Sanjit’s attention was drawn to the sound of a shaking begging bowl. It belonged to a leper, the same man who’d accosted him the other day. This time, he was trying his luck on a young couple that had just emerged from the temple.
The woman, caught unawares, recoiled in horror, nearly dropping the coconut in her hand. The husband drew her away and shouted abuses at the leper, who seemed to accept it as an occupational hazard.
Seeing the couple’s contempt triggered memories of Sanjit’s own humiliation at the hands of the afterlife consultant and Raunak. Only, the leper had to go through this day in, day out, month after month, year after year, till death finally broke this tedium of shame. And then? What chance did he have in his afterlife, with a pathetic collection of coins in a begging bowl?
Suddenly, Sanjit was seized by a thought. What if he came back as a leper in the next birth? Then he wouldn’t have enough in that life either, would he? So how many lives before he could afford his ticket to Indraloka?
The ground beneath his feet trembled, and the buildings before him crumbled and turned to rubble. It was no earthquake, but his mind being rocked by a revelation.
For the first time, he truly caught sight of the karmic vortex he was trapped in, hurtling from one fruitless existence to another, no escape from the misery of samsara.
11.
SOMETHING STIRRED AT THE EDGE OF SANJIT’S consciousness as he lay in the no-man’s land between sleep and wakefulness. A knock on the door, followed by Ali’s muffled voice.
“Sanjit, are you awake?”
A tiny slit opened in Sanjit’s eyes. Enough to see the curtain drawn across the window, a small gap where the darkness from outside met the darkness of the room.
“I’ve got us dinner,” Ali said.
Sanjit was silent.
Go away.
The next second, the door burst open. The flick of a switch triggered a detonation of yellow light.
“For God’s sake!” Sanjit drew the sheet over his face, but Ali whipped it away.
“What’s wrong with you? You were sleeping when I returned from Delhi this morning. You’re sleeping now.” Ali frowned.
“I love sleeping. Can I get back to it now?” Sanjit hissed.
“Something happened while I was away. I’m not leaving till you tell me.” Ali stood over Sanjit, fists planted on his waist.
“What do you want to hear—that I’m a loser?”
“Can you please stop being a drama queen and tell me what happened?” Ali rolled his eyes. Then next second, he sat beside Sanjit and squeezed his shoulder. “What happened?”
Sanjit exhaled softly and told him about the visits to Bank of Eternity; the conversation with Reshma; the meeting with that dick, Raunak. After he finished, he braced himself, expecting Ali to burst out laughing.
“Is that it?” Ali scoffed. “Why didn’t you say so before?”
“Because you’ll think I’m stupid.”
“Did you see the leaflet on the fridge?”
Sanjit nodded.
“Did you wonder why it was there?”
Sanjit shook his head to say no.
“It’s because of my boss. He’s a big believer in Afterlife Dollars. So much so, he wants all his employees to get it, too. And he’s willing to pay for it. In fact—” Ali’s face brightened as if he’d just had an idea. “I’ll ask him if he’ll give you some.”
Sanjit laughed. “As if. The man doesn’t even know me.”
“He’s done it before. He gets people to set up ‘charities.’ And then, he makes a donation to these charities. Get my drift?” Ali said, raising an eyebrow suggestively.
“Tax write-off?”
“Exactly.”
Sanjit sighed. After his recent experiences, he was unable to grasp the idea of anyone being kind to him, even if they were driven by an ulterior motive like tax-saving. But his skepticism didn’t seem to deter Ali, who continued to wax eloquent about his boss’s generosity.
“What’s the harm in asking?” Ali said finally. “The worst that can happen is he’ll say no.”
Sanjit nodded reluctantly. For the third time in the week, the begging bowl was coming out. But at least on this occasion, he was going to be spared the ignominy of holding it. Ali was going to be his begging double.
THAT NIGHT, SANJIT went to bed thinking about Ali’s boss. The following morning, he woke up thinking about the same thing. He ate leftover samosas for breakfast and tried to distract himself by watching the final cricket match between India and England on TV. But he found it hard to concentrate, because in an office somewhere in the city, his fate was being determined by a person he’d never met.
