Q & A

by Vikas Swarup

  The Colonel grimaces. ‘I don’t know what stories he told you, but twenty-six years is a long time to read up on great battles. The bastard crawled out of the woodwork after all these years just to fool you people and earn some cheap thrills through his fake tales of valour. Meeting him has spoiled my mood completely. It has not been a great day. Goodbye.’

  The Colonel shakes his head and walks away from the chawl, flanked by the tall man and the fat man. We return to the bunker. It has not been a great day for us, either. We wonder what Balwant Singh is doing. He does not come out that evening.

  They find him the next morning, in his one-room lodging in the chawl. A can of milk and a newspaper lie untouched on his doorstep. His crutches are stacked neatly against the wall. The wooden bed has been pushed into a corner. There is an empty cup on the nightstand containing a residue of brown tea leaves. The only chair in the room lies upturned in the centre. He hangs from the ceiling fan with a pink piece of cloth tied to his neck, wearing the same olive-green uniform, his head bowed over his chest. As his limp body swings gently from side to side, the ceiling fan makes a faint creaking noise.

  A police jeep arrives, its red light flashing. Constables rummage through his belongings. They chatter and gesticulate and question the neighbours rudely. A photographer takes pictures with a flashgun. A doctor in a white coat arrives with an ambulance. A big crowd gathers in front of Balwant’s room.

  They wheel out his body on a stretcher, covered in a crisp white sheet. The residents of the chawl stand in hushed silence. Putul and Dhyanesh and Salim and I peer diffidently from behind their backs. We stare opaquely at the dead man’s body and nod, in fear and sorrow and guilt, as a liquid understanding spreads slowly through our numbed minds. Those of us for whom this was our first war, we knew then. That war was a very serious business. It took lives.

  Smita is looking grim and serious.

  ‘Where were you during the war?’ I ask.

  ‘Right here, in Mumbai,’ she replies and hurriedly changes the topic. ‘Let’s see the next question.’

  Prem Kumar swivels on his chair and addresses me. ‘Mr Thomas, you have answered seven questions correctly to win two lakh rupees. Now let us see whether you can answer the eighth question, for five hundred thousand rupees. Are you ready?’

  ‘Ready,’ I reply.

  ‘OK. Question number eight. Which is the highest award for gallantry given to the Indian armed forces? I repeat, which is the highest award for gallantry given to the Indian armed forces? Is it a) Maha Vir Chakra, b) Param Vir Chakra, c) Shaurya Chakra or d) Ashok Chakra?’

  The suspenseful music commences. The time bomb starts ticking louder.

  There is a buzz in the audience. They look at me with sympathy, preparing to bid goodbye to the friendly neighbourhood waiter.

  ‘B. Param Vir Chakra,’ I reply.

  Prem Kumar raises his eyebrows. ‘Do you know the answer, or are you just guessing?’

  ‘I know the answer.’

  ‘Are you absolutely, one hundred per cent sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The drumming reaches a crescendo. The correct answer flashes.

  ‘Absolutely, one hundred per cent correct!’ shouts Prem Kumar. The audience is exultant. There is sustained clapping and cries of ‘Bravo!’

  I smile. Prem Kumar doesn’t.

  Smita nods her head in understanding.

  LICENCE TO KILL

  There are many hazards of walking in an absent-minded manner on the roads of Mumbai. You can inadvertently slip on a banana peel and go skidding. You can find that without warning your foot has sunk into a pile of soft dog shit. You can be rudely jolted by a wayward cow coming from behind and butting into your backside. Or a long-lost friend you had been avoiding meeting can emerge miraculously from the chaotic traffic and suddenly hug you.

  That is what happened to me on Saturday 17 June, in front of Mahalaxmi Racecourse, when I bumped into Salim Ilyasi. After five years.

  When I first arrived in Mumbai from Agra three months ago, I had resolved not to contact Salim. It was a difficult decision. I had missed him during my years with the Taylors in Delhi and my travails in Agra, and to be in the same city as him and not see him was indeed a heavy burden to carry. But I was determined not to involve him in my plan of getting on to the quiz show.

