Sacred Games (37 page)

‘Bastard,' I said. ‘What a fine guard you are.'

‘Sorry, bhai,' he said. ‘I was seeing leopards all over the place. So I thought I would never sleep. But then suddenly I must have fallen asleep.'

‘You were, chutiya. Like a baby.' But I was rubbing the top of his head. He was a good boy. Brave and watchful, watchful for me, and intelligent. He noticed things, the look on people's faces, cars parked where they shouldn't be, and felt rumours on his nerve-endings. But he couldn't help me now, with my quandary, my delicate puzzle which could break hearts and heads. None of them could. It made me angry, this sudden slide down and back into the slithering mess of family. I had lifted away, I had left everything behind. I had been alone. But there was no escape. The wheels slapped at the road and we went back to the city.

 

The next day we waged the final battles of the elections. Bipin Bhonsle called again and again, polite as he had been during our first meeting, but nerve-racked and needing reassurance that we would give him his precious seat yet. The Congress incumbent had been going around the bastis, handing out hundred-rupee notes and rum and whole sheep to the citizens. Good fresh mutton is the basis of many a political career, I came to know. It made sense. A poor man fills his stomach, he takes pleasure in his dinner, he lubricates himself with two free pegs, maybe three, not too many because he has other plans, he rides his wife, in the morning they both go to the voting booth happy, in that uplifted haze their bodies feel light, and they forget all about how the khadi-wearing bhenchod politician has done nothing for them for years, how he has robbed and stolen and maybe murdered. All of that is gone, vanished, and the happy couple cast their votes, and the servant of the people is in once again, ready to serve them out of roti, kapda and makaan. Hungry, naked and without shelter, they have no memory after meat. So you feed sheep to sheep to herd them in the right direction, towards the slaughterhouse gate. Quite simple.

But I had my own schemes ready. For two days I had sent out rumours. My boys went into the markets and bazaars and restaurants of the Congress and RPI areas and whispered, ‘The goondas are coming on election day, thugs have been hired.' A rumour is the most cost-effective weapon ever, anywhere, you start it for nothing and then it grows, mutates, has offspring. In the morning you plant a little red squirming worm in some shopkeeper's ears and by night there are a hundred skyscraper-sized gory Ghatotkachas stalking the land. So I had the enemy voters nicely primed, covered in a sticky marinade of fear. Now it was time to stoke the fire. I had thirty motorcycles ready, with licence plates removed. We put two boys on each, faces covered with dakoo scarves,
with bags full of soda bottles for the pillion riders, a crate's worth for every bike. They went roaring out into the lanes. Through the enemy area they went, roaring and hooting. They cleared the streets with the bottles, gave each bottle a few shakes and lobbed it end over end at the few citizens brave enough to be still walking around. The glass flies like shrapnel, but really with soda bottles it's the shattering burst that does the trick, sends the trembling civilians scuttling back to their homes with their pants heavy with piss. The boys had a good time, riding around in the cool of the morning, exercising their bowling arms. Chotta Badriya came back home flushed red and singing. ‘Any more, bhai?' he yelled up to me from the road. I was sitting on the water tank on the roof. ‘Any more to do?'

‘Bas, Badriya, bas,' I said. ‘Calm down. That was enough. Now the police will come.'

‘Phatak, phachak, the bottles burst, bhai.'

‘I know.'

‘Great fun, bhai.'

‘I know. Now sit quietly, and maybe we'll do it again next year.'

Sure the police came, they came running to the affected areas. They came with their rifles and lathis all ready. Inspector Samant slipped around a corner and found a phone and called me. ‘DCP Saab and ACP Saab are here, bhai,' he said. ‘You got everybody moving. We are patrolling the streets. Preventing any disturbances, you see.'

‘Good, good,' I said. Bipin Bhonsle had paid the policemen too, all the way to the top. They would organize the right kind of peace. ‘No more disturbances must happen. But you see anyone on the roads?'

‘Not one man, not one woman. I see only three dogs.'

‘Good,' I said. ‘Typical Congress voters. We'll let them go.'

So I laughed and put down the phone. Just this much was enough to keep the enemy at home, to make the battlefield ours. No booth-capturing, no ballot-stuffing, just this. Meanwhile the boys had fanned out in our areas, and were taking the voters to the booths. ‘We are from the Fair Election Committee,' they said, and they took our voters, in tens and twenties, to the voting centres. ‘All is peaceful,' they said. ‘Come, come.' And the voters came, safe and escorted, and Bipin Bhonsle's men, wearing nice yellow party badges, smiled at them outside the booths. And the voters filed in, and were left all alone, and they made their little black marks on the ballot, and the folded pieces of paper fell into the slotted wooden boxes, making small rustles, and the lines moved efficiently
along, and the day passed, and so the machinery of democracy moved and spun, with a little help from us.

