The White Tiger

The Sixth Night

The dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor-they never overlap, do they?

See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of?

Losing weight and looking like the poor.

Every evening, the compound around Buckingham Towers B Block becomes an exercise ground. Plump, paunchy men and even plumper, paunchier women, with big circles of sweat below their arms, are doing their evening "walking."

See, with all these late-night parties, all that drinking and munching, the rich tend to get fat in Delhi. So they walk to lose weight.

Now, where should a human being walk? In the outdoors-by a river, inside a park, around a forest.

However, displaying their usual genius for town planning, the rich of Delhi had built this part of Gurgaon with no parks, lawns, or playgrounds-it was just buildings, shopping malls, hotels, and more buildings. There was a pavement outside, but that was for the poor to live on. So if you wanted to do some "walking," it had to be done around the concrete compound of your own building.

Now, while they walked around the apartment block, the fatsos made their thin servants-most of them drivers-stand at various spots on that circle with bottles of mineral water and fresh towels in their hands. Each time they completed a circuit around the building, they stopped next to their man, grabbed the bottle-gulp-grabbed the towel-wipe, wipe-then it was off on round two.

Vitiligo-Lips was standing in one corner of the compound, with his bottle and his master's sweaty towel. Every few minutes, he turned to me with a twinkle in his eyes-his boss, the steel man, who was bald until two weeks ago, now sported a head of thick black hair-an expensive toupee job he had gone all the way to England for. This toupee was the main subject of discussion in the monkey-circle these days-the other drivers had offered Vitiligo-Lips ten rupees to resort to the old tricks of braking unexpectedly, or taking the car full speed over a pothole, to knock over his master's toupee at least once.

The secrets of their masters were spilled and dissected every evening by the monkey-circle-though if any of them made the divorce a topic of discussion, he knew he would have to deal with me. On Mr. Ashok's privacy I allowed no one to infringe.

I was standing just a few feet from Vitiligo-Lips, with my master's bottle of mineral water in my hand and his sweat-stained towel on my shoulder.

Mr. Ashok was about to complete his circle-I could smell his sweat coming toward me. This was round number three for him. He took the bottle, drained it, wiped his face with his towel, and draped it back on my shoulder.

"I'm done, Balram. Bring the towel and bottle up, okay?"

"Yes, sir," I said, and watched him go into the apartment block. He took a walk once or twice a week, but it clearly wasn't enough to counter his nights of debauchery-I saw a big, wet paunch pressing against his white T-shirt. How repulsive he was, these days.

I signaled to Vitiligo-Lips before going down to the parking lot.

Ten minutes later, I smelled the steel man's sweat and heard footsteps. Vitiligo-Lips had come down. I called him over to the Honda City-it was the only place in the world I felt fully safe anymore.

"What is it, Country-Mouse? Want another magazine?"

"Not that. Something else."

I got down on my haunches; I squatted by one of the tires of the City. I scraped the grooves of the tire with a fingernail. He squatted too.

I showed him the strand of golden hair-I kept it tied around my wrist, like a locket. He brought my wrist to his nose-he rubbed the strand between his fingers, sniffed it, and let my wrist down.

"No problem." He winked. "I told you your master would get lonely."

"Don't talk about him!" I seized his neck. He shook me off.

"Are you crazy? You tried to choke me!"

I scraped the grooves of the tire again. "How much will it cost?"

"High-class or low-class? Virgin or nonvirgin? All depends."

"I don't care. She just has to have golden hair-like in the shampoo advertisements."

"Cheapest is ten, twelve thousand."

"That's too much. He won't pay more than four thousand seven hundred."

"Six thousand five hundred, Country-Mouse. That's the minimum. White skin has to be respected."

"All right."

"When does he want it, Country-Mouse?"

"I'll tell you. It'll be soon. And another thing-I want to know another thing."

I put my face on the tire and breathed in the smell of the leather. For strength.

"How many ways are there for a driver to cheat his master?"

Mr. Jiabao, I am aware that it is a common feature of those cellophane-wrapped business books to feature small "sidebars." At this stage of the story, to relieve you of tedium, I would like to insert my own "sidebar" into the narrative of the modern entrepreneur's growth and development.

HOW DOES THE ENTERPRISING DRIVER

EARN A LITTLE EXTRA CASH?

1. When his master is not around, he can siphon petrol from the car, with a funnel. Then sell the petrol.

2. When his master orders him to make a repair to the car, he can go to a corrupt mechanic; the mechanic will inflate the price of the repair, and the driver will receive a cut. This is a list of a few entrepreneurial mechanics who help entrepreneurial drivers:

Lucky Mechanics, in Lado Serai, near the Qutub

R.V. Repairs, in Greater Kailash Part Two

Nilofar Mechanics, in DLF Phase One, in Gurgaon.

3. He should study his master's habits, and then ask himself: "Is my master careless? If so, what are the ways in which I can benefit from his carelessness?" For instance, if his master leaves empty English liquor bottles lying around in the car, he can sell the whiskey bottles to the bootleggers. Johnnie Walker Black brings the best resale value.

4. As he gains in experience and confidence and is ready to try something riskier, he can turn his master's car into a freelance taxi. The stretch of the road from Gurgaon to Delhi is excellent for this; lots of Romeos come to see their girlfriends who work in the call centers. Once the entrepreneurial driver is sure that his master is not going to notice the absence of the car-and that none of his master's friends are likely to be on the road at this time-he can spend his free time cruising around, picking up and dropping off paying customers.

At night I lay in my mosquito net, the lightbulb on in my room, and watched the dark roaches crawling on top of the net, their antennae quivering and trembling, like bits of my own nerves: and I lay in bed, too agitated even to reach out and crush them. A cockroach flew down and landed right above my head.

You should have asked them for money when they made you sign that thing. Enough money to sleep with twenty white-skinned girls. It flew away. Another landed on the same spot.

Twenty?

A hundred. Two hundred. Three hundred, a thousand, ten thousand golden-haired whores. And even that would still not have been enough. That would not start to be enough.

Over the next two weeks, I did things I am still ashamed to admit. I cheated my employer. I siphoned his petrol; I took his car to a corrupt mechanic who billed him for work that was not necessary; and three times, while driving back to Buckingham B, I picked up a paying customer.

The strangest thing was that each time I looked at the cash I had made by cheating him, instead of guilt, what did I feel?

Rage.

The more I stole from him, the more I realized how much he had stolen from me.

To go back to the analogy I used when describing Indian politics to you earlier, I was growing a belly at last.

Then one Sunday afternoon, when Mr. Ashok had said he wouldn't need me again that day, I gulped two big glasses of whiskey for courage, then went to the servants' dormitory. Vitiligo-Lips was sitting beneath the poster of a film actress-each time his master "hammered" an actress, he put her poster up on the wall-playing cards with the other drivers.

"Well, you can say what you want, but I know that these jokers aren't going to win reelection."

He looked up and saw me.

"Well, look who's here. It's the yoga guru, paying us a rare visit. Welcome, honored sir."

They showed me their teeth. I showed them my teeth.

"We were discussing the elections, Country-Mouse. You know, it's not like the Darkness here. The elections aren't rigged. Are you going to vote this time?"

I summoned him with a finger.

He shook his head. "Later, Country-Mouse, I'm having too much fun discussing the elections."

I waved the brown envelope in the air. He put his cards down at once.

I insisted that we walk down to the parking lot; he counted the money there, in the shadow of the Honda City.

"Good, Country-Mouse. It's all here. And where is your master? Will you drive him there?"

"I am my own master."

He didn't get it for a minute. Then his jaw dropped-he rushed forward-he hugged me. "Country-Mouse!" He hugged me again. "My man!"

He was from the Darkness too-and you feel proud when you see one of your own kind showing some ambition in life.

He drove me in the Qualis-his master's Qualis-to the hotel, explaining on the way that he ran an informal "taxi" service when the boss wasn't around.

This hotel was in South Extension, Part Two-one of the best shopping areas in Delhi. Vitiligo-Lips locked his Qualis, smiled reassuringly, and walked with me up to the reception desk. A man in a white shirt and black bow tie was running his finger down the entries in a long ledger; leaving his finger on the book, he looked at me as Vitiligo-Lips explained things into his ear.

The manager shook his head. "A golden-haired woman-for him?"

He put his hands on the counter and leaned over so he could see me from the toes up.

"For him?"

Vitiligo-Lips smiled. "Look here, the rich of Delhi have had all the golden-haired women they want; who knows what they'll want next? Green-haired women from the moon? Now it's going to be the working class that lines up for the white women. This fellow is the future of your business, I tell you-treat him well."

The manager seemed uncertain for a moment; then he slammed the ledger shut and showed me an open palm. "Give me five hundred rupees extra." He grinned. "Working-class surcharge."

"I don't have it!"

"Give me five hundred or forget it."

I took out the last three hundred rupees I had. He took the cash, straightened his tie, and then went up the stairs. Vitiligo-Lips patted me on the shoulder and said, "Good luck, Country-Mouse-do it for all of us!"

I ran up the stairs.

