I went to the old woman and told her: “I will give you five million. Put it in a fixed deposit and you will get thirty thousand rupees every month. I will also give you an apartment to live in. Take the apartment and move out of here; it will be more convenient for you. When you die, I will ensure that you have a proper burial. The minister himself will come to honor you. I shall name this street after you and the sons of your husband’s other wives who humiliated you will die of jealousy. But if it’s someone else, you won’t get even the five million I’m willing to offer you.” I kept pressuring her until she agreed. I also assured her that if any of her children or other heirs created problems, I would deal with them. It was the minster’s writ that ruled in those parts, so nobody would dare open their mouths. Those who had tried in the past had vanished without a trace or had committed suicide. Even a sum of five million was a considerable amount for the old lady. Thus, the property was quietly transferred to the proxy of the minister.
After I pulled off this deal I became a trusted confidant. If the goddess Durga has ten arms, a minister has a thousand. But I became his man Friday only because I had acquired a reputation as a person who got things done efficiently. Since everyone knew I was close to the minister, my work became even easier. There are quite a few poramboke lands lying idle in the suburbs of Chennai. There was nothing wrong if the minister decided to put them to use. It was not as if he was amassing all these properties for his own benefit; those who enter politics in this country need vast amounts of money. During election season, buying a single vote may take anything from two hundred to two thousand rupees. So, calculate the amount of money it takes to win an election. Grabbing such lands is not easy either. First you have to find out where these lands are located; I got the information at the tahsildar’s office. As soon as I identified a poramboke land, the first thing I did was build a fence around it. Soon, a party flag went up on the spot, followed by a small temple. The title deed was readied as soon as the folks in the tahsildar’s office were slipped some money, but as I mentioned earlier, it is not as easy as it seems. I began with grounds and slowly graduated to acres with the blessings of the minister.
Over the next five years, my life and lifestyle changed dramatically. Before I met the minister, I had been living and conducting my business in the suburbs of Chennai. Now I was the proud owner of a real estate firm in the heart of the city – the size and swank of which rivaled that of a multinational company. The millions that flowed into the minister’s coffers were invested in the company and thus I became a corporate owner. I liked my new life; I mean, who wouldn’t? I got everything I wanted at the click of a finger. Money can buy anything for it is Aladdin’s magic lamp. And when money is aligned with political power, you can rule the world. The minister’s leader was the ruler and we were the lesser lords. Fancy a good time with an actress? Man, just call her directly. If she makes a fuss, there are the police, humble servants who are meant to do your bidding. If the cop in question refuses to play ball, shift him to a place where there isn’t enough water to wipe his ass. There is a saying that says you should stay away from evil people if you see them, but we don’t do that; instead, we ensure that the evil person is removed to a remote place. Since the actresses have already been “adjusting” to the demands of other actors, producers and directors, why should she refuse to accommodate a politician? Some actresses will come around only if you threaten to book them on charges of prostitution. Some might get married to avoid such problems. One actress tied the knot at the height of her career just to escape my advances. I don’t pursue married actresses unless they are willing; every profession has its ethics. That applies even to ganja-smuggling – you shouldn’t sell tobacco as ganja; if you do, you don’t deserve to live.
Now for the “interesting incident” that happened in my life. It came to my notice that a two-hundred-acre golf course located on prime property in the city had no legal heirs. The company that was managing the property had taken it on lease a century ago. The lease term had expired fifteen years ago and the only remaining member of the family that had leased out the property was old and decrepit. The property was worth ten billion now.
I informed the minister who told his leader, and pressure was exerted on the company. We told them, “We don’t want the property. Just give us the ten billion.” Finally, a deal was struck at six billion, of which my cut was two hundred million. Though I gave it to the minister, he told me to keep it. I refused. I was the benami for the millions of rupees that belonged to him, so what difference did it make whether the money was on my name or his?
This story has an important point and one’s life may hinge on it someday. An incident that occurred during the early phase of our friendship bears testimony to this. Once, I saw the minister’s henchmen beating up one of their gang members. That night, as we were all drinking together, I asked the minister, “Why did you beat him up? If you had a problem with him, you could have just kicked him out.”
The minister told me that he had given the fellow one million and had asked him to keep the money with him until he asked for it. Ten days later, he demanded the money and the chap returned it. It was for this that he was beaten.
You don’t understand? Well, at first, I didn’t either. The fact is, the minister had actually given him one million and one hundred thousand, but the fellow assumed there had been an oversight and pocketed the excess.
Suddenly, I felt a chill run down my spine for I too had been given one million on one occasion. When I mentioned this, the minister laughed and said that it had been a test. “But that is not all. When I realized that money would not do the trick, I gave you another test.”
One day, an actress had come to see the minister at his guesthouse. I was there along with two other men. But the minister didn’t turn up even after many hours. Night had fallen and still there was no sign of him and his phone was also switched off. It was two a.m. and we felt that it was unlikely that he would turn up so late. The two fellows with me winked and nudged me on: “Anney, go try your luck,” they said, but I refused. I do like women but I had a reason not to take them up on their offer.
