Sacred Games

by Vikram Chandra

  Ganesh Gaitonde Goes Home

  ‘If it happens in a film, it won’t happen in life,’ Jojo had said to me. When I’d told her about my fear of radiation burns and bombs and buildings being swept down by a roaring wind, she’d said, ‘It’s too filmi.’ But I knew better, I knew more. I had seen scenes from my own life in two dozen films, sometimes exaggerated and sometimes reduced, but still true. I was filmi, and I was real.

  I had known Jojo for years, and I knew that I was still slightly unreal to her. I was her friend, but I was also Ganesh Gaitonde, the crime lord, the ruthless international khiladi, the crorepati and arabpati who lived in palaces. For the overwhelming majority of people, gangsters and spies only existed as figures of light, as glittering and temporary notions thrown up by electronics and celluloid. But I was in fact a gangster and spy, and so I knew well what was possible. My own life had taught me what was real, and I knew that what men can imagine, they can make real. And so I was terrified.

  I told myself every morning that there was no reason to be frightened. After all, perhaps Gaston and Pascal and the others on the boat had been exposed to radioactive material by accident on the docks or elsewhere. All kinds of materials passed through, some belonging to government agencies. Maybe something had leaked on the way to one of the big atomic power plants. And even if we had brought in some harmful material on the boat, it may just have been inside one of those machines meant for the agricultural work that Guru-ji was conducting. Yes, no doubt that was the case. It was an accident anyway. Then why was I so scared? No need to be like this. Maybe I had lived so long with the fear of my own death that it had fed on itself and grown larger and stronger until I had this monstrous dread inside me, this lurking, poisonous thing that threatened the death of the whole world.

  All would be well, though. Guru-ji would come back from his secret meditation or journey or yagna, whatever it was, and he would tell me exactly what had happened to Gaston and Pascal, and that would be that. He would calm me, and life would settle into a routine again. I remembered all our conversations, I made an effort to trace – in my imagination – our history together. I brought out the files in which I had stored all his pravachans and read them again, and was once again entranced by his wisdom, soothed by his compassion. I watched recordings of his speeches and wept. I spent hours paging through Guru-ji’s website, reading the hundreds and thousands of testimonials written by his disciples, and looking at the happy faces of those saved from despair and madness and disease. Every morning I felt that all would be well, that a man who cared for so many – orphaned children, destitute women, the aged and the abandoned – must be a dharmic man. If Guru-ji brought guns into the country, it was to protect morality, to strengthen right and hold off wrong. I was his disciple and I was protected under the umbrella of his love. I was safe. I laughed at myself, and berated myself for my lack of faith. I set to work. But soon I was again awash in horror, surrounded by flayed, stinking corpses, oppressed by a wind that whistled inside my head and left emptiness.

  Like a worm, fear grew out of this void and fattened. I was afraid of assassins coming at me over water and under it. Arvind and Suhasini had been killed in Singapore, Bunty had been shot in Mumbai, many others had died. I knew that Suleiman Isa was trying to kill me, and I suspected that Kulkarni and his organization wanted me dead, and some mornings I thought they were running their operations co-operatively. But under these fears there was always this other thing, a quiet terror as bright as the blue on a morning wave. In the afternoons it lapped at the sparkling glass on the portholes as I tried to take a nap, as I shoved my face into white sheets and tried to find my way to oblivion. Food seemed a waste of time to me, dining with the boys a long tribulation, and women gave me no satisfaction. Yes, I turned virgins from my bed because the one final spasm of pleasure didn’t seem worth all the work that went into the ridiculous act. I felt old, and empty. It took hours for me to find sleep, and when I did, I slept lightly, racked by dreams of empty wastelands, of burning cities.

  In the early morning hours, sometimes, I was able to dream of Mumbai. In that light half-sleep, I put myself into those lanes, and I was young and happy again. I relived my victories, my narrow escapes, my triumphs of tactics and strategy. And not only these grand moments – these historical landmarks the whole city remembered – I also recalled small details and passing conversations. A neer dosa shared with Paritosh Shah at a roadside udipi stall near Pune, Kanta Bai dealing cards on top of an upturned carton. A game of carrom with the boys on the roof of my house in Gopalmath, with monsoon winds swaying the wires on the rooftops of the basti. On these mornings, I awoke happy. I was confident that everything was all right, no reason for worry. And by evening I was trembling again.