What did he look like? Sanjit wondered. From what little Ali had said of him, he sounded like the complete antithesis of Sanjit’s ball-scratching ex-boss, Raunak. So Sanjit imagined a person who looked different, too: lean and athletic, strong chin, regal nose, eyes that could be steely one moment, full of compassion the next.
A few moments later, Sanjit leaned back, admiring the portrait he’d created with a few brushstrokes of the imagination.
What’s he going to say? Yes or no?
Sanjit’s happiness in the afterlife, hinging on one syllable. Don’t get your hopes up, he counseled himself. But how could he not, considering the nature of hope? Insidious, spreading surreptitiously, just like the disease.
For the rest of the morning, his mind wandered between the TV and that picture in his mind. Then later, it was India’s turn to bat. The stands erupted in a loud roar as Sachin Tendulkar walked to the crease. Sanjit slid toward the edge of his seat. For the rest of the afternoon, he was absorbed in the run chase. India appeared well on top, until a dramatic batting collapse saw England win by twenty-three runs.
He flared his nostrils, almost succumbing to the urge to fling the remote at the TV. It was unlike him to get this upset over a stupid game, but something was making him treat this unfavorable result as a bad omen, as if his fortunes were inextricably linked to the national team’s.
The cramp of anxiety in an empty stomach made him feel faint, so he turned off the TV and decided to find something to eat.
The street leading to the mosque was smeared with the ash of campfires cooking pots of meat and lentils to feed the poor. At the tea stall, the waiter Karim’s bony figure hunched over a table as he gave it a good wipe-down. His eyes widened with alarm when he saw Sanjit, and he rushed toward him.
“You must leave,” Karim whispered. “I can see poison. It’s going to destroy you. You must go before it’s too late. Go, please, go,” he implored.
Sanjit arched his neck.
“What poison? What are you talking about?”
Karim cast a furtive glance around him.
“I know you’re suffering. I know you’re in pain. But we don’t control the will of God, only how we deal with it. It’s too late to save your friend. But you … you must leave now. Before it’s too late.”
“What friend?” Sanjit cried. What was this man talking about?
Then it struck him. He clenched his jaw. “Ali? What’s wrong with Ali?” he snarled.
The vehemence caused Karim to blink fearfully and back away.
“What’s wrong with Ali? Tell me, you old fool.” Sanjit snaffled his arm.
“Let go. You’re hurting me,” Karim squealed.
But Sanjit tightened his grip as if he wanted to crush the old man’s bones in his fist. “How dare you accuse my friend? Do you know how much he’s done for me?”
“What’s going on here?” A voice growled. It was the tea-stall owner, a man twice Sanjit’s size, rising from his seat behind the cash box.
Sanjit smiled hastily. “Nothing. We’re just having an argument. It’s all good now.” But the spat had caught the attention of other customers, who stopped conversing amongst themselves and glared at him for manhandling their beloved waiter. Surrounded by menacing stares, Sanjit let go of Karim and fled.
A few minutes later, he was back in
the flat, out of breath after running four flights of stairs. He bolted the front door and collapsed on the sofa, heart thudding in his ears.
It’s too late to save your friend.
What was that supposed to mean? And where the hell was Ali? He should be home by now. Sanjit took out his mobile and dialed his friend. The phone rang and rang before flatlining to a dead tone. He bit his lip.
Has something happened to him?
He turned on the TV in an attempt to distract himself from his anxious thoughts. An hour later, he tried Ali. Once again, no response. Sanjit felt sick, as if his entire stomach was dissolving in gastric juices.
Finally, he heard the click of the lock on the front door.
“Where were you?” Sanjit asked as soon as Ali walked in, trying to sound calm.
“Sorry, I got stuck at work.” Ali sat heavily on the sofa and kicked his shoes off. “What a day!” He sighed with exhaustion.
Sanjit looked at him eagerly, expecting him to say something about the conversation with his boss. But instead, Ali grumbled about a problem at work. The knot in Sanjit’s chest tightened. Was he avoiding the subject because the answer was a no?