Room 114A. The manager was standing at the door, with his ear to it. He whispered, "Anastasia?"

He knocked, then put his ear to the door again and said, "Anastasia, are you in?"

He pushed the door open. A chandelier, a window, a green bed-and a girl with golden hair sitting on the bed.

I sighed, because this one looked nothing like Kim Basinger. Not half as pretty. That was when it hit me-in a way it never had before-how the rich always get the best things in life, and all that we get is their leftovers.

The manager brought both his palms up to my face; he opened and closed them, and then did it again.

Twenty minutes.

Then he made a knocking motion with his fist-followed by a kicking motion with his shiny black boot.

"Get it?"

That's what would happen to me after twenty minutes.

"Yes."

He slammed the door. The woman with the golden hair still wasn't looking at me.

I had only summoned up the courage to sit down by her side when there was banging on the door outside.

"When you hear that-it's over! Get it?" The manager's voice.

"All right!"

I moved closer to the woman on the bed. She neither resisted nor encouraged. I touched a curl of her hair and pulled it gently to get her to turn her face toward me. She looked tired, and worn out, and there were bruises around her eyes, as if someone had scratched her.

She gave me a big smile-I knew it well: it was the smile a servant gives a master.

"What's your name?" she asked in Hindi.

This one too! They must have a Hindi language school for girls in this country, Ukraine, I swear!

"Munna."

She smiled. "That's not a real name. It just means 'boy.'"

"That's right. But it's my name," I said. "My family gave me no other name."

She began laughing-a high-pitched, silvery laugh that made her whole golden head of hair bob up and down. My heart beat like a horse's. Her perfume went straight to my brain.

"You know, when I was young, I was given a name in my language that just meant 'girl.' My family did the same thing to me!"

"Wow," I said, curling my legs up on the bed.

We talked. She told me she hated the mosquitoes in this hotel and the manager, and I nodded. We talked for a while like this, and then she said, "You're not a bad-looking fellow-and you're quite sweet," and then ran her finger through my hair.

At this point, I jumped out of the bed. I said, "Why are you here, sister? If you want to leave this hotel, why don't you? Don't worry about the manager. I'm here to protect you! I am your own brother, Balram Halwai!"

Sure, I said that-in the Hindi film they'll make of my life.

"Seven thousand sweet rupees for twenty minutes! Time to get started!"

That was what I actually said.

I climbed on top of her-and held her arms behind her head with one hand. Time to dip my beak in her. I let the other hand run through her golden curls.

And then I shrieked. I could not have shrieked louder if you had shown me a lizard.

"What happened, Munna?" she asked.

I jumped off the bed, and slapped her.

My, these foreigners can yell when they want to.

Immediately-as if the manager had been there all the time, his ear to the door, grinning-the door burst open, and he came in.

"This," I shouted at him, pulling the girl by her hair, "is not real gold."

The roots were black! It was all a dye job!

He shrugged. "What do you expect, for seven thousand? The real thing costs forty, fifty."

I leapt at him, caught his chin in my hand, and rammed it against the door. "I want my money back!"

The woman let out a scream from behind me. I turned around-that was the mistake I made. I should've finished off that manager right there and then.

Ten minutes later, with a scratched and bruised face, I came tumbling out the front door. It slammed behind me.

Vitiligo-Lips hadn't waited. I had to take a bus back home; I was rubbing my head the whole time. Seven thousand rupees-I wanted to cry! Do you know how many water buffaloes you could have bought for that much money?-I could feel Granny's fingers wringing my ears.

Back in Buckingham Towers at last-after a one-hour traffic jam on the road-I washed the wound on my head in the common sink, and then spat a dozen times. To hell with everything-I scratched my groin. I needed that. I slouched toward my room, kicked opened the door, and froze.

Someone was inside the mosquito net. I saw a silhouette in the lotus position.

"Don't worry, Balram. I know what you were doing."

A man's voice. Well, at least it wasn't Granny-that was my first thought.

Mr. Ashok lifted up a corner of the net and looked at me, a sly grin on his face.

"I know exactly what you were doing."

"Sir?"

"I was calling your name and you weren't responding. So I came down to see. But I know exactly what you were doing…that other driver, the man with pink lips, he told me."

My heart pounded. I looked down at the ground.

"He said you were at the temple, offering prayers for my health."

"Yes, sir," I said, with sweat pouring down my face in relief. "That's right, sir."

"Come inside the net," he said softly. I went in and sat next to him inside the mosquito net. He was looking at the roaches walking above us.

"You live in such a hole, Balram. I never knew. I'm sorry."

"It's all right, sir. I'm used to it."

"I'll give you some money, Balram. You go into some better housing tomorrow, okay?"

He caught my hand and turned it over. "Balram, what are all these red marks on your palm? Have you been pinching yourself?"

"No, sir…it's a skin disease. I've got it here too, behind my ear-see-all those pink spots?"

He came close, filling my nostrils with his perfume. Bending my ear with a finger, gently, he looked.

"My. I never noticed. I sit behind you every day and I never-"

"A lot of people have this disease, sir. A lot of poor people."

"Really. I haven't noticed. Can you get it treated?"

"No, sir. The diseases of the poor can never get treated. My father had TB and it killed him."

"It's the twenty-first century, Balram. Anything can be treated. You go to the hospital and get it treated. Send me the bill, I'll pay it."

"Thank you, sir," I said. "Sir…do you want me to take you somewhere in the City?"

He opened his lips and then closed them without making any noise. He did this a couple of times, and then he said, "My way of living is all wrong, Balram. I know it, but I don't have the courage to change it. I just don't have…the balls."

"Don't think so much about it, sir. And sir, let's go upstairs, I beg you. This is not a place for a man of quality like yourself."

"I let people exploit me, Balram. I've never done what I've wanted, my whole life. I…"

His head sagged; his whole body looked tired and worn.

"You should eat something, sir," I said. "You look tired."

He smiled-a big, trusting baby's smile.

"You're always thinking of me, Balram. Yes, I want to eat. But I don't want to go to another hotel, Balram. I'm sick of hotels. Take me to the kind of place you go to eat, Balram."

"Sir?"

"I'm sick of the food I eat, Balram. I'm sick of the life I lead. We rich people, we've lost our way, Balram. I want to be a simple man like you, Balram."

"Yes, sir."

We walked outside, and I led him across the road and into a tea shop.

"Order for us, Balram. Order the commoners' food."

I ordered okra, cauliflower, radish, spinach, and daal. Enough to feed a whole family, or one rich man.

He ate and burped and ate some more.

"This food is fantastic. And just twenty-five rupees! You people eat so well!"

When he was done, I ordered him a lassi, and when he took the first sip, he smiled. "I like eating your kind of food!"

I smiled and thought, I like eating your kind of food too.

"The divorce papers will come through soon. That's what the lawyer said."

"All right."

"Should we start looking already?"

"For another lawyer?"

"No. For another girl."

"It's too early, Mukesh. It's been just three months since she left."

I had driven Mr. Ashok to the train station. The Mongoose had come to town again, from Dhanbad. Now I was driving both of them back to the apartment.

"All right. Take your time. But you must remarry. If you stay a divorced man, people won't respect you. They won't respect us. It's the way our society works. Listen to me. Last time you didn't listen, when you married a girl from outside our caste, our religion-you even refused to take dowry from her parents. This time, we'll pick the girl."

I heard nothing; I could tell that Mr. Ashok was clenching his teeth.

"I can see you're getting worked up," the Mongoose said. "We'll talk about it later. For now, take this." He handed his brother a red bag that he had brought with him from Dhanbad.

Mr. Ashok clicked open the bag and peered inside-and at once the Mongoose slammed the bag shut.

"Are you crazy? Don't open that here in the car. It's for Mukeshan. The fat man. The assistant. You know him, don't you?"

"Yes, I know him." Mr. Ashok shrugged. "Didn't we already pay those bastards off?"

"The minister wants more. It's election time. Every time there's elections, we hand out cash. Usually to both sides, but this time the government is going to win for sure. The opposition is in a total mess. So we just have to pay off the government, which is good for us. I'll come with you the first time, but it's a lot of money, and you may have to go a second and third time too. And then there are a couple of bureaucrats we have to grease. Get it?"

"It seems like this is all I get to do in Delhi. Take money out of banks and bribe people. Is this what I came back to India for?"

"Don't be sarcastic. And remember, ask for the bag back each time. It's a good bag, Italian-made. No need to give them any additional gifts. Understand? Oh, hell. Not another fucking traffic jam."

"Balram, play Sting again. It's the best music for a traffic jam."

"This driver knows who Sting is?"

"Sure, he knows it's my favorite CD. Show us the Sting CD, Balram. See-see-he knows Sting!"

I put the CD into the player.

Ten minutes passed, and the cars had not moved an inch. I replaced Sting with Enya; I replaced Enya with Eminem. Vendors came to the car with baskets of oranges, or strawberries in plastic cases, or newspapers, or novels in English. The beggars were on the attack too. One beggar was carrying another on his shoulders and going from car to car; the fellow on his shoulders had no legs below his knees. They went together from car to car, the fellow without the legs moaning and groaning and the other fellow tapping or scratching on the windows of the car.

