dimmed again.

Prem Kumar addresses the camera. 'We now move on to question number nine, for one million rupees.' He turns to me. 'Are you ready?'

'Ready,' I reply.

'OK. Here is question number nine. This one is from the world of sport. Tell me, Mr Thomas, which sport do you play?'

'None.'

'None? Then how come you are so fit? Look at me, I have gained so much flab despite going to the gym every morning.'

'If you had to work as a waiter and commute thirty kilometres every day, you too would become fit,' I reply.

The audience titters. Prem Kumar scowls.

'OK, here comes question number nine, from the world of cricket. How many Test centuries has India's greatest batsman Sachin Malvankar scored? Your choices are a) 34, b) 35, c) 36 or d) 37?'

The music commences.

'Can I ask a question?'

'Yes, sure.'

'Has India played any other country since the recent series with Australia?'

'No, not to my knowledge.'

'Then I know the answer. It is C. 36.'

'Is that your final answer? Remember, there is a million rupees riding on your reply.'

'Yes, it is C. 36.'

'Are you absolutely, one hundred per cent sure?'

'Yes.'

There is a crescendo of drums. The correct answer flashes.

'Absolutely, one hundred per cent correct! Sachin Malvankar has indeed scored 36 Test centuries. You have just won a million rupees! Ladies and gentlemen, we will now take a short commercial break.'

'Cut!' I say.

TRAGEDY QUEEN

A family drama with doses of comedy and action, ending eventually in tragedy. In film parlance, this is how I would describe the time I spent with Neelima Kumari. She was an actress. And I worked for three years in her flat in Juhu Vile Parle.

It all began on that same night that Salim and I escaped from the clutches of Maman and his gang. We took the local train and landed in Juhu. We walked up to Neelima Kumari's flat, pressed the doorbell and waited.

After a lengthy interval the door is opened. 'Yes?' A lady stands before us. Radhey, the lame boy, was right. She is tall and beautiful, just like a heroine, only older. Salim falls at her feet. 'Arrey.'

She hurriedly steps back.

'Who are you two? What are you doing here at this hour of night?'

'We are friends of Radhey,' I reply with folded hands. 'He told us you are in need of a servant.

We have come to offer our services. We know you are a very kind lady. We are in desperate need of food and shelter and promise to do anything you ask us.'

'Yes, I do need a servant, but I cannot keep someone so young.'

'Madam, we are young only in looks. We can do the work of four men. I can also speak English.

Do try us.'

'But I don't need two servants. I have space only for one.'

Salim and I look at each other. 'Then at least pick one of us,' I say.

'What is your name?' she asks Salim.

'Salim.'

'Oh, you are Muslim, aren't you?'

Salim nods.

'Look, I am sorry, but my aged mother who lives with me cannot eat anything touched by a Muslim. I personally don't believe in all this polluting-contact nonsense, but what am I to do?'

She shrugs her shoulders. Salim looks crestfallen.

Then she turns to me. 'And what about you? What is your name?'

'Ram,' I tell her.

* * *

So I got the job, and only then did I discover that life with a movie star is not as glamorous as it appears from the outside. When you get to see them without make-up you find that they are exactly like you and me, with the same anxieties and insecurities. The only difference is that we are mainly concerned with money, or lack of it, and they are mainly concerned with fame. Or lack of it.

They live in a fish bowl. First they hate it, then, as adulation grows, they start loving it. And when people no longer shower attention on them, they just shrivel up and die.

Neelima Kumari's flat is spacious and contemporary, tastefully furnished with expensive wall-to-wall carpets and paintings. It has five bedrooms. The large master bedroom with attached bathroom is Neelima's, and her mother has the next-largest. As far as I know, Neelima has no other relatives.

Neelima's bedroom is the best room in the flat. It has a huge bed in the middle with a velvet bedspread. The walls have tiles made of glass so you see your image reflected in a thousand tiny pieces. There is a dresser full of perfumes and bottles. Next to the dresser is a twenty-nine-inch Sony TV, a VCR and the latest VCD player. An expensive chandelier hangs from the ceiling. A soundless air conditioner keeps the room delightfully cool. Glass shelves line the walls, loaded with trophies and awards of all kinds. There is another glass case full of old film magazines. All of them have Neelima Kumari on the cover. Looking at all this, I feel privileged to be working in her house. In her time, she must have been the most famous actress in India.

Neelima's mother is a real pain in the neck. Though she is nearly eighty, she has the energy of a forty-year old and is always after me. I am the only full-time servant in the house. There is a Maharashtrian brahmin lady who comes to cook in the evening and also does the dishes, and a part-time maid who does the washing. I do everything else. I do the dusting and the cleaning, I iron the clothes and make evening tea, I do errands outside the house, buy the milk and pay all the utility bills. But Neelima's mother is never satisfied, even though I address her very respectfully as 'Maaji'. 'Ram, you have not brought my milk,' she will say. 'Ram, you have not ironed my bed sheet . . . Ram, you have not dusted this room properly . . . Ram you are again wasting time . . . Ram you have not heated my tea.' Sometimes I get so irritated at her constant nitpicking, I want to tape her mouth.

Neelima, though quirky at times, is not so demanding. She wants me to become a live-in servant.

There are plenty of empty bedrooms in the flat where I could stay, but her mother refuses to allow a 'male' to live in the house. So I am banished to a chawl in Ghatkopar, from where I commute every day to her flat. She pays rent for the room in the chawl. In a way it suits me, because Salim can also stay with me in the same room.