In Gopalmath, I sat on my roof and did my daily business. In the courtyard below, and out on the street, the usual clusters of supplicants gathered. Money was brought in, and I gave it out. Lives were brought to me, and I mended them. I gave justice. I ruled. The sun puddled, hovered and died its daily death. I ate, and retired to my bedroom. It was another quiet, ordinary day.

Bipin Bhonsle won by six thousand three hundred and forty three-votes.

 

I was dreading the wedding. Of course I had to go, but I didn't know how I would face Dipika, show her my face with no magic solution to grant her eternal happiness. I was angered by this feeling of helplessness, this paralysis of will. The problem stayed with me, gnawing with a thousand tiny teeth at the edges of my mind, like a flood of relentless ants. I was furious with Dipika. Who was she? What did she mean to me, that I owed her this? A little nothing of a girl, to come between me and my friend, to haunt and bother me with her huge staring eyes, she wasn't even pretty, why couldn't I just tell her to take her dirty mashooq and go to hell? Why? But I couldn't. She had begged me, and I had made a promise. There was no logic in it, but it was the truth, it had happened. So I had to act. But I still didn't know what I was going to do.

I took my gifts – gold bracelets, gold earrings and a gold necklace – and went to Paritosh Shah's house on the wedding day. I hardly had my shoes off when Dipika came running to the door, stopped herself from falling by clutching at the jamb. She swayed there, in her sari of gold, and I could sense my boys averting their eyes. I knew they were thinking: what is Bhai doing now? This much was all it took to start a story that would get longer and fuller as it went out across the city. ‘Beti,' I said. I patted her head paternally. Then I took her by the shoulder and led her inside. In a corridor, while her aunts and cousins brushed past, all shiny and magnificent in their very best, I leaned close to her and pretended to give her something out of my wallet. ‘Be calm, you fool,' I told her. ‘If you act mad I can't do anything for you. Behave yourself now. When I want to tell you something, I'll tell you.'

‘But,' she said. ‘But.'

‘Be quiet,' I said. ‘If you want to do this big thing, be brave. Control yourself. Learn control. Leave fear behind. Look at me. Learn from me.
You told me you were not a child, but you behave like one. Can you be a woman?'

She blinked away her tears, and wiped her nose with the edge of her pallu. Then she nodded.

‘Good,' I said. ‘Go and be a part of your sister's happiness. Be happy, or people will notice.' She was still tremulous, aflicker with thin bolts of emotion up her neck and into her cheeks. ‘Listen to me,' I said. ‘I am Ganesh Gaitonde, and I am telling you that everything will be all right. Ganesh Gaitonde is telling you this. Do you believe him?'

‘Yes,' she said, and as she said it she started to believe it. ‘Yes.'

‘Go.'

She skipped off, and at the edge of the courtyard she took two little girls by the hand and whirled with them, and in their pealing laughter there was her happiness, as palpable as the breath of the hundreds of flowers hanging in the doorways, on the walls. She was happy. I had given this to her, and I didn't have it to give. I had no idea where to find it, how. And so in the mandap, sitting next to Paritosh Shah, as the priests sang and thick sacrificial smoke gusted from the fire and an elder sister's happiness was chanted into being, I was helpless before the younger sister's life. Yes, Dipika was happy now, sitting behind her sister, leaning on her mother's shoulder, her face flushed and perspiring a little from the heat of the fire, eyes gleaming wet from the sting of the smoke. Looking at her, I thought: what makes a woman so much a prisoner, why? Why is one man a Dalit and poor, and another not? Why does this happen, and not that? Why did this woman die, and not that one? Why are we not free? And the Sanskrit choruses moved under my skin and I felt them shiver my soul, and the question came to me: what is Ganesh Gaitonde?

After all the functions were over, after the eating and drinking and rituals of farewell, I said goodbye to Paritosh Shah and his wife and his parents and his entire battalions of Gujaratis, and he walked with me to the car, and even in the midst of all this, he noticed my distraction, and asked, ‘What's the matter, bhai? You look tired. Still not sleeping?'

‘Yes, I'm very tired,' I said.