Without thinking much about it, I cracked open the egg.

Rolling down the glass, I held out a rupee-the fellow with the deformed legs took it and saluted me; I rolled the window up and resealed the egg.

The talking in the backseat stopped at once.

"Who the hell told you to do that?"

"Sorry, sir," I said.

"Why the hell did you give that beggar a rupee? What cheek! Turn the music off."

They really gave it to me that evening. Though their talk was normally in a mix of Hindi and English, the two brothers began speaking in chaste Hindi-entirely for my benefit.

"Don't we give money each time we go to the temple?" the elder thug said. "We donate every year to the cancer institute. I buy that card that the schoolchildren come around selling."

"The other day I was speaking to our accountant and he was saying, 'Sir, you have no money in your bank. It's all gone.' Do you know how high the taxes are in this country?" the younger thug said. "If we gave any money, what would we have to eat?"

That was when it struck me that there really was no difference between the two of them. They were both their father's seed.

For the rest of the drive home, the Mongoose pointedly kept his eyes on the rearview mirror. He looked as if he had smelled something funny.

When we reached Buckingham B, he said, "Come upstairs, Balram."

"Yes, sir."

We stood side by side in the elevator. When he opened the door of the apartment, he pointed to the floor. "Make yourself comfortable."

I squatted below the photo of Cuddles and Puddles and put my hands between my knees. He sat down on a chair, and rested his face in his palm, and just stared at me.

His brow was furrowed. I could see a thought forming in his mind.

He got up from his chair, walked over to where I was crouched, and got down on one knee. He sniffed the air.

"Your breath smells of aniseed."

"Yes, sir."

"People chew that to hide the alcohol on their breath. Have you been drinking?"

"No, sir. My caste, we're teetotalers."

He kept sniffing, coming closer all the time.

I took in a big breath; held it in the pit of my belly; then I forced it out, in a belch, right to his face.

"That's disgusting, Balram," he said with a look of horror. He stood up and took two steps back.

"Sorry, sir."

"Get out!"

I came out sweating.

The next day, I drove him and Mr. Ashok to some minister's or bureaucrat's house in New Delhi; they went out with the red bag. Afterwards, I took them to a hotel, where they had lunch-I gave the hotel staff instructions: no potatoes in the food-then drove the Mongoose to the railway station.

I put up with his usual threats and warnings-no A/C, no music, no wasting fuel, blah blah blah. I stood on the platform and watched as he ate his snack. When the train left, I danced around the platform and clapped my hands. Two homeless urchins were watching me, and they laughed-they clapped their hands too. One of them began singing a song from the latest Hindi film, and we danced together on the platform.

Next morning, I was in the apartment, and Mr. Ashok was fiddling with the red bag and getting ready to leave, when the phone began to ring.

I said, "I'll take the bag down, sir. I'll wait in the car."

He hesitated, then held the bag out in my direction. "I'll join you in a minute."

I closed the door of the apartment. I walked to the elevator, pressed the button, and waited. It was a heavy bag, and I had to shift it about in my palm.

The elevator had reached the fourth floor.

I turned and looked at the view from the balcony of the thirteenth floor-the lights were shining from Gurgaon's malls, even in broad daylight. A new mall had opened in the past week. Another one was under construction. The city was growing.

The elevator was coming up fast. It was about to reach the eleventh floor.

I turned and ran.

Kicking the door of the fire escape open, hurrying down two flights of dark stairs, I clicked the red bag open.

All at once, the entire stairwell filled up with dazzling light-the kind that only money can give out.

Twenty-five minutes later, when Mr. Ashok came down, punching the buttons on his cell phone, he found the red bag waiting for him on his seat. I held up a shining silver disk as he closed the door.

"Shall I play Sting for you, sir?"

As we drove, I tried hard not to look at the red bag-it was torture for me, just like when Pinky Madam used to sit in short skirts.

At a red light, I looked at the rearview mirror. I saw my thick mustache and my jaw. I touched the mirror. The angle of the image changed. Now I saw long beautiful eyebrows curving on either side of powerful, furrowed brow muscles; black eyes were shining below those tensed muscles. The eyes of a cat watching its prey.

Go on, just look at the red bag, Balram-that's not stealing, is it?

I shook my head.

And even if you were to steal it, Balram, it wouldn't be stealing.

How so? I looked at the creature in the mirror.

See-Mr. Ashok is giving money to all these politicians in Delhi so that they will excuse him from the tax he has to pay. And who owns that tax, in the end? Who but the ordinary people of this country-you!

"What is it, Balram? Did you say something?"

I tapped the mirror. My mustache rose into view again, and the eyes disappeared, and it was only my own face staring at me now.

"This fellow in front of me is driving rashly, sir. I was just grumbling."

"Keep your cool, Balram. You're a good driver, don't let the bad ones get to you."

The city knew my secret. One morning, the President's House was covered in smog and blotted out from the road; it seemed as though there were no government in Delhi that day. And the dense pollution that was hiding the prime minister and all his ministers and bureaucrats said to me:

They won't see a thing you do. I'll make sure of that.

I drove past the red wall of Parliament House. A guard with a gun was watching me from a lookout post on the red wall-he put his gun down the moment he saw me.

Why would I stop you? I'd do the same, if I could.

At night a woman walked with a cellophane bag; my headlights shone into the bag and turned the cellophane transparent. I saw four large dark fruits inside the bag-and each dark fruit said, You've already done it. In your heart you've already taken it. Then the headlights passed; the cellophane turned opaque; the four dark fruits vanished.

Even the road-the smooth, polished road of Delhi that is the finest in all of India -knew my secret.

One day at a traffic signal, the driver of the car next to me lowered the window and spat out: he had been chewing paan, and a vivid red puddle of expectorate splashed on the hot midday road and festered there like a living thing, spreading and sizzling. A second later, he spat again-and now there was a second puddle on the road. I stared at the two puddles of red, spreading spit-and then:

I turned my face away from the red puddles. I looked at the red bag sitting in the center of my rearview mirror, like the exposed heart of the Honda City.

That day I dropped Mr. Ashok off at the Imperial Hotel, and he said, "I'll be back in twenty minutes, Balram."

Instead of parking the car, I drove to the train station, which is in Pahar Ganj, not far from the hotel.

People were lying on the floor of the station. Dogs were sniffing at the garbage. The air was moldy. So this is what it will be like, I thought.

The destinations of all the trains were up on a blackboard.

Benaras

Jammu

Amritsar

Mumbai

Ranchi

What would be my destination, if I were to come here with a red bag in my hand?

As if in answer, shining wheels and bright lights began flashing in the darkness.

Now, if you visit any train station in India, you will see, as you stand waiting for your train, a row of bizarre-looking machines with red lightbulbs, kaleidoscopic wheels, and whirling yellow circles. These are your-fortune-and-weight-for-one-rupee machines that stand on every rail platform in the country.

They work like this. You put your bags down to the side. You stand on them. Then you insert a one-rupee coin into the slot.

The machine comes to life; levers start to move inside, things go clankety-clank, and the lights flash like crazy. Then there is a loud noise, and a small stiff chit of cardboard colored either green or yellow will pop out of the machine. The lights and noise calm down. On this chit will be written your fortune, and your weight in kilograms.

Two kinds of people use these machines: the children of the rich, or the fully grown adults of the poorer class, who remain all their lives children.

I stood gazing at the machines, like a man without a mind. Six glowing machines were shining at me: lightbulbs of green and yellow and kaleidoscopes of gold and black that were turning around and around.

I got up on one of the machines. I sacrificed a rupee-it gobbled the coin, made noise, gave off more lights, and released a chit.

LUNNA SCALES CO.

NEW DELHI 110 055

YOUR WEIGHT

59

"Respect for the law is the first command of the gods."

I let the fortune-telling chit fall on the floor and I laughed.

Even here, in the weight machine of a train station, they try to hoodwink us. Here, on the threshold of a man's freedom, just before he boards a train to a new life, these flashing fortune machines are the final alarm bell of the Rooster Coop.

The sirens of the coop were ringing-its wheels turning-its red lights flashing! A rooster was escaping from the coop! A hand was thrust out-I was picked up by the neck and shoved back into the coop.

I picked the chit up and reread it.

My heart began to sweat. I sat down on the floor.

Think, Balram. Think of what the Buffalo did to his servant's family.

Above me I heard wings thrashing. Pigeons were sitting on the roof beams all around the station; two of them had flown from a beam and began wheeling directly over my head, as if in slow motion-pulled into their breasts, I saw two sets of red claws.

Not far from me I saw a woman lying on the floor, with nice full breasts inside a tight blouse. She was snoring. I could see a one-rupee note stuffed into her cleavage, its lettering and color visible through the weave of her bright green blouse. She had no luggage. That was all she had in the world. One rupee. And yet look at her-snoring blissfully, without a care in the world.

Why couldn't things be so simple for me?