* * *

I am out shopping with Neelima. She doesn't own a car, so we take a taxi. I don't enjoy going out with her. She only buys cosmetics or clothes and I have to carry her heavy bags. She never goes to a McDonald's or a Pizza Hut. And she never, ever, buys me anything.

Today, we are in Cuff Parade, in a very expensive shop which sells saris. She looks at hundreds of them for over two hours, then she buys three for fifty thousand rupees, which is almost equal to my salary for two years. As we are stepping out of the air-conditioned showroom, a group of girls dressed in school uniform approaches her. They look very excited. 'Excuse me, are you Neelima Kumari, the actress?' asks one of them.

'Yes,' says Neelima, looking quite pleased.

'See,' the girl screams to her friends. 'I told you she is Neelima.' Then she turns to us again.

'Neelimaji, we are great fans of yours. Seeing you is like a dream come true. We are not carrying autograph books, but will you please sign our exercise books?'

'Of course, with pleasure,' says Neelima and takes a pen from her handbag. One by one the girls hold out their exercise books, thrilled to bits. Neelima asks each one her name and then records in her sprawling handwriting, 'To Ritu with love, Neelima.' 'To Indu with love, Neelima.' 'To Malti with love, Neelima.' 'To Roshni with love, Neelima.' The girls read their inscriptions and squeal with delight.

Neelima is positively glowing from all this adulation. This is the first time I have seen anyone recognize her and I marvel at the impact it has on her. Suddenly she looks at me with concern, sweating in the heat, holding a heavy shopping bag. 'Ram, you must be feeling quite hungry by now. Come, let's have an ice cream,' she says. I squeal with delight.

* * *

From time to time, Neelima teaches me about the art of film-making. She tells me about the various technicians involved in the making of a film. 'People think that a film is made only by the actors and the director. They don't know about the thousands of people behind the scenes, without whose efforts the film would never be made. It is only after these technicians have done their work that a director can snap his fingers and tell his actors, "Lights, camera, action!"' She tells me about sets and props and lighting and make-up and stunt men and spot boys.

Then she teaches me about genres. 'I hate the movies they make these days, in which they try to cram everything – tragedy, comedy, action and melodrama. No. A good film has to respect its genre. I always used to choose my films carefully, after fully understanding what the story meant and what it involved for me. You will never catch me singing and dancing in one scene and dying two reels later. No, Ram. A character has to be consistent. Just as a great painter is identified by his unique signature style, an actor is known for his unique niche. A genre of his own. A great artist is not one who merely fits into a genre, but one who defines the genre. Did you see the review of that new film Relationship of the Heart in the Times of India? The reviewer wrote that Pooja, the actress, made a complete hash of the death scene. "How I wish Neelima Kumari had been in this film to do justice to the character. The young actresses of today should learn their craft from legends like her." It really gladdened my heart to read this. To be held out as an example, as the epitome of a genre, is the ultimate compliment an actor can receive. I am getting the review framed.'

'So what was your unique style?'

She smiles. 'I know you are too young to know that Neelima Kumari is called the Tragedy Queen of India. Come, let me show you something.'

She takes me to her bedroom and opens a metal almirah. My eyes almost pop out because the almirah is crammed with video cassettes. 'Do you know that all these cassettes are of films in which I have actually played a part?'

'Really? So how many cassettes are here?'

'One hundred and fourteen. That is the number of films I worked in over a career spanning twenty years.' She points out the first row. 'These are among my earliest films. Most of them are slapstick comedies. I am sure you know what comedy films are, right?'

I nod my head vigorously. 'Yes. Like the ones Govinda acts in.'

Neelima indicates the next two rows. 'These are films from my middle period. Mostly family dramas. But I also did the famous thriller Name the Murderer and the classic horror film Thirty Years Later.'

Finally she points out the remaining four rows. 'And all these are tragedies. You see the hundreds of awards and trophies I have received over the years? Almost all of them are for films in this section. My favourite is this one.' She taps a cassette. I read the label. It says Mumtaz Mahal.

'This is the film in which I played the role of a lifetime, that of Emperor Shahjahan's wife Mumtaz Mahal. I even received the National Award for my performance. See that trophy in the centre? I received it from the hands of the President of India.'

'So, Madam, was that the greatest role you ever played?'

She sighs. 'It was a good role, no doubt, with a lot of potential for emotion, but I feel that I have yet to play the greatest .'

* * *

Neelima's mother is no longer keeping well. She coughs and groans a lot. Her carping is becoming unbearable. She is always complaining about her medical condition and doesn't even spare Neelima, reminding her constantly of her obligation towards the person who brought her into this world. I think Neelima is beginning to chafe a little. Apart from my other errands, I now have to spend half a day buying medicines for Maaji and then ensuring that she takes the tablets, capsules and drops on time.

There is excitement in the flat. Doordarshan, the national TV channel, is going to show a film of Neelima's called The Last Wife this evening. It is one of her famous tragedies and she wants all of us to watch it with her in the drawing room. Come eight pm, we are all gathered in front of the TV. There is the cook, the maid and me sitting on the carpet and Maaji reclining on the sofa next to Neelima. The film starts. It is not really my cup of tea. It is about a poor middle-class family coping with a whole heap of problems. There is a lot of crying and wailing in it. And a lot of groaning in the background from Maaji. The film shows life too realistically. I think it is ridiculous to make such movies. What is the point of watching a film if you can see the real thing in your neighbour's house just across the street? Neelima, though, looks very young and beautiful in the film and acts really well. It is a strange sensation to watch a film and have its heroine sitting behind you. I wonder what she feels when she watches herself on the TV screen. Does she remember the spot boys and make-up artists, the lighting technicians and sound recordists who worked behind the scenes?