‘Listen to me, then. You can't go on like this. Take a Calmpose tonight, and tomorrow we will see to your health.'

‘Tomorrow I need to ask you a favour.'

‘Favour? What? Tell me now.' He bent towards me, and had his arm over my shoulder. There was the big red smear of the tika on his forehead, and I could see the tiny white grains of rice in it. ‘Tell me.'

‘No, tomorrow, Paritosh Shah. Not today.'

‘All right, tomorrow then.' He came close to me, drew me into his soft, cushiony hug and thumped me on the back. ‘I'll come to your place in the morning.'

‘No, I'll come to you.' I squeezed his shoulder and drew away. ‘Let me.'

‘Fine, whatever you say, boss. Whenever you're ready. I'm here all day tomorrow.' But he was puzzled. He was not used to this Ganesh Gaitonde. In truth, it was a Ganesh Gaitonde I didn't know well, either. I had been struggling to get some sleep lately, but now I had been cut adrift, cast into some unknown, tossing waters by a mere slip, a sliver of a girl whom I hardly knew, owed nothing to.

‘Tomorrow,' I said, raised a hand and went home. That night I didn't care about seeming weak, and felt my own shame like a distant irritation. I took a Calmpose, and slept, but I dreamt of a black sea, heaving its endless swells at me, and nothing else was alive, nothing lived under that flat white sky, and I was alone.

 

Bipin Bhonsle came to me the next morning, with gifts. He brought the cash he owed me, in four plastic bags, but he also brought a brand-new Sony video player, and four tapes, all of American films, and four big boxes of mithai. He said, ‘My father told me, “Take him some good Scotch,” but I told him, “Ganesh Bhai doesn't touch the stuff, and I can see why. That's why he's so efficient.”' He was sitting at the edge of the chair, all serious and enthusiastic. ‘You know what, Ganesh Bhai? I've made up my mind. From today, no more liquor for me also. I will learn from you. Now that we've won, there is a lot to do. No time now for drinking-shinking. We have to keep on winning.'

‘Yes,' I said. I had woken up more tired than before, and my legs were heavy, unwieldy, as if the blood had become congealed and dense. But I roused myself to Bipin Bhonsle's eagerness. ‘Good, Bipin, good. A sober man is focused, he is awake, he is watchful. No need for all this whisky and rum. Life is enough.'

It was a speech I had given many times before. For him it was all new. ‘Right, Ganesh Bhai, of course: life is enough. But please, enjoy.' He held out the tapes. ‘Each is an international hit, Ganesh Bhai. Action-packed. You will enjoy.' He was so grateful it took an hour to get him out, and that only when I told him I was already late for a meeting at Paritosh Shah's house. He left, but loudly protesting eternal loyalty, and anything I needed I should remember him, and of course he was only a small man
but if there were anything I wanted I only had to call him, and on international pleasures he was an expert. ‘Hot tapes, electronics, cigars, anything, Ganesh Bhai, anything,' he was saying even as he went down the stairs. He was wearing an orange shirt with a flower print, and brown gabardine trousers, and shoes of a deep reddish-brown hue, gold-buckled and glowing. When he turned to wave from the gate, the chain at his neck flashed fiercely in the sun. He was altogether a shiny man.

We sped over to Paritosh Shah's. I would rather have gone slowly, I still had no plan, no tactics of persuasion worked out. But I couldn't say it to Chotta Badriya, go slow, don't go, never go, because I am helpless. I was, after all, Ganesh Gaitonde. I had taken the role, now I had to play the part. So hero-like I got out of the car, walked to Paritosh Shah's door, which was auspicious still with flowers and vines, and into the house. By the time I was barefoot in the courtyard I had lost all my swagger and style. I entered Paritosh Shah's office quite humbly.

He was on the phone, in one of his interminable dealings, arranging for money to go from here to there, breeding the currency notes with each other as they swept past him, and keeping one subtle, careful hand in the stream. Money leapt to him, and he delighted in its antics. He started to put a hand over the mouthpiece, and I waved him on. Talk, talk, I signed at him, my hands at my mouth, and I sat down and watched him. Behind him there was a gold-framed painting of Krishna with his flute. The top of Paritosh Shah's desk was gold, and he had five phones on it. The walls were a darker gold. I looked at Krishna, at his easy, turning stance and his slanty smile, and I hated him. You are arrogant, god. I changed seats, but Krishna's eyes followed me. I couldn't get away from him.