The White Tiger

was as corrupt as ever. The fighting between the Naxal terrorists and the landlords was getting bloodier. Small people like us were getting caught in between. There were private armies on both sides, going around to shoot and torture people suspected of sympathizing with the other.

'Life has become hell here,' he said. 'But we're so happy you're out of this mess-you've got a uniform, and a good master.'

Kishan had changed. He was thinner, and darker-his neck tendons were sticking out in high relief above the deep clavicles. He had become, all of a sudden, my father.

I saw Kusum grinning and rubbing her forearms and talking of my marriage. She served me lunch herself. As she ladled the curry onto my plate-she had made chicken, just for me-she said, 'We'll fix up the wedding for later this year, okay? We've already found someone for you-a nice plump duck. The moment she has her menstrual cycle, she can come here.'

There was red, curried bone and flesh in front of me-and it seemed to me that they had served me flesh from Kishan's own body on that plate.

'Granny,' I said, looking at the large piece of red, curried meat, 'give me some more time. I'm not ready to be married.'

Her jaw dropped. 'What do you mean, not yet? You'll do what we want.' She smiled. 'Now eat it, dear. I made chicken just for you.'

I said, 'No.'

'Eat it.'

She pushed the plate closer to me.

Everyone in the household stopped to look at our tussle.

Granny squinted. 'What are you, a Brahmin? Eat, eat.'

'No!' I pushed the plate so hard it went flying to a corner and hit the wall and spilled the red curry on the floor. 'I said, I'm not marrying!'

She was too stunned even to yell. Kishan got up and tried to stop me as I left, but I pushed him to the side-he fell down hard-and I just walked out of the house.

The children ran along with me outside, little dirty brats born to one aunt or the other whose names I did not want to know, whose hair I did not want to touch. Gradually they got the message and went back.

I left behind the temple, the market, the hogs, and the sewage. Then I was alone at the pond-the Black Fort on the hill up in front of me.

Near the water's edge I sat down, gnashing my teeth.

I couldn't stop thinking of Kishan's body. They were eating him alive in there! They would do the same thing to him that they did to Father-scoop him out from the inside and leave him weak and helpless, until he got tuberculosis and died on the floor of a government hospital, waiting for some doctor to see him, spitting blood on this wall and that!

There was a splashing noise. The water buffalo in the pond lifted its water-lily-covered head-it peeked at me. A crane stood watching me on one leg.

I walked until the water came up to my neck, and then swam-past lotuses and water lilies, past the water buffalo, past tadpoles and fish and giant boulders fallen from the fort.

Up on the broken ramparts, the monkeys gathered to look at me: I had started climbing up the hill.

* * *

You are familiar already with my love of poetry-and especially of the works of the four Muslim poets acknowledged to be the greatest of all time. Now, Iqbal, who is one of the four, has written this remarkable poem in which he imagines that he is the Devil, standing up for his rights at a moment when God tries to bully him. The Devil, according to the Muslims, was once God's sidekick, until he fought with Him and went freelance, and ever since, there has been a war of brains between God and the Devil. This is what Iqbal writes about. The exact words of the poem I can't remember, but it goes something like this.

God says: I am powerful. I am huge. Become my servant again.

Devil says: Ha!

When I remember Iqbal's Devil, as I do often, lying here under my chandelier, I think of a little black figure in a wet khaki uniform who is climbing up the entranceway to a black fort.

There he stands now, one foot on the ramparts of the Black Fort, surrounded by a group of amazed monkeys.

Up in the blue skies, God spreads His palm over the plains below, showing this little man Laxmangarh, and its little tributary of the Ganga, and all that lies beyond: a million such villages, a billion such people. And God asks this little man:

Isn't it all wonderful? Isn't it all grand? Aren't you grateful to be my servant?

And then I see this small black man in the wet khaki uniform start to shake, as if he has gone mad with anger, before delivering to the Almighty a gesture of thanks for having created the world this particular way, instead of all the other ways it could have been created.

I see the little man in the khaki uniform spitting at God again and again, as I watch the black blades of the midget fan slice the light from the chandelier again and again.

* * *

Half an hour later, when I came down the hill, I went straight to the Stork's mansion. Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam were waiting for me by the Honda City.

'Where the hell have you been, driver?' she yelled. 'We've been waiting.'

'Sorry, madam,' I said, grinning to her. 'I'm very sorry.'

'Have a heart, Pinky. He was seeing his family. You know how close they are to their families in the Darkness.'

Kusum, Luttu Auntie, and all the other women were gathered by the side of the road as we drove out. They gaped at me-stunned that I wasn't coming to apologize: I saw Kusum clench her gnarled fist at me.

I put my foot down on the accelerator and drove right past all of them.

We went through the market square-I took a look at the tea shop: the human spiders were at work at the tables, the rickshaws were arranged in a line at the back, and the cyclist with the poster for the daily pornographic film on the other side of the river had just begun his rounds.

I drove through the greenery, through the bushes and the trees and the water buffaloes lazing in muddy ponds; past the creepers and the bushes; past the paddy fields; past the coconut palms; past the bananas; past the neems and the banyans; past the wild grass with the faces of the water buffaloes peeping through. A small, half-naked boy was riding a buffalo by the side of the road; when he saw us, he pumped his fists and shouted in joy-and I wanted to shout back at him: Yes, I feel that way too! I'm never going back there!

'Can you talk now, Ashoky? Can you answer my question?'

'All right. Look, when I came back, I really thought it was going to be for two months, Pinky. But…things have changed so much in India. There are so many more things I could do here than in New York now.'

'Ashoky, that's bullshit.'

'No, it's not. Really, it's not. The way things are changing in India now, this place is going to be like America in ten years. Plus, I like it better here. We've got people to take care of us here-our drivers, our watchmen, our masseurs. Where in New York will you find someone to bring you tea and sweet biscuits while you're still lying in bed, the way Ram Bahadur does for us? You know, he's been in my family for thirty years-we call him a servant, but he's part of the family. Dad found this Nepali wandering about Dhanbad one day with a gun in his hand and said-'

He stopped talking all at once.

'Did you see that, Pinky?'

'What?'

'Did you see what the driver did?'