Neelima dies in the film after delivering an emotionally charged speech. The film ends as soon as she dies. We stand up to stretch our legs. Then I notice that Neelima is crying. 'Madam,' I ask with concern, 'what happened? Why are you crying?'

'Nothing, Ram. I just felt a sense of kinship with my character on screen. See, I am smiling now.'

'How can you actors laugh one minute and cry the next?'

'That is the hallmark of a great actor. Do you know why they call me Tragedy Queen?'

'Why, Madam?'

'Because I never used glycerine to weep in any of my films. I could summon tears to my eyes at will.'

'What is so great about that? I also never need glycerine to bring tears to my eyes,' I tell the maid when Neelima is out of earshot.

* * *

The more I see of Neelima, the more I begin to understand why she is called the Tragedy Queen.

There is a core of melancholy which surrounds her. Even in her smile I detect a hint of sadness. I wonder about her past life, why she never married. She seems to have no real friends. But she goes out of the house from time to time and returns late in the evening. I wonder whom she meets. I doubt that it is a boyfriend or a lover, because she never returns looking radiant. She comes back looking haggard and depressed and goes straight to her bedroom. This is one mystery I would love to get to the bottom of.

I also wonder about her obsession with beauty. Physical beauty. She is good looking, yet she spends hours doing her make-up and preening before the mirror. Her dressing table is full of creams. I try to read the labels one day. There are anti-wrinkle creams, anti-cellulite creams and anti-ageing lotions. There are deep radiance boosters and hydrating age-defence creams, revitalizing night creams and skin-firming gels. Her bathroom is full of strange-smelling soaps and scrubs and face-masks which are supposed to make you look youthful. Her medicine cabinet has as many medicines for her as for Maaji. There are human-growth hormones and breast-firming creams, pharmacy-grade melatonin and antioxidants.

I finally say to her one day, 'Madam, if you don't mind my asking, why do you need all this make-up? You no longer act now.'

She looks me in the eye. 'We people who work in films become very vain. We get so used to seeing ourselves in make-up that we no longer have the courage to look in the mirror and see our real faces. Remember, an actor is an actor for life. Films may end, but the show must go on.'

I wonder whether she said this from her heart, or just recited some lines from a film.

* * *

Something truly wonderful has happened today. Maaji has died in her sleep. Aged eighty-one.

Neelima weeps a little, then gets down to the practical business of making funeral arrangements.

It seems as though almost the entire film industry comes to her flat to offer condolences. She sits stoically on a sofa in the drawing room, wearing a white sari and light make-up. I recognize many of the people who come. There are actors and actresses and directors and producers and singers and songwriters. The drawing room is overflowing with visitors. I crane my neck to catch a glimpse of the famous stars whose pictures I have seen in Starburst and whose films I have seen on screen. I wish Salim could be here with me. But he would be disappointed. Because the visitors don't look like the glamorous stars we see on screen. They are not wearing make-up and flashy clothes. They are all clad spotlessly in white and look grim and sombre. Even those who are famous for comedies.

I don't know how Neelima took her mother's death. But to me Maaji's departure from this world felt like welcome relief after a depressing film.

Within a month of Maaji's demise, Neelima asks me to become a live-in servant. She knows that Salim is staying with me in the chawl, so she continues to pay rent for Salim's room. I shift to her flat. But I am not put in any of the four empty bedrooms. I am given the tiny ironing room.

I notice that after Maaji's death, Neelima begins to go out more frequently, at times not even bothering to return at night. I am convinced she is seeing someone. Perhaps there will soon be a marriage.

* * *

I am wakened by a scraping noise coming from the direction of the drawing room. The sound is quite faint, but sufficient to disturb my sleep. I rub my eyes and look at the alarm clock by my side. It says two-thirty am. I wonder what Neelima is doing pottering about the flat at this hour.

Suddenly I realize that her lover might have come to visit her and I get all excited. I tiptoe out of my room and move towards the drawing room.

The room is in darkness but there is a man there. He doesn't look like a lover. He wears a black mask over his head with slits only for the eyes. In his left hand he holds a black sack. In his right hand is a flashlight which is pointed at the VCR. He quickly disconnects the cables, picks the VCR up and inserts it in his black sack. I know now that he is no lover. He is a thief. And I scream. It is a piercing scream which shatters the silence of the night like a bullet. It wakes up Neelima Kumari, who comes running to the drawing room. It completely unsettles the thief, who drops the sack and the flashlight and covers both his ears with his hands. And it shatters a glass figurine which was poised delicately on top of the television cabinet.

'What is the matter?' Neelima asks breathlessly. She switches on the drawing-room light. Then she sees the thief and lets out a scream too. The thief has almost gone deaf by now. He falls down on his knees and begins pleading with us. 'Please, Madam, I am not a thief. I have just come to look at your house.'

'Ram, bring me the phone. I will call the police immediately,' Neelima tells me. I bring her the cordless phone with alacrity.

The thief tears off his mask. He is a youngish man with a goatee. 'Please, madam, please don't call the police, I beg you. I am no thief. I am a final-year student at St Xavier's. I am one of your greatest fans. I have come to your house only to see how you live.'

I notice that Neelima softens visibly on hearing the fan part. 'Don't listen to him, Madam,' I warn her. 'This fellow is a thief. If he is a fan, why has he stolen our VCR?'

