The White Tiger

The Sixth Morning

Pardon me, Your Excellency, for the long intermission. It's now 6:20, so I've been gone five hours. Unfortunately, there was an incident that threatened to jeopardize the reputation of an outsourcing company I work with.

A fairly serious incident, sir. A man has lost his life in this incident. (No: Don't misunderstand. I had nothing to do with his death! But I'll explain later.)

Now, excuse me a minute while I turn the fan on-I'm still sweating, sir-and let me sit down on the floor, and watch the fan chop up the light of the chandelier.

The rest of today's narrative will deal mainly with the sorrowful tale of how I was corrupted from a sweet, innocent village fool into a citified fellow full of debauchery, depravity, and wickedness.

All these changes happened in me because they happened first in Mr. Ashok. He returned from America an innocent man, but life in Delhi corrupted him-and once the master of the Honda City becomes corrupted, how can the driver stay innocent?

Now, I thought I knew Mr. Ashok, sir. But that's presumption on the part of any servant.

The moment his brother left, he changed. He began wearing a black shirt with the top button open, and changed his perfume.

"To the mall, sir?"

"Yes."

"Which mall, sir? The one where Madam used to go?"

But Mr. Ashok would not take the bait. He was punching the buttons of his cell phone and he just grunted, "Sahara Mall, Balram."

"That's the one Madam liked going to, sir."

"Don't keep talking about Madam in every other sentence."

I sat outside the mall and wondered what he was doing there. There was a flashing red light on the top floor, and I guessed that it was a disco. Lines of young men and women were standing outside the mall, waiting to go up to that red light. I trembled with fear to see what these city girls were wearing.

Mr. Ashok didn't stay long in there, and he came out alone. I breathed out in relief.

"Back to Buckingham, sir?"

"Not yet. Take me to the Sheraton Hotel."

As I drove into the city, I noticed that something was different about the way Delhi looked that night.

Had I never before seen how many painted women stood at the sides of the roads? Had I never seen how many men had stopped their cars, in the middle of the traffic, to negotiate a price with these women?

I closed my eyes; I shook my head. What's happening to you tonight?

At this point, something took place that cleared my confusion-but also proved very embarrassing to me and to Mr. Ashok. I had stopped the car at a traffic signal; a girl began crossing the road in a tight T-shirt, her chest bobbing up and down like three kilograms of brinjals in a bag. I glanced at the rearview mirror-and there was Mr. Ashok, his eyes also bobbing up and down.

I thought, Aha! Caught you, you rascal!

And his eyes shone, for he had seen my eyes, and he was thinking the exact same thing: Aha! Caught you, you rascal!

We had caught each other out.

(This little rectangular mirror inside the car, Mr. Jiabao-has no one ever noticed before how embarrassing it is? How, every now and then, when master and driver find each other's eyes in this mirror, it swings open like a door into a changing room, and the two of them have suddenly caught each other naked?)

I was blushing. Mercifully, the light turned green, and I drove on.

I swore not to look in the rearview mirror again that night. Now I understood why the city looked so different-why my beak was getting stiff as I was driving.

Because he was horny. And inside that sealed car, master and driver had somehow become one body that night.

It was with great relief that I drove the Honda into the gate of the Maurya Sheraton Hotel, and brought that excruciating trip to an end.

Now, Delhi is full of grand hotels. In ring roads and sewage plants you might have an edge in Beijing, but in pomp and splendor, we're second to none in Delhi. We've got the Sheraton, the Imperial, the Taj Palace, Taj Mansingh, the Oberoi, the InterContinental, and many more. Now, the five-star hotels of Bangalore I know inside out, having spent thousands of rupees eating kebabs of chicken, mutton, and beef in their restaurants, and picking up sluts of all nationalities in their bars, but the five-stars of Delhi are things of mystery to me. I've been to them all, but I've never stepped past the front door of one. We're not allowed to do that; there's usually a fat guard at the glass door up at the front, a man with a waxed mustache and beard, who wears a ridiculous red circus turban and thinks he's someone important because the American tourists want to have their photo taken with him. If he so much as sees a driver near the hotel, he'll glare-he'll shake a finger like a schoolteacher.

That's the driver's fate. Every other servant thinks he can boss over us.