Finally, Sanjit asked him.
“Oh, sorry. Yes, of course I talked to my boss.”
Sanjit stopped breathing. “And?”
“He said yes.”
Overwhelmed by joy, Sanjit threw his arms around Ali and hugged him. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank my boss.” Ali chuckled.
“I’ll thank him. I’ll thank him personally. But you … you talked to him. You made it happen,” Sanjit said, blinking back tears.
“It’s nothing. Perhaps you can treat me to dinner tomorrow.”
“Of course. I’ll treat you to anything.”
He drew away from his friend and leaned back, luxuriating in the good news after a day of wrenching worry.
“So what now?” he asked.
Ali shrugged. “Just come to the office and collect your check for ten grand.”
Sanjit’s face fell. “Ten grand?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What am I going to do with ten grand?” Sanjit cried. “I need two hundred. I thought I explained clearly.”
“Did you really think someone was going to give you two hundred grand just like that?” Ali scoffed.
After a grueling roller coaster, this was the last straw. Sanjit’s eyes blew open. “The disease won’t let me live. Poverty won’t let me die. What kind of a life is this?” he sobbed.
Ali reached out to console him, but Sanjit pushed his hand away and stormed to his room. He turned off the light and crawled into bed, hands pressed to his ears, because all he could hear was the gods laughing at him.
A WHILE LATER, Ali entered the room. Sanjit was curled in the darkness, hands clasped between his legs, eyes shriveled from crying.
“Go away,” he hissed. “Just leave me alone.”
“I just got off the phone with my boss.”
“For God’s sake, stop it,” Sanjit pleaded, clutching his head. It hurt as if someone were driving a nail through it. “I’m poor. I’m going to rot in hell. I’ve made my peace with it. Now can I go back to sleep?”
“Hear me out. I explained your situation to my boss. I said, ‘You’ve got to give him more money or else I quit.’”
“Ali, please.” Sanjit winced, unable to bear this torture anymore.
“He’s on his way over to meet you.”
12.
THREE KNOCKS ON THE DOOR. A CLIPPED percussion that shattered the midnight silence. Sanjit jumped out of his chair, stiff and upright. Ali answered the door.
Ali’s boss stepped into the room, nothing like the debonair portrait Sanjit had sketched in his mind earlier in the day. The man had the lean and hard face of a street fighter: a collage of hard lines and sharp shadows, covered in a grizzly stubble.
“Is this him?” he asked, raking Sanjit with bloodshot eyes. The voice was a low growl that sent blood tingling in Sanjit’s neck.
“Yes, this is him,” Ali said. “Sanjit, this is Farid.”
“Nice to meet you, Farid. Really kind of you to help me,” Sanjit gushed.
Farid ignored his groveling handshake and moved on. The hierarchy in the room was firmly established when they took their seats, Farid and Ali beside each other on the sofa, Sanjit on the edge of a steel chair, stripped of all pride, looking needy and servile.
“So Ali tells me you want three hundred grand?” Farid’s tone was pitiless, perhaps even a touch derisive.
“Yes—no. Actually, two. Because I’ve got one—” Sanjit glanced at Ali for support.
“What is it? Two or three?” Farid snapped.
“Two. I need two hundred thousand.” Sanjit gulped.
“He wants two hundred grand. Can you believe that?” Farid said to Ali, who clucked to say he couldn’t. Sanjit’s eyes slid between the two men, confused. This wasn’t how he’d pictured this meeting unfolding. Moisture evaporated from his mouth and gathered at the back of his neck.
“You realize that’s a lot of money? Even for a man like me?” Farid said.
“I do. I do.” Sanjit lowered his head and joined his hands in a prayer pose. “And I’ll be forever grateful to you.”
“Sure you will. But in life, you don’t get something for nothing. The question is, what’re you willing to do for me if I give you this money?”
“What can I do? I’m a sick man,” Sanjit moaned.
“Actually, there is something.” It was Ali. He leaned forward while Farid sat back.
Sanjit blinked.