  ‘Mohammad!’ Salim exclaimed the moment he saw me. ‘What are you doing in Mumbai? When did you come? Where have you been all these years?’

  Meeting a long-lost friend is similar, I suppose, to eating a favourite dish after a long time. You don’t know how your taste buds will react after all this while, whether the dish will still taste as good as it used to. I met Salim after five long years with mixed emotions. Would our reunion be as warm as our friendship used to be? Would we still be as honest with each other?

  We didn’t speak much at first, but sat down on a nearby bench. We didn’t listen to the squawking of the seagulls circling overhead. We took no notice of the little boys playing football on the road. We didn’t see the throng of devotees going to the Haji Ali dargah. We just hugged each other and wept. For the times we had spent together, for the time we had lost. And then we talked about all that had happened in between. Rather, Salim talked and I listened.

  Salim has become taller and more handsome. At sixteen, he looks as good as any Bollywood film star. The hard life of the city has not corrupted him like it corrupted me. He still loves Hindi films and worships the stars of Bollywood (with the obvious exception of Armaan Ali). He still goes to the shrine of Haji Ali every Friday to offer prayers. And, most importantly, the prediction of the palmist is finally about to come true. He no longer works as a dabbawallah, delivering tiffins to Mumbai’s middle class, but has enrolled himself in an expensive acting school where he is learning to become an actor.

  ‘Do you know who is paying for my acting classes?’ he asks me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is Abbas Rizvi.’

  ‘The famous producer who has made all those blockbusters?’

  ‘Yes, the same. He has offered me the role of a hero in his next film, which will be launched in two years’ time, when I have turned eighteen. Till then he is getting me trained.’

  ‘But that’s wonderful, Salim. How did all this happen?’

  ‘It is a very long story.’

  ‘No story can be long enough for me, Salim. Quick, now, tell me from the beginning.’

  So this is the story narrated by Salim, in his own words.

  ‘After you went away so suddenly, I was left all alone in the chawl. I continued with my life as a dabbawallah for four more years, collecting and delivering tiffins, but I also continued to dream of becoming an actor.

  ‘One day, while I was collecting a tiffin from the wife of a customer called Mukesh Rawal, I noticed that the walls of his house were decorated with pictures of himself with famous film stars. I asked Mrs Rawal whether her husband was in the film industry. She said he was just a sales officer in a pharmaceutical company, but worked in films part-time, as a junior artist.

  ‘I was amazed to hear this. I rushed to Mukesh Rawal’s office the same afternoon and asked him if I too could become a junior artist like him. Mukesh looked at me and laughed. He said I was too young to become an actor, but that sometimes they had roles for schoolboys and street kids, for which I might be right. He promised to refer me to Pappu Master, the juniorartist supplier for whom he worked, and asked me to provide him with several glossy eight-by-six photographs of myself in a variety of poses. If Pappu liked my photos, he might choose me for a bit role in a film. Mukesh told me that for a junior artist, acting skills were not required, but I had to look smart in a suit, menacing in a ruffian’s outfit and charming in a school uniform. He insisted that I get the photos professionally taken at a studio.

  ‘That night I couldn’t sleep. I went to a photographer’s shop the very next morning and enquired about the cost of the pictures. The photographer quoted me an astronomical sum, almost
equal to my full month’s earnings. I told him, “Arrey baba, I can’t afford so much money.” So he advised me to buy one of those cheap, disposable cameras and take my own pictures, which he could then blow up. I did as he told me. I bought a camera and requested passersby to take my picture. I sat on somebody’s motorcycle in front of Churchgate and tried to look as cool as Amitabh Bachchan in the film Muqaddar ka Sikandar. I posed sitting on a horse on Chowpatty Beach, just like Akshay Kumar in Khel. I stood in front of Sun ’n’ Sand hotel, posing like Hrithik Roshan in Kaho Na Pyar Hai. I held an empty Johnny Walker bottle in my hands and tried to look as drunk as Shahrukh Khan in Devdas. I grinned in front of Flora Fountain like Govinda does in all his films. I got almost twenty pictures taken of myself, but the roll took thirty-six and I had to finish it before I could get the pictures developed. So I decided to take pictures of interesting buildings and people. I took pictures of Victoria Terminus and the Gateway of India, I clicked a beautiful girl in Marine Drive, snapped an old man in Bandra and even took a close-up of a donkey in Colaba. My final picture was of a swarthy, middle-aged man in Mahim sitting on a bench and smoking. His fingers were adorned with different-coloured rings. Only after I had pressed the shutter button did I realize whose picture I had taken, and I froze.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask Salim. ‘Was he a famous film star? Was it that swine Armaan Ali?’

