Slumdog Millionaire: A Novel (20 page)

Meenakshi glances at me furtively. She looks at me like Salim looks at film stars. I know that at this moment she is in love with me. If I propose to her now, she will marry me. Happily have my children. Even without the fifty thousand. But I don't return her glances because everything has changed. I look only at the pistol in my hand and the face of the dead dacoit, whose name I don't know.

He could have died in any number of ways. He could have been shot dead in the middle of a crowded market in a police encounter. He could have been butchered by a rival gang as he

sipped tea at a roadside stall. He could have died in hospital from cholera, cancer or AIDS. But no, he did not die from any of these. He died from a bullet fired by me. And I didn't even know his name.

Train journeys are all about possibilities. But a hole in the heart has a certain finality to it. There is no more travelling for a dead body. Perhaps to a funeral pyre, but it will definitely not meet any more hawkers or ticket examiners. I, however, am likely to encounter not just hawkers and ticket examiners, but also the police. How will they treat me? As a hero who protected the modesty of a girl and rid the world of a notorious dacoit, or as a cold-blooded killer who shot dead a man without even knowing his name? I know only one thing: I cannot gamble on finding out. And then Colonel Taylor's words crash into my consciousness like a bolt from the sky.

'CYTLYT, Confuse Your Trail, Lose Your Tail.' I know exactly what I have to do.

Just as the train is about to pull into the next station, where, without doubt, a posse of policemen will be waiting for me, I leap out of the door with the gun still in my hand. I race across the track and jump into another train which is about to steam away from the platform. I don't sit in any compartment; just hang out at the door. As the train passes over a cantilever bridge, I send the gun spinning into the dark river. Then, as the train comes to a stop at the next station, I hop out and find another train going somewhere else. I do this the entire night, moving from station to station, train to train.

Cities go by in a blur. I don't know whether I am travelling north or south, east or west. I don't even know the names of the trains. I just keep changing them. The only thing I know for certain is that I cannot go to Mumbai. Akshay might have told the police about Salim and they could arrest me in Ghatkopar. I also don't want to get off at a dingy, deserted station and attract needless attention. I wait for a station with plenty of light, sound and people.

At nine o'clock in the morning, the train I am travelling in steams on to a bustling, crowded platform. I alight wearing a hundred-per-cent-cotton bush shirt which is torn and has three buttons missing, Levi jeans which are caked with soot and grime, and a fake digital watch. This city seems like a good place to hole up for a while. I see a big yellow board at the edge of the platform bearing its name. It proclaims in bold black letters: 'AGRA. Height above mean sea level 169 metres.'

* * *

Smita holds her hand over her mouth. 'Oh, my God,' she says. 'So all these years you have been living with the guilt of having killed a man?'

'Two men. Don't forget how I pushed Shantaram,' I reply.

'But what happened in the train was an accident. And you could even justify it on the grounds of self-defence. Anyway, I'll first find out whether a case was even registered. I don't think the other passengers would have wanted to implicate you. You rescued them, after all. By the way, what happened to that girl, Meenakshi? Did you see her again?'

'No. Never. Now let's return to the show.'

* * *

In the studio, the lights have been dimmed again.

Prem Kumar turns to me. 'We now move on to question number seven for two hundred thousand rupees. Are you ready?'

'Ready,' I reply.

'OK. Here is question number seven. Who invented the revolver? Was it a) Samuel Colt, b)

Bruce Browning, c) Dan Wesson, or d) James Revolver?'

The music commences. I go into deep thought.

'Have you heard any of these names?' Prem asks me.

'One of them sounds familiar.'

'So do you want to withdraw or would you like to take a chance?'

'I think I will take a chance.'

'Think again. You might lose the one lakh rupees you have won up to now.'

'I have nothing to lose. I am ready to play.'

'OK. So what is your final answer?'

'A. Colt.'

'Are you absolutely, one hundred per cent sure?'

'Yes.'

There is a crescendo of drums. The correct answer flashes.

'Absolutely, one hundred per cent correct! It was indeed Samuel Colt who invented the revolver in 1835. You have just doubled your winnings to two lakh rupees!'