A low growling noise made me turn. A black dog was turning in circles behind me. A pink patch of skin-an open wound-glistened on its left butt; and the dog had twisted on itself in an attempt to gnaw at the wound. The wound was just out of reach of its teeth, but the dog was going crazy from pain-trying to attack the wound with its slavering mouth, it kept moving in mad, precise, pointless circles.

I looked at the sleeping woman-at her heaving breasts. Behind me the growling went on and on.

That Sunday, I took Mr. Ashok's permission, saying I wanted to go to a temple, and went into the city. I took a bus down to Qutub, and from there a jeep-taxi down to G.B. Road.

This, Mr. Premier, is the famous "red-light district" (as they say in English) of Delhi.

An hour here would clear all the evil thoughts out of my head. When you retain semen in your lower body, it leads to evil movements in the fluids of your upper body. In the Darkness we know this to be a fact.

It was just five o'clock and still light, but the women were waiting for me, as they wait for all men, at all times of the day.

Now, I've been to these streets before-as I've confessed to you-but this time was different. I heard them above me-the women-jeering and taunting from the grilled windows of the brothels-but this time I couldn't bear to look up at them.

A paan-maker sat on a wooden stall outside the gaudy blue door of a brothel, using a knife to spread spices on moist leaves that he had picked out of a bowl of water, which is the first step in the preparation of paan; in the small square space below his stall sat another man, boiling milk in a vessel over the hissing blue flame of a gas stove.

"What's the matter with you? Look at the women."

The pimp, a small man with a big nose covered in red warts, had caught me by the wrist.

"You look like you can afford a foreign girl. Take a Nepali girl. Aren't they beauties? Look up at them, son!"

He took my chin-maybe he thought I was a shy virgin, out on my first expedition here-and forced me to look up.

The Nepalis up there, behind the barred window, were really good-looking: very light-skinned and with those Chinese eyes that just drive us Indian men mad. I shook the pimp's hand off my face.

"Take any one! Take all! Aren't you man enough, son?"

Normally this would have been enough for me to burst into the brothel, hollering for blood.

But sometimes what is most animal in a man may be the best thing in him. From my waist down, nothing stirred. They're like parrots in a cage. It'll be one animal fucking another animal.

"Chew paan-it will help if you're having trouble getting it up!" the seller of paan shouted from his stand. He held up a fresh, wet paan leaf, and shook it so the droplets splashed on my face.

"Drink hot milk-it helps too!" shouted the small, shrunken man below him who was boiling the milk.

I watched the milk. It seethed, and spilled down the sides of the stainless steel vessel; the small, shrunken man smiled-he provoked the boiling milk with a spoon-it became frothier and frothier, hissing with outrage.

I charged into the paan-seller, pushing him off his perch, scattering his leaves, and spilling his water. I kicked the midget in his face. Screams broke out from above. The pimps rushed at me; shoving and kicking for dear life, I ran out of that street.

Now, G.B. Road is in Old Delhi, about which I should say something. Remember, Mr. Premier, that Delhi is the capital of not one but two countries-two Indias. The Light and the Darkness both flow into Delhi. Gurgaon, where Mr. Ashok lived, is the bright, modern end of the city, and this place, Old Delhi, is the other end. Full of things the modern world forgot all about-rickshaws, old stone buildings, the Muslims. On a Sunday, though, there is something more: if you keep pushing through the crowd that is always there, go past the men cleaning the other men's ears by poking rusty metal rods into them, past the men selling small fish trapped in green bottles full of brine, past the cheap shoe market and the cheap shirt market, you will come to the great secondhand book market of Darya Ganj.

You may have heard of this market, sir, since it is one of the wonders of the world. Tens of thousands of dirty, rotting, blackened books on every subject-Technology, Medicine, Sexual Pleasure, Philosophy, Education, and Foreign Countries-heaped upon the pavement from Delhi Gate onwards all the way until you get to the market in front of the Red Fort. Some books are so old they crumble when you touch them; some have silverfish feasting on them-some look like they were retrieved from a flood, or from a fire. Most shops on the pavement are shuttered down; but the restaurants are still open, and the smell of fried food mingles with the smell of rotting paper. Rusting exhaust fans turn slowly in the ventilators of the restaurants like the wings of giant moths.

I went amid the books and sucked in the air: it was like oxygen after the stench of the brothel.

There was a thick crowd of book buyers fighting over the books with the sellers, and I pretended to be one of the buyers. I leapt into the books, picking them up, reading them like this, flip, flip, flip, until a bookseller shouted, "You going to buy it or read it for free?"

"It's no good," I would say, and put the book down and go to the next bookseller, and pick up something he had, and flip flip flip. Never paying anyone a single rupee, flipping through books for free, I kept looting bookseller after bookseller all evening long!

Some books were in Urdu, the language of the Muslims-which is all just scratches and dots, as if some crow dipped its feet in black ink and pressed them to the page. I was going through one such book when a bookseller said, "Can you read Urdu?"

He was an old Muslim, with a pitch-black face that was bedewed with sweat, like a begonia leaf after the rains, and a long white beard.

I said: "Can you read Urdu?"

He opened the book, cleared his throat, and read, "'You were looking for the key for years.' Understood that?" He looked at me, wide furrows on his black forehead.

"Yes, Muslim uncle."

"Shut up, you liar. And listen."

He cleared his throat again.

"'You were looking for the key for years/But the door was always open!'"

He closed the book. "That's called poetry. Now get lost."

"Please, Muslim uncle," I begged. "I'm just a rickshaw-puller's son from the Darkness. Tell me all about poetry. Who wrote the poem?"

He shook his head, but I kept flattering him, telling him how fine his beard was, how fair his skin was (ha!), how it was obvious from his nose and forehead that he wasn't some pigherd who had converted but a true-blue Muslim who had flown here on a magic carpet all the way from Mecca, and he grunted with satisfaction. He read me another poem, and another one-and he explained the true history of poetry, which is a kind of secret, a magic known only to wise men. Mr. Premier, I won't be saying anything new if I say that the history of the world is the history of a ten-thousand-year war of brains between the rich and the poor. Each side is eternally trying to hoodwink the other side: and it has been this way since the start of time. The poor win a few battles (the peeing in the potted plants, the kicking of the pet dogs, etc.) but of course the rich have won the war for ten thousand years. That's why, one day, some wise men, out of compassion for the poor, left them signs and symbols in poems, which appear to be about roses and pretty girls and things like that, but when understood correctly spill out secrets that allow the poorest man on earth to conclude the ten-thousand-year-old brain-war on terms favorable to himself. Now, the four greatest of these wise poets were Rumi, Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib, and another fellow whose name I was told but have forgotten.

(Who was that fourth poet? It drives me crazy that I can't recall his name. If you know it, send me an e-mail.)

"Muslim uncle, I have another question for you."

"What do I look like? Your schoolteacher? Don't keep asking me questions."

"The last one, I promise. Tell me, Muslim uncle, can a man make himself vanish with poetry?"

"What do you mean-like vanish through black magic?" He looked at me. "Yes, that can be done. There are books for that. You want to buy one?"

"No, not vanish like that. I meant can he…can he…"

The bookseller had narrowed his eyes. The sweat beads had grown larger on his huge black forehead.

I smiled at him. "Forget I asked that, Muslim uncle."

And then I warned myself never to talk to this old man again. He knew too much already.

My eyes were burning from squinting at books. I should have been heading back toward Delhi Gate to catch a bus. There was a foul taste of book in my mouth-as if I had inhaled so much particulated old paper from the air. Strange thoughts brew in your heart when you spend too much time with old books.

But instead of going back to the bus, I wandered farther into Old Delhi. I had no idea where I was going. Everything grew quiet the moment I left the main road. I saw some men sitting on a charpoy smoking, others lying on the ground and sleeping; eagles flew above the houses. Then the wind blew an enormous gust of buffalo into my face.

Everyone knows there is a butchers' quarter somewhere in Old Delhi, but not many have seen it. It is one of the wonders of the old city-a row of open sheds, and big buffaloes standing in each shed with their butts toward you, and their tails swatting flies away like windshield wipers, and their feet deep in immense pyramids of shit. I stood there, inhaling the smell of their bodies-it had been so long since I had smelled buffalo! The horrible city air was driven out of my lungs.

A rattling noise of wooden wheels. I saw a buffalo coming down the road, pulling a large cart behind it. There was no human sitting on this cart with a whip; the buffalo just knew on its own where to go. And it was coming down the road. I stood to the side, and as it passed me, I saw that this cart was full of the faces of dead buffaloes; faces, I say-but I should say skulls, stripped even of the skin, except for the little black bit of skin at the tip of the nose from which the nostril hairs still stuck out, like last defiant bits of the personality of the dead buffalo. The rest of the faces were gone. Even the eyes had been gouged out.

And the living buffalo walked on, without a master, drawing its load of death to the place where it knew it had to go.

I walked along with that poor animal for a while, staring at the dead, stripped faces of the buffaloes. And then the strangest thing happened, Your Excellency-I swear the buffalo that was pulling the cart turned its face to me, and said in a voice not unlike my father's:

"Your brother Kishan was beaten to death. Happy?"