There are strict rules at the five-stars about where the drivers keep their cars while their masters are inside. Sometimes they put you in a parking spot downstairs. Sometimes in the back. Sometimes up at the front, near the trees. And you sit there and wait, for an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, yawning and doing nothing, until the guard at the door, the fellow with the turban, mumbles into a microphone, saying, "Driver So-and-So, you may come to the glass door with the car. Your master is waiting for you."

The drivers were waiting near the parking lot of the hotel, in their usual key-chain-swirling, paan-chewing, gossipmongering, ammonia-releasing circle. Crouching and jabbering like monkeys.

The driver with the diseased lips was sitting apart from them, engrossed in his magazine. On this week's cover, there was a photo of a woman lying on a bed, her clothes undone; her lover stood next to her, raising a knife over her head.

MURDER WEEKLY

RUPEES 4.50

EXCLUSIVE TRUE STORY:

"HE WANTED HIS MASTER'S WIFE."

LOVE-RAPE-REVENGE!

"Been thinking about what I said, Country-Mouse?" he asked me, as he flipped through a story.

"About getting your master something he'd like? Hashish, or girls, or golf balls? Genuine golf balls from the U.S. Consulate?"

"He's not that kind."

The pink lips twisted into a smile. "Want to know a secret? My master likes film actresses. He takes them to a hotel in Jangpura, with a big, glowing T sign on it, and hammers them there."

He named three famous Mumbai actresses his master had "hammered."

"And yet he looks like a goody-goody. Only I know-and I tell you, all the masters are the same. One day you'll believe me. Now come read a story with me."

We read like that, in total silence. After the third murder story, I went to the side, to a clump of trees, to take an ammonia break. He walked along with me.

Our piss hit the bark of the tree just inches apart.

"I've got a question for you."

"About city girls again?"

"No. About what happens to old drivers."

"Huh?"

"I mean what will happen to me a few years from now? Do I make enough money to buy a house and then set up a business of my own?"

"Well," he said, "a driver is good till he's fifty or fifty-five. Then the eyes go bad and they kick you out, right? That's thirty years from now, Country-Mouse. If you save from today, you'll make enough to buy a small home in some slum. If you've been a bit smarter and made a little extra on the side, then you'll have enough to put your son in a good school. He can learn English, he can go to university. That's the best-case scenario. A house in a slum, a kid in college."

"Best-case?"

"Well, on the other hand, you can get typhoid from bad water. Boss sacks you for no reason. You get into an accident-plenty of worst-case scenarios."

I was still pissing, but he put a hand on me. "There's something I've got to ask you, Country-Mouse. Are you all right?"

I looked at him sideways. "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but some of the drivers are talking about it openly. You sit by yourself in your master's car the whole time, you talk to yourself…You know what you need? A woman. Have you seen the slum behind the malls? They're not bad-looking-nice and plump. Some of us go there once a week. You can come too."

"DRIVER BALRAM, WHERE ARE YOU?"

It was the call from the microphone at the gate of the hotel. Mr. Turban was at the microphone-speaking in the most pompous, stern voice possible: "DRIVER BALRAM REPORT AT ONCE TO THE DOOR. NO DELAY. YOUR MASTER WANTS YOU."

I zipped up and ran, wiping my wet fingers on the back of my pants.

Mr. Ashok was walking out of the hotel with his hands around a girl when I brought the car up to the gate.

She was a slant-eyed one, with yellow skin. A foreigner. A Nepali. Not even of his caste or background. She sniffed about the seats-the seats that I had polished-and jumped on them.

Mr. Ashok put his hands on the girl's bare shoulders. I took my eyes away from the mirror.

I have never approved of debauchery inside cars, Mr. Jiabao.

But I could smell the mingling of their perfumes-I knew exactly what was going on behind me.

I thought he would ask me to drive him home now, but no-the carnival of fun just went on and on. He wanted to go to PVR Saket.

Now, PVR Saket is the scene of a big cinema, which shows ten or twelve cinemas at the same time, and charges over a hundred and fifty rupees per cinema-yes, that's right, a hundred and fifty rupees! That's not all: you've also got plenty of places to drink beer, dance, pick up girls, that sort of thing. A small bit of America in India.

Beyond the last shining shop begins the second PVR. Every big market in Delhi is two markets in one-there is always a smaller, grimier mirror image of the real market, tucked somewhere into a by-lane.

This is the market for the servants. I crossed over to this second PVR-a line of stinking restaurants, tea stalls, and giant frying pans where bread was toasted in oil. The men who work in the cinemas, and who sweep them clean, come here to eat. The beggars have their homes here.