I can't believe it. I have won back my fifty thousand rupees with three times interest. Thanks to a swarthy dacoit, whose name I didn't know.

There are 'oohs' and 'aahs' from the audience. The signature tune is repeated, but the only sound reverberating in my ears is the relentless piston movement of a train travelling from Delhi to Mumbai, via Agra.

Prem Kumar suddenly leaps out of his chair to shake my hand, but finds it limp and

unresponsive. If you are taken by surprise in the middle of a game show, the brain takes some time to respond.

A SOLDIER'S TALE

Like clockwork, the air-raid warning siren wails at precisely eight-thirty in the evening, leading to frenzied activity in the chawl. Residents follow the instructions which were announced by loudspeaker the whole of last week in anticipation of an outbreak of hostilities. Switch off all the lights, disconnect all gadgets, turn off the gas, close the house, make an orderly file and proceed to the bunker.

The bunker is beneath the school building. It is a large, rectangular hall with subdued lighting. It has a faded and dusty red carpet on the floor, and the only furniture consists of a couple of rickety chairs and an old metal table, on which stands a fourteen-inch television set. The bunker feels hot, suffocating and claustrophobic, but it is for our protection, so we cannot really complain. Though there are rumours that the one in Pali Hill has a thirty-two-inch TV,

Dunlopillo cushions and air conditioning.

The residents gather in front of the television set, which is tuned to the news channel. I look around the hall. Almost the entire chawl is here. The Gokhales, the Nenes, the Bapats, Mr Wagle, Mr Kulkarni, Mrs Damle, Mr Shirke, Mrs Barwe . . . Only Mr Ramakrishna the

administrator is missing. He must be busy counting his rent receipts and fixing fused bulbs, leaking taps, broken railings.

First there are the advertisements. This war is sponsored by Mother India Toothpaste and Jolly Tea. Then we have a broadcast by the Prime Minister. Indian forces are winning the war, he tells us earnestly, and it is only a matter of days before the enemy surrenders completely. This war will be a fight to the finish, he says in a high-pitched voice. There will be an end to terrorism.

And hunger. And poverty. Contribute generously to the Soldiers' Benefit Fund, he urges us.

After the Prime Minister's speech, a young actress comes on TV and says the same things, but in filmi style. The women gawk at the actress. How young she looks, they say, and how beautiful.

Is her sari silk or chiffon, they ask each other. How does she manage to keep her skin so soft?

Which soap does she use? She is so fair. She doesn't need Fair and Lovely cream.

The men are full of anger. Those bastards have caused enough problems for us, they say. Enough is enough. This time we should destroy Pakistan completely.

Mr Wagle is the resident expert on the war. A lecturer at the University, he is the most educated person in our chawl. Pakistan has missiles and atom bombs, he tells us. That is why we are in this bunker – so that we are protected from radiation. But there is no real protection against the atom bomb. When the bomb falls, he says, the water will become air. The air will become fire.

The sun will disappear. A huge mushroom cloud will rise in the sky. And we will all die, he concludes solemnly.

But death is difficult to visualize when you are a twelve-year-old like me and Putul or ten like Salim and Dhyanesh and this is your first war. We are full of enthusiasm and curiosity. We camp before the television set, mesmerized by the images of battle.

We don't know and don't care about radiation. We are interested in more important things. Such as:

How much noise does an atom bomb make?

Can we see jets flying over our houses?

Will it be like Diwali?

Wouldn't it be nice if a missile landed next to our chawl?

* * *

It is the third night of the war. Our life in the bunker is falling into a predictable pattern. The women have begun to bring their vegetables and knitting to the hall. They sit in a group, chop tomatoes and potatoes, make sweaters, separate chaff from lentils, extract healthy leaves from spinach and coriander bunches, and exchange the latest gossip. Do you know Mrs Goswami has bought a new twenty-five-inch TV? Heaven knows where her husband gets all his money from!

Looks like Mr Bapat and his wife had a big fight the other night.

Practically the entire neighbourhood could hear it! Have you seen the latest
Starburst?
It says Armaan Ali might be gay!

