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The White Tiger Novel.html
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<style type="text/css">body { margin-left:0;margin-right:0;margin-top:0; }#google-cache-hdr {background:#f5f5f5 !important;font:13px arial,sans-serif !important;text-align:left !important;color:#202020 !important;border:0 !important;margin:0 !important;border-bottom:1px solid #cecece !important;line-height:16px !important ;padding:16px 28px 24px 28px !important;}#google-cache-hdr * {display:inline !important;font:inherit !important;text-align:inherit !important;color:inherit !important;line-height:inherit !important;background:none !important;border:0 !important;margin:0 !important;padding:0 !important;letter-spacing:0 !important;}#google-cache-hdr a {text-decoration:none !important;color:#1a0dab !important;}#google-cache-hdr a:hover { text-decoration:underline !important; }#google-cache-hdr a:visited { color:#609 !important; }#google-cache-hdr div { display:block !important;margin-top:4px !important; }#google-cache-hdr b {font-weight:bold !important;display:inline-block !important;direction:ltr !important;}pre { word-wrap:break-word; }pre { white-space:pre-wrap; }</style><div id="google-cache-hdr" dir=ltr><div>This is the html version of the file <a href="http://physislearningacademy.com/download/download/1398848071_the-white-tiger-by-arvind-adiga.pdf" dir="ltr">http://physislearningacademy.com/download/download/1398848071_the-white-tiger-by-arvind-adiga.pdf</a>.<br><b>Google</b> automatically generates html versions of documents as we crawl the web.</div></div><div style="position:relative;margin:8px;">
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<meta name="Author" content="Karthik">
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<title>The White Tiger A Novel Aravind Adiga Free Press New York London Toronto Sydney </title>
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<table border=0 width=100%><tr><td bgcolor=eeeeee align=right><font face=arial,sans-serif><a name=1><b>Page 1</b></a></font></td></tr></table><font size=3 face="Times"><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times">
<div style="position:absolute;top:350;left:395"><nobr><b>The White Tiger</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:370;left:430"><nobr><i>A Novel</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:412;left:402"><nobr><b>Aravind Adiga</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:966;left:419"><nobr><b>Free Press</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:986;left:331"><nobr>New York London Toronto Sydney </nobr></div>
</span></font>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1363;left:0"><hr><table border=0 width=100%><tr><td bgcolor=eeeeee align=right><font face=arial,sans-serif><a name=2><b>Page 2</b></a></font></td></tr></table></div><font size=3 face="Times"><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times">
<div style="position:absolute;top:1475;left:108"><nobr>FREE PRESS</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1495;left:108"><nobr>A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1516;left:108"><nobr>1230 Avenue of the Americas</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1537;left:108"><nobr>New York, NY 10020</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1578;left:108"><nobr>This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1599;left:108"><nobr>author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1620;left:108"><nobr>persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1661;left:108"><nobr>Copyright © 2008 by Aravind Adiga</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1703;left:108"><nobr>All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1723;left:108"><nobr>whatsoever. For information address Free Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1744;left:108"><nobr>the Americas, New York, NY 10020</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1785;left:108"><nobr>FREE PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1827;left:108"><nobr>Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1868;left:108"><nobr>Adiga, Aravind.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1889;left:108"><nobr>The white tiger: a novel / Aravind Adiga.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1910;left:108"><nobr>p. cm.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1930;left:108"><nobr>1. Chauffeurs—India—Bangalore—Fiction. 2. Poor—India—</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1951;left:108"><nobr>Bangalore—Fiction. 3. Ambition—Fiction. 4. Business people—</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1972;left:108"><nobr>India—Bangalore—Fiction. 5. Bangalore (India)—Fiction.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:1992;left:108"><nobr>I. Title.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2013;left:108"><nobr>PR9619.4.A35W47 2008</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2055;left:720"><nobr>2007045527</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2094;left:108"><nobr>823'.92—dc22</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2135;left:108"><nobr>ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-6273-3</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2156;left:108"><nobr>ISBN-10: 1-4165-6273-7</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2197;left:108"><nobr>Visit us on the World Wide Web:</nobr></div>
</span></font>
<font size=3 color="#0000ff" face="Times"><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times;color:#0000ff">
<div style="position:absolute;top:2218;left:108"><nobr><a href="http://www.simonsays.com/">http://www.SimonSays.com</a></nobr></div>
</span></font>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2551;left:0"><hr><table border=0 width=100%><tr><td bgcolor=eeeeee align=right><font face=arial,sans-serif><a name=3><b>Page 3</b></a></font></td></tr></table></div><font size=3 face="Times"><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times">
<div style="position:absolute;top:2705;left:400"><nobr><b>The First Night</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2744;left:108"><nobr><b>For the Desk of:</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2785;left:108"><nobr><i>His Excellency Wen Jiabao</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2806;left:108"><nobr><i>The Premier's Office</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2826;left:108"><nobr><i>Beijing</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2847;left:108"><nobr><i>Capital of the Freedom-loving Nation of China</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2889;left:108"><nobr><b>From the Desk of:</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2930;left:108"><nobr><i>"The White Tiger"</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2950;left:108"><nobr><i>A Thinking Man</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2971;left:108"><nobr><i>And an Entrepreneur</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:2992;left:108"><nobr><i>Living in the world's center of Technology and Outsourcing</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3013;left:108"><nobr><i>Electronics City Phase 1 (just off Hosur Main Road)</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3033;left:108"><nobr><i>Bangalore, India</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3075;left:108"><nobr>Mr. Premier,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3116;left:108"><nobr>Sir.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3157;left:108"><nobr>Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3199;left:108"><nobr>My ex-employer the late Mr. Ashok's ex-wife, Pinky Madam, taught me one of these things; and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3220;left:108"><nobr>at 11:32 p.m. today, which was about ten minutes ago, when the lady on All India Radio</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3240;left:108"><nobr>announced, "Premier Jiabao is coming to Bangalore next week," I said that thing at once.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3282;left:108"><nobr>In fact, each time when great men like you visit our country I say it. Not that I have anything</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3302;left:108"><nobr>against great men. In my way, sir, I consider myself one of your kind. But whenever I see our</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3323;left:108"><nobr>prime minister and his distinguished sidekicks drive to the airport in black cars and get out and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3344;left:108"><nobr>do <i>namastes </i>before you in front of a TV camera and tell you about how moral and saintly India</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3364;left:108"><nobr>is, I have to say that thing in English.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3406;left:108"><nobr>Now, you <i>are </i>visiting us this week, Your Excellency, aren't you? All India Radio is usually</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3427;left:108"><nobr>reliable in these matters.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3468;left:108"><nobr>That was a joke, sir.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3510;left:108"><nobr>Ha!</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3551;left:108"><nobr>That's why I want to ask you directly if you really are coming to Bangalore. Because if you are, I</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3571;left:108"><nobr>have something important to tell you. See, the lady on the radio said, "Mr. Jiabao is on a mission:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3592;left:108"><nobr>he wants to know the truth about Bangalore." </nobr></div>
</span></font>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3739;left:0"><hr><table border=0 width=100%><tr><td bgcolor=eeeeee align=right><font face=arial,sans-serif><a name=4><b>Page 4</b></a></font></td></tr></table></div><font size=3 face="Times"><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times">
<div style="position:absolute;top:3851;left:108"><nobr>My blood froze. If anyone knows the truth about Bangalore, it's <i>me.</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3892;left:108"><nobr>Next, the lady announcer said, "Mr. Jiabao wants to meet some Indian entrepreneurs and hear the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3913;left:108"><nobr>story of their success from their own lips."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3954;left:108"><nobr>She explained a little. Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3975;left:108"><nobr>that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:3996;left:108"><nobr>sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, <i>does</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4017;left:108"><nobr>have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4037;left:108"><nobr>these entrepreneurs—<i>we </i>entrepreneurs—have set up all these outsourcing companies that</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4058;left:108"><nobr>virtually run America now.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4099;left:108"><nobr>You hope to learn how to make a few Chinese entrepreneurs, that's why you're visiting. That</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4120;left:108"><nobr>made me feel good. But then it hit me that in keeping with international protocol, the prime</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4141;left:108"><nobr>minister and foreign minister of my country will meet you at the airport with garlands, small</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4161;left:108"><nobr>take-home sandalwood statues of Gandhi, and a booklet full of information about India's past,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4182;left:108"><nobr>present, and future.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4224;left:108"><nobr>That's when I <i>had </i>to say that thing in English, sir. Out loud.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4265;left:108"><nobr>That was at 11:37 p.m. Five minutes ago.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4306;left:108"><nobr>I don't just swear and curse. I'm a man of action and change. I decided right there and then to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4327;left:108"><nobr>start dictating a letter to you.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4368;left:108"><nobr>To begin with, let me tell you of my great admiration for the ancient nation of China.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4410;left:108"><nobr>I read about your history in a book, <i>Exciting Tales of the Exotic East, </i>that I found on the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4431;left:108"><nobr>pavement, back in the days when I was trying to get some enlightenment by going through the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4451;left:108"><nobr>Sunday secondhand book market in Old Delhi. This book was mostly about pirates and gold in</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4472;left:108"><nobr>Hong Kong, but it did have some useful background information too: it said that you Chinese are</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4493;left:108"><nobr>great lovers of freedom and individual liberty. The British tried to make you their servants, but</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4514;left:108"><nobr>you never let them do it. I admire that, Mr. Premier.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4555;left:108"><nobr>I was a servant once, you see.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4596;left:108"><nobr>Only three nations have never let themselves be ruled by foreigners: China, Afghanistan, and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4617;left:108"><nobr>Abyssinia. These are the only three nations I admire.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4658;left:108"><nobr>Out of respect for the love of liberty shown by the Chinese people, and also in the belief that the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4679;left:108"><nobr>future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4700;left:108"><nobr>the white-skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, cell phone usage, and drug abuse, I</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4721;left:108"><nobr>offer to tell you, free of charge, the truth about Bangalore.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:4762;left:108"><nobr>By telling you my life's story. </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:5039;left:108"><nobr>See, when you come to Bangalore, and stop at a traffic light, some boy will run up to your car</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5059;left:108"><nobr>and knock on your window, while holding up a bootlegged copy of an American business book,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5080;left:108"><nobr>wrapped carefully in cellophane and with a title like:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5122;left:108"><nobr><b>TEN SECRETS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS!</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5163;left:108"><nobr>or</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5205;left:108"><nobr><b>BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR IN SEVEN EASY DAYS!</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5246;left:108"><nobr>Don't waste your money on those American books. They're so <i>yesterday.</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5287;left:108"><nobr>I am tomorrow.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5329;left:108"><nobr>In terms of formal education, I may be somewhat lacking. I never finished school, to put it</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5349;left:108"><nobr>bluntly. Who cares! I haven't read many books, but I've read all the ones that count. I know by</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5370;left:108"><nobr>heart the works of the four greatest poets of all time—Rumi, Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib, and a fourth</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5391;left:108"><nobr>fellow whose name I forget. I am a self-taught entrepreneur.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5432;left:108"><nobr>That's the best kind there is, trust me.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5474;left:108"><nobr>When you have heard the story of how I got to Bangalore and became one of its most successful</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5494;left:108"><nobr>(though probably least known) businessmen, you will know everything there is to know about</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5515;left:108"><nobr>how entrepreneurship is born, nurtured, and developed in this, the glorious twenty-first century</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5536;left:108"><nobr>of man.