by Vikas Swarup
‘Can’t Mr Shantaram stop drinking?’ I ask her.
‘My husband swore to me he would not touch alcohol again and I had begun to hope that the worst was over. But he couldn’t stick to his promise, and look what has happened.’
‘Do me a favour, Ram Mohammad Thomas,’ Gudiya says. ‘Please look after Pluto till I return home.’
‘Definitely,’ I promise.
Suddenly she stretches out her arm and takes my hand in hers. ‘You are the brother I never had. Isn’t he, Mummy?’ she says. Mrs Shantaram nods her head.
I do not know what to say. This is a new relationship for me. In the past, I have imagined myself as someone’s son, but never as someone’s brother. So I just hold Gudiya’s hand and sense an unspoken bond pass between us.
That night I dream of a woman in a white sari holding a baby in her arms. The wind howls behind her, making her hair fly across her face, obscuring it. She places the baby in a laundry bin and leaves. Just then, another woman arrives. She is also tall and graceful, but her face is swathed in bandages. She plucks the baby from the bin and smothers him with kisses. ‘My little brother,’ she says. ‘S-i-s-t-e-r,’ the baby gurgles back. ‘Meeeow!’ A strangled cry from a cat suddenly pierces the night. I wake up and try to figure whether the cry I heard came from the dream or the adjacent room.
I discover Pluto’s limp and mangled body the next morning, lying in the same dustbin in which Mr Barve disposes of his copy of the Maharashtra Times. The cat’s neck has been broken and I can smell whisky on his furry body. Shantaram tells his wife that Pluto has run away. I know the truth, but it is pointless mentioning it. Pluto has indeed run away. To another, better world, I think.
‘I like Gudiya very much,’ I tell Salim. ‘I have to ensure that Shantaram does not repeat what he did to her.’
‘But what can you do? It is his family.’
‘It is our business as well. After all, we are neighbours.’
‘Don’t you remember what you told me once? That it’s not a good idea to poke your nose into other people’s affairs, or make other people’s troubles your own, Mohammad?’
I have no response to this.
Gudiya comes home, but I don’t get to see her because Shantaram will not permit a boy to enter his house. Mrs Shantaram tells me that her husband has realized what he has done and will now reform, even though in her heart of hearts she knows that Shantaram is beyond redemption. But even she did not know the depths to which her husband could descend.
Barely a week after Gudiya returns from the hospital, he does something to her again. He tries to touch her. But not like a father. At first, I don’t understand. All I hear is some references to Gudiya being his moon and then Mrs Shantaram crying, and Gudiya screaming, ‘Papa, don’t touch me! Papa, please don’t touch me!’
Something snaps in my brain when I hear Gudiya’s plaintive cry. I want to rush into Shantaram’s room and kill him with my bare hands. But even before I can gather my courage, I hear Shantaram’s loud snores. He has crashed out. Gudiya is still weeping. I don’t need a glass to hear her sobbing.
Her crying affects me in a strange way. I don’t know how a brother should react on listening to his sister’s sorrow, because I have no experience of being a brother. But I know that somehow I have to comfort her. Unfortunately, it is not very easy to comfort someone when there is a wall, howsoever thin, between you. I notice then that right at the bottom of the wall, where the water pipes go into the other flat, there is a small circular opening, large enough to thrust an arm through. I jump down from the bed and, lying spread-eagled on the ground, push my hand through the opening. ‘Sister, don’t weep. Here, hold my hand,’ I cry. And someone does grasp my hand. I feel fingers caress my arm, my elbow, my wrist, like a blind man feeling someone’s face. Then fingers interlock with mine and I feel a magical transference of power, energy, love, call it what you will; the fact is that in that instant I become one with Gudiya and I feel her pain as if it is my own.
Salim, meanwhile, is still sitting on his bed, watching the scene in amazement. ‘Are you mad, Mohammad? Do you realize what you are doing?’ he admonishes me. ‘This hole through which you have pushed your hand is the same hole through which rats and cockroaches come into our room.’