The men listen intently to the news and discuss the latest rumours. Is it true that a state of emergency is about to be declared? They say Pathankot has been completely destroyed by

bombing. Many civilians have died. Mehta has reliable information, straight from the Ministry, that petrol is to be rationed. Onions and tomatoes have virtually disappeared from the market.

Better start hoarding milk.

We youngsters have our own gang. We run around the large hall shouting and screaming and trip over each other, much to the consternation of the women. We play I Spy till we tire of it. Then Putul invents a new game. It's called, appropriately enough, War and Peace. The game is quite simple. We divide ourselves into two teams, one led by an Indian General and the other by a Pakistani General. The two teams have to tag each other. Whoever is caught first becomes a prisoner of war and can only be released in exchange for another prisoner from the opposite team. Tagging the General counts for two prisoners. The team with the largest number of

captured prisoners wins the game. There is only one problem: no one wants to be the Pakistani General. Eventually they get hold of Salim. 'You are Muslim,' they tell him, 'so you become Pakistani.' Salim doesn't agree at first, but is bought off with the promise of two packs of bubblegum. I join Salim's team and we thrash the Indians.

After all our games are played, we gather in a corner, resting from our physical exertion, and discuss the war.

'I love this war,' I say. 'It's so exciting. And my employer Neelima Kumari has given me the week off, because of the curfew.'

'Yes,' says Putul. 'My school has also been closed for a week.'

'I wish we had a war every month,' says Dhyanesh.

'Stop this nonsense, I say!' a man thunders behind our backs.

We turn around in alarm to see an old Sikh on crutches standing behind us. He is thin and tall, with a small, whiskery moustache on a weather-beaten face. He wears an olive-green turban to match his army uniform with lots of pockets and a big belt. He looks at us sternly and raises a finger accusingly. 'How dare you trivialize a war? War is a very serious business. It takes lives.'

Only then do we notice that he has a leg missing.

We learn that he is Lance Naik (retd) Balwant Singh. That he recently moved into our chawl, that he lives alone, and that he lost his leg in combat.

Having disciplined us, Balwant Singh hobbles forward on his crutches and sits down in the chair directly in front of the TV set.

The television is broadcasting live pictures of the war. The screen is cloaked in a hazy green light. We are shown a rocket launcher with a rocket loaded in it. A soldier presses a button and the rocket shoots off in a blaze of fire. After half a minute, we see a flash of greenish-yellow light far away in the distance and the sound of an explosion. 'We have hit the target perfectly,'

declares an army officer standing next to the rocket launcher. He grins. His teeth seem

unnaturally green. Within ten seconds another rocket is launched. The reporter turns around and says right into the camera, 'This was our live and exclusive coverage of the war in the Rajasthan sector. I am Sunil Vyas of Star News, embedded with 5th Division, returning you back to the studio.' We are not told what the target was, whether it was hit, how many people died in the attack, and how many survived. A famous singer comes on and begins singing old patriotic

songs with gusto.

Lance Naik (retd) Balwant Singh gets up from his chair. 'This is not a real war,' he says in disgust. 'It is a joke. They are showing you a soap opera.'

Mr Wagle is not amused. 'Well, what is a real war, then?' he asks.

Balwant looks at Wagle with a soldier's contempt for a civilian. 'A real war is very different from this children's film. A real war has blood and guts. A real war has dead bodies and hands chopped off by enemy bayonets and legs blown off by shrapnel.'

'Which war did you fight in?' asks Mr Wagle.

'I fought in the last real war, the one in 1971,' Balwant Singh says proudly.

'Then why don't you tell us what a real war feels like?' says Mrs Damle.

'Yes, tell us, Uncle,' we clamour.

Balwant Singh sits down. 'You really want to know what a real war feels like? OK, then I will tell you my story. Of those fourteen glorious days when we won our most famous victory over Pakistan.'

We cluster around the old soldier like wide-eyed children before their grandfather.

Balwant Singh begins speaking. His eyes acquire that dreamy, far-off look people get when speaking of things long past. 'I will now take you back to 1971. To the most fateful period in the history of the Indian nation.'

A hush falls over the audience in the bunker. Mr Wagle turns down the volume on the TV set.

No one protests. The second-hand live report on TV is no match for the first-hand account of a real soldier.