  If only I could talk to Guru-ji. I couldn’t find him. The months passed, and Guru-ji was still gone. Of course I had my boys looking for him, but I knew that they were beginning to resent this intrusion into their time, which they preferred to spend making money. They were all polite, of course, and did as they were told, but I knew that their efforts were less than enthusiastic, and that their constant reports of ‘Nothing found, bhai’ glossed over the fact that they hadn’t actually looked. Bunty was barely out of the hospital, still alive but crippled, deadened from the waist down. Of course we were providing the best medical care for him, the best technology. I spoke to him every day, and he was taking on work and responsibility, but he hadn’t the energy to push the boys, to make them devote themselves to the search. It didn’t help that I couldn’t tell them exactly why we were searching for Guru-ji. I had only my insane imaginings, and I didn’t want to sound crazy, and I didn’t want to start a panic. Life had to go on, work had to continue, money had to be earned. Also, I couldn’t announce my reasons without exposing my whole connection with Guru-ji, without giving away everything I had kept secret for so long. So I said only that we needed to find Guru-ji, and that was all. But there was no motion on this mission, no success, not even a lead.

  So I went to Bombay.

  I flew in from Frankfurt with a best-quality German passport in the name of Partha Shirur, and walked easily through immigration and customs. An hour later I was in a bungalow in Lokhandwalla. My cover was that I was an NRI businessman based in Munich, that I was returning to India after a very long time abroad, that I was investigating business opportunities. So here I was, suddenly sitting in a cane chair on the roof of the house, which was called ‘Ashiana’. I was sweating through my shirt, but I was enjoying myself. I asked for a glass of coconut water, and sipped it, savouring that particular Bombay stink in the thick air, of petrol fumes and pollution and swamp water. Behind me, a stack of flat buildings made a wall for my back, and in front there was a dirt road edged with streetlights, and then a leafy darkness. I felt reinvigorated, and the aircraft exhaustion dropped away from me as I listened to the crickets sing. A pack of dogs skulked around the corner, yipping at each other. I was content.

  There was a commotion at the staircase, and then I heard that low whirr and whine of a wheelchair. But it wasn’t Guru-ji, it was Bunty, navigating his way over the little step in the roof. We had of course got him a wheelchair exactly like Guru-ji’s, despite the cost. He deserved at least that.

  ‘Bunty,’ I said. ‘Bastard, you’re like a racing driver in that thing.’

  ‘Bhai,’ he said. ‘It’s a good machine.’

  He looked lost inside his own skin, as if he had shrunk into himself. I had to bend to hug him. ‘It’s the best, my friend. Did you drive it up the stairs?’

  ‘No, no, bhai,’ he laughed. ‘I’m not as good with it as our other friend. I had them carry me up.’ He angled a thumb at the three young lads near the doorway on the other side of the roof. I could see their faces in the light from the stairs, and they were all new. I knew none of them.

  ‘Tell them to go away,’ I said.

  He waved at them, and they retreated. ‘They don’t recognize you,’ he said. ‘If I passed you on the street,
I wouldn’t have known you.’

  ‘Best surgeon, he gave good results,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. But we have to be careful, bhai. One meeting.’

  ‘One meeting.’ That was our plan. I was going to be in the city, but I was going to stay undercover. The government was using MCOCA to throw our boys in jail, the encounter specialists were killing them faster than ever. It was a very dangerous time. As far as my company knew, I was still in Thailand, or Luxembourg, or Brazil. I was going to communicate with Bunty through our secure communications equipment and e-mail. We were going to be near, but act as if we were far. But we had to meet once, at least once. I had told him that, I had ordered it even though it was a risk for me. I had told him I didn’t care if he was being watched not only by the police and Suleiman Isa’s people, but also by the CIA with all their satellites. He had taken bullets for me, and I wanted to see him face to face. We had been together for a long time. I pulled up my chair close to his, sat shoulder to shoulder with him. ‘Here,’ I said. ‘For you, chutiya. All the way from Belgium. It’s a genuine platinum Rolex, with diamonds on the dial and the strap. I got it through our friends there, but it’s still twenty-two thousand dollars.’