But I am oblivious to Salim and to everything else. I don’t know how long I hold Gudiya’s hand, but when I wake up the next morning I find myself lying on the ground with my hand still thrust through the hole and a family of cockroaches sleeping peacefully inside my shirt pocket.
The next night, Shantaram again comes home in a drunken stupor and tries to molest Gudiya. ‘You are more beautiful than all the stars and planets. You are my moon. You are my Gudiya, my doll. Yesterday you evaded me, but today I will not let you leave me,’ he says.
‘Stop behaving like this!’ Mrs Shantaram cries, but her husband takes no notice.
‘Don’t worry, Gudiya, there is nothing wrong in my love for you. Even Shahjahan, the great emperor, fell in love with his own daughter, Jahan Ara. And who can deny a man the privilege of gathering fruit from a tree he himself has planted.’
‘You are a demon,’ Mrs Shantaram yells, and Shantaram hits her. I hear a bottle break.
‘No!’ I hear Gudiya scream.
I feel as though an oxyacetylene torch has pierced my brain and molten metal has been poured over my heart. I can tolerate it no more. I run to Mr Ramakrishna’s room and tell him that Shantaram is doing something terrible to his own wife and daughter. But Ramakrishna behaves as if I am talking about the weather.
‘Look,’ he tells me. ‘Whatever happens inside the four walls of a home is a private matter for that family and we cannot interfere. You are a young orphan boy. You have not seen life. But I know the daily stories of wife-beating and abuse and incest and rape, which take place in chawls all over Mumbai. Yet no one does anything. We Indians have this sublime ability to see the pain and misery around us, and yet remain unaffected by it. So, like a proper Mumbaikar, close your eyes, close your ears, close your mouth and you will be happy like me. Now go, it is time for my sleep.’
I rush back to my room. I hear Shantaram snoring and Gudiya screaming that she is dirty. ‘Don’t touch me! Nobody touch me! I will infect whoever comes near me.’
I think she is losing her mind. And I am losing mine.
‘Infect me,’ I say, and thrust my hand through the hole in the wall.
Gudiya catches it. ‘I will not live much longer, Ram Mohammad Thomas,’ she sobs. ‘I will commit suicide rather than submit to my father.’ Her pain floats through the hole and envelops me in its embrace.
I begin crying. ‘I will never allow this to happen,’ I tell her. ‘This is a brother’s promise.’
Salim gives me a dirty look, as if I have committed a criminal act by making this promise. But I am beyond right and wrong. I feel Gudiya’s bony fingers, the flesh on her hands, and know that we are both hunted animals, partners in crime. My crime was that I, an orphan boy, had dared to make other people’s troubles my own. But what was Gudiya’s crime? Simply that she was born a girl and Shantaram was her father.
I carry out my promise the next evening, when Shantaram returns from work and climbs the rickety stairs to the first floor. He walks with slow, bumbling steps. Even his clothes reek of whisky. As he is about to pass that section of the railing which has not yet been fixed by Mr Ramakrishna, I charge at him from behind. I slam into his back and he slams into the wooden railing. The railing is already weak and wobbly. It cannot take his weight. It cracks and splinters. Shantaram loses his balance and topples to the ground below.
In films, they show a villain falling from the roof of a skyscraper and it seems as if he is floating in the air; he twists his legs and flaps his arms and screams, ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaah!’ In real life, it doesn’t happen like that at all. Shantaram drops down like a rock. There is no flapping of hands or legs. He hits the ground facedown and lies spread-eagled, hands and legs outstretched.
Only whe
n I see Shantaram’s limp body on the ground do I realize what I have done. And then I visualize the consequences of my act.
The crime-scene officers arrive in a jeep with a flashing red light and make a nice neat outline in chalk. They take photos and say, ‘This is where the body fell.’ Then they look up and see me on the first floor. The inspector points at me. ‘That is the boy who pushed him down. Arrest him!’ I am taken to jail, where I am stripped and beaten. Then I am presented in court, where a stern-faced judge sits in a black robe with a ceiling fan above him. A faded and dusty golden sign with the words Satyameva Jayate – Truth Always Prevails – is fixed on the wall behind him. The judge takes one look at me and pronounces his verdict. ‘Ram Mohammad Thomas, I find you guilty of the premeditated murder of Mr Shantaram. Under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, I hereby sentence you to death by hanging.’