'I'll tell you why, Neelimaji. I have purchased cassettes of each and every film you have acted in.

All 114 of them. I watch at least one of your movies every day. Due to heavy use, my VCR has become defective. I am having it repaired. But I cannot bear to pass a day without watching one of your films. So I thought I would take one of your VCRs. Just the fact that I am watching a movie on your VCR will make the experience so much more memorable. I was going to return your VCR when my own comes back from repairs. Please believe me, Madam. I swear on my dead father I am not lying.'

'This is all a lie, Madam,' I cry. 'You'd better call the police.'

'No, Ram,' says Neelima. 'Let me first test whether this man is indeed telling the truth. If he has seen all 114 of my films then he can answer a few questions. OK, Mister, tell me in which film I played the role of a village girl called Chandni?'

'Oh, how can I forget that, Neelimaji? It is one of my favourite films. It is Back to the Village, right?' 'Right. But that one was too easy. Tell me, for which film did I get the Filmfare Award in 1982?'

'That's even easier. For The Dark Night, surely.'

'My God, you are right. OK, tell me in which film did I act with Manoj Kumar?'

'It was that patriotic film, The Nation Calls.'

'Oh, you even saw that one?'

'I told you, Neelimaji, I am your greatest living fan. Tell me, why did you agree to do that two-bit role in Everlasting Love? I always thought the director underutilized you.'

'It's amazing you ask me about Everlasting Love. I too feel that I shouldn't have done that role.

All the credit for the film's success went to Sharmila, and I got a raw deal.'

'But you were fantastic in It's Raining over Bombay. I think the monologue that you deliver in the temple after your father's death is the most memorable scene in the whole film. You really should have got the Filmfare Award for it, but they gave it to you for Woman instead.'

'Yes. If I were to choose between Woman and It's Raining over Bombay, I would probably also choose the latter. I must say, you know a lot about my films. What is your name?'

'My name is Ranjeet Mistry. I am twenty-four years old. I have always wanted to ask you about Mumtaz Mahal, which I consider to be the greatest film ever made. That childbirth scene, when you are dying and Dileep Sahib, who plays the Emperor, is sitting by your bedside, you ask him to make a promise, and then you take off your gold bangle – but you never give it to him. Why did you do that?'

'This is amazing. You have gone into the minute details of that film. I will tell you the answer.

But why are you sitting on the ground? Come, sit here on the sofa. And Ram, what are you doing standing with a phone in your hand? Can't you see we have a guest in the house? Go, get two cups of tea and some biscuits. So as I was telling you, when Mumtaz Mahal was being conceptualized . . .'

By the time I return with two cups of tea, Neelima and the thief are laughing and sharing jokes like two long-lost friends. I shake my head in disbelief. This man had come to rob her and just because he has seen a few of her films she feeds him biscuits and tea.

What started as a thriller has turned out to be a family drama.

* * *

She calls me one evening. 'Ram, I want you to shift to the chawl tomorrow. Just for a day. I need privacy in the house.'

'But why, Madam?'

'Don't ask questions,' she says in an irritated voice. 'Just do as I tell you.'

These instructions are given to me three times in the next three months . I know that when I am away she will entertain her lover in the house, and does not want me to know about it. So the next time she tells me to stay in Ghatkopar and return the next day, I do not follow her instructions fully. I go back to Ghatkopar for the night, but instead of returning at seven am the next morning, I come back at five and hang around outside the flat. Sure enough, at six am the door opens and a man steps out. He is tall, with a decent face, but his bloodshot eyes and scruffy hair spoil the look. He is clad in blue jeans and a white shirt. He holds a sheaf of currency notes and a lighted cigarette in his left hand and twirls some car keys in his fingers. He seems vaguely familiar, but I cannot place him. He doesn't even glance at me before he walks down the stairs to the ground floor. I enter the house only at seven am.

I get my first shock on seeing the condition of the drawing room. There are cigarette butts and traces of ash everywhere. An upturned glass lies on the centre table, together with an empty bottle of whisky. Peanuts are scattered all over the carpet. There is a strong smell of alcohol in the room.

The second shock is on seeing Neelima Kumari. She has bruises all over her face and a black eye. 'Oh my God, Madam, what happened to you?' I cry.

'Nothing, Ram. I slipped from my bed and hurt myself. Nothing to worry about.'

I know she is lying. That man I saw leaving the flat has done this to her. And in return she has given him cigarettes, whisky and also money. I feel pained and angry, and powerless to protect her.

* * *

From that day, a subtle change comes over Neelima. She becomes more introverted and withdrawn. I think she starts drinking whisky, because I often smell it on her breath.

One morning I find her again with a black eye, and a cigarette burn on her arm. I can bear it no longer. 'Madam, I feel very sad seeing you in this condition. Who is doing this to you?' I ask her.

She could have said 'It is none of your business,' but she was in a reflective mood that morning.

'You know, Ram, someone has said that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I wonder at times if this is true. I too have loved. I don't know whether I have lost as yet, but I have received a lot of pain. There is a man in my life. Sometimes I think he loves me.

Sometimes I think he hates me. He tortures me slowly, bit by bit.'

'Then why don't you leave him?' I cry.

'It is not that simple. There is some pleasure even in pain. A sweet ecstasy. Sometimes I feel if pain can be this sweet, how exquisitely pleasurable death will be. When he tortures me with cigarette butts I don't want to scream. I want to recite those memorable lines from my film Woman. The death scene. "O life, how fickle you are. It is death which is my real lover, my constant companion. Come, death, take me in your arms, whisper the sweet sound of silence in my ears, and waft me away to the land of eternal love."'