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5577;left:108"><nobr>The century, more specifically, of the <i>yellow </i>and the <i>brown </i>man.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5619;left:108"><nobr>You and me.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5660;left:108"><nobr>It is a little before midnight now, Mr. Jiabao. A good time for me to talk.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5702;left:108"><nobr>I stay up the whole night, Your Excellency. And there's no one else in this 150-square-foot office</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5722;left:108"><nobr>of mine. Just me and a chandelier above me, although the chandelier has a personality of its own.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5743;left:108"><nobr>It's a huge thing, full of small diamond-shaped glass pieces, just like the ones they used to show</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5763;left:108"><nobr>in the films of the 1970s. Though it's cool enough at night in Bangalore, I've put a midget fan—</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5784;left:108"><nobr>five cobwebby blades—right above the chandelier. See, when it turns, the small blades chop up</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5805;left:108"><nobr>the chandelier's light and fling it across the room. Just like the strobe light at the best discos in</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5826;left:108"><nobr>Bangalore.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5867;left:108"><nobr>This is the only 150-square-foot space in Bangalore with its own chandelier! But it's still a hole</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5888;left:108"><nobr>in the wall, and I sit here the whole night.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5929;left:108"><nobr>The entrepreneur's curse. He has to watch his business all the time.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:5971;left:108"><nobr>Now I'm going to turn the midget fan on, so that the chandelier's light spins around the room. </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:6247;left:108"><nobr>I am relaxed, sir. As I hope you are.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6289;left:108"><nobr>Let us begin.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6330;left:108"><nobr>Before we do that, sir, the phrase in English that I learned from my ex-employer the late Mr.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6351;left:108"><nobr>Ashok's ex-wife Pinky Madam is:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6393;left:108"><nobr><i>What a fucking joke.</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6434;left:441"><nobr>* * *</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6473;left:108"><nobr>Now, I no longer watch Hindi films—on principle—but back in the days when I used to, just</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6494;left:108"><nobr>before the movie got started, either the number 786 would flash against the black screen—the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6514;left:108"><nobr>Muslims think this is a magic number that represents their god—or else you would see the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6535;left:108"><nobr>picture of a woman in a white sari with gold sovereigns dripping down to her feet, which is the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6556;left:108"><nobr>goddess Lakshmi, of the Hindus.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6597;left:108"><nobr>It is an ancient and venerated custom of people in my country to start a story by praying to a</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6618;left:108"><nobr>Higher Power.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6659;left:108"><nobr>I guess, Your Excellency, that I too should start off by kissing some god's arse.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6701;left:108"><nobr><i>Which </i>god's arse, though? There are so many choices.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6742;left:108"><nobr>See, the Muslims have one god.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6784;left:108"><nobr>The Christians have three gods.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6825;left:108"><nobr>And we Hindus have 36,000,000 gods.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6866;left:108"><nobr>Making a grand total of 36,000,004 divine arses for me to choose from.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6908;left:108"><nobr>Now, there are some, and I don't just mean Communists like you, but thinking men of all</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6928;left:108"><nobr>political parties, who think that not many of these gods actually exist. Some believe that <i>none </i>of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6949;left:108"><nobr>them exist. There's just us and an ocean of darkness around us. I'm no philosopher or poet, how</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6970;left:108"><nobr>would I know the truth? It's true that all these gods seem to do awfully little work—much like</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:6991;left:108"><nobr>our politicians—and yet keep winning reelection to their golden thrones in heaven, year after</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7011;left:108"><nobr>year. That's not to say that I don't respect them, Mr. Premier! Don't you ever let that blasphemous</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7032;left:108"><nobr>idea into your yellow skull. My country is the kind where it pays to play it both ways: the Indian</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7053;left:108"><nobr>entrepreneur has to be straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, at the same</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7074;left:108"><nobr>time.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7115;left:108"><nobr>So: I'm closing my eyes, folding my hands in a reverent <i>namaste, </i>and praying to the gods to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7135;left:108"><nobr>shine light on my dark story.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7177;left:108"><nobr>Bear with me, Mr. Jiabao. This could take a while. </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:7435;left:108"><nobr>How quickly do you think <i>you </i>could kiss 36,000,004 arses?</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7477;left:441"><nobr>* * *</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7516;left:108"><nobr>Done.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7558;left:108"><nobr>My eyes are open again.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7599;left:108"><nobr>11:52 p.m.—and it really <i>is </i>time to start.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7640;left:108"><nobr>A statutory warning—as they say on cigarette packs—before we begin.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7682;left:108"><nobr>One day, as I was driving my ex-employers Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam in their Honda City</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7702;left:108"><nobr>car, Mr. Ashok put a hand on my shoulder, and said, "Pull over to the side." Following this</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7723;left:108"><nobr>command, he leaned forward so close that I could smell his aftershave—it was a delicious,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7744;left:108"><nobr>fruitlike smell that day—and said, politely as ever, "Balram, I have a few questions to ask you,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7765;left:108"><nobr>all right?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7806;left:108"><nobr>"Yes, sir," I said.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7847;left:108"><nobr>"Balram," Mr. Ashok asked, "how many planets are there in the sky?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7889;left:108"><nobr>I gave the answer as best as I could.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7930;left:108"><nobr>"Balram, who was the first prime minister of India?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:7972;left:108"><nobr>And then: "Balram, what is the difference between a Hindu and a Muslim?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8013;left:108"><nobr>And then: "What is the name of our continent?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8054;left:108"><nobr>Mr. Ashok leaned back and asked Pinky Madam, "Did you hear his answers?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8096;left:108"><nobr>"Was he joking?" she asked, and my heart beat faster, as it did every time she said something.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8137;left:108"><nobr>"No. That's <i>really </i>what he thinks the correct answers are."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8179;left:108"><nobr>She giggled when she heard this: but <i>his </i>face, which I saw reflected in my rearview mirror, was</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8199;left:108"><nobr>serious.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8241;left:108"><nobr>"The thing is, he probably has…what, two, three years of schooling in him? He can read and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8262;left:108"><nobr>write, but he doesn't get what he's read. He's half-baked. The country is full of people like him,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8282;left:108"><nobr>I'll tell you that. And we entrust our glorious parliamentary democracy"—he pointed at me—"to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8303;left:108"><nobr>characters like these. <i>That's </i>the whole tragedy of this country."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8344;left:108"><nobr>He sighed. </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:8603;left:108"><nobr>"All right, Balram, start the car again."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8644;left:108"><nobr>That night, I was lying in bed, inside my mosquito net, thinking about his words. He was right,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8665;left:108"><nobr>sir—I didn't like the way he had spoken about me, but he was right.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8706;left:108"><nobr>"The Autobiography of a Half-Baked Indian." That's what I ought to call my life's story.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8748;left:108"><nobr>Me, and thousands of others in this country like me, are half-baked, because we were never</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8769;left:108"><nobr>allowed to complete our schooling. Open our skulls, look in with a penlight, and you'll find an</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8789;left:108"><nobr>odd museum of ideas: sentences of history or mathematics remembered from school textbooks</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8810;left:108"><nobr>(no boy remembers his schooling like one who was taken out of school, let me assure you),</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8831;left:108"><nobr>sentences about politics read in a newspaper while waiting for someone to come to an office,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8851;left:108"><nobr>triangles and pyramids seen on the torn pages of the old geometry textbooks which every tea</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8872;left:108"><nobr>shop in this country uses to wrap its snacks in, bits of All India Radio news bulletins, things that</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8893;left:108"><nobr>drop into your mind, like lizards from the ceiling, in the half hour before falling asleep—all these</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8913;left:108"><nobr>ideas, half formed and half digested and half correct, mix up with other half-cooked ideas in your</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8934;left:108"><nobr>head, and I guess these half-formed ideas bugger one another, and make more half-formed ideas,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8955;left:108"><nobr>and this is what you act on and live with.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:8996;left:108"><nobr>The story of my upbringing is the story of how a half-baked fellow is produced.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9038;left:108"><nobr>But pay attention, Mr. Premier! Fully formed fellows, after twelve years of school and three</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9058;left:108"><nobr>years of university, wear nice suits, join companies, and take orders from other men for the rest</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9079;left:108"><nobr>of their lives.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9120;left:108"><nobr>Entrepreneurs are made from half-baked clay.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9162;left:441"><nobr>* * *</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9201;left:108"><nobr>To give you the basic facts about me—origin, height, weight, known sexual deviations, etc.—</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9222;left:108"><nobr>there's no beating that poster. The one the police made of me.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9263;left:108"><nobr>Calling myself Bangalore's least known success story isn't entirely true, I confess. About three</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9284;left:108"><nobr>years ago, when I became, briefly, a person of national importance owing to an act of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9304;left:108"><nobr>entrepreneurship, a poster with my face on it found its way to every post office, railway station,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9325;left:108"><nobr>and police station in this country. A lot of people saw my face and name back then. I don't have</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9346;left:108"><nobr>the original paper copy, but I've downloaded an image to my silver Macintosh laptop—I bought</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9367;left:108"><nobr>it online from a store in Singapore, and it really works like a dream—and if you'll wait a second,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9383;left:108"><nobr>I'll open the laptop, pull that scanned poster up, and read from it directly…</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9429;left:108"><nobr>But a word about the original poster. I found it in a train station in Hyderabad, in the period</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9450;left:108"><nobr>when I was traveling with no luggage—except for one very heavy red bag—and coming down</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9470;left:108"><nobr>from Delhi to Bangalore. I had the original right here in this office, in the drawer of this desk, for</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9491;left:108"><nobr>a full year. One day the cleaning boy was going through my stuff, and he almost found the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9511;left:108"><nobr>poster. I'm not a sentimental man, Mr. Jiabao. Entrepreneurs can't afford to be. So I threw the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9532;left:108"><nobr>thing out—but before that, I got someone to teach me scanning—and you know how we Indians</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9553;left:108"><nobr>just take to technology like ducks to water. It took just an hour, or two hours. I am a man of </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:9791;left:108"><nobr>action, sir. And here it is, on the screen, in front of me:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9833;left:108"><nobr><b>Assistance Sought in Search for Missing Man</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9874;left:108"><nobr><b>General Public is hereby informed that the man in the picture namely Balram Halwai alias</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9895;left:108"><nobr><b>MUNNA son of Vikram Halwai rickshaw-puller is wanted for questioning. Age: Between</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9916;left:108"><nobr><b>25 and 35. Complexion: Blackish. Face: Oval. Height: Five feet four inches estimated.</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9936;left:108"><nobr><b>Build: Thin, small.