‘No!’ I cry and try to run, but my legs are shackled and my wrists are handcuffed. I am blindfolded and led to the execution cell. A noose is placed around my neck, a lever is pulled. I shriek in pain as my legs suddenly dangle in the air and the breath is choked from my lungs. I open my eyes and find that I am in heaven. But heaven seems just like the chawl and I look down and see the body of Shantaram lying spread-eagled on the ground. People are gathering around it now. Someone shouts, ‘Call the police!’
I don’t wait another moment. I scramble down the stairs and start running. I run past the gate and the milk booth and the multi-storey building. I run to the local station and take the Express to Victoria Terminus. I search every platform for a particular train. I find it at last and jump inside just as it is pulling away.
I left Mumbai, I left Gudiya, I left Salim, and ran away to the only other city I knew. Delhi.
Throughout this story, Smita remains perfectly silent. I can see now that she has been deeply affected. I detect a hint of a teardrop in the corner of her eye. Perhaps, being a woman, she can relate to Gudiya’s torment.
I pick up the remote. ‘Let us see question number three,’ I say, and press ‘Play’.
Prem Kumar swivels on his chair and addresses me. ‘Mr Thomas, you have answered two questions correctly to win two thousand rupees. Now let us see whether you can answer the third question for five thousand rupees. Are you ready?’
‘Ready,’ I reply.
‘OK. Question number three. This is from the field of—’
Just then the central spotlight goes off, plunging Prem Kumar and me into darkness.
‘Oops! Houston, we have a problem,’ says Prem Kumar. The audience laughs. I don’t get the joke.
‘What did you just say?’ I ask Prem Kumar.
‘Oh, that is a famous line from the film Apollo Thirteen. I am sure you don’t see English films. You use this line when you suddenly have a major problem, and we do have a major problem here. The show cannot proceed till we fix the spotlight.’
As the technicians start checking out the wiring of the spotlight, Prem Kumar listens to a voice on his headset. Then he leans forward and whispers in my ear, ‘OK, buster, your golden run has lasted all of two questions and is now about to end. The next question is really tough, especially for a waiter. I would love to help you win more, but the producer has just informed me he wants to move on to the next contestant, a maths professor. Sorry, tough luck!’ He takes a sip of lemonade and smacks his lips.
The spotlight is now fixed. The studio sign changes to ‘Applause’.
As the clapping dies down, Prem Kumar looks at me. ‘Mr Thomas, you have answered two questions correctly to win two thousand rupees. Now let us see whether you can answer the third question for five thousand rupees. Are you ready?’
‘Ready,’ I reply.
‘OK. Our next question is from the world of astronomy. Tell me, Mr Thomas, do you know how many planets there are in our solar system?’
‘What are my choices?’
‘That is not the question, Mr Thomas. I am just asking whether you know the number of planets in the solar system.’
‘No.’
‘No? I hope you know the name of the planet we are living on.’
The audience laughs.
‘Earth,’ I reply sullenly.
‘Good. So you do know the name of a planet. OK, are you ready for question number three?’
‘Ready,’ I reply.
‘OK. Here is question number three. Which is the smallest planet in our solar system? Is it a) Pluto, b) Mars, c) Neptune or d) Mercury?’
A sound escapes my lips even before the music can commence, and it is ‘Meow!’
‘Excuse me?’ says Prem Kumar in astonishment. ‘What did you say? For a moment I thought I heard a meow.’
‘What I said was “A”.’
‘A?’
‘Yes. The answer is A. Pluto.’
‘Are you absolutely, one hundred per cent sure that it is A?’
‘Yes.’
There is a crescendo of drums. The correct answer flashes.
‘Absolutely, one hundred per cent correct! Pluto is indeed the smallest planet in our solar system. Mr Thomas, you have just won five thousand rupees!’
The audience are impressed with my general knowledge. Some people stand up and clap.
But Smita is still silent.