It was like experiencing a nightmare in the minutes before you wake up; you know it's a dream, but you can't wake up just yet.

"Your aunt Luttu was raped and then beaten to death. Happy? Your grandmother Kusum was kicked to death. Happy?"

The buffalo glared at me.

"Shame!" it said, and then it took a big step forward and the cart passed by, full of dead skinned faces, which seemed to me at that moment the faces of my own family.

The next morning, Mr. Ashok came down to the car, smiling, and with the red bag in his hand. He slammed the door.

I looked at the ogre and swallowed hard.

"Sir…"

"What is it, Balram?"

"Sir, there's something I've been meaning to tell you for a while." And I took my fingers off the ignition key. I swear, I was ready to make a full confession right there…had he said the right word…had he touched my shoulder the right way.

But he wasn't looking at me. He was busy with the cell phone and its buttons.

Punch, punch, punch.

To have a madman with thoughts of blood and theft in his head, sitting just ten inches in front of you, and not to know it. Not to have a hint, even. What blindness you people are capable of. Here you are, sitting in glass buildings and talking on the phone night after night to Americans who are thousands of miles away, but you don't have the faintest idea what's happening to the man who's driving your car!

What is it, Balram?

Just this, sir-that I want to smash your skull open!

He leaned forward-he brought his lips right to my ear-I was ready to melt.

"I understand, Balram."

I closed my eyes. I could barely speak.

"You do, sir?"

"You want to get married."

"…"

"Balram. You'll need some money, won't you?"

"Sir, no. There's no need of that."

"Wait, Balram. Let me take out my wallet. You're a good member of the family. You never ask for more money-I know that other drivers are constantly asking for overtime and insurance: but you never say a word. You're old-fashioned. I like that. We'll take care of all the wedding expenses, Balram. Here, Balram-here's…here's…"

I saw him take out a thousand-rupee note, put it back, then take out a five-hundred, then put it back, and take out a hundred.

Which he handed to me.

"I assume you'll be going to Laxmangarh for the wedding, Balram?"

"…"

"Maybe I'll come along," he said. "I really like that place. I want to go up to that fort this time. How long ago was it that we were there, Balram? Six months ago?"

"Longer than that, sir." I counted the months off on my fingers. "Eight months ago."

He counted the months too. "Why, you're right."

I folded the hundred-rupee note and put it in my chest pocket.

"Thank you for this, sir," I said, and turned the ignition key.

Early next morning I walked out of Buckingham B onto the main road. Though it was a brand-new building, there was already a leak in the drainage pipe, and a large patch of sewage darkened the earth outside the compound wall; three stray dogs were sleeping on the wet patch. A good way to cool off-summer had started, and even the nights were unpleasant now.

The three mutts seemed so comfortable. I got down on my haunches and watched them.

I put my finger on the dark sewage puddle. So cool, so tempting.

One of the stray dogs woke up; it yawned and showed me all its canines. It sprang to its feet. The other mutts got up too. A growling began, and a scratching of the wet mud, and a showing of teeth-they wanted me off their kingdom.

I surrendered the sewage to the dogs and headed for the malls. None of them had opened yet. I sat down on the pavement.

No idea where to go next.

That's when I saw the small dark marks in the pavement.

Paw prints.

An animal had walked on the concrete before it had set.

I got up and walked after the animal. The space between the prints grew wider-the animal had begun to sprint.

I walked faster.

The paw prints of the accelerating animal went all the way around the malls, and then behind the malls, and at last, where the pavement ended and raw earth began, they vanished.

Here I had to stop, because five feet ahead of me a row of men squatted on the ground in a nearly perfect straight line. They were defecating.

I was at the slum.

Vitiligo-Lips had told me about this place-all these construction workers who were building the malls and giant apartment buildings lived here. They were from a village in the Darkness; they did not like outsiders coming in, except for those who had business after dark. The men were defecating in the open like a defensive wall in front of the slum: making a line that no respectable human should cross. The wind wafted the stench of fresh shit toward me.

I found a gap in the line of the defecators. They squatted there like stone statues.

These people were building homes for the rich, but they lived in tents covered with blue tarpaulin sheets, and partitioned into lanes by lines of sewage. It was even worse than Laxmangarh. I picked my way around the broken glass, wire, and shattered tube lights. The stench of feces was replaced by the stronger stench of industrial sewage. The slum ended in an open sewer-a small river of black water went sluggishly past me, bubbles sparkling in it and little circles spreading on its surface. Two children were splashing about in the black water.

A hundred-rupee note came flying down into the river. The children watched with open mouths, and then ran to catch the note before it floated away. One child caught it, and then the other began hitting him, and they began to tumble about in the black water as they fought.

I went back to the line of crappers. One of them had finished up and left, but his position had been filled.

I squatted down with them and grinned.

A few immediately turned their eyes away: they were still human beings. Some stared at me blankly as if shame no longer mattered to them. And then I saw one fellow, a thin black fellow, was grinning back at me, as if he were proud of what he was doing.

Still crouching, I moved myself over to where he was squatting and faced him. I smiled as wide as I could. So did he.

He began to laugh-and I began to laugh-and then all the crappers laughed together.

"We'll take care of your wedding expenses," I shouted.

"We'll take care of your wedding expenses!" he shouted back.

"We'll even fuck your wife for you, Balram!"

"We'll even fuck your wife for you, Balram!"

He began laughing-laughing so violently that he fell down face-first into the ground, still laughing, exposing his stained arse to the stained sky of Delhi.

As I walked back, the malls had begun to open. I washed my face in the common toilet and wiped my hands clean of the slum. I walked into the parking lot, found an iron wrench, aimed a couple of practice blows, and then took it to my room.

A boy was waiting for me near my bed, holding a letter between his teeth as he adjusted the buttons on his pants. He turned around when he heard me; the letter flew out of his mouth and to the ground. The wrench fell out of my hand at the same time.

"They sent me here. I took the bus and train and asked people and came here." He blinked. "They said you have to take care of me and make me a driver too."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Dharam," he said. "I'm Luttu Auntie's fourth son. You saw me when you came to Laxmangarh last time. I was wearing a red shirt. You kissed me here." He pointed to the top of his head.

Picking up the letter, he held it out to me.

Dear grandson,

It has been a long time since you came to visit us-and an even longer time, a total of eleven months and two days, since you last sent us any money. The city has corrupted your soul and made you selfish, vainglorious, and evil. I knew from the start that this would happen, because you were a spiteful, insolent boy. Every chance you got you just stared at yourself in a mirror with open lips, and I had to wring your ears to make you do any work. You are just like your mother. It is her nature and not your father's sweet nature that you have. So far we have borne our sufferings patiently, but we will not do so. You must send us money again. If you don't, we'll tell your master. Also we have decided to arrange for your wedding on our own, and if you do not come here, we will send the girl to you by bus. I say these things not to threaten you but out of love. After all, am I not your own grandmother? And how I used to stuff your mouth with sweets! Also, it is your duty to look after Dharam, and take care of him as if he were your own son. Now take care of your health, and remember that I am preparing lovely chicken dishes for you, which I will send to you by mail-along with the letter that I will write to your master.

Your loving Granny,

Kusum

I folded the letter, put it in my pocket, and then slapped the boy so hard that he staggered back, hit the side of the bed, and fell into it, pulling down the mosquito net as he fell.

"Get up," I said. "I'm going to hit you again."

I picked up the wrench and held it over him-then threw it to the floor.

The boy's face had turned blue, and his lip was split and bleeding, and he still hadn't said a word.

I sat in the mosquito net, sipping from a half bottle of whiskey. I watched the boy.

I had come to the edge of the precipice. I had been ready to slay my master-this boy's arrival had saved me from murder (and a lifetime in prison).

That evening, I told Mr. Ashok that my family had sent me a helper, someone to keep the car tidy, and instead of getting angry that he would now have to feed another mouth-which is what most of the masters would have done-he said, "He's a cute boy. He looks like you. What happened to his face?"

I turned to Dharam. "Tell him."

He blinked a couple of times. He was thinking it over.

"I fell off the bus."

Smart boy.

"Take care in the future," Mr. Ashok said. "This is great, Balram-you'll have company from now on."

Dharam was a quiet little fellow. He didn't ask for anything from me, he slept on the floor where I told him to, he minded his own business. Feeling guilty for what I'd done, I took him to the tea shop.

"Who teaches at the school these days, Dharam? Is it still Mr. Krishna?"

"Yes, Uncle."

"Is he still stealing the money for the uniforms and the food?"

"Yes, Uncle."

"Good man."

"I went for five years and then Kusum Granny said that was enough."

"Let's see what you learned in five years. Do you know the eight-times table?"

"Yes, Uncle."

"Let's hear it."

"Eight ones are eight."

"That's easy-what's next?"

"Eight twos are sixteen."

"Wait." I counted out on my fingers to make sure he had got it right. "All right. Go on."

"Order me a tea too, won't you?" Vitiligo-Lips sat down next to me. He smiled at Dharam.

"Order it yourself," I said.