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing you weren’t planning to do already.” Ali smiled. “You said something on your birthday, ‘A life without dignity is no life. I’m going to end it before it gets to that.’ Do you remember?”
Sanjit nodded, not sure if those had been his exact words, but he did recall saying something to that effect.
“We need you to end it at a time and in a manner of our choosing. That’s all.”
Sanjit swallowed. “I don’t understand.”
Farid leaned in, voice low, almost a whisper. “We want you to wear a bomb.”
Sanjit gaped, first at Farid. Then his eyes slowly moved to Ali.
This was a joke. Had to be. He searched Ali’s face, rummaging under the forest of a beard, looking for something, somewhere—a twitch in the nostrils, a gleam of mischief in the light brown eyes, tautness in the cheek muscles straining not to smile—signs that this was a prank conceived in poor taste. But there was nothing. The face that stared back belonged to a complete stranger.
“You are a …”
Terrorist. So that was what that waiter Karim had tried to warn him about.
“Oh God.” He touched his forehead. The room was spinning, a voice in his head screaming.
Run! Go to the police!
He rose as if obeying, but his legs carried him not in the direction of the front door, but through the corridor to the darkness of his room. He fell on the bed and pulled the sheets over his head.
A few moments later, Ali switched on the light and whipped off the sheet. Sanjit curled into a ball and pressed himself into a corner, cowering in Ali’s shadow. His mind tumbled in a spin cycle, too many thoughts moving too quickly to grasp and label. But one feeling dominated everything else: betrayal. He’d come to expect life to stab him in the back. But a best friend—a brother?
“Why?” Sanjit asked.
“Why? Mmm. Where do I begin?” Ali said, bemused by the question. “This might be a good place to start.” He held up his hand, the one that was supposedly damaged in an accident. Light punched through the hole where there were once two fingers. “A few months ago, you wanted to know how I got this. It’s because of you.”
“Me?”
“December 7, 1994. Remember the day?”
Sanjit shook his head.
“Of course, why would you?” Ali scoffed. “It was the day that the M
umbai riots broke out. We’d arranged to see a movie. The new Bachchan film. You asked me to be there early so we’d get good seats. Remember?”
Once again, Sanjit said no.
“The show was cancelled because of rumors of disturbance in the city. Everyone left the theatre. I should have gone too, but I hung around. For you. Because I thought you were on your way. When you didn’t come, I started to worry. What if you’d got caught in the riots? So I headed for your place. There were no buses, trains, taxis or autos. Everything had stopped. So I ran five kilometers to your house, all the time praying you were okay. Finally, when I got there, your mother answered the door. I asked her where you were. And guess what she said? You were in your room, sleeping. Sleeping? Here I was, worried sick, risking my life for you, and you … you were in bed, snoring away. Do you seriously not remember any of this?” Ali snapped.
“I don’t,” Sanjit stammered.
“Of course. How would you? You were sleeping.” Ali snorted. “I asked your mother if I could stay, because it wasn’t safe out there. She refused. ‘Please, I could get killed,’ I begged her. She said she couldn’t risk keeping a Muslim in the house. She literally shut the door in my face. So I left. I made it as far as the main road before I was stopped by men in saffron shirts chanting, ‘Har Har Mahadev.’ Hindus, just like you. I lied and said I was a Hindu, too. They didn’t believe me, so they made me strip. When they saw my circumcised cock, they beat the crap out of me. After a while, their leader told them to stop. He asked my name. When I gave it to him, he slapped me hard across the face. My name was Afzal, he said, and he was Shivaji. At first, I didn’t understand. Then it struck me. This crazy man was planning to recreate a scene from history: the Maratha king, Chhatrapati Shivaji, slaying the Muslim invader, Afzal Khan. And because of my circumcised cock, I was cast in the role of the Muslim invader. When I realized this, I wet myself. The man laughed. ‘It’s okay,’ he assured me. ‘When the sword falls on your neck, you’ll be shitting, too.’ So there I was, kneeling on the ground, ready to be executed like a criminal. My crime? Being a Muslim. And not a good one at that. I boozed. I cheated on my fast. I fucked a whore.
Dead Money Page 16