Shantaram (81 page)

My contacts, two Indians from Bombay who lived in Mauritius, arrived in a yellow BMW as had been arranged. I got into the back of the car and had barely spoken a greeting when they took off at such tyre-torching speed that I was hurled backwards into a corner of the seat. We screamed along back roads at four times the speed limit for fifteen knuckle-whitening minutes and then they pulled into a silent, deserted grove. The overheated car cooled down with little clinks and clunks of sound. There was a strong smell of rum on both men.

"Okay, let's have the books," one of the two contacts said, leaning around from the driver's seat.

"I haven't got them," I snarled at him through clenched teeth.

The contacts looked at one another and then back at me. The driver raised his mercury-lens glasses, revealing eyes that looked as though he kept them in a glass of brown vinegar beside his bed at night.

"You don't got the books?"

"No. I was trying to tell you that on the way here-wherever the fuck we are-but you kept saying, Keep cool! Keep cool! And not listening to me. Well, are we cool enough now? Huh?"

"I'm not cool, man," the passenger said. I saw myself in the lenses of his glasses. I didn't look happy.

"You idiots!" I growled, switching to Hindi. "You nearly killed us all for nothing! Driving like a speed-freak-arsehole-Bombay taxi-driver with the cops up his arse! The passports are back at the sister-fucking hotel. I stashed them because I wanted to be sure of you two motherfuckers first. Now the only thing I'm sure of is that you guys haven't got the brains of two fleas on a pariah dog's balls."

The passenger lifted his glasses, and they both smiled as widely as their hangovers would allow.

"Where the fuck did you learn to speak Hindi like that?" the driver asked. "It's fuckin' great, yaar. You're speaking like a regular Bombay sister-fucker. It's fantastic, yaar!"

"Damn impressive, man!" his friend added, wagging his head admiringly.

"Let me see the money," I snapped.

They laughed.

"The money," I insisted. "Let me see it."

The passenger lifted a bag from between his feet and opened it to reveal many bundles of cash.

"What's that shit?"

"It's the money, brother," the driver replied.

"That's not money," I said. "Money is green. Money says, In God We Trust. Money has the picture of a dead American on it because money comes from America. That's not money."

"It's Mauritian rupees, brother," the passenger sniffed, wounded by the insult to his currency.

"You can't spend that shit anywhere but in Mauritius," I scoffed, recalling what I'd learned about restricted and open currencies while working with Khaled Ansari. "It's a restricted currency."

"I know, of course, baba," the driver smiled. "We arranged it with Abdul. We don't have the dollars just now, man. All fuckin' tied up in other deals. So we're paying in Mauritian rupees. You can change them back to dollars on your way home, yaar."

I sighed, breathing slowly and forcing calm into the little whirlwind that my mood was making out of my mind. I looked out the window. We were parked in what seemed to be a green forest fire. Tall plants as green as Karla's eyes whirled and shuddered in the wind all around us. There was no-one and nothing else in sight. "Let's just see what we got here. Ten passports at seven thousand bucks apiece. That's seventy thousand bucks. At the exchange rate of, say, thirty Mauritian roops to the dollar, that gives me no less than two million, one hundred thousand rupees. That's why you got such a big bag. Now, forgive me for seeming obtuse, gentlemen, but just where the fuck am I going to change two million rupees into dollars without a fuckin' currency certificate?"

"No problem," the driver responded quickly. "We've got a moneychanger, yaar. A first-class guy. He'll do the deal for you.

It's all set up."

"Okay," I smiled. "Let's go and see him."

"You'll have to go there alone, man," the passenger said, laughing happily. "He's in Singapore."

"Singa-fkckin'-pore!"
I shouted, as that little whirlwind flared in my mind.

"Don't be all upset, yaar," the driver replied gently. "It's all arranged. Abdul Ghani is cool about it. He'll call you at the hotel today. Here, take this card. You go to Singapore, on your way home-okay, okay, Singapore is not exactly on the way home to Bombay, but if you fly there first, then it will be on the way, isn't it? So when you get down in Singapore, you go and see this guy on the card. He's a licensed moneychanger. He's Khader's man.