He pouted. "Is that any way for you to be talking to me, working-class hero?"

Dharam was watching us keenly, so I said, "This boy is from my village. From my family. I'm talking to him now."

"Eight threes are twenty-four."

"I don't care who he is," Vitiligo-Lips said. "Order me a tea, working-class hero."

He flexed his palm near my face-five fingers. That meant, I want five hundred rupees.

"I've got nothing."

"Eight fours are thirty-two."

He drew a line across his neck and smiled. Your master will know everything.

"What's your name, boy?"

"Dharam."

"What a nice name. Do you know what it means?"

"Yes, sir."

"Does your uncle know what it means?"

"Shut up," I said.

It was the time of the day when the tea shop got cleaned. One of the human spiders dropped a wet rag on the floor and started to crawl with it, pushing a growing wavelet of stinking ink-black water ahead of him. Even the mice scampered out of the shop. The customers sitting at the tables were not spared-the black puddle splashed them as it passed. Bits of beedis, shiny plastic wrappers, punched bus tickets, snippets of onion, sprigs of fresh coriander floated on the black water; the reflection of a naked electric bulb shone out of the scum like a yellow gemstone.

As the black water went past, a voice inside me said, "But your heart has become even blacker than that, Munna."

That night Dharam woke up when he heard the shrieking. He came to the mosquito net.

"Uncle, what's going on?"

"Turn on the light, you fool! Turn on the light!"

He did so, and saw me paralyzed inside the net: I could not even point at the thing. A thick-bodied gray gecko had come down from the wall and was on my bed.

Dharam began to grin.

"I'm not joking, you moron-get it out of my bed!"

He stuck his hand into the net, grabbed the lizard, and smashed it under his foot.

"Throw it somewhere far, far away-outside the room, outside the apartment building."

I saw the bewildered look in his eyes: Afraid of a lizard-a grown man like my uncle!

Good, I thought, just as he was turning off the lights. He'll never suspect that I'm planning anything.

An instant later, my grin faded.

What was I planning?

I began to sweat. I stared at the anonymous palm prints that had been pressed into the white plaster of the wall.

A cane began tapping on concrete-the night watchman of Buckingham B was doing his rounds with his long cane. When the tapping of the cane died out there was no noise inside the room, except for the buzzing of the roaches as they chewed on the walls or flew about. It was another hot, humid night. Even the roaches must have been sweating-I could barely breathe.

Just when I thought I'd never go to sleep, I began reciting a couplet, over and over again.

I was looking for the key for years

But the door was always open.

And then I was asleep.

I should have noticed the stenciled signs on the walls in which a pair of hands smashed through shackles-I should have stopped and listened to the young men in red headbands shouting from the trucks-but I had been so wrapped up in my own troubles that I had paid no attention at all to something very important that was happening to my country.

Two days later, I was taking Mr. Ashok down to Lodi Gardens along with Ms. Uma; he was spending more and more time with her these days. The romance was blossoming. My nose was getting used to her perfume-I no longer sneezed when she moved.

"So you still haven't done it, Ashok? Is it going to be like last time all over again?"

"It's not so simple, Uma. Mukesh and I have had a fight over you already. I will put my foot down. But give me some time, I need to get over the divorce-Balram, why have you turned the music up so loud?"

"I like it loud. It's romantic. Maybe he's done it deliberately."

"Look, it'll happen. Trust me. It's just…Balram, why the hell haven't you turned the music down? Sometimes these people from the Darkness are so stupid."

"I told you that already, Ashok."

Her voice dropped.

I caught the words "replacement," "driver," and "local" in English.

Have you thought about getting a replacement driver-a local driver?

He mumbled his reply.

I could not hear a word. But I did not have to.

I looked at the rearview mirror: I wanted to confront him, eye to eye, man to man. But he wouldn't look at me in the mirror. Didn't dare face me.

I tell you, you could have heard the grinding of my teeth just then. I thought I was making plans for him? He'd been making plans for me! The rich are always one step ahead of us-aren't they?

Well, not this time. For every step he'd take, I'd take two.

Outside on the road, a streetside vendor was sitting next to a pyramid of motorbike helmets that were wrapped in plastic and looked like a pile of severed heads.

Just when we were about to reach the gardens, we saw that the road was blocked on all sides: a line of trucks had gathered in front of us, full of men who were shouting:

"Hail the Great Socialist! Hail the voice of the poor of India!"

"What the hell is going on?"

"Haven't you seen the news today, Ashok? They are announcing the results."

"Fuck," he said. "Balram, turn Enya off, and turn on the radio."

The voice of the Great Socialist came on. He was being interviewed by a radio reporter.

"The election shows that the poor will not be ignored. The Darkness will not be silent. There is no water in our taps, and what do you people in Delhi give us? You give us cell phones. Can a man drink a phone when he is thirsty? Women walk for miles every morning to find a bucket of clean-"

"Do you want to become prime minister of India?"

"Don't ask me such questions. I have no ambitions for myself. I am simply the voice of the poor and the disenfranchised."

"But surely, sir-"

"Let me say one last word, if I may. All I have ever wanted was an India where any boy in any village could dream of becoming the prime minister. Now, as I was saying, women walk for…"

According to the radio, the ruling party had been hammered at the polls. A new set of parties had come to power. The Great Socialist's party was one of them. He had taken the votes of a big part of the Darkness. As we drove back to Gurgaon, we saw hordes of his supporters pouring in from the Darkness. They drove where they wanted, did what they wanted, whistled at any woman they felt like whistling at. Delhi had been invaded.

Mr. Ashok did not call me the rest of the day; in the evening he came down and said he wanted to go to the Imperial Hotel. He was on the cell phone the whole time, punching buttons and making calls and screaming:

– "We're totally fucked, Uma. This is why I hate this business I'm in. We're at the mercy of these…"

– "Don't yell at me, Mukesh. You were the one who said the elections were a foregone conclusion. Yes, you! And now we'll never get out of our income-tax mess."

– "All right, I'm doing it, Father! I'm going to meet him right now at the Imperial!"

He was still on the phone when I dropped him off at the Imperial Hotel. Forty-two minutes passed, and then he came out with two men. Leaning down to the window, he said, "Do whatever they want, Balram. I'm taking a taxi back from here. When they're done bring the car back to Buckingham."

"Yes, sir."

The two men slapped him on the back; he bowed, and opened the doors for them himself. If he was kissing arse like this, they had to be politicians.

The two men got in. My heart began to pound. The man on the right was my childhood hero-Vijay, the pigherd's son turned bus conductor turned politician from Laxmangarh. He had changed uniforms again: now he was wearing the polished suit and tie of a modern Indian businessman.

He ordered me to drive toward Ashoka Road; he turned to his companion and said, "The sister-fucker finally gave me his car."

The other man grunted. He lowered the window and spat. "He knows he has to show us some respect now, doesn't he?"

Vijay chortled. He raised his voice. "Do you have anything to drink in the car, son?"

I turned around: fat nuggets of gold were studded into his rotting black molars.

"Yes, sir."

"Let's see it."

I opened the glove compartment and handed him the bottle.

"It's good stuff. Johnnie Walker Black. Son, do you have glasses too?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ice?"

"No, sir."

"It's all right. Let's drink it neat. Son, pour us a drink."

I did so, while keeping the Honda City going with my left hand. They took the glasses and drank the whiskey like it was lemon juice.

"If he doesn't have it ready, let me know. I'll send some boys over to have a word with him."

"No, don't worry. His father always paid up in the end. This kid has been to America and has his head full of shit. But he'll pay up too, in the end."

"How much?"

"Seven. I was going to settle for five, but the sister-fucker himself offered six-he's a bit soft in the head-and then I said seven, and he said okay. I told him if he didn't pay, we'd screw him and his father and his brother and the whole coal-pilfering and tax-evading racket they have. So he began to sweat, and I know he'll pay up."

"Are you sure? I'd love to send some boys over. I just love to see a rich man roughed up. It's better than an erection."

"There will be others. This one isn't worth the trouble. He said he'll bring it on Monday. We're going to do it at the Sheraton. There's a nice restaurant down in the basement. Quiet place."

"Good. He can buy us dinner as well."

"Goes without saying. They have lovely kebabs there."

One of the two men gargled the scotch in his mouth, gulped it in, burped, and sucked his teeth.

"You know what the best part of this election is?"

"What?"

"The way we've spread down south. We've got a foothold in Bangalore too. And you know that's where the future is."

"The south? Bullshit."

"Why not? One in every three new office buildings in India is being built in Bangalore. It is the future."

"Fuck all that. I don't believe a word. The south is full of Tamils. You know who the Tamils are? Negroes. We're the sons of the Aryans who came to India. We made them our slaves. And now they give us lectures. Negroes."

"Son"-Vijay leaned forward with his glass-"another drink for me."

I poured them out the rest of the bottle that night.

At around three in the morning, I drove the City back to the apartment block in Gurgaon. My heart was beating so fast, I didn't want to leave the car at once. I wiped it down and washed it three times over. The bottle was lying on the floor of the car. Johnnie Walker Black-even an empty one is worth money on the black market. I picked it up and went toward the servants' dormitory.