I bought a tea and a potato vada, and sat under a banyan tree to eat.

"Brother, give me three rupees." An old woman, looking lean and miserable, with her hand stretched out.

"I'm not one of the rich, mother-go to that side and ask them."

"Brother-"

"Let me eat, all right? Just leave me alone!"

She went. A knife-grinder came and set up his stall right next to my tree. Holding two knives in his hand, he sat on his machine-it was one of the foot-pedaled whetstones-and began pedaling. Sparks began buzzing a couple of inches away from me.

"Brother, do you have to do your work here? Don't you see a human being is trying to eat?"

He stopped pedaling, blinked, then put the blades to the whizzing whetstone again, as if he hadn't heard a word I'd said.

I threw the potato vada at his feet:

"How stupid can you people get?"

The old beggar woman made the crossing with me, into the other PVR. She hitched up her sari, took a breath, and then began her routine: "Sister, just give me three rupees. I haven't eaten since morning…"

A giant pile of old books lay in the center of the market, arranged in a large, hollow square, like the mandala made at weddings to hold the sacred fire. A small man sat cross-legged on a stack of magazines in the center of the square of books, like the priest in charge of this mandala of print. The books drew me toward them like a big magnet, but as soon as he saw me, the man sitting on the magazines snapped, "All the books are in English."

"So?"

"Do you read English?" he barked.

"Do you read English?" I retorted.

There. That did it. Until then his tone of talking to me had been servant-to-servant; now it became man-to-man. He stopped and looked me over from top to bottom.

"No," he said, breaking into a smile, as if he appreciated my balls.

"So how do you sell the books without knowing English?"

"I know which book is what from the cover," he said. "I know this one is Harry Potter." He showed it to me. "I know this one is James Hadley Chase." He picked it up. "This is Kahlil Gibran-this is Adolf Hitler-Desmond Bagley-The Joy of Sex. One time the publishers changed the Hitler cover so it looked like Harry Potter, and life was hell for a week after that."

"I just want to stand around the books. I had a book once. When I was a boy."

"Suit yourself."

So I stood around that big square of books. Standing around books, even books in a foreign language, you feel a kind of electricity buzzing up toward you, Your Excellency. It just happens, the way you get erect around girls wearing tight jeans.

Except here what happens is that your brain starts to hum.

Forty-seven hundred rupees. In that brown envelope under my bed.

Odd sum of money-wasn't it? There was a mystery to be solved here. Let's see. Maybe she started off giving me five thousand, and then, being cheap, like all rich people are-remember how the Mongoose made me get down on my knees for that one-rupee coin?-deducted three hundred.

That's not how the rich think, you moron. Haven't you learned yet?

She must have taken out ten thousand at first. Then cut it in half, and kept half for herself. Then taken out another hundred rupees, another hundred, and another hundred. That's how cheap they are.

So that means they really owe you ten thousand. But if she thought she owed you ten thousand, then what she truly owed you was, what-ten times more?

"No, a hundred times more."

The small man, putting down the newspaper he was reading, turned me to from inside his mandala of books. "What did you say?" he shouted.

"Nothing."

He shouted again. "Hey, what do you do?"

I grabbed an imaginary wheel and turned it one hundred and eighty degrees.

"Ah, I should have known. Drivers are smart men-they hear a lot of interesting things. Right?"

"Other drivers might. I go deaf inside the car."

"Sure, sure. Tell me, you must know English-some of what they talk must stick to you."

"I told you, I don't listen. How can it stick?"

"What does this word in the newspaper mean? Pri-va-see."

I told him, and he smiled gratefully. "We had just started the English alphabet when I got taken out of school by my family."

So he was another of the half-baked. My caste.

"Hey," he shouted again. "Want to read some of this?" He held up a magazine with an American woman on the cover-the kind that rich boys like to buy. "It's good stuff."

I flicked through the magazine. He was right, it was good stuff.

"How much does this magazine sell for?"

"Sixty rupees. Would you believe that? Sixty rupees for a used magazine. And there's a fellow in Khan Market who sells magazines from England that cost five hundred and eight rupees each! Would you believe that?"

I raised my head to the sky and whistled. "Amazing how much money they have," I said, aloud, yet as if talking to myself. "And yet they treat us like animals."