</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9977;left:108"><nobr>Well, that's not <i>exactly </i>right anymore, sir. The "blackish face" bit is still true—although I'm of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:9998;left:108"><nobr>half a mind to try one of those skin-whitener creams they've launched these days so Indian men</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10019;left:108"><nobr>can look white as Westerners—but the rest, alas, is completely useless. Life in Bangalore is</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10039;left:108"><nobr>good—rich food, beer, nightclubs, so what can I say! "Thin" and "small"—ha! I am in better</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10060;left:108"><nobr>shape these days! "Fat" and "potbellied" would be more accurate now.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10101;left:108"><nobr>But let us go on, we don't have all night. I'd better explain this bit right now.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10139;left:108"><nobr><b>Balram Halwai alias MUNNA…</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10184;left:108"><nobr>See, my first day in school, the teacher made all the boys line up and come to his desk so he</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10205;left:108"><nobr>could put our names down in his register. When I told him what my name was, he gaped at me:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10246;left:108"><nobr>"Munna? That's not a real name."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10288;left:108"><nobr>He was right: it just means "boy."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10329;left:108"><nobr>"That's all I've got, sir," I said.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10371;left:108"><nobr>It was true. I'd never been given a name.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10412;left:108"><nobr>"Didn't your mother name you?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10454;left:108"><nobr>"She's very ill, sir. She lies in bed and spews blood. She's got no time to name me."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10495;left:108"><nobr>"And your father?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10536;left:108"><nobr>"He's a rickshaw-puller, sir. He's got no time to name me."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10578;left:108"><nobr>"Don't you have a granny? Aunts? Uncles?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10619;left:108"><nobr>"They've got no time either."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10661;left:108"><nobr>The teacher turned aside and spat—a jet of red <i>paan </i>splashed the ground of the classroom. He</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10681;left:108"><nobr>licked his lips.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10723;left:108"><nobr>"Well, it's up to me, then, isn't it?" He passed his hand through his hair and said, "We'll call </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:10975;left:108"><nobr>you…<i>Ram</i>. Wait—don't we have a Ram in this class? I don't want any confusion. It'll be <i>Balram.</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:10999;left:108"><nobr>You know who Balram was, don't you?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11041;left:108"><nobr>"No, sir."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11082;left:108"><nobr>"He was the sidekick of the god Krishna. Know what my name is?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11124;left:108"><nobr>"No, sir."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11165;left:108"><nobr>He laughed. "Krishna."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11207;left:108"><nobr>I came home that day and told my father that the schoolteacher had given me a new name. He</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11227;left:108"><nobr>shrugged. "If it's what he wants, then we'll call you that."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11269;left:108"><nobr>So I was Balram from then on. Later on, of course, I picked up a third name. But we'll get to that.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11310;left:108"><nobr>Now, what kind of place is it where people forget to name their children? Referring back to the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11331;left:108"><nobr>poster:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11369;left:108"><nobr><b>The suspect comes from the village of Laxmangarh, in the…</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11414;left:108"><nobr>Like all good Bangalore stories, mine begins far away from Bangalore. You see, I am in the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11434;left:108"><nobr>Light now, but I was born and raised in Darkness.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11476;left:108"><nobr>But this is not a time of day I talk about, Mr. Premier!</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11517;left:108"><nobr>I am talking of a place in India, at least a third of the country, a fertile place, full of rice fields</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11538;left:108"><nobr>and wheat fields and ponds in the middle of those fields choked with lotuses and water lilies, and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11559;left:108"><nobr>water buffaloes wading through the ponds and chewing on the lotuses and lilies. Those who live</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11579;left:108"><nobr>in this place call it the Darkness. Please understand, Your Excellency, that India is two countries</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11600;left:108"><nobr>in one: an India of Light, and an India of Darkness. The ocean brings light to my country. Every</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11621;left:108"><nobr>place on the map of India near the ocean is well off. But the river brings darkness to India—the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11642;left:108"><nobr>black river.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11683;left:108"><nobr>Which black river am I talking of—which river of Death, whose banks are full of rich, dark,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11703;left:108"><nobr>sticky mud whose grip traps everything that is planted in it, suffocating and choking and stunting</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11724;left:108"><nobr>it?</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11766;left:108"><nobr>Why, I am talking of Mother Ganga, daughter of the Vedas, river of illumination, protector of us</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11786;left:108"><nobr>all, breaker of the chain of birth and rebirth. Everywhere this river flows, that area is the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11807;left:108"><nobr>Darkness.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11849;left:108"><nobr>One fact about India is that you can take almost anything you hear about the country from the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11869;left:108"><nobr>prime minister and turn it upside down and then you will have the truth about that thing. Now,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11890;left:108"><nobr>you have heard the Ganga called the river of emancipation, and hundreds of American tourists</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:11911;left:108"><nobr>come each year to take photographs of naked sadhus at Hardwar or Benaras, and our prime </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:12167;left:108"><nobr>minister will no doubt describe it that way to you, and urge you to take a dip in it.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12208;left:108"><nobr>No!—Mr. Jiabao, I urge you not to dip in the Ganga, unless you want your mouth full of feces,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12229;left:108"><nobr>straw, soggy parts of human bodies, buffalo carrion, and seven different kinds of industrial acids.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12270;left:108"><nobr>I know all about the Ganga, sir—when I was six or seven or eight years old (no one in my village</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12291;left:108"><nobr>knows his exact age), I went to the holiest spot on the banks of the Ganga—the city of Benaras. I</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12312;left:108"><nobr>remember going down the steps of a downhill road in the holy city of Benaras, at the rear of a</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12333;left:108"><nobr>funeral procession carrying my mother's body to the Ganga.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12374;left:108"><nobr>Kusum, my granny, was leading the procession. Sly old Kusum! She had this habit of rubbing</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12395;left:108"><nobr>her forearms hard when she felt happy, as if it were a piece of ginger she was grating to release</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12415;left:108"><nobr>grins from. Her teeth were all gone, but this only made her grin more cunning. She had grinned</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12436;left:108"><nobr>her way into control of the house; every son and daughter-in-law lived in fear of her.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12477;left:108"><nobr>My father and Kishan, my brother, stood behind her, to bear the front end of the cane bed which</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12498;left:108"><nobr>bore the corpse; my uncles, who are Munnu, Jayram, Divyram, and Umesh, stood behind,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12519;left:108"><nobr>holding up the other end. My mother's body had been wrapped from head to toe in a saffron silk</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12540;left:108"><nobr>cloth, which was covered in rose petals and jasmine garlands. I don't think she had ever had such</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12560;left:108"><nobr>a fine thing to wear in her life. (Her death was so grand that I knew, all at once, that her life must</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12581;left:108"><nobr>have been miserable. My family was guilty about something.) My aunts—Rabri, Shalini, Malini,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12602;left:108"><nobr>Luttu, Jaydevi, and Ruchi—kept turning around and clapping their hands for me to catch up to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12622;left:108"><nobr>them. I remember swinging my hands and singing, "Shiva's name is the truth!"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12664;left:108"><nobr>We walked past temple after temple, praying to god after god, and then went in a single file</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12684;left:108"><nobr>between a red temple devoted to Hanuman and an open gymnasium where three body builders</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12705;left:108"><nobr>heaved rusted weights over their heads. I smelled the river before I saw it: a stench of decaying</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12722;left:108"><nobr>flesh rising from my right. I sang louder: "…the only truth!"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12767;left:108"><nobr>Then there was a gigantic noise: firewood being split. A wooden platform had been built by the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12788;left:108"><nobr>edge of the <i>ghat, </i>just above the water; logs were piled up on the platform, and men with axes</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12809;left:108"><nobr>were smashing the logs. Chunks of wood were being built into funeral pyres on the steps of the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12830;left:108"><nobr><i>ghat </i>that went down into the water; four bodies were burning on the <i>ghat </i>steps when we got</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12850;left:108"><nobr>there. We waited our turn.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12891;left:108"><nobr>In the distance, an island of white sand glistened in the sunlight, and boats full of people were</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12912;left:108"><nobr>heading to that island. I wondered if my mother's soul had flown there, to that shining place in</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12933;left:108"><nobr>the river.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12974;left:108"><nobr>I have mentioned that my mother's body was wrapped in a silk cloth. This cloth was now pulled</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:12995;left:108"><nobr>over her face; and logs of wood, as many as we could pay for, were piled on top of the body.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13016;left:108"><nobr>Then the priest set my mother on fire.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13057;left:108"><nobr>"She was a good, quiet girl the day she came to our home," Kusum said, as she put a hand on my</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13078;left:108"><nobr>face. "I was not the one who wanted any fighting." </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:13355;left:108"><nobr>I shook her hand off my face. I watched my mother.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13396;left:108"><nobr>As the fire ate away the silk, a pale foot jerked out, like a living thing; the toes, which were</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13417;left:108"><nobr>melting in the heat, began to curl up, offering resistance to what was being done to them. Kusum</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13438;left:108"><nobr>shoved the foot into the fire, but it would not burn. My heart began to race. My mother wasn't</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13458;left:108"><nobr>going to let them destroy her.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13500;left:108"><nobr>Underneath the platform with the piled-up fire logs, there was a giant oozing mound of black</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13521;left:108"><nobr>mud where the river washed into the shore. The mound was littered with ribbons of jasmine, rose</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13541;left:108"><nobr>petals, bits of satin, charred bones; a pale-skinned dog was crawling and sniffing through the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13562;left:108"><nobr>petals and satin and charred bones.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13603;left:108"><nobr>I looked at the ooze, and I looked at my mother's flexed foot.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13645;left:108"><nobr>This mud was holding her back: this big, swelling mound of black ooze. She was trying to fight</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13665;left:108"><nobr>the black mud; her toes were flexed and resisting; but the mud was sucking her in, sucking her</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13686;left:108"><nobr>in. It was so thick, and more of it was being created every moment as the river washed into the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13707;left:108"><nobr><i>ghat. </i>Soon she would become part of the black mound and the pale-skinned dog would start</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13728;left:108"><nobr>licking her.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13769;left:108"><nobr>And then I understood: this was the real god of Benaras—this black mud of the Ganga into</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13790;left:108"><nobr>which everything died, and decomposed, and was reborn from, and died into again. The same</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13810;left:108"><nobr>would happen to me when I died and they brought me here. Nothing would get liberated here.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13852;left:108"><nobr>I stopped breathing.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13893;left:108"><nobr>This was the first time in my life I fainted.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13935;left:108"><nobr>I haven't been back to see the Ganga since then: I'm leaving that river for the American tourists!</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:13973;left:108"><nobr><b>…comes from the village of Laxmangarh, in the district of Gaya.