'But that was just a film, Madam,' I plead with her.

'Hush! Have you forgotten what I told you once, that an actor is an actor for life? Do not forget that I will forever be known as the Tragedy Queen. And I didn't become a tragedy queen just by reciting lines given to me by a scriptwriter. I lived the life of my characters. Ghalib didn't become a great tragic poet just by writing some lines in a book. No. You have to feel pain, experience it, live it in your daily life before you can become a tragedy queen.'

'If this is the criteria, then can I become a tragedy king?' I ask with the wide-eyed innocence of a twelve year-old.

She does not answer.

* * *

Neelima is giving an interview to a journalist from Starburst in the drawing room. I enter with a tray of gulab jamuns and samosas.

'OK, Neelimaji, we have talked about the past, now let's come to the present. Why did you quit films?' I watch closely as the journalist fiddles with a tape recorder. She is quite young and rather striking looking, with fair skin and shoulder-length black hair. She is wearing smart black trousers with a printed kurti and high-heeled black pumps.

'Because they no longer make films like they used to. The passion, the commitment, is gone.

Today's actors are nothing but assembly-line products, each exactly like the other, mouthing their lines like parrots. There is no depth. We did one film at a time. Now I find actors rushing to three different sets in a day. It's ridiculous.' Neelima gestures with her hands.

'Well, pardon my saying so, but I heard that part of the reason you quit was because you were not being offered any roles.'

Anger flares up on her face. 'Who told you that? It is a complete lie. I was offered several roles, but I turned them down. They were not powerful enough. And the films weren't heroine-oriented.'

'What you mean is that you were not offered heroine roles any longer, but those of elder sister or aunt.'

'How dare you disparage me and my work? I must say even the journalists of today have lost their manners. Can't you see the awards and trophies lining the shelves? Do you think I got these by not acting? Do you think I earned the sobriquet of Tragedy Queen by singing around trees like today's two-bit heroines, looking like a glorified extra?'

'But . . . but we are not talking about your past caree—'

'I know exactly what you are talking about. Please leave this instant. Ram, show this lady out and do not open the door to her ever again.' She stands up and walks out of the room in a huff. I escort the bewildered journalist to the door.

I am unable to figure out whether this was a comedy, a drama, or a tragedy.

* * *

There are many framed pictures in Neelima's flat. But all of them show only her. Neelima receiving some award, Neelima cutting a ribbon, Neelima watching a performance, Neelima giving an award. There are no pictures of any other movie stars, except for two framed pictures in her bedroom. They are of two beautiful women, one white, the other Indian.

'Who are these women?' I ask her one day.

'The one on the left is Marilyn Monroe and the one on the right is Madhubala.'

'Who are they?' 'They were both very famous actresses who died young.'

'So why do you keep their pictures?'

'Because I also want to die young. I don't want to die looking old and haggard. Have you seen the picture of Shakeela in this week's Film Digest? She was a famous film star in the fifties and must be ninety now. See how old and desiccated she looks. And this is exactly how people will remember her after her death. As old and wrinkly and haggard. But people always remember Marilyn Monroe and Madhubala as young because they died young. The lasting image people have of you is how you looked at the time of your death. Like Madhubala, I want to leave behind an image of unspoilt youth and beauty, of everlasting grace and charm. I don't want to die when I am ninety. How I wish at times I could stop all the clocks of this world, shatter every mirror, and freeze my youthful face in time.'

A strange sadness spreads through me when I hear this. In a way, Neelima is an orphan, like me.

But unlike me, she has a larger family – her fans, producers and directors. And she is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their sake. So that they can remember her forever as a young woman.

For the first time, I feel lucky that I am not a film star.

* * *

A famous producer is coming to the house. Neelima is very excited. She believes he will offer her a role and she will get to face the camera once again. She spends the entire day applying make-up and trying on various outfits.

The producer comes in the evening. He is short and bald, with a bulging tummy. I am told to bring in gulab jamuns and samosas and sherbet.

'. . . is a great role for you, Neelimaji,' the producer is saying. 'I have always been one of your greatest fans. I saw Woman fifteen times. That death scene. O, my God, I could die seeing it.

That is why I've resolved to drag you out of your retirement. This film, for which I have already roped in a top-level director, is a woman-centric film. I am offering you a fantastic role.'

'Who is this director you have contracted?'

'It is Chimpu Dhawan.'

'But isn't he a comedy film director?'

'So what? Anyway, there will be some comedy in this film. For the lead roles I have already signed up Shahrukh Khan and Tabu.'

'I don't understand. You have already signed a heroine. So will you have two heroines?'

'No, not at all.'

'Then what will Tabu do?'

'She is the heroine.'

'So what role are you offering me?'

'Oh, didn't you understand? I am offering you the role of Shahrukh Khan's mother.'

She kicks him out of the house then and there.

The producer leaves, frothing at the mouth. 'Spoilt bitch, what does she think? She still fancies herself as a heroine. Has she seen herself in the mirror? She is lucky I didn't cast her as the grandmother. Huh!'

I thought this was a good comedy scene.

* * *

Her lover has visited her again. But this time things are more serious. She is in bed with a deep cut above her left eyebrow and her cheek is swollen. She has difficulty speaking.

'We must call the police, Madam, have that swine arrested,' I urge her as I apply antiseptic ointment to her bruises.

'No, Ram. I will be all right.'

'At least tell me his name.'

