The White Tiger

in.

'Tell us all about it, Country-Mouse.'

They took positions around me.

'Tell you what?'

'The gatekeeper spilled the beans. There are no secrets around here. You drove the woman somewhere at night and came back alone. Has she left him?'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'We know they've been fighting, Country-Mouse. And you drove her somewhere at night. The airport? She's gone, isn't she? It's a divorce-every rich man these days is divorcing his wife. These rich people…' He shook his head. His lips curled up in scorn, exposing his reddish, rotting, paan-decayed canines. 'No respect for God, for marriage, family-nothing.'

'She just went out for some fresh air. And I brought her back. That gatekeeper has gone blind.'

'Loyal to the last. They don't make servants like you anymore.'

I waited all morning for the bell to ring-but it did not. In the afternoon, I went up to the thirteenth floor, and rang the bell and waited. He opened his door, and his eyes were red.

'What is it?'

'Nothing, sir. I came to…make lunch.'

'No need for that.' I thought he was going to apologize for almost killing me, but he said nothing about it.

'Sir, you must eat. It's not good for your health to starve…Please, sir.'

With a sigh, he let me in.

Now that she was gone, I knew that it was my duty to be like a wife to him. I had to make sure he ate well, and slept well, and did not get thin. I made lunch, I served him, I cleaned up. Then I went down and waited for the bell. At eight o'clock, I took the elevator up again. Pressing my ear against the door, I listened.

Nothing. Not a sound.

I rang the bell: no response. I knew he couldn't be out-I was his driver, after all. Where could he go without me?

The door was open. I walked in.

He lay beneath the framed photo of the two Pomeranians, a bottle on the mahogany table in front of him, his eyes closed.

I sniffed the bottle. Whiskey. Almost all of it gone. I put it to my lips and emptied the dregs.

'Sir,' I said, but he did not wake up. I gave him a push. I slapped him on the face. He licked his lips, sucked his teeth. He was waking up, but I slapped him a second time anyway.

(A time-honored servants' tradition. Slapping the master when he's asleep. Like jumping on pillows when masters are not around. Or urinating into their plants. Or beating or kicking their pet dogs. Innocent servants' pleasures.)

I dragged him into his bedroom, pulled the blanket over him, turned the lights off, and went down. There was going to be no driving tonight, so I headed off to the 'Action' English Liquor Shop. My nose was still full of Mr. Ashok's whiskey.

The same thing happened the next night too.

The third night he was drunk, but awake.

'Drive me,' he said. 'Anywhere you want. To the malls. To the hotels. Anywhere.'

Around and around the shiny malls and hotels of Gurgaon I drove him, and he sat slouched in the backseat-not even talking on the phone, for once.

When the master's life is in chaos, so is the servant's. I thought, Maybe he's sick of Delhi now. Will he go back to Dhanbad? What happens to me then? My belly churned. I thought I would crap right there, on my seat, on the gearbox.

'Stop the car,' he said.

He opened the door of the car, put his hand on his stomach, bent down, and threw up on the ground. I wiped his mouth with my hand and helped him sit down by the side of the road. The traffic roared past us. I patted his back.

'You're drinking too much, sir.'

'Why do men drink, Balram?'

'I don't know, sir.'

'Of course, in your caste you don't…Let me tell you, Balram. Men drink because they are sick of life. I thought caste and religion didn't matter any longer in today's world. My father said, 'No, don't marry her, she's of another…' I…'

Mr. Ashok turned his head to the side, and I rubbed his back, thinking he might throw up again, but the spasm passed.

'Sometimes I wonder, Balram. I wonder what's the point of living. I really wonder…'

The point of living? My heart pounded. The point of your living is that if you die, who's going to pay me three and a half thousand rupees a month?

'You must believe in God, sir. You must go on. My granny says that if you believe in God, then good things will happen.'

'That's true, it's true. We must believe,' he sobbed.

'Once there was a man who stopped believing in God, and you know what happened?'

'What?'

'His buffalo died at once.'

'I see.' He laughed. 'I see.'

'Yes, sir, it really happened. The next day he said, 'God, I'm sorry, I believe in You,' and guess what happened?'

'His buffalo came back to life?'

'Exactly!'

He laughed again. I told him another story, and this made him laugh some more.

Has there ever been a master-servant relationship like this one? He was so powerless, so lost, my heart just had to melt. Whatever anger I had against him for trying to pin Pinky Madam's hit-and-run killing on me passed away that evening. That was her fault. Mr. Ashok had nothing to do with it. I forgave him entirely.

I talked to him about the wisdom of my village-half repeating things I remembered Granny saying, and half making things up on the spot-and he nodded. It was a scene to put you in mind of that passage in the Bhagavad Gita, when our Lord Krishna-another of history's famous chauffeurs-stops the chariot he is driving and gives his passenger some excellent advice on life and death. Like Krishna I philosophized-I joked-I even sang a song-all to make Mr. Ashok feel better.

Baby, I thought, rubbing his back as he heaved and threw up one more time, you big, pathetic baby.

I put my hand out and wiped the vomit from his lips, and cooed soothing words to him. It squeezed my heart to see him suffer like this-but where my genuine concern for him ended and where my self-interest began, I could not tell: no servant can ever tell what the motives of his heart are.

Do we loathe our masters behind a facade of love-or do we love them behind a facade of loathing?

We are made mysteries to ourselves by the Rooster Coop we are locked in.

The next day I went to a roadside temple in Gurgaon. I put a rupee before the two resident pairs of divine arses and prayed that Pinky Madam and Mr. Ashok should be reunited and given a long and happy life together in Delhi.

* * *

A week passed like this, and then the Mongoose turned up from Dhanbad and Mr. Ashok and I went together to the station to collect him.

The moment he arrived, everything changed for me. The intimacy was over between me and Mr. Ashok.

Once again, I was only the driver. Once again, I was only the eavesdropper.