  ‘Bhai.’ He was holding it with both hands cupped, as if it was a blessed idol I had brought back from a pilgrimage. ‘Twenty-two thousand yu-ess. That is just too good. It is so masst. It is beyond masst, I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Don’t talk, bastard. Put it on.’

  He put it on, and held his arm up and away so that he could admire the Rolex. He had a young girl’s delight in his smile, that pleasure in unexpected jewellery. He was afraid of scratching it, though, of bumping it and losing a diamond. He held his arm carefully across his lap as we spoke, resting on his withered thighs. We talked then, of business and his family, of export and import and investments and stocks, and who had died and who was still alive. It was good and necessary conversation, but I realized even as we gossiped and joked and theorized that it was not the talk that mattered, but the sight of the paan-stained teeth on this loyal little gaandu, the ability to reach out and slap his shoulder. You can listen to the sounds that a phone makes, but it is not the true voice of a man. It was good to sit next to him, and talk until the birds began their morning clamour. It was like old times.

  He left after eating breakfast with me. I walked down to the garden gate with him, and watched as he went jauntily up a folding ramp into the back of his van. He turned the wheelchair within its own axis, so that he was facing to the front, and held up a hand to wave at me. I raised a hand, marvelling again at the wheelchair and the spirit of Bunty, who had learned to manoeuvre in such tight quarters. The van pulled away in a swirl of dust – always this dust in this city, already this grimy, polluted sweat – and I went back into the house. I was tired, but I felt confident, because I was Ganesh Gaitonde and men sacrificed their limbs and their potency for me, they suffered pain and paralysis, and yet – even after the embarrassment of pissing into plastic bags – they offered to serve me again. They were happy to work for me, to be my boys. A watch from me was worth as much to them as a medal from the president. Yes, I would find Guru-ji. I was sure of it. He couldn’t escape me. This city was mine, this country belonged to me. I had the guns and the money, and I would find him. I went inside, drew the curtains tight against the glare, turned up the air-conditioner and went to sleep.

  Bunty’s boys hadn’t recognized me, and I had no trouble convincing the rest of the company that I was still in foreign waters. But Jojo, that sharp kutiya, was suspicious right from the start. I called her that first afternoon, and even before I could say ‘Hello’ she was at me.

  ‘Gaitonde,’ she said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing has happened. Why would something be happening?’

  ‘You never call me this early in the afternoon.’

  ‘I got free today and decided to call you. Are you going to prosecute me in court now?’

  She shut up, but only for a moment. Then she was back, dangerously soft. ‘So where are you, Gaitonde?’

  ‘Where would I be? I’m in my room. I’m at home.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I’m just asking. Just like that.’

  ‘In your whole life you’ve never done anything “just like that”.’

  ‘So where are you?’

  ‘In Kuala Lumpur.’

  A car came around the corner outside.

  ‘That sounds just like an Ambassador. They drive Ambassadors in Kuala Lumpur?’

  Somebody should have made her a spy, this Jojo. She was absolutely correct, an Ambassador had just turned the corner near the gate, and it was rattling down the road now. ‘That’s a Japanese jeep, idiot,’ I said.

  ‘So the Japanese are making noisy khataras now. Okay. But Malaysian birds sound like that? And the kids play cricket?’

  I was in an exclusive, expensive bungalow, but of course there was no escape from the noise. There were the crows and there was the cricket game down the street, and there were also labourers working on the construction site two streets away, shouting at each other in Telugu. There was filmi music somewhere, a radio, but very low and far away. I cupped a hand over the phone and turned towards the corner. ‘There are lots of Indians in this building,’ I said. ‘Don’t argue with me. I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘All right, all right, Gaitonde. So how is life?’

  How was my life? I felt old, I was alone and I was afraid. ‘My life is fit,’ I said. ‘It is absolutely top-class. You tell me about yours.’