She laughs hoarsely. 'What good will that do? Don't worry, that man is never going to come here again. I finally broke off with him. That is why he did this to me. If he ever comes back, I will spit on him.'

'And how long will you suffer in silence? Look at what he has done to your face.'

'It is the destiny of a woman to suffer in silence. And what he has done to my face is nothing compared to what he has done to the rest of my body. Do you really want to see? Then look.' She unfastens the buttons on her blouse and snaps open her bra. I see a woman's naked breasts for the first time in my life. They are large and pendulous and hang down like udders on a cow. I recoil in shock when I see the cigarette burn marks all over her chest, looking like little black craters on the smooth white flesh. I begin to cry.

She is crying too. 'I do not want to live with a mask any more. I have had enough facelifts, taken enough beauty aids. I want to be a real woman for once in my life. Come to me, my child,' she says and draws my face into her chest.

I do not know what Neelima Kumari was thinking when she drew me to her bosom. Whether she saw me as a son or as a lover, whether she did it to forget her pain or simply to gain a cheap thrill. But as I nuzzled my face between her breasts, all consciousness of the outer world ceased in my brain and for the first time I felt as though I was not an orphan any more. That I had a real mother, one whose face I could see, one whose flesh I could touch. And the salty taste of my tears merged with the sweat and scent of her body in the most moving experience of my thirteen-year-old life. All the pain and suffering, all the insults and humiliation I had endured over the years melted away in that moment. I wanted to stop all the clocks of the world and freeze that moment for ever. For though it was all too brief, even in that short span of time it produced a sensation so genuine, no amount of acting can ever aspire to replicate it.

That is why I will not attempt to define this episode as a drama or a thriller or a tragedy. It was beyond any and all genres.

* * *

Neelima and I never speak again about that morning. And what happened then never happens again. But both of us live with the knowledge that our lives have been altered irrevocably.

She wants to remove her mask, but does not have the mental strength to do so. And she refuses to take my help. The inevitable destiny of a tragedy queen tugs at her with renewed urgency. She becomes more depressed. Her drinking increases to such an extent that she is hardly conscious of the world around her. She dismisses her maid and cook. I am the only one left in the flat. And then she prepares for the greatest role of her life.

Neelima Kumari asks me to stack all the film magazines with her pictures in neatly in a pile. She arranges all her trophies and awards personally, putting the platinum jubilee ones in front, followed by the golden jubilees and the silver jubilees. She wears her most expensive sari and puts on her finest jewellery. She spends three hours in front of the mirror making her face look the best it has ever looked. Afterwards, she flushes all her cosmetic creams down the toilet. She goes to the medicine cabinet and throws away all her beauty aids. Then she opens a jar containing painkillers prescribed for her mother. I don't know how many of these tablets she gulps down.

Finally, she enters her bedroom and inserts into the VCR the cassette of her film Mumtaz Mahal.

She sits down on the bed and presses the 'Play' button on the remote. The film begins on the TV screen. She orders me to get vegetables from the market and settles down to wait.

I find her the same evening on my return from the market, looking like a beautiful new bride sleeping on the bed. But I don't have to touch her cold skin to know that she is dead. In her hand she holds a trophy. It says, 'National Award for Best Actress. Awarded to Ms Neelima Kumari for her role in Mumtaz Mahal, 1985.'

What I see before me can only be described as the height of drama.

* * *

I gaze at Neelima Kumari's dead body and I do not know what to do. The only thing I am certain of is that I will not go to the police. They are quite capable of pinning the blame on me and arresting me for murder. So I do the only logical thing. I run away to the chawl in Ghatkopar.

'Why have you come here?' Salim asks me. 'I have also been dismissed by Madam, just like she dismissed the maid and the cook.' 'What will we do now? How will we pay rent for this chawl?'

'Don't worry, she has already paid advance rent for the next two months. By then I am sure I will get a new job.'

* * *

Every day that I stay in the chawl I fear that a jeep with a flashing red light will come to take me away, but nothing happens. There is also no news in the papers about Neelima Kumari's death.

Meanwhile, I get a job in a foundry.

They discover her body after a month, and only then because one of the neighbours complains about the smell. So they break open the door and enter. They find nothing in the drawing room or the first four bedrooms. Then they discover a rotting corpse in the master bedroom. The sari looks new, the jewellery sparkles, but the face and body have decomposed beyond recognition.

They cart away the body with white masks on their faces and dump the trophy in the dustbin.

They confirm her identity only from her dental records. And when they discover who she was, they publish the picture of her rotting body on the front page of all the newspapers. 'Neelima Kumari, famous Tragedy Queen of yesteryear, has committed suicide. She was forty-four. Her badly decomposed body was discovered in her flat only after a month.'

Now this I call a real tragedy.

* * *

Smita lets out a long breath. 'No wonder film stars are neurotic! You know, I have seen Mumtaz Mahal and I too have always wanted to know the mystery behind that gold bangle. I wonder what Neelima Kumari told that thief.'

'Unfortunately, that will remain a mystery. Now are we just going to talk about Neelima Kumari, or shall I tell you what happened next on the quiz show?'

With a reluctant expression, Smita presses 'Play'.

There is a flurry of activity inside the studio. We are in the middle of a long break. The producer of the show, a tall man with long hair like a woman — or a rock star – is busy conferring with Prem Kumar in a corner. After he leaves, Prem Kumar gestures me to join him.