For a Johnnie Walker Black, Vitiligo-Lips wouldn't mind being woken up.

I walked rotating the bottle with my wrist, feeling its weight. Even empty, it wasn't so light.

I noticed that my feet were slowing down, and the bottle was rotating faster and faster.

I was looking for the key for years…

The smashing of the bottle echoed through the hollow of the parking lot-the sound must have reached the lobby and ricocheted through all the floors of the building, even to the thirteenth floor.

I waited for a few minutes, expecting someone to come running down.

No one. I was safe.

I held what was left of the bottle up to the light. Long and cruel and clawlike jags.

Perfect.

With my foot I gathered the broken pieces of the bottle, which lay all around me, into a pile. I wiped the blood off my hand, found a broom, and swept the area clean. Then I got down on my knees and looked around for any pieces I had failed to pick up; the parking lot echoed with the line of a poem that was being recited over and over:

But the door was always open.

Dharam was sleeping on the floor; cockroaches were crawling about his head. I shook him awake and said, "Lie inside the mosquito net." He got in sleepily; I lay on the floor, braving the cockroaches. There was still some blood on my palm: three small red drops had formed on my flesh, like a row of ladybirds on a leaf. Sucking my palm like a boy, I went to sleep.

Mr. Ashok did not want me to drive him anywhere on Sunday morning. I washed the dishes in the kitchen, wiped the fridge, and said, "I'd like to take the morning off, sir."

"Why?" he asked, lowering the newspaper. "You've never asked for a whole morning off before. Where are you off to?"

And you have never before asked me where I was going when I left the house. What has Ms. Uma done to you?

"I want to spend some time with the boy, sir. At the zoo. I thought he would like to see all those animals."

He smiled. "You're a good family man, Balram. Go, have fun with the boy." He went back to reading his newspaper-but I caught a gleam of cunning in his eye as he went over the English print of the newspaper.

As we walked out of Buckingham Towers B Block, I told Dharam to wait for me, then went back and watched the entrance to the building. Half an hour passed, and then Mr. Ashok was down at the lobby. A small dark man-of the servant class-had come to see him. Mr. Ashok and he talked for a while, and then the small man bowed and left. They looked like two men who had just concluded a deal.

I went back to where Dharam was waiting. "Let's go!"

He and I took the bus to the Old Fort, which is where the National Zoo is. I kept my hand on Dharam's head the whole time-he must have thought it was out of affection, but it was only to stop my hand from trembling-it had been shaking all morning like a lizard's tail that has fallen off.

The first strike would be mine. Everything was in place now, nothing could go wrong-but like I told you, I am not a brave man.

The bus was crowded, and the two of us had to stand for the entire journey. We both sweated like pigs. I had forgotten what a bus trip in summer was like. When we stopped at a red light, a Mercedes-Benz pulled up alongside the bus. Behind his upraised window, cool in his egg, the chauffeur grinned at us, exposing red teeth.

There was a long line at the ticket counter of the zoo. There were lots of families wanting to go into the zoo, and that I could understand. What puzzled me, though, was the sight of so many young men and women going into the zoo, hand in hand: giggling, pinching each other, and making eyes, as if the zoo were a romantic place. That made no sense to me.

Now, Mr. Premier, every day thousands of foreigners fly into my country for enlightenment. They go to the Himalayas, or to Benaras, or to Bodh Gaya. They get into weird poses of yoga, smoke hashish, shag a sadhu or two, and think they're getting enlightened.

Ha!

If it is enlightenment you have come to India for, you people, forget the Ganga-forget the ashrams-go straight to the National Zoo in the heart of New Delhi.

Dharam and I saw the golden-beaked storks sitting on palm trees in the middle of an artificial lake. They swooped down over the green water of the lake, and showed us traces of pink on their wings. In the background, you could see the broken walls of the Old Fort.

Iqbal, that great poet, was so right. The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave. To hell with the Naxals and their guns shipped from China. If you taught every poor boy how to paint, that would be the end of the rich in India.

I made sure Dharam appreciated the gorgeous rise and fall of the fort's outline-the way its loopholes filled up with blue sky-the way the old stones glittered in the light.

We walked for half an hour, from cage to cage. The lion and the lioness were apart from each other and not talking, like a true city couple. The hippo was lying in a giant pond full of mud; Dharam wanted to do what others were doing-throw a stone at the hippo to stir it up-but I told him that would be a cruel thing. Hippos lie in mud and do nothing-that's their nature.

Let animals live like animals; let humans live like humans. That's my whole philosophy in a sentence.

I told Dharam it was time to leave, but he made faces and pleaded. "Five minutes, Uncle."

"All right, five minutes."

We came to an enclosure with tall bamboo bars, and there-seen in the interstices of the bars, as it paced back and forth in a straight line-was a tiger.

Not any kind of tiger.

The creature that gets born only once every generation in the jungle.

I watched him walk behind the bamboo bars. Black stripes and sunlit white fur flashed through the slits in the dark bamboo; it was like watching the slowed-down reels of an old black-and-white film. He was walking in the same line, again and again-from one end of the bamboo bars to the other, then turning around and repeating it over, at exactly the same pace, like a thing under a spell.

He was hypnotizing himself by walking like this-that was the only way he could tolerate this cage.

Then the thing behind the bamboo bars stopped moving. It turned its face to my face. The tiger's eyes met my eyes, like my master's eyes have met mine so often in the mirror of the car.

All at once, the tiger vanished.

A tingling went from the base of my spine into my groin. My knees began to shake; I felt light. Someone near me shrieked. "His eyes are rolling! He's going to faint!" I tried to shout back at her: "It's not true: I'm not fainting!" I tried to show them all I was fine, but my feet were slipping. The ground beneath me was shaking. Something was digging its way toward me, and then claws tore out of mud and dug into my flesh and pulled me down into the dark earth.

My last thought, before everything went dark, was that now I understood those pinches and raptures-now I understood why lovers come to the zoo.

That evening, Dharam and I sat on the floor in my room, and I spread a blue letter before him. I put a pen in his hands.

"I'm going to see how good a letter-writer you are, Dharam. I want you to write to Granny and tell her what happened today at the zoo."

He wrote it down in his slow, beautiful hand. He told her about the hippos, and the chimpanzees, and the swamp deer.

"Tell her about the tiger."

He hesitated, then wrote: We saw a white tiger in a cage.

"Tell her everything."

He looked at me, and wrote: Uncle Balram fainted in front of the white tiger in the cage.

"Better still-I'll dictate; write it down."

He wrote it all down for ten minutes, writing so fast that his pen got black and oozy with overflowing ink-he stopped to wipe the nib against his hair, and went back to the writing. In the end he read out what he had written:

I called out to the people around me, and we carried Uncle to a banyan tree. Someone poured water on his face. The good people slapped Uncle hard and made him wake up. They turned to me and said, "Your uncle is raving-he's saying goodbye to his grandmother. He must think he's going to die." Uncle's eyes were open now. "Are you all right, Uncle?" I asked. He took my hand and he said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I asked, "Sorry for what?" And he said, "I can't live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny. I'm so sorry." We took the bus back to Gurgaon and had lunch at the tea shop. It was very hot, and we sweated a lot. And that was all that happened today.

"Write whatever you want after that to her, and post it tomorrow, as soon as I leave in the car-but not before. Understand?"

It was raining all morning, a light, persistent kind of rain. I heard the rain, though I could not see it. I went to the Honda City, placed the incense stick inside, wiped the seats, wiped the stickers, and punched the ogre in the mouth. I threw a bundle near the driver's seat. I shut all the doors and locked them.

Then, taking two steps back from the Honda City, I bowed low to it with folded palms.

I went to see what Dharam was doing. He was looking lonely, so I made a paper boat for him, and we sailed it in the gutter outside the apartment block.

After lunch, I called Dharam into my room.

I put my hands on his shoulders; slowly I turned him around so he faced away from me. I dropped a rupee coin on the ground.

"Bend down and pick that up."

He did so, and I watched. Dharam combed his hair just like Mr. Ashok did-with a part down the middle; when you stood up over him, there was a clear white line down his scalp, leading up to the spot on the crown where the strands of a man's hairline radiate from.

"Stand up straight."

I turned him around a full circle. I dropped the rupee again.

"Pick it up one more time."

I watched the spot.

Telling him to sit in a corner of the room and keep watch over me, I went inside my mosquito net, folded my legs, closed my eyes, touched my palms to my knees, and breathed in.

I don't know how long I sat like the Buddha, but it lasted until one of the servants shouted out that I was wanted at the front door. I opened my eyes-Dharam was sitting in a corner of the room, watching me.

"Come here," I said-I gave him a hug, and put ten rupees into his pocket. He'd need that.

"Balram, you're late! The bell is ringing like crazy!"

I walked to the car, inserted the key, and turned the engine on. Mr. Ashok was standing at the entrance with an umbrella and a cell phone. He was talking on the phone as he got into the car and slammed the door.