The girl in question was a Hindi actress, not very well-known in the industry. She had acted in a few small “art films.” When she realized that she would not be able to compete with the big names in the Bollywood film industry, she dared to do something risqué. She attended a couple of film festivals in a mini-skirt without wearing panties. When she uncrossed her legs on stage, everyone caught a glimpse of her “toad” and she became famous overnight. Some other actresses, jealous of her newly-acquired fame, tried to follow her example. Whether she wore panties or not was her business, but what riled me was that when began to star in Tamil films, she got all holier-than-thou, talking about yoga, meditation, martial arts and bharatanatayam. Suddenly, she was an expert in all these disciplines and claimed to know twelve languages. I ask you: why would someone, ostensibly so accomplished, need to pull such a cheap stunt to get her big break in the movies?
If I have to thank someone for narrowly escaping the thrashing hands of the minister’s men, it is the writer Udhaya. I am so obsessed with things like land and house and patta that even in my dreams I see only patta and the tahsildar’s office. I wouldn’t have known about this Hindi actress’ pussy-flashing stunt had Udhaya not shown me the footage of the same on his laptop. This stunt was why I was not willing to bed her. Look, if you want to be a whore, be straightforward about it. Why pretend you are a paragon of virtue?
If it had been any other actress, I would have been hung up to dry by the minister’s men. But paradoxically, it is Udhaya who is also responsible for my suicide. If I had been beaten up by the minister’s men that day, I might have parted ways with him for good and I wouldn’t have had to commit suicide. What the Hindu religion says is true – that people who die a natural death go straight to the soul world and become one with the eternal soul there, but those who die an unnat
ural death – suicide, murder, accident – are condemned to wander as ghosts.
I don’t know about other religions; but Hinduism talks about reincarnation. According to it, the circumstances of our present life are determined by the good karma accumulated in our previous life. If one becomes a beggar or suffers from leprosy or AIDS, or like me, commits suicide at the age of thirty-five, it is because of our actions in our past life.
I have argued about this at length with Udhaya. Once, we were discussing about our leader, a man who has done so many evil things in this life that committing atrocities was child’s play for him. But he led a very comfortable life and never once suffered any deprivation. Udhaya said, “Whenever I think of your leader, I lose the last dregs of faith in God.” On hearing this, Socrates, the leader’s grandson, pointed to the sky and said, “Good karma from his previous birth.” I believe him, but there’s a catch. On 9/11, the Twin Towers were attacked and three thousand people died on the same day at the same time. Did they all die because of bad karma from a previous life? Thousands of Tamils were killed in the Sri Lankan civil war. Did they too have bad karma – the whole lot of them? It is rather confusing. Perhaps I will find the answers when I finally leave this world and ascend to the soul world.
Udhaya once told me a story that he had read somewhere. A woman gave birth to four children but all of them died. When she lost her fourth child, she chopped his index finger in half and placed it in the child’s grave, vowing to never have another child. But a fifth child was born to her and it survived. However, it had only half an index finger.
I brokered an important business deal and the minister gave a license to someone close to us. And by “close,” I mean a person who would give us a bigger commission. It was a huge risk, but the minister was clever. He took care of all those who needed to be taken care of and settled the matter with the utmost secrecy. The money was split between four or five people, the minister got ten billion and my company became the benami for the stash. The person who got the license was from the company that supplied vodka to us. The vodka was called diva and it cost one million dollars which was to the tune of fifty million rupees. The bottle was encrusted with Swarovski crystals and diamonds. It was Udhaya who gave me all this information.
“What a waste of money! It will only end up being flushed down the toilet,” commented the minister. “Anney, do we commit suicide today just because we are destined to die anyway?” I pointed out.
This was the one thing I disliked about him. Despite his multi-millionaire status, he continued to live like a pauper. Some called it simplicity, but I called it niggardliness. I must be careful in case someone’s listening. Hey, why should I be afraid now! The minister can’t do anything to me because I have already committed suicide. He always wore rubber slippers and a cheap cotton shirt and the stuff he drank was worse than piss. But all said and done, he never interfered with my ways although he put in his two cents from time to time. I drank Chivas Regal and not the ordinary stuff, mind you, but Chivas Regal that had aged a hundred years and cost one hundred thousand a bottle.
“You are going overboard,” the minister would caution me, “If you respect money it will stay with you.”
I would reply, “With so many millions at your disposal, should you spout such a middle-class philosophy? Ambani built a house worth fifty billion, did his wealth desert him? It is not enough to just be a rich man; you must learn to enjoy your wealth.” Most of the rich men I know are people who don’t know how to enjoy the money they make. Take our leader, for instance. He will not chase a crow with the hand he has been eating with. Fine, but does he spend at least a pittance on himself? Not at all. He once wanted a cable connection for his TV. When I went to his house, I realized that the TV was of such ancient vintage that the new cable connection would be of no use. I threw the old one out and replaced it with a new model. The very next day, the leader’s man came and told me that he wanted a TV just like the old one as he didn’t know how to operate the new model.
