The White Tiger

Mr. Ashok put the garland on the great man's thick, bull-like neck.

'My son,' the Stork said. 'Returned from America recently.'

The Great Socialist squeezed Mr. Ashok's cheeks. 'Good. We need more boys to come back and build India into a superpower.'

And then they went into the house, and all the doors and windows were closed. After a while, the Great Socialist came out into the courtyard, followed by the old man, the Mongoose, and Mr. Ashok.

I was trying to overhear them, and so pretended to be sweeping the ground, while inching closer and closer to them. I had swept myself right into hearing distance when the Great Socialist tapped me on the back.

'What's your name, son?' he asked.

Then he said, 'Your employers are trying to bugger me, Balram. What do you say to this?'

Mr. Ashok looked stunned. The Stork simpered.

'A million and a half is a lot, sir. We'll be happy to come to a settlement with you.'

The Great Socialist waved his hands as if dismissing that plea.

'Bullshit. You've got a good scam going here-taking coal for free from the government mines. You've got it going because I let it happen. You were just some little village landlord when I found you-I brought you here-I made you what you are today: and by God, you cross me, and you'll go back there into that village. I said a million and a fucking half, and I mean a million and…'

He had to stop-he had been chewing paan, and now his mouth had filled up with red spittle, which was beginning to dribble out. He turned to me and made the shape of a bowl with his hands. I rushed to the Honda City to get the spittoon.

When I came back with the spittoon, he coolly turned to the Mongoose and said, 'Son, won't you hold the spittoon for me?'

The Mongoose refused to move, so the Great Socialist took the spittoon from my hands and held it out.

'Take it, son.'

The Mongoose took it.

Then the Great Socialist spat into the spittoon, three times.

The Mongoose's hands trembled; his face turned black with shame.

'Thank you for that, son,' the Great Socialist said, wiping his lips. He turned to me and tickled his forehead. 'Where was I, now?'

There you have it. That was the positive side of the Great Socialist. He humiliated all our masters-that's why we kept voting him back in.

That night, on the pretext again of sweeping the courtyard, I got close to the Stork and his sons; they were sitting on a bench, holding glasses of golden liquor and talking. Mukesh Sir had just finished; the old man shook his head.

'We can't do that, Mukesh. We need him.'

'I'm telling you, Father. We don't anymore. We can go straight to Delhi. We know people there now.'

'I agree with Mukesh, Father. We shouldn't let him treat us like this anymore-like we're his slaves.'

'Quiet, Ashok. Let Mukesh and me discuss this.'

I swept the courtyard twice over, and listened. Then I began tightening Pinky Madam's sagging badminton net, so I could stay near them.

But a pair of suspicious Nepali eyes spotted me out: 'Don't loiter in the courtyard. Go and sit in your room and wait for the masters to call you.'

'All right.'

Ram Bahadur glared at me, so I said, 'All right, sir.'

(Servants, incidentally, are obsessed with being called 'sir' by other servants, sir.)

The next morning, when I was blow-drying Puddles and Cuddles after having shampooed them, Ram Bahadur came up to me, and said, 'Have you ever been to Delhi?'

I shook my head.

'They're going to Delhi in a week. Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam. They're going to leave for three months.'

I got down on my knees and directed the blow dryer under Cuddles's legs, pretending not to be interested, and asked, as casually as I could, 'Why?'

The Nepali shrugged. Who knew? We were just servants. One thing, though, he did know.

'Only one driver will be taken along. And this driver will get three thousand rupees a month-that's how much they'll pay him in Delhi.'

The blow dryer fell out of my hand. 'Serious? Three thousand?'

'Yes.'

'Will they take me along, sir?' I got up and asked pleadingly, 'Can't you make them take me?'

'They'll take Ram Persad,' he said with a sneer of his Nepali lips. 'Unless…'

'Unless?'

He minted coins with his fingers.

Five thousand rupees-and he would tell the Stork that I was the man to be taken along to Delhi.

'Five thousand-where will I get such money? My family steals my whole paycheck!'

'Oh, well. In that case, it'll be Ram Persad. As for you'-he pointed to Cuddles and Puddles-'you'll be cleaning the dogs for the rest of your life, I guess.'

* * *

I woke up, both nostrils burning.

It was still dark.

Ram Persad was up. He was sitting on his bed, chopping onions on a wooden board: I heard the tack, tack, tack of his knife hitting the board.

What the hell is he chopping onions so early for? I thought, turning to a side and closing my eyes again. I wanted to go back to sleep, but the tack, tack, tack of the knife hitting the board insisted:

This man has a secret.

I stayed awake, while the man on the bed chopped onions. I tried to figure it out.

What had I noticed about Ram Persad in the past few days?

For one thing, his breath had gone bad. Even Pinky Madam complained. He had suddenly stopped eating with us, either inside the house or outside. Even on Sundays, when there would be chicken, Ram Persad would refuse to eat with us, saying he had already done so, or he wasn't hungry, or…

The chopping of the onions continued, and I kept adding thought to thought in the dark.

I watched him all day. Toward evening, as I was expecting, he began moving to the gate.

From my conversation with the cook, I had learned that Ram Persad had started to head out of the house at the same time every evening. I followed at a distance. He went into a part of the city I had never seen before, and walked around a few alleys. At one point I distinctly saw him turn around, as if to make sure no one was following him; then he darted.

He had stopped in front of a two-story building. The wall had a large metal grille divided into square units; a series of small black taps jutted out from the wall below the grille. He bent down to a tap, washed his face and gargled and spat. Then he took off his sandals. Shoes and sandals had been folded and stuffed into the squares of the grille-he did the same with his sandals. Then he went into the building and closed the door.

I slapped my forehead.

What a fool I'd been! 'It's Ramadan! They can't eat and drink during the day.'

I ran back to the house and found the Nepali. He was standing at the gate, rubbing his teeth with a twig broken from a neem tree-which is what many poor people in my country do, Mr. Premier, when they want to clean their teeth.

'I just saw a film, sir.'

'Fuck off.'

'A great film, sir. Lots of dancing. Hero was a Muslim. Name of Mohammad Mohammad.'

'Don't waste my time, boy. Go clean the car if you've got nothing to do.'