</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14018;left:108"><nobr>This is a famous district—world-famous. Your nation's history has been shaped by my district,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14038;left:108"><nobr>Mr. Jiabao. Surely you've heard of Bodh Gaya—the town where the Lord Buddha sat under a</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14059;left:108"><nobr>tree and found his enlightenment and started Buddhism, which then spread to the whole world,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14079;left:108"><nobr>including China—and where is it, but right here in my home district! Just a few miles from</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14100;left:108"><nobr>Laxmangarh!</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14142;left:108"><nobr>I wonder if the Buddha walked through Laxmangarh—some people say he did. My own feeling</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14162;left:108"><nobr>is that he ran through it—as fast as he could—and got to the other side—and never looked back!</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14204;left:108"><nobr>There is a small branch of the Ganga that flows just outside Laxmangarh; boats come down from</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14225;left:108"><nobr>the world outside, bringing supplies every Monday. There is one street in the village; a bright</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14245;left:108"><nobr>strip of sewage splits it into two. On either side of the ooze, a market: three more or less identical</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14266;left:108"><nobr>shops selling more or less identically adulterated and stale items of rice, cooking oil, kerosene,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14287;left:108"><nobr>biscuits, cigarettes, and jaggery. At the end of the market is a tall, whitewashed, conelike tower, </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:14543;left:108"><nobr>with black intertwining snakes painted on all its sides—the temple. Inside, you will find an</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14563;left:108"><nobr>image of a saffron-colored creature, half man half monkey: this is Hanuman, everyone's favorite</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14584;left:108"><nobr>god in the Darkness. Do you know about Hanuman, sir? He was the faithful servant of the god</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14605;left:108"><nobr>Rama, and we worship him in our temples because he is a shining example of how to serve your</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14626;left:108"><nobr>masters with absolute fidelity, love, and devotion.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14667;left:108"><nobr>These are the kinds of gods they have foisted on us, Mr. Jiabao. Understand, now, how hard it is</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14688;left:108"><nobr>for a man to win his freedom in India.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14729;left:108"><nobr>So much for the place. Now for the people. Your Excellency, I am proud to inform you that</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14750;left:108"><nobr>Laxmangarh is your typical Indian village paradise, adequately supplied with electricity, running</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14771;left:108"><nobr>water, and working telephones; and that the children of my village, raised on a nutritious diet of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14791;left:108"><nobr>meat, eggs, vegetables, and lentils, will be found, when examined with tape measure and scales,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14812;left:108"><nobr>to match up to the minimum height and weight standards set by the United Nations and other</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14833;left:108"><nobr>organizations whose treaties our prime minister has signed and whose forums he so regularly and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14853;left:108"><nobr>pompously attends.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14895;left:108"><nobr>Ha!</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14936;left:108"><nobr>Electricity poles—defunct.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:14978;left:108"><nobr>Water tap—broken.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15019;left:108"><nobr>Children—too lean and short for their age, and with oversized heads from which vivid eyes</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15040;left:108"><nobr>shine, like the guilty conscience of the government of India.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15081;left:108"><nobr>Yes, a typical Indian village paradise, Mr. Jiabao. One day I'll have to come to China and see if</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15102;left:108"><nobr>your village paradises are any better.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15143;left:108"><nobr>Down the middle of the main road, families of hogs are sniffing through sewage—the upper</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15164;left:108"><nobr>body of each animal is dry, with long hairs that are matted together into spines; the lower half of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15185;left:108"><nobr>the body is peat-black and glistening from sewage. Vivid red and brown flashes of feather—</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15206;left:108"><nobr>roosters fly up and down the roofs of the house. Past the hogs and roosters, you'll get to my</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15226;left:108"><nobr>house—if it still exists.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15267;left:108"><nobr>At the doorway to my house, you'll see the most important member of my family.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15309;left:108"><nobr>The water buffalo.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15350;left:108"><nobr>She was the fattest thing in our family; this was true in every house in the village. All day long,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15371;left:108"><nobr>the women fed her and fed her fresh grass; feeding her was the main thing in their lives. All their</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15392;left:108"><nobr>hopes were concentrated in her fatness, sir. If she gave enough milk, the women could sell some</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15413;left:108"><nobr>of it, and there might be a little more money at the end of the day. She was a fat, glossy-skinned</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15433;left:108"><nobr>creature, with a vein the size of a boy's penis sticking out over her hairy snout, and long thick</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15454;left:108"><nobr>pearly spittle suspended from the edge of her mouth; she sat all day in her own stupendous crap.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15475;left:108"><nobr>She was the dictator of our house! </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:15751;left:108"><nobr>Once you walk into the house, you will see—if any of them are still living, after what I did—the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15772;left:108"><nobr>women. Working in the courtyard. My aunts and cousins and Kusum, my granny. One of them</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15793;left:108"><nobr>preparing the meal for the buffalo; one winnowing rice; one squatting down, looking through the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15814;left:108"><nobr>scalp of another woman, squeezing the ticks to death between her fingers. Every now and then</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15834;left:108"><nobr>they stop their work, because it is time to fight. This means throwing metal vessels at one</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15855;left:108"><nobr>another, or pulling each other's hair, and then making up, by putting kisses on their palms and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15876;left:108"><nobr>pressing them to the others' cheeks. At night they sleep together, their legs falling one over the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15897;left:108"><nobr>other, like one creature, a millipede.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15938;left:108"><nobr>Men and boys sleep in another corner of the house.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:15979;left:108"><nobr>Early morning. The roosters are going mad throughout the village. A hand stirs me awake…I</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16000;left:108"><nobr>shake my brother Kishan's legs off my tummy, move my cousin Pappu's palm out of my hair,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16021;left:108"><nobr>and extricate myself from the sleepers.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16062;left:108"><nobr>"Come, Munna."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16104;left:108"><nobr>My father, calling for me from the door of the house.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16145;left:108"><nobr>I run behind him. We go out of the house and untie the water buffalo from her post. We are</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16166;left:108"><nobr>taking her for her morning bath—all the way to the pond beneath the Black Fort.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16207;left:108"><nobr>The Black Fort stands on the crest of a hill overlooking the village. People who have been to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16228;left:108"><nobr>other countries have told me that this fort is as beautiful as anything seen in Europe. The Turks,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16248;left:108"><nobr>or the Afghans, or the English, or whichever foreigners were then ruling India, must have built</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16269;left:108"><nobr>the fort centuries ago.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16311;left:108"><nobr>(For this land, India, has never been free. First the Muslims, then the British bossed us around. In</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16331;left:108"><nobr>1947 the British left, but only a moron would think that we became free then.)</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16373;left:108"><nobr>Now the foreigners have long abandoned the Black Fort, and a tribe of monkeys occupy it. No</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16394;left:108"><nobr>one else goes up, except for a goatherd taking his flock to graze there.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16435;left:108"><nobr>At sunrise, the pond around the base of the fort glows. Boulders from the walls of the fort have</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16455;left:108"><nobr>rolled down the hill and tumbled into the pond, where they lie, moist and half submerged in the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16476;left:108"><nobr>muddy water, like the snoozing hippopotamuses that I would see, many years later, at the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16497;left:108"><nobr>National Zoo at New Delhi. Lotuses and lilies float all over the pond, the water sparkles like</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16518;left:108"><nobr>silver, and the water buffalo wades, chewing on the leaves of the lilies, and setting off ripples</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16538;left:108"><nobr>that spread in big V's from her snout. The sun rises over the buffalo, and over my father, and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16559;left:108"><nobr>over me, and over my world.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16601;left:108"><nobr>Sometimes, would you believe, I almost miss that place.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16642;left:108"><nobr>Now, back to the poster— </nobr></div>
</span></font>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:16919;left:108"><nobr><b>The suspect was last seen wearing blue checkered polyester shirt, orange polyester</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16936;left:108"><nobr><b>trousers, maroon color sandals…</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:16981;left:108"><nobr>"Maroon color" sandals—ugh. Only a policeman could have made up a detail like that. I flatly</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17002;left:108"><nobr>deny it.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17043;left:108"><nobr>"Blue checkered polyester shirt, orange polyester trousers"…er, well, I'd like to deny those too,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17064;left:108"><nobr>but unfortunately they're correct. Those are the kinds of clothes, sir, that would appeal to a</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17085;left:108"><nobr>servant's eye. And I was still a servant on the morning of the day this poster was made. (By the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17105;left:108"><nobr>evening I was free—and wearing different clothes!)</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17147;left:108"><nobr>Now, there is one phrase in this poster that does annoy me—let me go back to it for a moment</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17167;left:108"><nobr>and fix it:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17205;left:108"><nobr><b>…son of Vikram Halwai rickshaw-puller…</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17250;left:108"><nobr><i>Mr</i>. Vikram Halwai, rickshaw-puller—thank you! My father was a poor man, but he was a man</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17271;left:108"><nobr>of honor and courage. I wouldn't be here, under this chandelier, if not for his guidance.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17312;left:108"><nobr>In the afternoons, I went from my school to the tea shop to see him. This tea shop was the central</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17333;left:108"><nobr>point of our village; the bus from Gaya stopped there at noon every day (never late by more than</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17354;left:108"><nobr>an hour or two) and the policemen would park their jeep here when they came to bugger</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17374;left:108"><nobr>someone in the village. A little before sunset, a man circled around the tea shop three times,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17395;left:108"><nobr>ringing his bell loudly. A stiff cardboard-backed poster for a pornographic film was tied to the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17416;left:108"><nobr>back of his cycle—what traditional Indian village is complete without its blue-movie theater, sir?</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17436;left:108"><nobr>A cinema across the river showed such films every night; two-and-a-half-hour fantasias with</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17457;left:108"><nobr>names like <i>He Was a True Man, </i>or <i>We Opened Her Diary, </i>or <i>The Uncle Did It, </i>featuring</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17478;left:108"><nobr>golden-haired women from America or lonely ladies from Hong Kong—or so I'm guessing, Mr.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17499;left:108"><nobr>Premier, since it's not like I ever joined the other young men and went to see one of these films!</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17540;left:108"><nobr>The rickshaw-pullers parked their vehicles in a line outside the tea shop, waiting for the bus to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17561;left:108"><nobr>disgorge its passengers.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17602;left:108"><nobr>They were not allowed to sit on the plastic chairs put out for the customers; they had to crouch</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17623;left:108"><nobr>near the back, in that hunched-over, squatting posture common to servants in every part of India.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17643;left:108"><nobr>My father never crouched—I remember that. He preferred to stand, no matter how long he had to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17664;left:108"><nobr>wait and how uncomfortable it got for him. I would find him shirtless, usually alone, drinking tea</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17685;left:108"><nobr>and thinking.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17726;left:108"><nobr>Then there would be the honk of a car.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17768;left:108"><nobr>The hogs and stray dogs near the tea shop would scatter, and the smell of dust, and sand, and hog</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17789;left:108"><nobr>shit would blow into the shop. A white Ambassador car had stopped outside. My father put down</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17809;left:108"><nobr>his teacup and went out.