  So she told me about hers: problems with girls who thought they deserved more money than they were worth, a leaky wall in her apartment that seeped beads of water even after it had been waterproofed twice, a television-show deal that had slipped through her hands. I listened to her and thought how well I knew her, and how well she knew me. With Jojo, distance made no difference, whether she was near or far I felt her presence, as if she were sitting next to me. We had learned each other’s breathing, so that now when we spoke and joked there was an easy rhythm to it, like a boy and girl on a seesaw pushing each other off into air, like circus acrobats turning and finding each other in mid-flight.

  Jojo was real to me, and distance made no difference. I was barely a mile and a half from her apartment, less if I went directly across swamp and sea. I could be there in ten minutes. I could have walked up her stairs, knocked on her door and asked her for a cup of chai. But I had no desire to go, no need to see her. She was with me, even when she was away. I could feel her inside me. She was more real to me than myself. Me, I had faded and broken into pieces. This was true. I could hardly admit this to myself, but it was true. The thing I called me, myself, it felt to me like an old brown blanket, tattered and patched and barely holding together. I, who had once been Ganesh Gaitonde, who had been glorious and whole to the entire world, I was now gone from myself. I felt like a small boy walking alone through an endless plain lit by funeral fires, afraid and lost. In this ashy haze, in which I no longer knew what was good or worth having, I clung to Jojo. She was my strength and my only pleasure, my anchor and my only friend. I listened to her, and laughed, and collected myself for my search.

  ‘Gaitonde,’ she told me, ‘it sounds just like you’re sitting at a corner in Tardeo. But you move around so much that you confuse me also, not just yourself. You should stay in one place for a while now. Even if it’s this Kala Langur.’

  I told her what she could do with her Kala Langur, which made her giggle, and then she told me a story about a woman who had gone to Nepal for a holiday and had been abducted by a bear which fell in love with her. ‘Really, Gaitonde, it happened. Bears take women all the time.’ Which I think, in some roundabout way, was meant to be an argument for staying at home. I didn’t tell her that I couldn’t stay in one place, that I had no choice, that I had to travel. I just listened to her, and left the next day for Delhi. Five of my boys met me th
ere, all the main crew from the yacht. They had flown into airports all over the country, from Sydney and Singapore and Mombasa, and had rendezvoused at two hotels in Greater Kailash. They were to be my special squad, my undercover commandos. Bunty’s assistant Nikhil had come from Mumbai to head this contingent. He hadn’t been exactly happy to leave behind his good money-making operations and his family in Mumbai, but I had insisted, and he had packed his bags. He knew me well enough not to argue. He was completely bald already at thirty, and he had an older man’s stolid patience. He had managed the details: the boys had good cover stories, new documentation that had been dirtied for a properly aged look, and sober clothing and decent haircuts. I brought money and weapons, and we were ready to go.

  We started in Chandigarh. Guru-ji had suffered his crippling motorcycle accident in Pathankot, and he had been brought to a hospital in Chandigarh, and during his recovery he had formed an attachment to the city. It was here, among these broad avenues and circles, that he had finally settled his parents, and it was here that he built his first ashram and headquarters. The ashram complex had been large to start with, but now it sprawled over a hundred acres on the outskirts of Sector 43. We got to Adarsh Nagar in the late afternoon, with the setting sun on our shoulders. The massive blue gate at the entrance was manned by white-clad sadhus, the usual mix of Indians and foreigners. Nikhil had called ahead and set up a meeting with Sadhu Anand Prasad, who was the governing head of Adarsh Nagar and the top sadhu in the national organization. The sentry sadhus made phone calls, and Nikhil chatted with them, and as we waited I got out of the car and strolled down to the barrier. The gate was actually a monument by itself, like one of those gigantic guardhouses that you see at the front of castles and fortresses, with rooms and chambers and armouries inside. Guru-ji’s gatehouse was a glorious shimmering blue, it had delicate rounded turrets and pointed spires and little balconies, and despite all its bulk it sat lightly on the earth, as if it had been transported in from another era. It could have guarded the palace at Hastinapur, or stood before Ravana’s golden fortress. Inside the compound, there was a thick covering of green grass, cut straight and even, and long boulevards, and widely dispersed buildings, all in blue and white. There were clipped trees, and flapping orange and red flags along the roads. The shaded archway of the gate was suffused with fragrance from neat blocks of yellow flowers that lined the steel fences.