The White Tiger

I'm talking of the police, of course.

The next day I paid a local to be a translator-you know, I'm sure, that the people of the north and the south in my country speak different languages-and went to the nearest police station. In my hand I had the red bag. I acted like an important man, and made sure the policemen saw the red bag by swinging it a lot, and gave them a business card I had just had printed. Then I insisted on seeing the big man there, the inspector. At last they let me into his office-the red bag had done the trick.

The big man sat at a huge desk, with shiny badges on his khaki uniform and the red marks of religion on his forehead. Behind him were three portraits of gods. But not the one I was looking for.

Oh, thank God. There was one of Gandhi too. It was in the corner.

With a big smile-and a namaste-I handed him the red bag. He opened it cautiously.

I said, via the translator, 'Sir, I want to make a small offering of my gratitude to you.'

It's amazing. The moment you show cash, everyone knows your language.

'Gratitude for what?' the inspector asked in Hindi, peering into the bag with one eye closed.

'For all the good you are going to do me, sir.'

He counted the money-ten thousand rupees-heard what I wanted, and asked for double. I gave him a bit more, and he was happy. I tell you, Mr. Premier, my poster was right there, the one that I had seen earlier, the whole time I was negotiating with him. The WANTED poster, with the dirty little photo of me.

Two days later, I called up the nice woman at the Internet company who had turned me down, and heard a shocking tale. Her taxi service had been disrupted. A police raid had discovered that most of the drivers did not have licenses.

'I'm so sorry, madam,' I said. 'I offer you my sympathies. In addition, I offer you my company. White Tiger Drivers.'

'Do all your drivers have licenses?'

'Of course, madam. You can call the police and check.'

She did just that, and called me back. I think the police must have put in a good word for me. And that was how I got my own-as they say in English-'start-up.'

I was one of the drivers in the early days, but then I gave up. I don't really think I ever enjoyed driving, you know? Talking is much more fun. Now the start-up has grown into a big business. We've got sixteen drivers who work in shifts with twenty-six vehicles. Yes, it's true: a few hundred thousand rupees of someone else's money, and a lot of hard work, can make magic happen in this country. Put together my real estate and my bank holdings, and I am worth fifteen times the sum I borrowed from Mr. Ashok. See for yourself at my Web site. See my motto: 'We Drive Technology Forward.' In English! See the photos of my fleet: twenty-six shining new Toyota Qualises, all fully air-conditioned for the summer months, all contracted out to famous technology companies. If you like my SUVs, if you want your call-center boys and girls driven home in style, just click where it says CONTACT ASHOK SHARMA NOW.

Yes, Ashok! That's what I call myself these days. Ashok Sharma, North Indian entrepreneur, settled in Bangalore.

If you were sitting here with me, under this big chandelier, I would show you all the secrets of my business. You could stare at the screen of my silver Macintosh laptop and see photos of my SUVs, my drivers, my garages, my mechanics, and my paid-off policemen.

All of them belong to me-Munna, whose destiny was to be a sweet-maker!

You'll see photos of my boys too. All sixteen of them. Once I was a driver to a master, but now I am a master of drivers. I don't treat them like servants-I don't slap, or bully, or mock anyone. I don't insult any of them by calling them my 'family,' either. They're my employees, I'm their boss, that's all. I make them sign a contract and I sign it too, and both of us must honor that contract. That's all. If they notice the way I talk, the way I dress, the way I keep things clean, they'll go up in life. If they don't, they'll be drivers all their lives. I leave the choice up to them. When the work is done I kick them out of the office: no chitchat, no cups of coffee. A White Tiger keeps no friends. It's too dangerous.

Now, despite my amazing success story, I don't want to lose contact with the places where I got my real education in life.

The road and the pavement.

I walk about Bangalore in the evenings, or in the early mornings, just to listen to the road.

One evening when I was near the train station, I saw a dozen or so manual laborers gathered together in front of a wall and talking in low tones. They were speaking in a strange language; they were the locals of the place. I didn't have to understand their words to know what they were saying. In a city where so many had streamed in from outside, they were the ones left behind.

They were reading something on that wall. I wanted to see what it was, but they stopped their talking and crowded in front of the wall. I had to threaten to call the police before they parted and let me see what they had been reading.

It was a stenciled image of a pair of hands smashing its manacles:

THE GREAT SOCIALIST IS COMING TO BANGALORE

In a couple of weeks he arrived. He had a big rally here and gave a terrific speech, all about fire and blood and purging this country of the rich because there was going to be no fresh water for the poor in ten years because the world was getting hotter. I stood at the back and listened. At the end people clapped like crazy. There is a lot of anger in this town, that's for sure.

Keep your ears open in Bangalore -in any city or town in India -and you will hear stirrings, rumors, threats of insurrection. Men sit under lampposts at night and read. Men huddle together and discuss and point fingers to the heavens. One night, will they all join together-will they destroy the Rooster Coop?

Ha!

Maybe once in a hundred years there is a revolution that frees the poor. I read this in one of those old textbook pages people in tea stalls use to wrap greasy samosas with. See, only four men in history have led successful revolutions to free the slaves and kill their masters, this page said:

Alexander the Great.

Abraham Lincoln of America.

Mao of your country.

And a fourth man. It may have been Hitler, I can't remember.

But I don't think a fifth name is getting added to the list anytime soon.

An Indian revolution?

No, sir. It won't happen. People in this country are still waiting for the war of their freedom to come from somewhere else-from the jungles, from the mountains, from China, from Pakistan. That will never happen. Every man must make his own Benaras.

The book of your revolution sits in the pit of your belly, young Indian. Crap it out, and read.

Instead of which, they're all sitting in front of color TVs and watching cricket and shampoo advertisements.

On the topic of shampoo advertisements, Mr. Premier, I must say that golden-colored hair sickens me now. I don't think it's healthy for a woman to have that color of hair. I don't trust the TV or the big outdoor posters of white women that you see all over Bangalore. I go from my own experience now, from the time I spend in five- star hotels. (That's right, Mr. Jiabao: I don't go to 'red light districts' anymore. It's not right to buy and sell women who live in birdcages and get treated like animals. I only buy girls I find in five-star hotels.)

Based on my experience, Indian girls are the best.

(Well, second-best. I tell you, Mr. Jiabao, it's one of the most thrilling sights you can have as a man in Bangalore, to see the eyes of a pair of Nepali girls flashing out at you from the dark hood of an autorickshaw.)

In fact, the sight of these golden-haired foreigners-and you'll discover that Bangalore is full of them these days-has only convinced me that the white people are on the way out. All of them look so emaciated-so puny. You'll never see one of them with a decent belly. For this I blame the president of America; he has made buggery perfectly legal in his country, and men are marrying other men instead of women. This was on the radio. This is leading to the decline of the white man. Then white people use cell phones too much, and that is destroying their