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:17851;left:108"><nobr>The door of the Ambassador opened: a man got out with a notebook. The regular customers of </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:18107;left:108"><nobr>the tea shop could go on eating, but my father and the others gathered in a line.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18148;left:108"><nobr>The man with the notebook was not the Buffalo; he was the assistant.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18190;left:108"><nobr>There was another fellow inside the Ambassador; a stout one with a bald, brown, dimpled head,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18210;left:108"><nobr>a serene expression on his face, and a shotgun on his lap.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18252;left:108"><nobr><i>He </i>was the Buffalo.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18293;left:108"><nobr>The Buffalo was one of the landlords in Laxmangarh. There were three others, and each had got</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18314;left:108"><nobr>his name from the peculiarities of appetite that had been detected in him.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18355;left:108"><nobr>The Stork was a fat man with a fat mustache, thick and curved and pointy at the tips. He owned</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18376;left:108"><nobr>the river that flowed outside the village, and he took a cut of every catch of fish caught by every</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18397;left:108"><nobr>fisherman in the river, and a toll from every boatman who crossed the river to come to our</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18417;left:108"><nobr>village.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18459;left:108"><nobr>His brother was called the Wild Boar. This fellow owned all the good agricultural land around</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18480;left:108"><nobr>Laxmangarh. If you wanted to work on those lands, you had to bow down to his feet, and touch</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18500;left:108"><nobr>the dust under his slippers, and agree to swallow his day wages. When he passed by women, his</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18521;left:108"><nobr>car would stop; the windows would roll down to reveal his grin; two of his teeth, on either side</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18542;left:108"><nobr>of his nose, were long and curved, like little tusks.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18583;left:108"><nobr>The Raven owned the worst land, which was the dry, rocky hillside around the fort, and took a</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18604;left:108"><nobr>cut from the goatherds who went up there to graze with their flocks. If they didn't have their</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18624;left:108"><nobr>money, he liked to dip his beak into their backsides, so they called him the Raven.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18666;left:108"><nobr>The Buffalo was greediest of the lot. He had eaten up the rickshaws and the roads. So if you ran</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18687;left:108"><nobr>a rickshaw, or used the road, you had to pay him his feed—one-third of whatever you earned, no</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18707;left:108"><nobr>less.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18749;left:108"><nobr>All four of the Animals lived in high-walled mansions just outside Laxmangarh—the landlords'</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18770;left:108"><nobr>quarters. They had their own temples inside the mansions, and their own wells and ponds, and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18790;left:108"><nobr>did not need to come out into the village except to feed. Once upon a time, the children of the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18811;left:108"><nobr>four Animals went around town in their own cars; Kusum remembered those days. But after the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18831;left:108"><nobr>Buffalo's son had been kidnapped by the Naxals—perhaps you've heard about them, Mr. Jiabao,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18852;left:108"><nobr>since they're Communists, just like you, and go around shooting rich people on principle—the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18873;left:108"><nobr>four Animals had sent their sons and daughters away, to Dhanbad or to Delhi.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18914;left:108"><nobr>Their children were gone, but the Animals stayed and fed on the village, and everything that</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18935;left:108"><nobr>grew in it, until there was nothing left for anyone else to feed on. So the rest of the village left</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18956;left:108"><nobr>Laxmangarh for food. Each year, all the men in the village waited in a big group outside the tea</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18977;left:108"><nobr>shop. When the buses came, they got on—packing the inside, hanging from the railings,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:18997;left:108"><nobr>climbing onto the roofs—and went to Gaya; there they went to the station and rushed into the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19018;left:108"><nobr>trains—packing the inside, hanging from the railings, climbing onto the roofs—and went to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19039;left:108"><nobr>Delhi, Calcutta, and Dhanbad to find work. </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:19315;left:108"><nobr>A month before the rains, the men came back from Dhanbad and Delhi and Calcutta, leaner,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19336;left:108"><nobr>darker, angrier, but with money in their pockets. The women were waiting for them. They hid</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19357;left:108"><nobr>behind the door, and as soon as the men walked in, they pounced, like wildcats on a slab of flesh.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19378;left:108"><nobr>There was fighting and wailing and shrieking. My uncles would resist, and managed to keep</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19398;left:108"><nobr>some of their money, but my father got peeled and skinned every time. "I survived the city, but I</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19419;left:108"><nobr>couldn't survive the women in my home," he would say, sunk into a corner of the room. The</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19440;left:108"><nobr>women would feed him after they fed the buffalo.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19481;left:108"><nobr>I would come to him, and play around with him, by climbing his back, and passing my palm over</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19502;left:108"><nobr>his forehead—over his eyes—over his nose—and down to his neck, to the little depression at the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19523;left:108"><nobr>pit of his neck. I would let my finger linger there—it still is my favorite part of the human body.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19564;left:108"><nobr>A rich man's body is like a premium cotton pillow, white and soft and blank. <i>Ours </i>are different.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19585;left:108"><nobr>My father's spine was a knotted rope, the kind that women use in villages to pull water from</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19605;left:108"><nobr>wells; the clavicle curved around his neck in high relief, like a dog's collar; cuts and nicks and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19626;left:108"><nobr>scars, like little whip marks in his flesh, ran down his chest and waist, reaching down below his</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19647;left:108"><nobr>hip bones into his buttocks. The story of a poor man's life is written on his body, in a sharp pen.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19688;left:108"><nobr>My uncles also did backbreaking work, but they did what everyone else did. Each year, as soon</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19709;left:108"><nobr>as it began raining, they would go out to the fields with blackened sickles, begging one landlord</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19730;left:108"><nobr>or the other for some work. Then they cast seed, cut weeds, and harvested corn and paddy. My</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19750;left:108"><nobr>father could have worked with them; he could have worked with the landlords' mud, but he chose</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19771;left:108"><nobr>not to.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19812;left:108"><nobr>He chose to fight it.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19854;left:108"><nobr>Now, since I doubt that you have rickshaw-pullers in China—or in any other civilized nation on</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19875;left:108"><nobr>earth—you will have to see one for yourself. Rickshaws are not allowed inside the posh parts of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19895;left:108"><nobr>Delhi, where foreigners might see them and gape. Insist on going to Old Delhi, or Nizamuddin—</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19916;left:108"><nobr>there you'll see the road full of them—thin, sticklike men, leaning forward from the seat of a</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19937;left:108"><nobr>bicycle, as they pedal along a carriage bearing a pyramid of middle-class flesh—some fat man</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19958;left:108"><nobr>with his fat wife and all their shopping bags and groceries.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:19999;left:108"><nobr>And when you see these stick-men, think of my father.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20040;left:108"><nobr>Rickshaw-puller he may have been—a human beast of burden—but my father was a man with a</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20061;left:108"><nobr>plan.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20102;left:108"><nobr><i>I </i>was his plan.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20144;left:108"><nobr>One day he lost his temper at home and began yelling at the women. This was the day they told</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20165;left:108"><nobr>him that I had not been going to class. He did something he had never dared do before—he</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20185;left:108"><nobr>yelled at Kusum:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20227;left:108"><nobr>"How many times have I told you: Munna <i>must </i>read and write!" </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:20503;left:108"><nobr>Kusum was startled, but only for a moment. She yelled back:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20545;left:108"><nobr>"This fellow came running back from school—don't blame me! He's a coward, and he eats too</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20566;left:108"><nobr>much. Put him to work in the tea shop and let him make some money."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20607;left:108"><nobr>My aunts and cousin-sisters gathered around her. I crawled behind my father's back as they told</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20628;left:108"><nobr>him the story of my cowardice.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20669;left:108"><nobr>Now, you may find it incredible that a boy in a village would be frightened of a lizard. Rats,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20690;left:108"><nobr>snakes, monkeys, and mongooses don't bother me at all. On the contrary—I <i>love </i>animals. But</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20707;left:108"><nobr>lizards…each time I see one, no matter how tiny, it's as if I turn into a girl. My blood freezes.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20752;left:108"><nobr>There was a giant cupboard in my classroom, whose door was always slightly ajar—no one knew</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20773;left:108"><nobr>what it was there for. One morning, the door creaked open, and a lizard jumped out.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20814;left:108"><nobr>It was light green in color, like a half-ripe guava. Its tongue flicked in and out of its mouth. It</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20835;left:108"><nobr>was at least two feet long.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20876;left:108"><nobr>The other boys barely noticed. Until someone saw my face. They gathered in a circle around me.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20918;left:108"><nobr>Two of them pinned my hands behind my back and held my head still. Someone caught the thing</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20938;left:108"><nobr>in his hands, and began walking toward me with slow, exaggerated steps. Making no noise—</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20959;left:108"><nobr>only flicking its red tongue in and out of its mouth—the lizard came closer and closer to my face.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:20980;left:108"><nobr>The laughter grew louder. I couldn't make a noise. The teacher was snoring at his desk behind</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21000;left:108"><nobr>me. The lizard's face came right up to my face; and then it opened its light green mouth, and then</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21021;left:108"><nobr>I fainted for the second time in my life.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21063;left:108"><nobr>I had not gone back to school since that day.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21104;left:108"><nobr>My father did not laugh when he heard the story. He took a deep breath; I felt his chest</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21125;left:108"><nobr>expanding against me.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21166;left:108"><nobr>"You let Kishan drop out of school, but I told you this fellow had to stay in school. His mother</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21187;left:108"><nobr>told me he'd be the one who made it through school. His mother said—"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21228;left:108"><nobr>"Oh, to hell with his mother!" Kusum shouted. "She was a crazy one, and she's dead, and thank</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21249;left:108"><nobr>goodness. Now listen to me: let the boy go to the tea shop like Kishan, that's what I say."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21290;left:108"><nobr>The next day my father came with me to my school, for the first and last time. It was dawn; the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21311;left:108"><nobr>place was empty. We pushed the door open. A dim blue light filled the classroom. Now, our</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21332;left:108"><nobr>schoolteacher was a big <i>paan</i>-and-spit man—and his expectorate made a sort of low, red</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21353;left:108"><nobr>wallpaper on three walls around us. When he went to sleep, which he usually did by noon, we</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21373;left:108"><nobr>stole <i>paan </i>from his pockets; distributed it amongst ourselves and chewed on it; and then,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21394;left:108"><nobr>imitating his spitting style—hands on hips, back arched slightly—took turns spitting at the three</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21415;left:108"><nobr>dirty walls. </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:21691;left:108"><nobr>A faded mural of the Lord Buddha surrounded by deer and squirrels decorated the fourth wall—</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21712;left:108"><nobr>it was the only wall that the teacher spared. The giant lizard the color of a half-ripe guava was</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21733;left:108"><nobr>sitting in front of this wall, pretending to be one of the animals at the feet of the Lord Buddha.