It was as if I had said something to disturb him, because he lowered and raised his paper a couple of times; then he came to the very edge of the mandala and, partially hiding his face with the paper, whispered something.

I cupped a hand around my ear. "Say that again?"

He looked around and said, a bit louder this time, "It won't last forever, though. The current situation."

"Why not?" I moved toward the mandala.

"Have you heard about the Naxals?" he whispered over the books. "They've got guns. They've got a whole army. They're getting stronger by the day."

"Really?"

"Just read the papers. The Chinese want a civil war in India, see? Chinese bombs are coming to Burma, and into Bangladesh, and then into Calcutta. They go down south into Andhra Pradesh, and up into the Darkness. When the time is right, all of India will…"

He opened his palms.

We talked like this for a while-but then our friendship ended as all servant-servant friendships must: with our masters bellowing for us. A gang of rich kids wanted to be shown a smutty American magazine-and Mr. Ashok came walking out of a bar, staggering, stinking of liquor; the Nepali girl was with him.

On the way back, the two of them were talking at the top of their voices; and then the petting and kissing began. My God, and he a man who was still lawfully married to another woman! I was so furious that I drove right through four red lights, and almost smashed into an oxcart that was going down the road with a load of kerosene cans, but they never noticed.

"Good night, Balram," Mr. Ashok shouted as he got out, hand in hand with her.

"Good night, Balram!" she shouted.

They ran into the apartment and took turns jabbing the call button for the elevator.

When I got to my room, I searched under the bed. It was still there, the maharaja tunic that he had given me-the turban and dark glasses too.

I drove the car out of the apartment block, dressed like a maharaja, with the dark glasses on. No idea where I was going-I just drove around the malls. Each time I saw a pretty girl I hooted the horn at her and her friends.

I played his music. I ran his A/C at full blast.

I drove back to the building, took the car down into the garage, folded the dark glasses into my pocket, and took off the tunic.

I spat over the seats of the Honda City, and wiped them clean.

The next morning, he didn't come down or call me up to his room. I took the elevator, and stood near the door. I was feeling guilty about what I'd done the previous night. I wondered if I should make a full confession. I reached for the bell a few times, and then sighed and gave up.

After a while, there were soft noises from inside. I put my ear to the wood and listened.

"But I have changed."

"Don't keep apologizing."

"I had more fun last evening than in four years of marriage."

"When you left for New York, I thought I'd never see you again. And now I have. That's the main thing for me."

I turned away from the door and slapped my fist into my forehead. My guilt was growing by the minute. She was his old lover, you fool-not some pickup!

Of course-he would never go for a slut. I had always known that he was a good man: a cut above me.

I pinched my left palm as punishment.

And put my ear to the door again.

The phone began to ring from inside. Silence for a while, and then he said, "That's Puddles. And that's Cuddles. You remember them, don't you? They always bark for me. Here, take the phone, listen…"

"Bad news?" Her voice, after a few minutes. "You look upset."

"I have to go see a cabinet minister. I hate doing that. They're all so slimy. The business I'm in…it's a bad one. I wish I were doing something else. Something clean. Like outsourcing. Every day I wish it."

"Why don't you do something else, then? It was the same when they told you not to marry me. You couldn't say no then either."

"It's not that simple, Uma. They're my father and brother."

"I wonder if you have changed, Ashok. The first call from Dhanbad, and you're back to your old self."

"Look, let's not fight again. I'll send you back in the car now."

"Oh, no. I'm not going back with your driver. I know his kind, the village kind. They think that any unmarried woman they see is a whore. And he probably thinks I'm a Nepali, because of my eyes. You know what that means for him. I'll go back on my own."

"This fellow is all right. He's part of the family."

"You shouldn't be so trusting, Ashok. Delhi drivers are all rotten. They sell drugs, and prostitutes, and God knows what else."

"Not this one. He's stupid as hell, but he is honest. He'll drive you back."

"No, Ashok. I'll get a taxi. I'll call you in the evening?"

I realized that she was edging toward the door, and I turned and tiptoed away.

There was no word from him until evening, and then he came down for the car. He made me go from one bank to another bank. Sitting in the driver's seat, I watched through the corner of my eye; he was collecting money from the automatic cash machines-four different ones. Then he said, "Balram, go to the city. You know the big house that's on the Ashoka Road, where we went to with Mukesh Sir once?"