He'll change all the roops into dollars, and you'll be cool. No problem. There's even a bonus in it for you. You'll see."

"Okay," I sighed. "Let's go back to the hotel. If this checks out with Abdul, we'll do the deal."

"The hotel," the driver said, sliding his glasses down over the dartboards of his eyes.

"The hotel!" the passenger repeated, and the yellow Exocet hurtled back along the winding roads once more.

The trip through Singapore passed off without a hitch, and the Mauritian currency fiasco provided a few unexpected benefits. I made a valuable, new contact in the Singapore moneychanger-an Indian from Madras named Shekky Ratnam-and I took my first look at the profitable smuggling run of duty free cameras and electrical goods from Singapore to Bombay.

When I rode out to the Oberoi Hotel to meet Lisa Carter, after handing the dollars to Abdul Ghani and collecting my fee, I felt positive and hopeful for the first time in far too long. I began to think that I might've thrown off the dark moods that had settled on me after Prabaker's wedding night. I'd travelled to Zaire, Mauritius, and Singapore on forged passports without raising the vaguest suspicion. In the slum, I'd survived from day to day on the small commissions I made from tourists, and I had only my compromised New Zealand passport. Just a year later I lived in a modern apartment, my pockets were bulging with freshly ill-gotten gains, and I had five passports in five different names and nationalities, with my photograph on every one of them. The world of possibility was opening up for me.

The Oberoi Hotel stood at Nariman Point, on the handle of Marine Drive's golden sickle. Churchgate Station and Flora Fountain were a five-minute walk away. Ten minutes more in one direction led to Victoria Terminus and Crawford Market. Ten minutes in the other direction from Flora Fountain led to Colaba and the Gateway Monument. The Oberoi lacked the postcard recognition that the Taj Hotel inspired, but it compensated for that with character and flair. Its piano bar, for example, was a small masterpiece of light and cleverly private spaces, and its brasserie vied determinedly for the title of the best restaurant in Bombay.

Walking into the dark, richly textured brasserie from the brilliant day, I paused and blinked until my eyes found Lisa and her group. She and two other young women were sitting with Cliff De Souza and Chandra Mehta.

"Hope I'm not late," I said, shaking hands all round.

"No, I think _we're all early," Chandra Mehta joked, his voice booming out across the room.

The girls laughed hysterically. Their names were Reeta and Geeta.

They were aspiring actresses on the first rung-a lunch date with key second-tier players-and they gushed it up with a bug-eyed enthusiasm that wasn't far from panic.

I sat down in the vacant chair between Lisa and Geeta. Lisa wore a thin, lava-red pullover beneath a black silk jacket, and a skirt. Geeta's silver spandex top and white jeans were tight enough to be anatomically explicit. She was a pretty girl, maybe twenty years old, with her long hair pulled into a high ponytail.

Her hands fretted at the table napkin, folding and unfolding a corner of the cloth. Reeta had a neat short hairstyle that suited her small face and gamine features. She wore a yellow blouse with a deep, confrontation neckline, and blue jeans. Cliff and Chandra both wore suits, and it seemed that they were coming from or going to an appointment of some significance. "I'm starved," Lisa said happily. Her voice was light and confident, but she squeezed my hand under the table so hard that her fingernails pinched their way into my skin. It was an important meeting for her. She knew that Mehta planned to offer us a formal partnership in the casting business we'd been running unofficially. Lisa wanted that contractual agreement. She wanted the approval that only a contract could provide. She wanted her future in writing. "Let's eat!"

"How about-what do you all think-if I make the order for all of us?" Chandra suggested.

"Since you're paying for it, I don't mind," Cliff said, laughing and winking at the girls.

"Sure," I agreed. "Go ahead."

He summoned the waiter with a glance and waved the menu aside, launching straight into his list of preferences. It began with a white soup entree made with lamb cooked in blanched-almond milk, worked its way through grilled chicken in a cayenne, cumin, and mango marinade, and ended, after many other side platters, with fruit salad, honey kachori balls, and kulfi ice cream.

Listening to Mehta's lengthy and precise list of dishes, we all knew that it would be a long lunch. I relaxed, and let myself drift in the flow of fine foods and conversation.