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21774;left:108"><nobr>It turned its head to us; I saw its eyes shine.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21816;left:108"><nobr>"Is this the monster?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21857;left:108"><nobr>The lizard turned its head this way and that, looking for an exit. Then it began banging the wall.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21878;left:108"><nobr>It was no different from me; it was terrified.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21919;left:108"><nobr>"Don't kill it, Daddy—just throw it out the window, please?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21961;left:108"><nobr>The teacher was lying in one corner of the room, reeking of booze, snoring soundly. Near him</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:21981;left:108"><nobr>was the pot of toddy he had emptied the previous night—my father picked it up.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22023;left:108"><nobr>The lizard ran, and he ran behind it, swinging the pot of toddy at it.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22064;left:108"><nobr>"Don't kill it, Daddy—please!"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22106;left:108"><nobr>But he wouldn't listen. He kicked the cupboard, and the lizard darted out, and he chased it again,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22126;left:108"><nobr>smashing everything in his way, and yelling, "Heeyaa! Heeyaa!" He pounded it with the pot of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22147;left:108"><nobr>toddy until the pot broke. He smashed its neck with his fist. He stamped on its head.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22188;left:108"><nobr>The air became acrid: a stench of crushed flesh. He picked the dead lizard up and flung it out the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22209;left:108"><nobr>door.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22251;left:108"><nobr>My father sat panting against the mural of the Lord Buddha surrounded by the gentle animals.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22292;left:108"><nobr>When he caught his breath, he said, "My whole life, I have been treated like a donkey. All I want</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22313;left:108"><nobr>is that one son of mine—at least one—should live like a man."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22354;left:108"><nobr>What it meant to live like a man was a mystery. I thought it meant being like Vijay, the bus</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22375;left:108"><nobr>conductor. The bus stopped for half an hour at Laxmangarh, and the passengers got off, and the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22395;left:108"><nobr>conductor got down to have a cup of tea. Now, he was a man all of us who worked in that tea</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22416;left:108"><nobr>shop looked up to. We admired his bus-company-issue khaki uniform, his silver whistle and the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22437;left:108"><nobr>red cord from which it hung down from his pocket. Everything about him said: he had made it in</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22458;left:108"><nobr>life.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22499;left:108"><nobr>Vijay's family were pigherds, which meant they were the lowest of the low, yet he had made it</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22520;left:108"><nobr>up in life. Somehow he had befriended a politician. People said he had let the politician dip his</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22541;left:108"><nobr>beak in his backside. Whatever he had to do, he had done: he was the first entrepreneur I knew</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22561;left:108"><nobr>of. Now he had a job, and a silver whistle, and when he blew it—just as the bus was leaving—all</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22582;left:108"><nobr>the boys in the village went crazy and ran after the bus, and banged on its sides, and begged to be</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22603;left:108"><nobr>taken along too. I wanted to be like Vijay—with a uniform, a paycheck, a shiny whistle with a </nobr></div>
</span></font>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:22859;left:108"><nobr>piercing sound, and people looking at me with eyes that said, <i>How important he looks.</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22900;left:108"><nobr>Two a.m. already, Mr. Premier. I'll have to stop for tonight fairly soon. Let me put my finger on</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22921;left:108"><nobr>the laptop screen, and see if there is any other useful information here.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:22962;left:108"><nobr>Leaving out a few inessential details…</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23000;left:108"><nobr><b>…in the Dhaula Kuan area of New Delhi, on the night of September 2, near the ITC</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23021;left:108"><nobr><b>Maurya Sheraton hotel…</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23066;left:108"><nobr>Now, this hotel, the Sheraton, is the finest in Delhi—I've never been inside, but my ex-boss, Mr.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23087;left:108"><nobr>Ashok, used to do all his late-night drinking there. There's a restaurant in the basement that's</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23107;left:108"><nobr>supposed to be very good. You should visit it if you get the chance.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23149;left:108"><nobr><b>The missing man was employed as driver of a Honda City vehicle at the time of the alleged</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23170;left:108"><nobr><b>incident. In this regard a case, FIR No. 438/05, P. S. Dhaula Kuan, Delhi, has been</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23191;left:108"><nobr><b>registered. He is also believed to be in possession of a bag filled with a certain quantity of</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23211;left:108"><nobr><b>cash.</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23252;left:108"><nobr><i>Red </i>bag, they should have said. Without the color, the information is all but useless, isn't it? No</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23273;left:108"><nobr>wonder I was never spotted.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23314;left:108"><nobr><i>Certain quantity of cash. </i>Open any newspaper in this country, and it's always this crap: "A</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23335;left:108"><nobr><i>certain </i>interested party has been spreading rumors," or "A <i>certain </i>religious community doesn't</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23356;left:108"><nobr>believe in contraception." I <i>hate </i>that.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23397;left:108"><nobr>Seven hundred thousand rupees.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23439;left:108"><nobr>That was how much cash was stuffed into the red bag. And trust me, the police knew it too. How</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23459;left:108"><nobr>much this is in Chinese money, I don't know, Mr. Jiabao. But it buys ten silver Macintosh</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23480;left:108"><nobr>laptops from Singapore.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23522;left:108"><nobr>There's no mention of my school in the poster, sir—that's a real shame. You always ought to talk</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23542;left:108"><nobr>about a man's education when describing him. They should have said something like, <i>The</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23563;left:108"><nobr><i>suspect was educated in a school with two-foot-long lizards the color of half-ripe guavas hiding</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23580;left:108"><nobr><i>in its cupboards…</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23625;left:108"><nobr>If the Indian village is a paradise, then the school is a paradise within a paradise.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23666;left:108"><nobr>There was supposed to be free food at my school—a government program gave every boy three</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23687;left:108"><nobr><i>rotis, </i>yellow <i>daal, </i>and pickles at lunchtime. But we never ever saw <i>rotis, </i>or yellow <i>daal, </i>or</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23708;left:108"><nobr>pickles, and everyone knew why: the schoolteacher had stolen our lunch money.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23749;left:108"><nobr>The teacher had a legitimate excuse to steal the money—he said he hadn't been paid his salary in</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23770;left:108"><nobr>six months. He was going to undertake a Gandhian protest to retrieve his missing wages—he was</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:23791;left:108"><nobr>going to do nothing in class until his paycheck arrived in the mail. Yet he was terrified of losing </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:24047;left:108"><nobr>his job, because though the pay of any government job in India is poor, the incidental advantages</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24067;left:108"><nobr>are numerous. Once, a truck came into the school with uniforms that the government had sent for</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24088;left:108"><nobr>us; we never saw them, but a week later they turned up for sale in the neighboring village.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24130;left:108"><nobr>No one blamed the schoolteacher for doing this. You can't expect a man in a dung heap to smell</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24150;left:108"><nobr>sweet. Every man in the village knew that he would have done the same in his position. Some</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24171;left:108"><nobr>were even proud of him, for having got away with it so cleanly.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24213;left:108"><nobr>One morning a man wearing the finest suit I had seen in my life, a blue safari suit that looked</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24233;left:108"><nobr>even more impressive than a bus conductor's uniform, came walking down the road that led to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24254;left:108"><nobr>my school. We gathered at the door to stare at his suit. He had a cane in his hand, which he</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24275;left:108"><nobr>began swishing when he saw us at the door. We rushed back into the class and sat down with our</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24295;left:108"><nobr>books.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24337;left:108"><nobr>This was a surprise inspection.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24378;left:108"><nobr>The man in the blue safari suit—the inspector—pointed his cane at holes in the wall, or the red</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24399;left:108"><nobr>discolorations, while the teacher cowered by his side and said, "Sorry sir, sorry sir."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24440;left:108"><nobr>"There is no duster in this class; there are no chairs; there are no uniforms for the boys. How</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24461;left:108"><nobr>much money have you stolen from the school funds, you sister-fucker?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24502;left:108"><nobr>The inspector wrote four sentences on the board and pointed his cane at a boy:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24544;left:108"><nobr>"Read."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24585;left:108"><nobr>One boy after the other stood up and blinked at the wall.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24627;left:108"><nobr>"Try Balram, sir," the teacher said. "He's the smartest of the lot. He reads well."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24668;left:108"><nobr>So I stood up, and read, <i>"We live in a glorious land. The Lord Buddha received his</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24689;left:108"><nobr><i>enlightenment in this land. The River Ganga gives life to our plants and our animals and our</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24710;left:108"><nobr><i>people. We are grateful to God that we were born in this land."</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24751;left:108"><nobr>"Good," the inspector said. "And who was the Lord Buddha?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24792;left:108"><nobr>"An enlightened man."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24834;left:108"><nobr>"An enlightened <i>god.</i>"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24875;left:108"><nobr>(Oops! Thirty-six million and five—!)</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24917;left:108"><nobr>The inspector made me write my name on the blackboard; then he showed me his wristwatch and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24937;left:108"><nobr>asked me to read the time. He took out his wallet, removed a small photo, and asked me, "Who is</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:24958;left:108"><nobr>this man, who is the most important man in all our lives?" </nobr></div>
</span></font>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:25235;left:108"><nobr>The photo was of a plump man with spiky white hair and chubby cheeks, wearing thick earrings</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25255;left:108"><nobr>of gold; the face glowed with intelligence and kindness.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25297;left:108"><nobr>"He's the Great Socialist."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25338;left:108"><nobr>"Good. And what is the Great Socialist's message for little children?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25380;left:108"><nobr>I had seen the answer on the wall outside the temple: a policeman had written it one day in red</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25401;left:108"><nobr>paint.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25442;left:108"><nobr>"Any boy in any village can grow up to become the prime minister of India. That is his message</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25463;left:108"><nobr>to little children all over this land."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25504;left:108"><nobr>The inspector pointed his cane straight at me. "You, young man, are an intelligent, honest,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25525;left:108"><nobr>vivacious fellow in this crowd of thugs and idiots. In any jungle, what is the rarest of animals—</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25545;left:108"><nobr>the creature that comes along only once in a generation?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25587;left:108"><nobr>I thought about it and said:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25628;left:108"><nobr>"The white tiger."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25670;left:108"><nobr>"That's what you are, in <i>this </i>jungle."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25711;left:108"><nobr>Before he left, the inspector said, "I'll write to Patna asking them to send you a scholarship. You</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25732;left:108"><nobr>need to go to a real school—somewhere far away from here. You need a real uniform, and a real</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25752;left:108"><nobr>education."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25794;left:108"><nobr>He had a parting gift for me—a book. I remember the title very well: <i>Lessons for Young Boys</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25815;left:108"><nobr><i>from the Life of Mahatma Gandhi.</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25856;left:108"><nobr>So that's how I became the White Tiger. There will be a fourth and a fifth name too, but that's</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25877;left:108"><nobr>late in the story.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25918;left:108"><nobr>Now, being praised by the school inspector in front of my teacher and fellow students, being</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25939;left:108"><nobr>called a "White Tiger," being given a book, and being promised a scholarship: all this constituted</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25959;left:108"><nobr>good news, and the one infallible law of life in the Darkness is that good news becomes bad</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:25980;left:108"><nobr>news—and soon.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26022;left:108"><nobr>My cousin-sister Reena got hitched off to a boy in the next village. Because we were the girl's</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26042;left:108"><nobr>family, we were screwed. We had to give the boy a new bicycle, and cash, and a silver bracelet,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26063;left:108"><nobr>and arrange for a big wedding—which we did. Mr. Premier, you probably know how we Indians</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26084;left:108"><nobr>enjoy our weddings—I gather that these days people come from other countries to get married</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26105;left:108"><nobr>Indian-style. Oh, we could have taught those foreigners a thing or two, I tell you! Film songs</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26125;left:108"><nobr>blasting out from a black tape recorder, and drinking and dancing all night! I got smashed, and so</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26146;left:108"><nobr>did Kishan, and so did everyone in the family, and for all I know, they probably poured hooch</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26167;left:108"><nobr>into the water buffalo's trough. </nobr></div>