"Yes, sir. I remember. They've got two big Alsatian guard dogs, sir."

"Exactly. Your memory's good, Balram."

I saw in the spy mirror that Mr. Ashok was pressing the buttons on his cell phone as I drove. Probably telling the minister's servant that he was coming with the cash. So now I understood at last what work my master was doing as I drove him through Delhi.

"I'll be back in twenty minutes, Balram," Mr. Ashok said when we got to the minister's bungalow. He stepped out with the red bag and slammed the door.

A security guard with a rifle sat in a metal booth over the red wall of the minister's house, watching me carefully. The two Alsatian dogs, roaming the compound, barked now and then.

It was the hour of sunset. The birds of the city began to make a ruckus as they flew home. Now, Delhi, Mr. Premier, is a big city, but there are wild places in it-big parks, protected forests, stretches of wasteland-and things can suddenly come out of these wild places. As I was watching the red wall of the minister's house, a peacock flew up over the guard's booth and perched there; for an instant its deep blue neck and its long tail turned golden in the setting sunlight. Then it vanished.

In a little while it was night.

The dogs began barking. The gate opened. Mr. Ashok came out of the minister's house with a fat man-the same man who had come out that day from the President's House. I guessed that he was the minister's assistant. They stopped in front of the car and talked.

The fat man shook hands with Mr. Ashok, who was clearly eager to leave him-but ah, it isn't so easy to let go of a politician-or even a politician's sidekick. I got out of the car, pretending to check the tires, and moved into eavesdropping distance.

"Don't worry, Ashok. I'll make sure the minister gives your father a call tomorrow."

"Thank you. My family appreciates your help."

"What are you doing after this?"

"Nothing. Just going home to Gurgaon."

"A young man like you going home this early? Let's have some fun."

"Don't you have to work on the elections?"

"The elections? All wrapped up. It's a landslide. The minister said so this morning. Elections, my friend, can be managed in India. It's not like in America."

Brushing aside Mr. Ashok's protests, the fat man forced his way into the car. We had just started down the road when he said, "Ashok, let me have a whiskey."

"Here, in the car? I don't have any."

The fat man seemed astonished. "Everyone has whiskey in their car in Delhi, Ashok, didn't you know this?"

He told me to go back to the minister's bungalow. He went inside and came back with a pair of glasses and a bottle. He slammed the door, breathed out, and said, "Now this car is fully equipped."

Mr. Ashok took the bottle and got ready to pour the fat man a glass, when he smacked his lips in annoyance. "Not you, you fool. The driver. He is the one who pours the drinks."

I turned around at once and turned myself into a barman.

"This driver is very talented," the fat man said. "Sometimes they make a mess of pouring a drink."

"You'd never guess that his caste was a teetotaling one, would you?"

I tightened the cap on the bottle and left it next to the gearbox. I heard the clinking of glasses behind me and two voices saying, "Cheers!"

"Let's go," the minister's sidekick said. "Let's go to the Sheraton, driver. There's a good restaurant down in the basement there, Ashok. Quiet place. We'll have some fun there."

I turned the ignition key and took the dark egg of the Honda City down the streets of New Delhi.

"A man's car is a man's palace. I can't believe you've never done this."

"Well, you'd never try it in America -would you?"

"That's the whole advantage of being in Delhi, dear boy!" The fat man slapped Mr. Ashok's thigh.

He sipped, and said, "What's your situation, Ashok?"

"Coal trading, these days. People think it's only technology that's booming. But coal-the media pays no attention to coal, does it? The Chinese are consuming coal like crazy and the price is going up everywhere. Millionaires are being made, left, right, and center."

"Sure, sure," the fat man said. "The China Effect." He sniffed his glass. "But that's not what we in Delhi mean when we say situation, dear boy!"

The minister's sidekick smiled. "Basically, what I'm asking is, who services you-down there?" He pointed at a part of Mr. Ashok's body that he had no business pointing at.

"I am separated. Going through a divorce."

"I'm sorry to hear that," the fat man said. "Marriage is a good institution. Everything's coming apart in this country. Families, marriages-everything."

He sipped some more whiskey and said, "Tell me, Ashok, do you think there will be a civil war in this country?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Four days ago, I was in a court in Ghaziabad. The judge gave an order that the lawyers didn't like, and they simply refused to accept his order. They went mad-they dragged the judge down and beat him, in his own court. The matter was not reported in the press. But I saw it with my own eyes. If people start beating the judges-in their own courtrooms-then what is the future for our country?"