  ‘No, Mohammad, it was a man you know equally well. It was Mr Babu Pillai, alias Maman. The man who brought us here from Delhi and almost blinded us.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ I cover my mouth. ‘Did he recognize you?’

  ‘Yes, he did. “You are Salim, aren’t you? You are the boy who ran away from me. But you won’t get away from me this time,” he cried and lunged at me.

  ‘I didn’t even think. I just turned around and ran towards the main road. A bus was pulling away and I jumped on it just in time, leaving Maman panting behind me on the road.

  ‘I was sitting on the bus, thinking what a lucky escape I’d had, when guess what happened?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The bus stopped at a traffic light and a group of ruffians wearing head bands and armed with swords, spears and tridents got on.’

  ‘Oh, my God! Don’t tell me it was a mob.’

  ‘Yes, it was. I realized then that we had landed in the middle of a communal riot. The wreckage of a smouldering vehicle lay directly in front of us. Shops had been reduced to rubble, splashes of blood could be seen on the pavement, stones, sticks and slippers littered the street. The driver immediately bolted from the bus. My mind went numb with fear. I had thought I would never have to see such a horrifying sight again. I heard sounds which I thought I had forgotten. My mother’s shrieks and my brother’s cries echoed in my ears. I began shivering. The ruffians told everyone on the bus that a Muslim mob had set fire to Hindu houses and now they were out for revenge. I learnt later that the whole trouble had started over a simple quibble about a water tap in a slum. But people’s minds were so full of hate that within hours buses were being burnt, houses were being torched and people were being butchered.

  ‘“Each one of you say your name. All those who are Hindu are allowed to step down from the bus, all those who are Muslim should keep sitting,’ the ruffians announced. One by one the trembling passengers said their names. Arvind. Usha. Jatin. Arun. Vasanti. Jagdish. Narmada. Ganga. Milind. The bus started emptying. The ruffians watched each of the passengers with hawk-like eyes. They checked the vermilion in the partings of the ladies’ hair, asked some of the men further questions to establish their religion, and even forced a little boy to open his shorts. I was nauseated by this barbaric display, but was also quivering in my seat. Finally, only two passengers were left on the bus: me and a man sitting two seats behind me.

  ‘You know, Mohammad, in films when such a scene happens, the hero stands up and appeals to the humanity of the mob. He tells them that the blood of both Hindus and Muslims is the same colour. That it doesn’t say on our face which religion we belong to. That love is preferable to hate. I knew so many dialogues, any of which I could have recited before those ruffians, but when you actually stand face to face with such savagery, you forget all words. You only think of one thing. Life. I wanted to live, because I had to fulfil my dream of becoming an actor. And now the dream and the dreamer were both going to be set ablaze in a Mumbai bus.

  ‘ “What is your name?” the leader asked me.

  ‘I could have said Ram or Krishna, but I became tongue-tied. One of the attackers pointed to the tabeez around my neck. “This bastard is definitely a Muslim, let’s kill him,” he urged.

  ‘ “No. Killing him would be too easy. We will burn this motherfucker alive in this bus. Then he and his community will learn never to touch our homes,” said the leader, and laughed. Another man opened a can of petrol and started sprinkling it inside the bus. I used to love the smell of petrol, but since that day I associate it with burning flesh.

  ‘The man sitting two rows behind me stood up suddenly. “You have not asked for my name. Let me tell you. It is Ahmed Khan. And I want to see the bastard who will touch this boy,” he said.

  ‘There was momentary silence from the ruffians, before their leader spoke. “Oh, so you are a Muslim too. Very well then, you will also be torched along with this boy.”