</span></font>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:26443;left:108"><nobr>Two or three days passed. I was in my classroom, sitting at the back, with the black slate and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26464;left:108"><nobr>chalk that my father had brought me from one of his trips to Dhanbad, working on the alphabet</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26485;left:108"><nobr>on my own. The boys were chatting or fighting. The teacher had passed out.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26526;left:108"><nobr>Kishan was standing in the doorway of the classroom. He gestured with his fingers.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26568;left:108"><nobr>"What is it, Kishan? Are we going somewhere?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26609;left:108"><nobr>Still he said nothing.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26651;left:108"><nobr>"Should I bring my book along? And my chalk?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26692;left:108"><nobr>"Why not?" he said. And then, with his hand on my head, he led me out.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26733;left:108"><nobr>The family had taken a big loan from the Stork so they could have a lavish wedding and a lavish</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26754;left:108"><nobr>dowry for my cousin-sister. Now the Stork had called in his loan. He wanted all the members of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26775;left:108"><nobr>the family working for him and he had seen me in school, or his collector had. So they had to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26796;left:108"><nobr>hand me over too.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26837;left:108"><nobr>I was taken to the tea shop. Kishan folded his hands and bowed to the shopkeeper. I bowed to the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26858;left:108"><nobr>shopkeeper too.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26899;left:108"><nobr>"Who's this?" The shopkeeper squinted at me.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26940;left:108"><nobr>He was sitting under a huge portrait of Mahatma Gandhi, and I knew already that I was going to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:26961;left:108"><nobr>be in big trouble.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27003;left:108"><nobr>"My brother," Kishan said. "He's come to join me."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27044;left:108"><nobr>Then Kishan dragged the oven out from the tea shop and told me to sit down. I sat down next to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27065;left:108"><nobr>him. He brought a gunnysack; inside was a huge pile of coals. He took out a coal, smashed it on</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27086;left:108"><nobr>a brick, and then poured the black chunks into the oven.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27127;left:108"><nobr>"Harder," he said, when I hit the coal against the brick. "Harder, harder."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27168;left:108"><nobr>Finally I got it right—I broke the coal against the brick. He got up and said, "Now break every</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27189;left:108"><nobr>last coal in this bag like that."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27230;left:108"><nobr>A little later, two boys came around from school to watch me. Then two more boys came; then</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27251;left:108"><nobr>two more. I heard giggling.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27293;left:108"><nobr>"What is the creature that comes along only once in a generation?" one boy asked loudly.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27334;left:108"><nobr>"The coal breaker," another replied. </nobr></div>
</span></font>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:27611;left:108"><nobr>And then all of them began to laugh.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27652;left:108"><nobr>"Ignore them," Kishan said. "They'll go away on their own."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27694;left:108"><nobr>He looked at me.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27735;left:108"><nobr>"You're angry with me for taking you out of school, aren't you?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27777;left:108"><nobr>I said nothing.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27818;left:108"><nobr>"You hate the idea of having to break coals, don't you?"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27859;left:108"><nobr>I said nothing.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27901;left:108"><nobr>He took the largest piece of coal in his hand and squeezed it. "Imagine that each coal is my skull:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27921;left:108"><nobr>they will get much easier to break."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27963;left:108"><nobr>He'd been taken out of school too. That happened after my cousin-sister Meera's wedding. That</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:27984;left:108"><nobr>had been a big affair too.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28025;left:441"><nobr>* * *</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28064;left:108"><nobr>Working in a tea shop. Smashing coals. Wiping tables. Bad news for me, you say?</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28105;left:108"><nobr>To break the law of his land—to turn bad news into good news—is the entrepreneur's</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28126;left:108"><nobr>prerogative.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28168;left:108"><nobr>Tomorrow, Mr. Jiabao, starting again at midnight I'll tell you how I gave myself a better</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28188;left:108"><nobr>education at the tea shop than I could have got at any school. Right now, though, it's time for me</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28209;left:108"><nobr>to stop staring at this chandelier and get to work. It is almost three in the morning. This is when</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28230;left:108"><nobr>Bangalore comes to life. The American workday is coming to an end, and mine is beginning in</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28250;left:108"><nobr>earnest. I have to be alert as all the call-center girls and boys are leaving their offices for their</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28271;left:108"><nobr>homes. This is when I must be near the phone.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28312;left:108"><nobr>I don't keep a cell phone, for obvious reasons—they corrode a man's brains, shrink his balls, and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28333;left:108"><nobr>dry up his semen, as all of us know—so I have to stay in the office. In case there is a crisis.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28375;left:108"><nobr>I am the man people call when they have a crisis!</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28412;left:108"><nobr>Let's see quickly if there's anything else…</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28454;left:108"><nobr><b>…any person having any information or clue about this missing man may kindly inform at</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28478;left:108"><nobr><b>CBI Web site (http://cbi.nic.in) e-mail ID ([email protected]), Fax No. 011-23011334, T No.</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28499;left:108"><nobr><b>011-23014046 (Direct) 011-23015229 and 23015218 Extn. 210 and to the under-signed at the</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28520;left:108"><nobr><b>following address or telephone number or numbers given below.</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28561;left:108"><nobr><b>DP 3687/05</b></nobr></div>
</span></font>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28687;left:0"><hr><table border=0 width=100%><tr><td bgcolor=eeeeee align=right><font face=arial,sans-serif><a name=25><b>Page 25</b></a></font></td></tr></table></div><font size=3 face="Times"><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times">
<div style="position:absolute;top:28799;left:108"><nobr><b>SHO—Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28820;left:108"><nobr><b>Tel: 28653200, 27641000</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28861;left:108"><nobr>Set into the text of the notice, a photograph: blurred, blackened, and smudged by the antique</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28882;left:108"><nobr>printing press of some police office, and barely recognizable even when it was on the wall of the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28902;left:108"><nobr>train station, but now, transferred onto the computer screen, reduced to pixels, just an abstract</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28923;left:108"><nobr>idea of a man's face: a small creature with large, popped-out eyes and a stubby mustache. He</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28944;left:108"><nobr>could be half the men in India.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:28985;left:108"><nobr>Mr. Premier, I leave you for tonight with a comment on the shortcomings of police work in</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29006;left:108"><nobr>India. Now, a busload of men in khaki—it was a sensational case, after all—must have gone to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29027;left:108"><nobr>Laxmangarh when investigating my disappearance. They would have questioned the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29047;left:108"><nobr>shopkeepers, bullied the rickshaw puller, and woken up the schoolteacher. Did he steal as a</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29068;left:108"><nobr>child? Did he sleep with whores? They would have smashed up a grocery shop or two, and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29089;left:108"><nobr>forced out "confessions" from one or two people.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29130;left:108"><nobr>Yet I bet you they missed the most important clue of all, which was right in front of them:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29172;left:108"><nobr>I am talking of the Black Fort, of course.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29213;left:108"><nobr>I begged Kusum many times to take me to the top of the hill, and through the entranceway, and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29234;left:108"><nobr>into the fort. But she said I was a coward, I would die of fright if I went up there: an enormous</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29254;left:108"><nobr>lizard, the biggest in the whole world, lived in the fort.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29296;left:108"><nobr>So I could only watch. The long loopholes in its wall turned into lines of burning pink at sunrise</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29316;left:108"><nobr>and burning gold at sunset; the blue sky shone through the slits in the stone, while the moon</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29337;left:108"><nobr>shone on the jagged ramparts, and the monkeys ran wild along the walls, shrieking and attacking</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29358;left:108"><nobr>each other, as if they were the spirits of the dead warriors reincarnated, refighting their final</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29379;left:108"><nobr>battles.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29420;left:108"><nobr>I wanted to go up there too.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29462;left:108"><nobr>Iqbal, who is one of the four best poets in the world—the others being Rumi, Mirza Ghalib, and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29482;left:108"><nobr>a fourth fellow, also a Muslim, whose name I've forgotten—has written a poem where he says</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29503;left:108"><nobr>this about slaves:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29544;left:108"><nobr><i>They remain slaves because they can't see what is beautiful in this world.</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29586;left:108"><nobr>That's the truest thing anyone ever said.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29627;left:108"><nobr>A great poet, this fellow Iqbal—even if he <i>was </i>a Muslim.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29669;left:108"><nobr>(By the way, Mr. Premier: Have you noticed that all four of the greatest poets in the world are</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29689;left:108"><nobr>Muslim? And yet all the Muslims you meet are illiterate or covered head to toe in black burkas</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29710;left:108"><nobr>or looking for buildings to blow up? It's a puzzle, isn't it? If you ever figure these people out,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:29731;left:108"><nobr>send me an e-mail.) </nobr></div>
