Slumdog Millionaire: A Novel (37 page)

I take out my lucky one-rupee coin. 'Heads my answer will be A, tails my answer will be C.

OK?' The audience gasps at my audacity. Prem Kumar nods his head. The glint in his eye has returned.

I toss the coin.

All eyes are riveted as it goes up, almost in slow motion. This must be the only one-rupee coin in history on which a billion is riding. It comes down on my desk, and spins for a while before becoming still. Prem Kumar bends to look at it and announces, 'It is heads!'

'In that case my answer is A.'

'Are you absolutely sure, Mr Thomas? You can still choose C if you want.'

'The toss of the coin has decided my answer. It is A.'

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

'Yes. I am absolutely, one hundred per cent sure.'

There is a crescendo of drums. The correct answer flashes on the screen for the last time.

'It is A! Absolutely, one hundred per cent correct! Mr Ram Mohammad Thomas, you have made history by winning the world's biggest jackpot. One billion rupees, yes, one billion rupees are yours, and will be paid to you very shortly. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a very warm round of applause to the greatest winner of all time!'

Confetti starts to fall from the ceiling. Red, green, blue and yellow spotlights bathe the entire stage. For almost two minutes, everyone stands up and claps. There are whistles and catcalls.

Prem Kumar bows like a magician. Then he winks at me slyly. I don't wink back.

Suddenly the producer comes up to the dais and takes Prem Kumar away with him. They

exchange heated words.

Houston, I think we have a problem.

* * *

Smita looks at her watch and gets up from the bed. 'Phew! What a show, what a story, what a

night! So now I know how you won a billion rupees. The coin toss at the end was just for show, wasn't it? You already knew that the answer was A.'

'Yes. But you decide whether I deserve the top prize or not. I have not kept anything from you. I have told you all my secrets.'

'And I think it is only fair that you should know mine. You must be wondering who I am and why I suddenly appeared in the police station.'

'Well, yes, but I decided not to question a miracle.'

'I am Gudiya. I am the girl you helped in the chawl. And don't feel remorse that you pushed my father to his death. He merely broke a leg, and that one act set his brain right. He did not bother me after that. I owe everything to you. For years I tried to find you, but you had disappeared.

Then yesterday I saw your name in the newspaper. It said a boy named Ram Mohammad

Thomas had been arrested by the police. I knew that there could only be one Ram Mohammad

Thomas and came running to the police station. So just think of this as a very small repayment of the debt I owe you.'

I am overcome with emotion. I grasp Smita's hand, feel its flesh and bone, and my tears start falling. I hug her. 'I am so glad you found me. I have got a lawyer, a friend and a sister in one go.'

'All your troubles are now mine, Ram Mohammad Thomas,' Smita says, with fierce

determination in her eyes. 'I will fight for you, just as you fought for me.'

EPILOGUE

Six months have passed since the longest night of my life.

Smita remained true to her word. She fought for me like a mother fights for her children. First she dealt with the police. She proved to them that they had no basis on which to arrest me. She also found out that nobody had even heard about the dead dacoit on the train and there was no pending investigation. So the nameless dacoit remained nameless, even in death.

Then she dealt with the quiz company. They threatened me with allegations of cheating and fraud, but Smita proved that the DVD footage clearly established me as a legitimate winner on the show. After four months of dilly-dallying, the company was forced to concede that they had no grounds on which to withhold payment of the top prize to me.

I did not get a full billion rupees. I got a little less. The government took some. They called it

'gameshow tax'. The company producing
W3B
folded after the massive payout. So I became the first and last winner on the show.

Prem Kumar died two months ago. According to the police, he committed suicide by gassing

himself to death in his car. But there are press reports of foul play. My own hunch is that the thugs financing the show probably took their revenge on him.

I realized a long time ago that dreams have power only over your own mind; but with money you can have power over the minds of others. What I discovered after receiving the payout was that with money I had power even over the police. So, accompanied by a sizeable police contingent, I paid a visit to Goregaon last month, to a large decrepit building set in a courtyard with a small garden and two palm trees. The police arrested five people and freed thirty-five crippled children. They are all now in the care of a well-known international child-welfare agency.