"I still can't believe it. The people of this country had a chance to put an efficient ruling party back in power, and instead they have voted in the most outrageous bunch of thugs. We don't deserve-" He put the phone aside for a moment and said, "First to the city, Balram-I'll tell you where"-and then resumed the phone talk.

The roads were greasy with mud and water. I drove slowly.

"…parliamentary democracy, Father. We will never catch up with China for this single reason."

First stop was in the city-at one of the usual banks. He took the red bag and went in, and I saw him inside the glass booth, pressing the buttons of the cash machine. When he came back, I could feel that the weight of the bag on the backseat had increased. We went from bank to bank, and the weight of the red bag grew. I felt its pressure increase on my lower back-as if I were taking Mr. Ashok and his bag not in a car, but the way my father would take a customer and his bag-in a rickshaw.

Seven hundred thousand rupees.

It was enough for a house. A motorbike. And a small shop. A new life.

My seven hundred thousand rupees.

"Now to the Sheraton, Balram."

"Yes, sir."

I turned the key-started the car, changed gear. We moved.

"Play some Sting, Balram. Not too loud."

"Yes, sir."

I put the CD on. The voice of Sting came on. The car picked up speed. In a little while, we passed the famous bronze statue of Gandhi leading his followers from darkness to the light.

Now the road emptied. The rain was coming down lightly. If we kept going this way, we would come to the hotel-the grandest of all in the capital of my country, the place where visiting heads of state, like yourself, always stay. But Delhi is a city where civilization can appear and disappear within five minutes. On either side of us right now there was just wilderness and rubbish.

In the rearview mirror I saw him paying attention to nothing but his cell phone. A blue glow from the phone lit up his face. Without looking up, he asked me, "What's wrong, Balram? Why has the car stopped?"

I touched the magnetic stickers of the goddess Kali for luck, then opened the glove compartment. There it was-the broken bottle, with its claws of glass.

"There's something off with the wheel, sir. Just give me a couple of minutes."

Before I could even touch it, I swear, the door of the car opened. I was out in the drizzle.

There was soggy black mud everywhere. Picking my way over mud and rainwater, I squatted near the left rear wheel, which was hidden from the road by the body of the car. There was a large clump of bushes to one side-and a stretch of wasteland beyond.

You've never seen the road this empty. You'd swear it's been arranged just for you.

The only light inside the car was the blue glow from his cell phone. I rapped against his glass with a finger. He turned to me without lowering the window.

I mouthed out the words, "There's a problem, sir."

He did not lower the window; he did not step out. He was playing with his cell phone: punching the buttons and grinning. He must be sending a message to Ms. Uma.

Pressed to the wet glass, my lips made a grin.

He released the phone. I made a fist and thumped on his glass. He lowered the window with a look of displeasure. Sting's soft voice came through the window.

"What is it, Balram?"

"Sir, will you step out, there is a problem."

"What problem?"

His body just wouldn't budge! It knew-the body knew-though the mind was too stupid to figure it out.

"The wheel, sir. I'll need your help. It's stuck in the mud."

Just then headlights flashed on me: a car was coming down the road. My heart skipped a beat. But it just drove right past us, splashing muddy water at my feet.

He put a hand on the door and was about to step out, but some instinct of self-preservation still held him back.

"It's raining, Balram. Do you think we should call for help?"

He wriggled and moved away from the door.

"Oh, no, sir. Trust me. Come out."

He was still wriggling-his body was moving as far from me as it could. I'm losing him, I thought, and this forced me to do something I knew I would hate myself for, even years later. I really didn't want to do this-I really didn't want him to think, even in the two or three minutes he had left to live, that I was that kind of driver-the one that resorts to blackmailing his master-but he had left me no option:

"It's been giving problems ever since that night we went to the hotel in Jangpura."

He looked up from the cell phone at once.

"The one with the big T sign on it. You remember it, don't you, sir? Ever since that night, sir, nothing has been the same with this car."

His lips parted, then closed. He's thinking: Blackmail? Or an innocent reference to the past? Don't give him time to settle.

"Come out of the car, sir. Trust me."

Putting the cell phone on the seat, he obeyed me. The blue light of the cell phone filled the inside of the dark car for a second-then went out.

He opened the door farthest from me and got out near the road. I got down on my knees and hid behind the car.

"Come over this side, sir. The bad tire is on this side."

He came, picking his way through the mud.

"It's this one, sir-and be careful, there's a broken bottle lying on the ground." There was so much garbage by the roadside that it lay there looking perfectly natural.

"Here, let me throw it away. This is the tire, sir. Please take a look."

He got down on his knees. I rose up over him, holding the bottle held behind my back with a bent arm.

Down below me, his head was just a black ball-and in the blackness, I saw a thin white line of scalp between the neatly parted hair, leading like a painted line on a highway to the spot on the crown of his skull-the spot from which a man's hair radiates out.

The black ball moved; grimacing to protect his eyes against the drizzle, he looked up at me.

"It seems fine."

I stood still, like a schoolboy caught out by his teacher. I thought: That landlord's brain of his has figured it out. He's going to stand up and hit me in the face.

But what is the use of winning a battle when you don't even know that there is a war going on?

"Well, you know more about this car than I do, Balram. Let me take another look."

And he peered again at the tire. The black highway appeared before me once more, with the white paint marks leading to the crown spot.

"There is a problem, sir. You should have got a replacement a long time ago."

"All right, Balram." He touched the tire. "But I really think we-"

I rammed the bottle down. The glass ate his bone. I rammed it three times into the crown of his skull, smashing through to his brains. It's a good, strong bottle, Johnnie Walker Black-well worth its resale value.

The stunned body fell into the mud. A hissing sound came out of its lips, like wind escaping from a tire.

I fell to the ground-my hand was trembling, the bottle slipped out, and I had to pick it up with my left hand. The thing with the hissing lips got up onto its hands and knees; it began crawling around in a circle, as if looking for someone who was meant to protect it.

Why didn't I gag him and leave him in the bushes, stunned and unconscious, where he wouldn't be able to do a thing for hours, while I escaped? Good question-and I've thought about it many a night, as I sit at my desk, looking at the chandelier.

The first possible reply is that he could always recover, break out of his gag, and call the police. So I had to kill him.

The second possible reply is that his family was going to do such terrible things to my family: I was just getting my revenge in advance.

I like the second reply better.

Putting my foot on the back of the crawling thing, I flattened it to the ground. Down on my knees I went, to be at the right height for what would come next. I turned the body around, so it would face me. I stamped my knee on its chest. I undid the collar button and rubbed my hand over its clavicles to mark out the spot.

When I was a boy in Laxmangarh, and I used to play with my father's body, the junction of the neck and the chest, the place where all the tendons and veins stick out in high relief, was my favorite spot. When I touched this spot, the pit of my father's neck, I controlled him-I could make him stop breathing with the pressure of a finger.

The Stork's son opened his eyes-just as I pierced his neck-and his lifeblood spurted into my eyes.

I was blind. I was a free man.

When I got the blood out of my eyes, it was all over for Mr. Ashok. The blood was draining from the neck quite fast-I believe that is the way the Muslims kill their chickens.

But then tuberculosis is a worse way to go than this, I assure you.

After dragging the body into the bushes, I plunged my hands and face into the rainwater and muck. I picked up the bundle near my feet-the white cotton T-shirt, the one with lots of white space and just one word in English-and changed into it. Reaching for the gilded box of tissues, I wiped my face and hands clean. I pulled out all the stickers of the goddess, and threw them on Mr. Ashok's body-just in case they'd help his soul go to heaven.

And then, getting into the car, turning the ignition key, putting my foot on the accelerator, I took the Honda City, finest of cars, most faithful of accomplices, on one final trip. Since there was no one else in the car, my left hand reached out to turn Sting off-then stopped and relaxed.

From now on I could play the music as long as I wanted.

In the railway station, thirty-three minutes later, the colored wheels in the fortune machines were coruscating. I stood in front of them, staring at the glowing and the whirling, and wondering, Should I go back to get Dharam?

If I left him there now, the police would certainly arrest him as an accomplice. They would throw him into jail with a bunch of wild men-and you know what happens to little boys when they get put into dens like that, sir.

On the other hand, if I went back now all the way to Gurgaon, someone might discover the body…and then all this (I tightened my grip on the bag) would have been a waste.

I squatted on the floor of the station, pressed down by indecision. There was a squealing noise to my left. A plastic bucket was tumbling about, as if it were alive: then a grinning black face popped out of the bucket. A little creature, a baby boy. A homeless man and woman, covered in filth, sat on either side of the bucket, gazing blankly into the distance. Between his fatigued parents, this little thing was having the time of his life, playing with the water and splashing it on passersby. "Don't do it, little boy," I said. He splashed more water, squealing with pleasure each time he hit me. I raised my hand. He ducked into his bucket and kept thrashing from the inside.

I reached into my pockets, searched for a rupee coin, checked to make sure it wasn't a two-rupee coin, and rolled it toward the bucket.

Then I sighed, and got up, and cursed myself, and walked out of the station.

Your lucky day, Dharam.