Something icy cold touched my neck. The fat man was rubbing me with his glass.

"Another drink, driver."

"Yes, sir."

Have you ever seen this trick, Your Excellency? A man steering the car with one hand, and picking up a whiskey bottle with the other hand, hauling it over his shoulder, then pouring it into a glass, even as the car is moving, without spilling a drop! The skills required of an Indian driver! Not only does he have to have perfect reflexes, night vision, and infinite patience, he also has to be the consummate barman!

"Would you like some more, sir?"

I glanced at the minister's sidekick, at the fat, corrupt folds of flesh under his chin-then glanced at the road to make sure I wasn't driving into anything.

"Pour one for your master now."

"No, I don't drink much, really. I'm fine."

"Don't be silly, Ashok. I insist-fellow, pour one for your master."

So I had to turn and do the amazing one-hand-on-the-wheel-one-hand-with-the-whiskey-bottle trick all over again.

The fat man went quiet after the second drink. He wiped his lips.

"When you were in America you must have had a lot of women? I mean-the local women."

"No."

"No? What does that mean?"

"I was faithful to Pinky-my wife-the whole time."

"My. You were faithful. What an idea. Faithfully married. No wonder it ended in divorce. Have you never had a white woman?"

"I told you."

"God. Why is it always the wrong kind of Indian who goes abroad? Listen, do you want one now? A European girl?"

"Now?"

"Now," he said. "A female from Russia. She looks just like that American actress." He mentioned a name. "Want to do it?"

"A whore?"

The fat man smiled. "A friend. A magical friend. Want to do it?"

"No. Thanks. I'm seeing someone. I just met someone I knew a long-"

The fat man took out his cell phone and punched some numbers. The light of the phone made a blue halo on his face.

"She's there right now. Let's go see her. She's a stunner, I tell you. Just like that American actress. Do you have thirty thousand on you?"

"No. Listen. I'm seeing someone. I'm not-"

"No problem. I'll pay now. You can pay later. Just put it into the next envelope you give the minister." He put his hand on Mr. Ashok's hand and winked, then leaned over and gave instructions to me. I looked at Mr. Ashok in the rearview mirror as hard as I could.

A whore? That's for people like me, sir. Are you sure you want this?

I wish I could have told him this openly-but who was I? Just the driver.

I took orders from the fat man. Mr. Ashok said nothing-just sat there sucking his whiskey like a boy with a soda. Maybe he thought it was a joke, or maybe he was too frightened of the fat man to say no.

But I will defend his honor to my deathbed. They corrupted him.

The fat man made me drive to a place in Greater Kailash-another housing colony where people of quality live in Delhi. Touching my neck with his icy glass when I had to make a turn, he guided me to the place. It was as large as a small palace, with big white columns of marble up the front. From the amount of garbage thrown outside the walls of the house, you knew that rich people lived here.

The fat man held open the car door as he spoke into a phone. Five minutes later he slammed the door shut. I began sneezing. A weird perfume had filled the back of the car.

"Stop that sneezing and drive us toward Jangpura, son."

"Sorry, sir."

The fat man smiled. He turned to the girl who had got into the car and said, "Speak to my friend Ashok in Hindi, please."

I looked into the rearview mirror, and caught my first glimpse of this girl.

It's true, she did look like an actress I had seen somewhere or other. The name of the actress, though, I didn't know. It's only when I came to Bangalore and mastered the use of the Internet-in just two quick sessions, mind you!-that I found her photo and name on Google.

Kim Basinger.

That was the name the fat man had mentioned. And it was true-the girl who got in with the fat man did look exactly like Kim Basinger! She was tall and beautiful, but the most remarkable thing about her was her hair-golden and glossy, just like in the shampoo advertisements!

"How are you, Ashok?" She said it in perfect Hindi. She put her hand out and took Mr. Ashok's hand.

The minister's assistant chuckled. "There. India has progressed, hasn't it? She's speaking in Hindi."

He slapped her on the thigh. "Your Hindi has improved, dear."

Mr. Ashok leaned back to speak to the fat man over her shoulder. "Is she Russian?"

"Ask her, don't ask me, Ashok. Don't be shy. She's a friend."

"Ukrainian," she said in her accented Hindi. "I am a Ukrainian student in India."