Lajwanti's release from jail was also secured last month and she is now staying with me in Mumbai. In fact, she returned just last week from her sister Lakshmi's wedding in Delhi to a top-level officer in the Indian Administrative Service. The groom's family made no demand for dowry, but Lajwanti still gave her sister a Toyota Corolla car, a thirty-two-inch Sony TV, twenty Raymond suits and one kilo of gold jewellery.

Salim has landed the role of a seventeen-year-old college hero in a comedy film directed by Chimpu Dhawan, and these days is busy shooting in Mehboob Studios. He thinks the producer is a man named Mohammad Bhatt, but it is actually me.

The love of my life has joined me in Mumbai. She is now my lawfully wedded wife, with a

proper surname. Nita Mohammad Thomas.

* * *

Smita and I are walking along Marine Drive. A pleasant wind is blowing, occasionally sending a misty spray from the ocean where giant waves crash and roll against the rocks. The uniformed driver is following us at a snail's pace in a Mercedes Benz, maintaining a respectful distance. The rear bumper of the Benz carries a sticker. It says 'My other car is a Ferrari'.

'I have been wanting to ask you something,' I tell Smita.

'Shoot.'

'That evening, when you saved me from the police station, why didn't you tell me straight away that you were Gudiya?'

'Because I wanted to hear your stories and find out the truth. Only when you narrated my own story, without realizing that I was in front of you, did I know for sure that you were telling me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That is why I told you at the very beginning that I didn't need you to swear on any book. I was your witness, just as you were mine.'

I nod my head in understanding.

'Can I also ask you a question?' Smita asks me.

'Sure.'

'That same evening, when I first brought you home, before you told me your stories, you flipped a coin. Why?'

'I was not sure whether to trust you. The coin toss was my decision-making mechanism. Heads I would have told you everything. Tails it would have been goodbye. As it turned out, it was heads.'

'So if it had turned up tails instead of heads, you wouldn't have told me your story?'

'It wouldn't have come up tails.'

'You believe in luck so much?'

'What's luck got to do with it? Here, take a look at the coin.' I take out the one-rupee coin from my jacket and hand it to her.

She looks at it, and flips it over. Then flips it again. 'It . . . it's heads on both sides!'

'Exactly. It's my lucky coin. But as I said, luck has got nothing to do with it.'

I take the coin from her and toss it high into the air. It goes up, up and up, glints briefly against the turquoise sky, and then drops swiftly into the ocean and sinks into its cavernous depths.

'Why did you throw away your lucky coin?'

'I don't need it any more. Because luck comes from within.'

THE END

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the support of Peter Buckman. I owe him a debt of gratitude for being friend, guide and agent, in that order. Thanks are also due to Rosemarie and Jessica Buckman, who put so much effort into making this debut a truly international one.

I must record my appreciation for Transworld, both for accepting this novel so enthusiastically and for giving me the best editor a writer could hope for. It was a treat working with Jane Lawson, who, over the course of some really long long-distance phone calls, made editing such a collaborative and enjoyable task.

Brigadier S. C. Sharma provided valuable input for 'A Soldier's Tale'. I would also like to thank Navdeep Suri, Humphrey Hawksley, Patrick French, Tejinder Sharma, Maureen Travis, the

British public-library system and Google for helping out in various ways.

Above all, this book owes its existence to my wife Aparna and my sons Aditya and Varun, who gave me the space to begin this project and the strength to complete it.