</span></font>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:30007;left:108"><nobr>Even as a boy I could see what was beautiful in the world: I was destined not to stay a slave.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30049;left:108"><nobr>One day Kusum found out about me and the fort. She followed me all the way from our home to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30070;left:108"><nobr>the pond with the stones, and saw what I was doing. That night she told my father, "He just stood</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30090;left:108"><nobr>there gaping at the fort—just the way his mother used to. He is going to come to nothing good in</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30111;left:108"><nobr>life, I'll tell you that right now."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30153;left:108"><nobr>When I was maybe thirteen I decided to go up to the fort on my own. I waded into the pond, got</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30173;left:108"><nobr>to the other side, and climbed up the hill; just as I was on the verge of going in, a black thing</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30194;left:108"><nobr>materialized in the entranceway. I spun around and ran back down the hill, too frightened even to</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30215;left:108"><nobr>cry.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30256;left:108"><nobr>It was only a cow. I could see this from a distance, but I was too shaken up to go back.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30297;left:108"><nobr>I tried many more times, yet I was such a coward that each time I tried to go up, I lost my nerve</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30318;left:108"><nobr>and came back.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30360;left:108"><nobr>At the age of twenty-four, when I was living in Dhanbad and working in Mr. Ashok's service as</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30380;left:108"><nobr>a chauffeur, I returned to Laxmangarh when my master and his wife went there on an excursion.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30401;left:108"><nobr>It was a very important trip for me, and one I hope to describe in greater detail when time</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30422;left:108"><nobr>permits. For now, all I want to tell you is this: While Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam were</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30442;left:108"><nobr>relaxing, having eaten lunch, I had nothing to do, so I decided to try again. I swam through the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30463;left:108"><nobr>pond, walked up the hill, went into the doorway, and entered the Black Fort for the first time.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30484;left:108"><nobr>There wasn't much around—just some broken walls and a bunch of frightened monkeys</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30504;left:108"><nobr>watching me from a distance. Putting my foot on the wall, I looked down on the village from</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30525;left:108"><nobr>there. My little Laxmangarh. I saw the temple tower, the market, the glistening line of sewage,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30546;left:108"><nobr>the landlords' mansions—and my own house, with that dark little cloud outside—the water</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30567;left:108"><nobr>buffalo. It looked like the most beautiful sight on earth.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30608;left:108"><nobr>I leaned out from the edge of the fort in the direction of my village—and then I did something</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30629;left:108"><nobr>too disgusting to describe to you.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30670;left:108"><nobr>Well, actually, I <i>spat</i>. Again and again. And then, whistling and humming, I went back down the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30691;left:108"><nobr>hill.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30732;left:108"><nobr>Eight months later, I slit Mr. Ashok's throat.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30795;left:390"><nobr><b>The Second Night</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30834;left:108"><nobr><b>For the Desk of:</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30875;left:108"><nobr><i>His Excellency Wen Jiabao</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30895;left:108"><nobr><i>Now probably fast asleep in the</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30916;left:108"><nobr><i>Premier's Office</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:30937;left:108"><nobr><i>In China</i></nobr></div>
</span></font>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31063;left:0"><hr><table border=0 width=100%><tr><td bgcolor=eeeeee align=right><font face=arial,sans-serif><a name=27><b>Page 27</b></a></font></td></tr></table></div><font size=3 face="Times"><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times">
<div style="position:absolute;top:31196;left:108"><nobr><b>From the Desk of:</b></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31237;left:108"><nobr><i>His Midnight Educator</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31258;left:108"><nobr><i>On matters entrepreneurial:</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31278;left:108"><nobr><i>"The White Tiger"</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31320;left:108"><nobr>Mr. Premier.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31361;left:108"><nobr>So.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31403;left:108"><nobr>What does my laughter sound like?</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31444;left:108"><nobr>What do my armpits smell like?</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31485;left:108"><nobr>And when I grin, is it true—as you no doubt imagine by now—that my lips widen into a devil's</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31506;left:108"><nobr>rictus?</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31548;left:108"><nobr>Oh, I could go on and on about myself, sir. I could gloat that I am not just <i>any </i>murderer, but one</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31568;left:108"><nobr>who killed his own employer (who is a kind of second father), and also contributed to the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31589;left:108"><nobr>probable death of all his family members. A virtual mass murderer.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31630;left:108"><nobr>But I don't want to go on and on about myself. You should hear some of these Bangalore</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31651;left:108"><nobr>entrepreneurs—my <i>start-up </i>has got this contract with American Express, my <i>start-up </i>runs the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31672;left:108"><nobr>software in this hospital in London, blah blah. I hate that whole fucking Bangalore attitude, I tell</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31692;left:108"><nobr>you.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31734;left:108"><nobr>(But if you absolutely <i>must </i>find out more about me, just log on to my Web site: <i>www.whitetiger-</i></nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31755;left:108"><nobr><i>technologydrivers.com</i>. That's right! That's the URL of <i>my </i>start-up!)</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31796;left:108"><nobr>So I'm sick of talking about myself, sir. Tonight, I want to talk about the other important man in</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31817;left:108"><nobr>my story.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31858;left:108"><nobr>My ex.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31899;left:108"><nobr>Mr. Ashok's face reappears now in my mind's eye as it used to every day when I was in his</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31920;left:108"><nobr>service—reflected in my rearview mirror. It was such a handsome face that sometimes I couldn't</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31941;left:108"><nobr>take my eyes off it. Picture a six-foot-tall fellow, broad-shouldered, with a landlord's powerful,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31962;left:108"><nobr>punishing forearms; yet always gentle (<i>almost </i>always—except for that time he punched Pinky</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:31982;left:108"><nobr>Madam in the face) and kind to those around him, even his servants and driver.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32024;left:108"><nobr>Now another face appears, to the side of his, in memory's mirror. Pinky Madam—his wife. Every</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32045;left:108"><nobr>bit as good-looking as her husband; just as the image of the goddess in the Birla Hindu Temple</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32065;left:108"><nobr>in New Delhi is as fair as the god to whom she is married. She would sit in the back, and the two</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32086;left:108"><nobr>of them would talk, and I would drive them wherever they wanted, as faithfully as the servant-</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32107;left:108"><nobr>god Hanuman carried about his master and mistress, Ram and Sita. </nobr></div>
</span></font>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32251;left:0"><hr><table border=0 width=100%><tr><td bgcolor=eeeeee align=right><font face=arial,sans-serif><a name=28><b>Page 28</b></a></font></td></tr></table></div><font size=3 face="Times"><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times">
<div style="position:absolute;top:32383;left:108"><nobr>Thinking of Mr. Ashok is making me sentimental. I hope I've got some paper napkins here</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32404;left:108"><nobr>somewhere.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32446;left:108"><nobr>Here's a strange fact: murder a man, and you feel responsible for his life—<i>possessive, </i>even. You</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32466;left:108"><nobr>know more about him than his father and mother; they knew his fetus, but you know his corpse.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32487;left:108"><nobr>Only you can complete the story of his life; only you know why his body has to be pushed into</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32508;left:108"><nobr>the fire before its time, and why his toes curl up and fight for another hour on earth.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32549;left:108"><nobr>Now, even though I killed him, you won't find me saying one bad thing about him. I protected</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32570;left:108"><nobr>his good name when I was his servant, and now that I am (in a sense) his master, I won't stop</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32591;left:108"><nobr>protecting his good name. I owe him so much. He and Pinky Madam would sit in the back of the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32611;left:108"><nobr>car, chatting about life, about India, about America—mixing Hindi and English together—and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32632;left:108"><nobr>by eavesdropping on them, I learned a lot about life, India, and America—and a bit of English</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32653;left:108"><nobr>too. (Perhaps a bit more than I've let on so far—!) Many of my best ideas are, in fact, borrowed</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32673;left:108"><nobr>from my ex-employer or his brother or someone else whom I was driving about. (I confess, Mr.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32694;left:108"><nobr>Premier: I am not an original thinker—but I am an original <i>listener</i>.) True, eventually Mr. Ashok</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32715;left:108"><nobr>and I had a disagreement or two about an English term—<i>income tax</i>—and things began to sour</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32736;left:108"><nobr>between us, but that messy stuff comes later on in the story. Right now we're still on best of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32756;left:108"><nobr>terms: we've just met, far from Delhi, in the city called Dhanbad.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32798;left:108"><nobr>I came to Dhanbad after my father's death. He had been ill for some time, but there is no hospital</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32818;left:108"><nobr>in Laxmangarh, although there are three different foundation stones for a hospital, laid by three</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32839;left:108"><nobr>different politicians before three different elections. When he began spitting blood that morning,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32860;left:108"><nobr>Kishan and I took him by boat across the river. We kept washing his mouth with water from the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32880;left:108"><nobr>river, but the water was so polluted that it made him spit more blood.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32922;left:108"><nobr>There was a rickshaw-puller on the other side of the river who recognized my father; he took the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32943;left:108"><nobr>three of us for free to the government hospital.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:32984;left:108"><nobr>There were three black goats sitting on the steps to the large, faded white building; the stench of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33005;left:108"><nobr>goat feces wafted out from the open door. The glass in most of the windows was broken; a cat</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33026;left:108"><nobr>was staring out at us from one cracked window.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33067;left:108"><nobr>A sign on the gate said:</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33108;left:108"><nobr>LOHIA UNIVERSAL FREE HOSPITAL</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33129;left:108"><nobr>PROUDLY INAUGURATED BY THE GREAT SOCIALIST</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33150;left:108"><nobr>A HOLY PROOF THAT HE KEEPS HIS PROMISES</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33191;left:108"><nobr>Kishan and I carried our father in, stamping on the goat turds which had spread like a</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33212;left:108"><nobr>constellation of black stars on the ground. There was no doctor in the hospital. The ward boy,</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33233;left:108"><nobr>after we bribed him ten rupees, said that a doctor might come in the evening. The doors to the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33253;left:108"><nobr>hospital's rooms were wide open; the beds had metal springs sticking out of them, and the cat</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33274;left:108"><nobr>began snarling at us the moment we stepped into the room. </nobr></div>
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<div style="position:absolute;top:33551;left:108"><nobr>"It's not safe in the rooms—that cat has tasted blood."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33592;left:108"><nobr>A couple of Muslim men had spread a newspaper on the ground and were sitting on it. One of</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33613;left:108"><nobr>them had an open wound on his leg. He invited us to sit with him and his friend. Kishan and I</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33634;left:108"><nobr>lowered Father onto the newspaper sheets. We waited there.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33675;left:108"><nobr>Two little girls came and sat down behind us; both of them had yellow eyes.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33717;left:108"><nobr>"Jaundice. <i>She </i>gave it to me."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33758;left:108"><nobr>"I did not. <i>You </i>gave it to me. And now we'll both die!"</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33799;left:108"><nobr>An old man with a cotton patch on one eye came and sat down behind the girls.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33841;left:108"><nobr>The Muslim men kept adding newspapers to the ground, and the line of diseased eyes, raw</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33861;left:108"><nobr>wounds, and delirious mouths kept growing.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33903;left:108"><nobr>"Why <i>isn't </i>there a doctor here, uncle?" I asked. "This is the only hospital on either side of the</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33924;left:108"><nobr>river."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33965;left:108"><nobr>"See, it's like this," the older Muslim man said. "There's a government medical superintendent</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:33986;left:108"><nobr>who's meant to check that doctors visit village hospitals like this. Now, each time this post falls</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:34006;left:108"><nobr>vacant, the Great Socialist lets all the big doctors know that he's having an open auction for that</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:34027;left:108"><nobr>post. The going rate for this post is about four hundred thousand rupees these days."</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:34068;left:108"><nobr>"That much!" I said, my mouth opened wide.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:34110;left:108"><nobr>"Why not? There's good money in public service! Now, imagine that I'm a doctor. I beg and</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:34131;left:108"><nobr>borrow the money and give it to the Great Socialist, while touching his feet. He gives me the job.</nobr></div>
<div style="position:absolute;top:34151;left:108"><nobr>I take an oath to God and the Constitution of India and then I put my boots up on my desk in the</nobr></div>