"So, you still haven't told me what you think," Mehta prodded.

"You're giving it more attention than it's worth," Cliff De Souza declared, fluttering a hand dismissively.

"No, man," Mehta insisted. "It happened right outside my damn office, yaar. If ten thousand people are shouting about killing you, outside your own damn office window, it's hard not to give it some attention."

"They weren't shouting about you personally, Chandrababu."

"Not me personally. But it's me, and everyone like me, they want to get. Come on, it's not so bad for you, and you should admit it. Your family is from Goa. You're Konkani speakers. Konkani and Marathi are very close. You speak Marathi as well as you speak English. But I don't speak a damn word of it. Still I'm born here, yaar, and my daddy was born here before me. He has his business here in Bombay. We pay taxes here. My kids all go to school here. My whole life is here in Bombay, man. But they're shouting Maharashtra for the Marathis, and they want to kick us out of the only home we have." "You have to see it from their point of view as well," Cliff added softly.

"See my eviction from their point of view," Mehta retorted, with such vehemence that several heads turned toward him from other tables. He continued more quietly but with just as much passion.

"I should see my murder from their point of view, is that it?"

"I love you, my friend, like I love my own third brother-in-law,"

Cliff replied, grinning widely. Mehta laughed with him and the girls joined in, clearly relieved to have the tension at the table diluted with the little joke. "I don't want to see anyone hurt, least of all you, Chandrabhai. All I'm saying is, you have to see it from their side if you want to understand why they're feeling all this. They're native Marathi speakers. They're born here in Maharashtra. Their grandfathers, all the way back to... who knows, three thousand years or more, they were all born here.

And then they look around in Bombay, and they see all the best jobs, all the businesses, all the companies owned by people from other places in India. It drives them crazy. And I think they have a point."

"What about the reserve jobs?" Mehta protested. "The post office, the police, the schools, the state bank, and lots of others, like the transport authority, they all reserve jobs for Marathi speakers. But that's not enough for these crazy fuckers. They want to kick us all out of Bombay and Maharashtra. But I tell you, if they get their way, if they kick us out, they'll lose most of the money and the talent and the brains that make this place what it is."

Cliff De Souza shrugged.

"Maybe that's a price they're prepared to pay-not that I agree with them. I just think that people like your grand-dad, who came here from U.P. with nothing, and built a successful business, owe something to the state. The ones who have it all have to share some of it with the ones who have nothing. The people you call fanatics can only get others to listen because there's a grain of truth in what they say. People are angry. The ones who came here from outside and made their fortunes are getting the blame. It's going to get worse, my dear third brother-in-law, and I hate to think where it's going to end."

"What do you think, Lin?" Chandra Mehta asked me, appealing for support. "You speak Marathi. You live here. But you're an outsider. What do you think?"

"I learned to speak Marathi in a little village called Sunder," I said in answer. "The people there are native Marathi speakers. They don't speak Hindi well, and they don't speak English at all. They're pure, shudha Marathi speakers, and Maharashtra has been their home for at least two thousand years. Fifty generations have farmed the land there."

I paused to give someone else a chance to comment or query what I'd said. They were all eating, and listening intently. I continued.

"When I came back to Bombay with my guide, Prabaker, I went to live in the slum, where he and twenty-five thousand other people live. There were a lot of people like Prabaker there in that slum. They were Maharashtrians, from villages just like Sunder.

They lived in the kind of poverty where every meal cost them a crown of thorns in worry, and slaving work. I think it must break their hearts to see people from other parts of India living in fine homes while they wash in the gutters of their own capital city."

I took a few mouthfuls of food, waiting for a response from Mehta. After a few moments, he obliged.

"But, hey, Lin, come on, that's not all of it," he said. "There's a lot more to it than that."

"No, you're right. That's not all of it," I agreed. "They're not just Maharashtrians in that slum. They're Punjabis and Tamils and Karnatakans and Bengalis and Assamese and Kashmiris. And they're not just Hindus. They're Sikhs and Muslims and Christians and Buddhists and Parsis and Jains. The problems here are not just Maharashtrian problems. The poor, like the rich, are from every part of India. But the poor are far too many, and the rich are far too few."