The White Tiger

'Now, this Mohammad Mohammad was a poor, honest, hardworking Muslim, but he wanted a job at the home of an evil, prejudiced landlord who didn't like Muslims-so, just to get a job and feed his starving family, he claimed to be a Hindu! And took the name of Ram Persad.'

The twig fell out of the Nepali's mouth.

'And you know how he managed to pull this off? Because the Nepali guard at this house, whom the masters trusted absolutely, and who was supposed to check up on Ram Persad's background, was in on the scam!'

Before he could run, I caught him by the collar. Technically, in these servant-versus-servant affairs, that is all you need to do to indicate: 'I have won.' But if you're going to do these things, it's better to do them in style, right? So I slapped him too.

I was servant number one from now on in this household.

I ran back to the mosque. Namaz must have ended by now. And indeed, Ram Persad-or Mohammad or whatever his name really was-came out of the mosque, took his sandals down from the window, slapped them on the ground, wriggled his feet into them, and began walking out. He saw me-I winked at him-and he knew that the game was up.

I did the needful in a few precise words.

Then I went back to the house. The Nepali was watching me from behind the black bars. I took his key chain from him and put it in my pocket. 'Get me some tea. And biscuits.' I pinched his shirt. 'And I want your uniform too. Mine is getting old.'

I slept in the bed that night.

In the morning someone came into the room. It was ex-driver number one. Without a word to me, he began packing. All his things fitted into one small bag.

I thought, What a miserable life he's had, having to hide his religion, his name, just to get a job as a driver-and he is a good driver, no question of it, a far better one than I will ever be. Part of me wanted to get up and apologize to him right there and say, You go and be a driver in Delhi. You never did anything to hurt me. Forgive me, brother.

I turned to the other side, farted, and went back to sleep.

When I woke up, he was gone-he had left all his images of gods behind, and I scooped them into a bag. You never know when those things can come in handy.

In the evening, the Nepali came to me with a grin on his face-the same fake servant's grin he showed to the Stork all day long. He told me that, since Ram Persad had left their service without a word, I would be driving Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam to Delhi. He had personally-and forcefully-recommended my name to the Stork.

I went back to my bed-all mine now-stretched out on it, and said, 'Great. Now clean those webs off the ceiling, won't you?'

He glared at me, but said nothing, and went away to get a broom. I shouted:

'-Sir!'

From then on, every morning, it was hot Nepali tea, and some nice sugar biscuits, on a porcelain platter.

Kishan came to the gate that Sunday and heard the news from me. I thought he was going to bugger me for how abruptly I had left them at the village, but he was overcome with joy-his eyes were full of tears. Someone in his family was going to make it out of the Darkness and into New Delhi!

'It's just like our mother always said. She knew you were going to make it.'

Two days later, I was driving Mr. Ashok, the Mongoose, and Pinky Madam to Delhi in the Honda City. It wasn't hard to find the way-I just had to follow the buses. For there were buses and jeeps all along the road-and they were bursting with passengers who packed the insides, and hung out the doors, and even got on the roofs. They were all headed from the Darkness to Delhi. You'd think the whole world was migrating.

Each time we passed by one of these buses, I had to grin; I wished I could roll down the window and yell at them, I'm going to Delhi in a car-an air-conditioned car!

But I'm sure they saw the words in my eyes.

Around noon, Mr. Ashok tapped me on the shoulder.

From the start, sir, there was a way in which I could understand what he wanted to say, the way dogs understand their masters. I stopped the car, and then moved to my left, and he moved to his right, and our bodies passed each other (so close that the stubble on his face scraped my cheeks like the shaving brush that I use every morning, and the cologne from his skin-a lovely, rich, fruity cologne-rushed into my nostrils for a heady instant, while the smell of my servant's sweat rubbed off onto his face), and then he became driver and I became passenger.

He started the car.

The Mongoose, who had been reading a newspaper the whole time, now saw what had happened.

'Don't do this, Ashok.'

He was an old-school master, the Mongoose. He knew right from wrong.

'You're right-this feels weird,' Mr. Ashok said.

The car came to a stop. Our bodies crossed each other again, our scents were exchanged once more, and I was again the driver and servant, and Mr. Ashok was again the passenger and master.

We reached Delhi late at night.

It is not yet three, I could go on a little while longer. But I want to stop, because from here on I have to tell you a new kind of story.

Remember, Mr. Premier, the first time, perhaps as a boy, when you opened the hood of a car and looked into its entrails? Remember the colored wires twisting from one part of the engine to the other, the black box full of yellow caps, enigmatic tubes hissing out steam and oil and grease everywhere-remember how mysterious and magical everything seemed? When I peer into the portion of my story that unfolds in New Delhi, I feel the same way. If you ask me to explain how one event connects to another, or how one motive strengthens or weakens the next, or how I went from thinking this about my master to thinking that-I will tell you that I myself don't understand these things. I cannot be certain that the story, as I will tell it, is the right story to tell. I cannot be certain that I know exactly why Mr. Ashok died.

It will be good for me to stop here.

When we meet again, at midnight, remind me to turn the chandelier up a bit. The story gets much darker from here.

The Fourth Night

I should talk a little more about this chandelier.

Why not? I've got no family anymore. All I've got is chandeliers.

I have a chandelier here, above my head in my office, and then I have two in my apartment in Raj Mahal Villas Phase Two. One in the drawing room, and a small one in the toilet too. It must be the only toilet in Bangalore with a chandelier!

I saw all these chandeliers one day, tied to the branch of a big banyan tree near Lalbagh Gardens; a boy from a village was selling them, and I bought all of them on the spot. I paid some fellow with a bullock cart to bring them home and we went riding through Bangalore, me and this fellow and four chandeliers, on a limousine powered by bulls!

It makes me happy to see a chandelier. Why not, I'm a free man, let me buy all the chandeliers I want. For one thing, they keep the lizards away from this room. It's the truth, sir. Lizards don't like the light, so as soon as they see a chandelier, they stay away.

I don't understand why other people don't buy chandeliers all the time, and put them up everywhere. Free people don't know the value of freedom, that's the problem.

Sometimes, in my apartment, I turn on both chandeliers, and then I lie down amid all that light, and I just start laughing. A man in hiding, and yet he's surrounded by chandeliers!

There-I'm revealing the secret to a successful escape. The police searched for me in darkness: but I hid