'Look, Mr Thomas,' Prem Kumar tells me, 'you have done fantastically well on the show. You are sitting pretty with a million rupees in your kitty. Tell me, what do you intend to do now?'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean are you going to just walk away or will you play for the billion-rupee prize? Remember it is Play or Pay now.'

'Well then, I'm going to walk away. I have been lucky up till now, but my luck might just be running out.'

'Now that would be a real pity, Mr Thomas. We think that if you go on to win this quiz you can become the biggest role model for the youth of our country. So we in W3B have decided to make it easier for you to win. You remember how I helped you on the second question? If I had not changed the question for you then, you would have been out with not even a rupee in your pocket. I want to do the same for you on the next three questions. I promise you, if you agree to go into Play or Pay we will help you win, because we want you to win. It will be the best thing that ever happened to our show.'

'What kind of questions did you have in mind?'

'It doesn't really matter, because we will secretly tell you the answers beforehand. If you could trust me on question number two, I am sure you can trust me on questions ten, eleven and twelve. So do we have a deal?'

'Well, if you are guaranteeing my victory, I can hardly say no. So tell me, what is the next question?'

'Excellent.' Prem Kumar claps his hands. 'Billy,' he tells the producer, 'Mr Thomas has agreed to go into the Play or Pay rounds.' He turns back to me and whispers, 'OK, let me tell you about the next question. I am going to ask you, "What is the length of the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka? The choices are going to be a) 64 km, b) 94 km, c) 137 km, and d) 209 km. The correct answer will be c) 137 km. Have you understood?'

'Yes. But how can I be certain that it is the correct answer?'

'Oh, don't you trust us, Mr Thomas? Well, I don't blame you. After all, we are talking about a billion rupees here. So I will prove it to you. Here, look in this book. I am sure you can read numbers.' He pulls out a diary which has page upon page of questions and answers, like a quiz book. He jabs at a question. It is the same question that he has asked me. And it has the same answer: 137 km.

'Are you satisfied now that I am not going to pull a fast one over you?'

I nod my head.

'OK. You'd better return to your seat, and I will join you in a second.'

* * *

The signature tune comes on and the studio sign says 'Applause'. Prem Kumar addresses the audience. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we are at a historic crossroads in our show. We have with us a contestant who has reached the magic figure of one million rupees. Now he has to decide whether he goes on to compete for the top prize or retires from the game. The moment of truth has arrived, Mr Thomas. What is your decision? Will you play to win or will you run? Do remember, though, that if you play, you risk losing all that you have won till now. So what do you say?' He smiles at me reassuringly.

'I will play,' I say softly.

'Excuse me?' says Prem Kumar. 'Could you say that a bit louder, please?'

'I will play,' I say loudly and confidently.

There are gasps from the audience. Someone says, 'Oh, my God!' Another says, 'What an idiot!'

'Is this your final, irrevocable decision?' says Prem Kumar. He smiles at me again.

'Yes,' I say.

'Then we have made history, ladies and gentlemen,' Prem Kumar exults. 'We have with us a contestant who is prepared to risk it all. We had one other contestant before who risked it all – and lost. We will see today whether Mr Thomas can create history by becoming the winner of the biggest prize in history. OK, so we are ready for the final three questions in Play or Pay.

Please give him a big round of applause.'

There is a crescendo of drums. 'Play or Pay' flashes on the screen. The audience stand up in their seats and clap enthusiastically.

After the music dies down, Prem Kumar turns to me.

'OK, Mr Thomas, you have won one million rupees and you are in the sudden-death round which we call Play or Pay. You will either win a billion or you will lose everything you have earned till now. So question number ten for ten million, yes, ten million rupees is coming up. Here it is.

Neelima Kumari, the Tragedy Queen, won the National Award—?"

'But this is not the ques—'

'Please, Mr Thomas, don't interrupt me in the middle of the question. Let me complete,' he says sternly. 'So as I was saying, the question is, Neelima Kumari, the Tragedy Queen, won the National Award in which year? Was it a) 1984, b) 1988, c) 1986 or d) 1985?'

I glare at Prem Kumar. He smirks. I understand him now. What he told me in the break was a trick to lure me into this round. But he has not reckoned with my luck. It is still holding.

'I know the answer. It is d) 1985.'

'What?' Prem Kumar is thunderstruck. He is so surprised that he even forgets to ask me whether I am a hundred per cent sure. He presses his button mechanically and the correct answer flashes. It is D.

Prem Kumar looks as though he has seen a ghost. 'Mr . . . Mr Thomas . . . has . . . just won t-ten million rupees,' he stammers, completely flustered.

The audience goes wild. Everyone stands up and cheers. Some people start dancing in the aisles.

Prem Kumar wipes the sweat from his forehead and takes a big swig of lemonade. What should have been a tragedy has become a farce.

X GKRZ OPKNU (OR A LOVE STORY)

Food. That is all I can see, hear, think and smell on the crowded and noisy railway station where I have been standing in my cotton shirt and Levi jeans for the past two hours. If you don't eat for a while, the hunger just shrivels up and dies. But if you don't eat for a long time - and I have not had a meal since yesterday afternoon - your brain does funny things. All around me I can only see people eating and drinking. And my nose follows the trail of food like a dog sniffing out a bone. The aroma of freshly made jalebis, puris and kachoris makes me dizzy. Even something as basic as a boiled egg, which I have never liked, makes me salivate. But when I finger my pocket I discover only a one-rupee coin, and after last night's loss of my fifty thousand rupees, it doesn't seem lucky any longer. So I lick my parched lips and wonder how to kill my hunger.