I thought: I would have to remember this place, Ukraine. And one day I would have to go there!

"Ashok," the fat man said. "Go on, touch her hair. It's real. Don't be scared-she's a friend." He chuckled. "See-didn't hurt, did it, Ashok? Say something in Hindi to Mr. Ashok, dear. He's still frightened of you."

"You're a handsome man," she said. "Don't be frightened of me."

"Driver." The fat man leaned forward and touched me with his cold glass again. "Are we near Jangpura?"

"Yes, sir."

"When you go down the Masjid Road, you'll see a hotel with a big neon T sign on it. Take us there."

I got them there in ten minutes-you couldn't miss the hotel, the big T sign on it glowed like a lantern in the dark.

Taking the golden-haired woman with him, the fat man went up to the hotel reception, where the manager greeted him warmly. Mr. Ashok walked behind them and kept looking from side to side, like a guilty little boy about to do something very bad.

Half an hour passed. I was outside, my hands on the wheel the whole time. I punched the little ogre. I began to gnaw at the wheel.

I kept hoping he'd come running out, arms flailing, and screaming, Balram, I was on the verge of making a mistake! Save me-let's drive away at once!

An hour later Mr. Ashok came out of the hotel-alone, and looking ill.

"The meeting's over, Balram," he said, letting his head fall back on the seat. "Let's go home."

I didn't start the car for a second. I kept my finger on the ignition key.

"Balram, let's go home, I said!"

"Yes, sir."

When we got back to Gurgaon, he staggered out toward the elevator. I did not leave the car. I let five minutes pass, and then drove back to Jangpura, straight to the hotel with the T on it.

I parked in a corner and watched the door of the hotel. I wanted her to come out.

A rickshaw-puller drove up next to me, a small, unshaven, stick-thin man, who looked dead tired as he wiped his face and legs clean with a rag, and went to sleep on the ground. On the seat of his rickshaw was a white advertising sticker:

IS EXCESS WEIGHT A PROBLEM FOR YOU?

CALL JIMMY SINGH AT METRO GYM: 9811799289

The mascot of the gym-an American with enormous white muscles-smiled at me from above the slogan. The rickshaw-puller's snoring filled the air.

Someone in the hotel must have seen me. After a while, the door opened: a policeman came out, peered at me, and then began walking down the steps.

I turned the key; I took the car back to Gurgaon.

Now, I've driven around Bangalore at night too, but I never get that feeling here that I did in Delhi-the feeling that if something is burning inside me as I drive, the city will know about it-she will burn with the same thing.

My heart was bitter that night. The city knew this-and under the dim orange glow cast everywhere by the weak streetlamps, she was bitter.

Speak to me of civil war, I told Delhi.

I will, she said.

An overturned flower urn on a traffic island in the middle of a road; next to it three men sit with open mouths. An older man with a beard and white turban is talking to them with a finger upraised. Cars drive by him with their dazzling headlights, and the noise drowns out his words. He looks like a prophet in the middle of the city, unnoticed except by his three apostles. They will become his three generals. That overturned flower urn is a symbol of some kind.

Speak to me of blood on the streets, I told Delhi.

I will, she said.

I saw other men discussing and talking and reading in the night, alone or in clusters around the streetlamps. By the dim lights of Delhi, I saw hundreds that night, under trees, shrines, intersections, on benches, squinting at newspapers, holy books, journals, Communist Party pamphlets. What were they reading about? What were they talking about?

But what else?

Of the end of the world.

And if there is blood on these streets-I asked the city-do you promise that he'll be the first to go-that man with the fat folds under his neck?

A beggar sitting by the side of the road, a nearly naked man coated with grime, and with wild unkempt hair in long coils like snakes, looked into my eyes:

Promise.

Colored pieces of glass have been embedded into the boundary wall of Buckingham Towers B Block-to keep robbers out. When headlights hit them, the shards glow, and the wall turns into a Technicolored, glass-spined monster.

The gatekeeper stared at me as I drove in. I saw rupee notes shining in his eyes.

This was the second time he had seen me going out and returning on my own.

In the parking lot, I got out of the driver's seat and carefully closed the door. I opened the passenger's door, and went inside, and passed my hand along the leather. I passed my hands from one side of the leather seats to the other three times, and then I found what I was looking for.

I held it up to the light.

A strand of golden hair!

I've got it in my desk to this day.