I went to his house and told him that it was actually quite easy and wrote down the instructions on a piece of paper. But it did no good. Finally, I had to get him the old model he’d asked for.
If I’d told the leader about the expensive Diva vodka that the minister and I had drunk, I am sure he would have had a heart attack.
Of all the people I met on earth, the only one who knew how to live life like it was perpetual celebration was Udhaya. I met him through Socrates. I didn’t understand most of the stuff he talked about. He was a pure and unadulterated hedonist but he was not a rich man. He was an ordinary middle-class chap, but if you want to learn about luxury and flamboyance, he is the person to go to. It was he who introduced me to different kinds of liquor. He was a very unpredictable fellow, but that’s part of his charm. Once, during summer, he asked me to get a sack of nungu. We got hold of four fellows who knew how to collect nungu from palm trees and that day we had vodka mixed with the nungu juice.
“How is it?” he asked me.
“Terrific,” I replied.
“But it lacks one thing.”
When I heard what it was, I was shocked and wondered if all writers were such perverts. He said that the vodka-nungu juice mix could do with a dash of a woman’s… ugh! How could one talk of such private matters so unabashedly in public?
A few days before I killed myself, Udhaya introduced me to a single malt called Macallan; it was even richer than Chivas Regal. I asked him why these liquors cost so much. He explained to me that they were made by fermenting grapes in oak barrels for hundreds of years. In our country, the stuff is fermented in iron vessels that don’t rust. That explains the staggering price difference between local stuff and imported stuff.
Let me come back to the reasons for my suicide. To the great misfortune of the people concerned, the media got wind of the fact that the person who had got the license at a throwaway price from the government was actually a benami for Dawood Ibrahim.
The minister went to prison and I found myself facing the unenviable situation of having to turn approver in the case. Refusing to cooperate with the investigating officers leads to the mental asylum.
But the price of turning approver was a heavy one – my wife and child would lose their lives. The minister and the people behind him were known to carry out their threats. Two other people had already committed suicide with their families in Anna Nagar and K. K. Nagar – suicide or murder, it was hard to say. When the police are controlled by the powers-that-be, who will expose the truth? Both the men were close to the minister, but neither could ask him anything. He loses it completely when someone broaches a subject that is not to his liking. Why should people who commit suicide poison their own children too? Where are those poor innocents at fault? When I ran into the person from Anna Nagar in the spirit world, I asked him about this. But his advice was: “If you go around bearing the burden of your old life’s memories, it will hinder the passage to the soul world, so forget about all your earthly ties, trials and tribulations.” You can never understand the pain of one condemned to wander around as a ghost. The life of a ghost is worse than that of a stray. The most intense grief flows from memory. Memory is the mother lode of most of our misery.
When you part from a woman you love, you feel sorrow, so it follows that memory and sorrow are one and the same. Don’t needle me with counter questions like: is hunger also a memory? Hunger makes you forget everything, I know. It’s also a kind of pain, a bodily reaction similar to the pain you feel when someone beats you. One kind of pain is associated with the body while the other is associated with the mind. Since ghosts don’t have bodies, memories of our past lives continue to torment us ceaselessly. Here’s a story that Udhaya once told me:
Mulla Nasruddin was tossing around in bed one day, unable to sleep. His wife asked him what was troubling him. He said, “I promised our neighbor Abdullah I would return the money that I had borrowed from h
im tomorrow, but I don’t have the money, so I am unable to sleep.” “Is that all?” said his wife. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.” She stepped out of the house and called out loudly to the neighbor: “Abdullah, Abdullah!” Abdullah came out of his house, rubbing his eyes sleepily. The mullah’s wife told him: “Nasruddin cannot give you the money he owes you tomorrow.” Then she went back into her house and told Mulla Nasruddin: “Now Abdullah won’t be able to sleep, but you will.”
After entering the world, I realized that it is our emotional attachment to things that causes us pain. I realized this when I encountered Silk Smitha’s ghost. She was a film star and a sex bomb and at one time, all of South India was at her feet, drooling. But in our country – sorry, I forgot, ghosts have no country, nor do they have a religion, caste, race or anything else that defines human beings. People have many reasons for suffering and die in many ways. But in India, most of the female ghosts are the spirits of women who have been raped. The tales that Noida ghosts tell are especially gruesome – rape, murder, dismemberment, bodies dumped in ditches and drains…
There are also many other spirits commonly found in India – ghosts of businessmen and actresses who committed suicide, ghosts who were once members of our political party but were silenced by those in the top echelons, husbands whose throats were slit by deceitful wives and their illicit lovers while on honeymoon…
Sometimes the ghosts of wives are seen too – for instance, the ghost of the wife who made fun of her husband’s dick, saying it was too small. It’s really pathetic to hear her sob. “I was just teasing,” she says.
Marginal Man Page 9