A THOUGHT FOR THE CRIPPLED
The sun seems weaker, the birds less chirpy, the air more polluted, the sky a shade darker.
When you have been plucked from a beautiful big bungalow, with a lovely sunlit garden, and dumped in a crumbling house where you are forced to live in a crowded dormitory with dozens of other kids, I suppose you do acquire a somewhat jaundiced view of life.
And it doesn’t help if you actually have jaundice. Jaundice is a pretty uncomfortable disease, but it has one very good outcome. You are removed from the stuffy dormitory and put in a room all by yourself. It is a huge room with a metal bed and green curtains. It is called the isolation ward.
I have been confined to bed for the last two weeks. But it seems as if I have been sick ever since they picked me up from the church after Father Timothy’s death. They didn’t come for me in a jeep with a flashing red light. They came in a blue van with wire-meshed windows. Like the type they use to round up stray dogs. Except this one was for rounding up stray boys. If I had been younger they would probably have sent me to an adoption home and promptly put me up for sale. But since I was eight years old, I was sent to the Delhi Juvenile Home for Boys, in Turkman Gate.
The Juvenile Home has a capacity of seventy-five, and a juvenile population of one hundred and fifty. It is cramped, noisy and dirty. It has just two toilets with leaky washbasins and filthy latrines. Rats scurry through its hallways and kitchen. It has a classroom with ramshackle desks and a cracked blackboard. And teachers who haven’t taught in years. It has a sports ground where grass grows as tall as wickets and where, if you are not careful, you can graze yourself against stones the size of footballs. There is a sports instructor in crisp white cotton bush shirt and knifeedge pressed trousers. He keeps cricket and badminton equipment in a nice glass case, but never allows us to touch it. The mess hall is a large room with cheap flooring and long wooden tables. But the surly head cook sells the meat and chicken that is meant for us to restaurants, and feeds us a daily diet of vegetable stew and thick, blackened chapattis. He picks his nose constantly and scolds anyone who asks for more. The warden, Mr Agnihotri, is a kind, elderly man who wears starched kurta pyjamas made of khadi cotton cloth, but we all know that the real power is wielded by his deputy, Mr Gupta, nicknamed the Terror of Turkman Gate. He is the worst of the lot, a short, hairy man who smells of leather and chews paan all day. He wears two thick gold chains around his neck which jangle when he walks, and carries a short bamboo cane with which he whacks us whenever he feels like it. There are dark rumours that he calls boys to his room late at night, but nobody will discuss it. We want to talk about the good things. Like being allowed to watch television in the common room for two hours every evening. We huddle around
the twenty-one-inch Dyanora TV and watch Hindi film songs on Channel V and middle-class soaps on Doordarshan. We especially like watching the films on Sunday.
These films are about a fantasy world. A world in which kids have mothers and fathers, and birthdays. A world in which they live in huge houses, drive in huge cars and get huge presents. We saw this fantasy world, but we never got carried away by it. We knew we could never have a life like Amitabh Bachchan’s or Shahrukh Khan’s. The most we could aspire to was to become one of those who held power over us. So whenever the teacher asked us, ‘What do you want to become when you grow up?’ no one said pilot or prime minister or banker or actor. We said cook or cleaner or sports teacher or, at the very best, warden. The Juvenile Home diminished us in our own eyes.
I came to know many boys in the Home very intimately. Some younger, mostly older. I met Munna and Kallu and Pyare and Pawan and Jashim and Irfan. Being sent to the Juvenile Home from Father Timothy’s house was like a transfer from heaven to hell for me. But only when I met the other boys did I realize that for many of them this was their heaven. They came from the slums of Delhi and Bihar, from the shantytowns of UP and even from as far away as Nepal. I heard their stories of drug-addicted fathers and prostitute mothers. I saw their scars from beatings at the hands of greedy uncles and tyrannical aunts. I learnt of the existence of bonded labour and family abuse. And I came to fear the police. They were the ones responsible for sending most of the boys to the Juvenile Home. Boys caught stealing bread from a roadside stall or hawking black-market tickets at a theatre, and unable to bribe the constable. Or, most often, framed simply because the inspector didn’t like their faces.