I am about to trade in my Kasio digital watch for a plate of chhole bhature when my eyes fall on a hoarding next to the railway canteen. It says simply, 'M – Just one kilometre away.' I know instantly where I can get food. For free.

I leave Agra railway station and set about searching for the big red M sign. I take one or two wrong turns, ask a couple of shopkeepers, and find it eventually in the heart of a posh market.

The smartly attired waiters at McDonald's look at me suspiciously but don't shoo me away. They can't turn back a customer in Levi jeans, however scruffy he might be. I position myself close to the wooden bin, the one with the swinging flap. When no one is looking I quickly push my hand inside and take out as many of those nice brown paper bags as are within arm's reach. I exit after using the clean toilet to wash off some of the dirt and grime from my face.

My first attempt at scavenging is quite successful. I sit on a green wooden bench outside and feed contentedly on a half-eaten vegetable burger, some chicken nuggets, two almost full packets of French fries and half a cup of 7 Up. Scavenging is part of the survival gear of a street kid. I knew some boys who used to live off the leftovers found in the air-conditioned compartment of the Rajdhani Express. There were others who were addicted to the pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut, managing to extract at least seven or eight perfect slices every evening from the bin inside the outlet. But they all agreed that the easiest way to eat a free dinner was to join a marriage procession. Salim used to be an expert at this. The only requirement is to wear neat clothes and proper shoes. You mingle with the guests and then line up at the buffet dinner. The bride's side thinks you are from the groom's family and the groom's side thinks you are from the bride's family. You get to drink ten or fifteen bottles of soft drinks, eat a lavish spread and enjoy a wide range of desserts. You can even make off with some nice stainless-steel cutlery. Salim had acquired almost a full dinner set. But he gave up the habit after an episode in Nariman Point, when he gate-crashed a marriage where the families of the bride and groom had a massive fight which degenerated into fisticuffs. Salim got beaten up by both parties.

* * *

My hunger sated, I decide to explore this unknown town. I walk through its crowded lanes, full of rickshaws, pedestrians and cows. I admire the intricate latticework on old-fashioned havelis, savour the smell of food drifting from road-side kebab shops and pure vegetarian dhabas, and wrinkle my nose at the stench coming from open drains and tanneries. I read the giant posters stuck on every empty space, urging people to see new films or vote for old politicians. I see old and wizened craftsmen sitting in derelict shops, making exquisite designs in marble, and brash young salesmen selling cellphones in air-conditioned showrooms. I discover that the rich of Agra are no different from the rich of Delhi and Mumbai, living in their marble and Plexiglas houses with guards and alarms. And that the slums of Agra are no different either. They consist of the same cluster of corrugated-iron sheets masquerading as roofs; the same naked children with pot bellies frolic in the mud with pigs, while their mothers wash utensils in sewer water.

I walk along a winding dusty road, and suddenly I see a river. It is yellowish green and muddy.

Its receding water level is a pointer to the fact that the monsoons have still not arrived. Pieces of driftwood and plastic debris float on its eddying currents. In another place I would have traced its meandering route with my eyes, bent down to see its high-water mark on the bank, craned to catch a glimpse of a dead body floating on its surface. But not here, not now. Because my eyes are transfixed by something I have seen on the opposite bank. It is a gleaming white structure which rises up from a square base like a swelling dome, with pointed arches and recessed bays. It is flanked on all four sides by spear-like minarets. It glitters in the sunlight against the turquoise sky like an ivory moon. Its beauty overpowers me.

After an eternity, I turn to the first passer-by I see, a middle-aged man carrying a tiffin box.

'Excuse me, can you tell me what that building is on the other side of the river?'

He looks at me as if I am a lunatic. 'Arrey, if you don't know that, what are you doing in Agra?

That is the Taj Mahal, idiot.'

The Taj Mahal. The Eighth Wonder of the World. I had heard about it, but never seen its picture.

I stand mesmerized by the monument as the clouds drifting in the sky cast shadows on its dome, the change of light turning the smooth marble from pale cream to ochre to alabaster. The loss of my fifty thousand rupees, the worries about where I will eat next, sleep next, the fear of being caught by the police, pale into insignificance against the purity of its perfection. I decide then and there that I must see the Taj Mahal today. From up close.

Thirty minutes of brisk walking along the embankment brings me to an enormous red-sandstone entrance gate. A large white board says: TAJ MAHAL ENTRY FEES: INDIANS RS.20 FOREIGNERS $20. MONDAYS CLOSED, FRIDAYS FREE. I look at my Kasio day-date wristwatch. It says Friday, 12 June. Looks like today is my lucky day.

I pass through the metal detector, cross the red-sandstone forecourt with its arched gateway and there, in front of me, the Taj Mahal rises in all its beauty and splendour, shimmering in the afternoon haze. I take in the landscaped garden with fountains and wide paths, the reflecting pool with a glassy image of the Taj dancing in its water, and only then do I notice the overflowing crowds. The Taj is swarming with tourists, young and old, rich and poor, Indian and foreign.

There are flashbulbs popping everywhere, a babble of voices rises in the courtyard, while stern-faced, baton-wielding policemen try to restore order.

After half an hour of aimless exploration, I notice a group of prosperous Western tourists armed with camcorders and binoculars, listening intently to an elderly guide at the base of the dome. I join them discreetly. The guide is pointing towards the marble dome and speaking in a rasping voice. 'I have explained to you the architectural features of the red-sandstone forecourt, the Chowk-i Jilo Khana, which we have just passed. Now I will tell you a little bit about the history of the Taj Mahal.