Q&A

VlKAS SWARUP

A READING GROUP GUIDE

About the Author

Profile of Vikas Swamp

Interview with Vikas Swarup

About the Book

Facts behind the Fiction

Questions for Discussion

Read On

Further reading and website information

SECTION 1: ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Profile of Vikas Swarup

Born in Allahabad, India, into a family of lawyers and solicitors, author Vikas Swarup grew up amidst conversations about judges and court cases at the dinner table. 'One advantage of growing up in this environment was that I was probably the only seven-year-old in Allahabad who could spell "jurisprudence" and "habeas corpus"!' says the Indian diplomat who has served in Turkey, the United States, Ethiopia and Great Britain. As a child, Swarup dreamt of becoming a pilot or an astronaut when he grew up since the family profession had been ruled out as a possible career by his mother in the form of a curt ultimatum: 'If any of my [three] sons becomes a lawyer, I will throw him out of the house.' A career in science was similarly ditched because of discouraging experiences with frog dissections in the biology lab and such thousand-page tomes as 'The Principles of Theoretical Physics'. The idea of becoming a civil servant gradually took hold and Vikas graduated university with majors in Modern History, Psychology and Philosophy,

ultimately joining the Indian Foreign Service.

By self admission, Vikas Swarup has always been a creative thinker although
Q & A
is his first published work of fiction. His hyperactive imagination initially manifested itself in an essay on bad luck assigned by his sixth-grade teacher. While other children wrote about such run-of-the-mill occurrences as a black cat crossing their path, Vikas chose to recount the trials of a trio of Japanese thieves that manages to get trapped in an earthquake after pulling off a flawless bank heist.

Vikas tried his hand at another story titled
The Autobiography of a Donkey
in school before finally embarking on the globally successful project,
Q & A.

Interview with Vikas Swarup

Vikas, even though you are not in the hot seat here and there's no jackpot at the end of it, here's your slice of the 15-questions pie:

1. Is Q
& A
your first work of fiction?

I have been telling stories since childhood but, sadly, didn't write anything beyond my school days. It was only during my diplomatic posting in London that I had the urge to write. I tried my hand at a full-length novel about a contract killer, but didn't really show it around to publishers. I used it as a learning experience to work on
Q & A,
which I finished in two months flat. And that's the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!

2. Was there a particular 'aha' moment that gave you the inspiration for this book?

It was a series of 'aha' moments. I wanted to write something off-beat. I did not want to write a generational family saga or a magical realist fable with talking monkeys. And then it struck me: Why not tap into the global phenomenon of the syndicated televised quiz show? After all
Who
Wants to be a Millionaire?
was a top rated show in a number of countries the world, including India. The issue was: Who would be my contestant? It was around this time that a scandal

involving an army major broke out in England. The man had apparently won a million pounds on the show but was accused of cheating. I thought to myself, if someone as well educated as an officer of the British Army can be accused of cheating, why could I not have a contestant who would
definitely
be accused of cheating? Incidentally, I had also come across a news report of how street children in an Indian slum had begun using a free mobile internet facility entirely on their own. So I decided to juxtapose these two themes – of a game show and of a contestant who has had no formal education, who has 'street' knowledge as opposed to 'book' knowledge. That is how
Q & A
was born.

3. The structure of the novel seems to be one of its strengths; how did that evolve? Were
these chapters always meant to be individual episodes strung together to form a coherent
whole?

The novel essentially move on two planes. There is the life story of the quiz show contestant Ram Mohammad Thomas, and there are the goings on in the quiz show itself. To my mind, the pace of the novel stems from the fact that there is this dualism, this contradiction, this tension between these two strands of the novel. What links these two strands is 'memory'. Having been an avid quizzer myself, I was interested in the ideational and psychological processes that are at work in a contestant's mind. As one of my characters in the book says, 'A quiz is not so much a test of knowledge as a test of memory.' And our memories are produced by various things: by our experiences, our dreams and desires, not just what we are taught in school.
Q & A
is built around a series of stories that the protagonist tells his lawyer, which eventually link up to the questions on the quiz show. Some are his personal stories, some he has heard. My aim was to make each story complete in itself, to make it stand on its own, even without the larger context of the novel. The difficulty was doing this while following the conventions of a quiz show where the questions follow a certain progression: easier questions come first, difficult questions come later and the topics have to keep changing. Since Ram Mohammad Thomas' life could not follow the order of the questions in a strictly chronological sequence, the additional difficulty was to ensure that the reader does not lose the thread when my protagonist goes back and forth in time.