  ‘The man was unperturbed. “Before you torch me, have a look at this,” he said, and took out a revolver. He pointed it at the ruffians.

  ‘You should have seen the faces of all those rowdies. Their eyes popped out of their sockets. They left their swords and tridents in the bus and ran helter-skelter for dear life. My life was saved. I had tears of gratitude in my eyes.

  ‘The man saw me crying and asked me, “What is your name?”

  ‘“Salim . . . Salim Ilyasi,” I replied, still sobbing.

  ‘“Don’t you know how to lie?” he said. “But I value people who speak the truth even when confronted with death.”

  ‘He told me he had an import-export business and lived alone in a big house in the Byculla locality. He said he needed someone to do the cooking and cleaning, and generally look after the house whenever he had to travel on business. I did wonder why a businessman like him was carrying a gun on the bus, but he promised me double what I was earning as a tiffin carrier, and I instantly agreed to become his live-in servant.

  ‘Ahmed had a large, spacious flat with three bedrooms, a good-sized kitchen and a drawing room with a thirty-six-inch TV. I did the cooking, cleaning and dusting, but I did not forget my ambition of becoming an actor. In a way, working for Ahmed was good, because he would be away from the house most of the day and sometimes even for a week or two. During that time I would do the rounds of the studios. I developed my roll of film and got excellent eight-by-six blow-ups made. I gave them to Mukesh Rawal, who in turn showed them to Pappu Master, the junior-artist supplier. Believe it or not, after just three months I received my first film offer.’

  ‘Really?’ I exclaim. ‘Which role did you get and in which film?’

  ‘It was as a college student in the Abbas Rizvi film Bad Boys starring Sunil Mehra.’

  ‘Then let’s go and see it right away. I would love to watch you on screen and hear your dialogues.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Salim hesitates. He looks down at his shoes. ‘You see, my role was cut at the last minute. So on screen you see me for just three seconds, sitting at a desk in a classroom with thirty other students. The only dialogues in that scene are between the hero Sunil and the class teacher.’

  ‘What?’ I cry in disappointment. ‘Just three seconds! What kind of role is that?’

  ‘Junior artists are supposed to do just those kinds of roles. We are not heroes and heroines. We are merely part of the scenery. Remember those big party scenes in films? Junior artists are the extras who stand around sipping their drinks while the hero and heroine waltz on the dance floor. We are the passers-by on the street when the hero chases the villain. We are the chaps who clap in a disco
when the hero and heroine win a dance competition. But I didn’t mind working as a junior artist. It allowed me to fulfil my dream of seeing behind the scenes. And it enabled me to meet the producer, Abbas Rizvi. He liked my looks and promised to give me a longer role in his next film.

  ‘Over the course of the next six months, I discovered many things about Ahmed. All in all, he was a rather strange man. He had just two interests in life: eating good food and watching television. On TV he watched just two programmes – cricket and Mumbai Crime Watch. He was fanatical about cricket. Whenever a match was being played, with or without India, he had to watch it. He would get up at three o’clock in the morning if there was a match in the West Indies and at midnight if it was in Australia. He would even watch matches between novice teams like Kenya and Canada.

  ‘He kept a diary in which he recorded every cricket statistic. He knew by heart the batting average of each and every batsman, the bowling figures of each and every bowler, the number of catches taken by a fielder, the stumpings done by a wicket-keeper. He could tell you the highest and lowest-ever scores in a match, the maximum number of runs scored in an over, the biggest victory margins and the narrowest.

  ‘But he stored all this information for a purpose – to bet on cricket matches. I found this out during the India–England series. Ahmed was watching the match on TV and trying to call someone on his mobile. So I asked him, “What are you doing, Ahmed bhai?”

  ‘“I am about to play satta,” he replied.

  ‘“Satta? What’s that?”

  ‘“It is another name for illegal betting. Satta is organized by powerful underworld syndicates in Mumbai with a daily turnover of millions of rupees. Millions are bet on every cricket match, thousands on every ball. I am one of the biggest punters. This house that you see, this expensive TV, the microwave in the kitchen, the air conditioner in the bedroom, are all due to my winnings from satta. Three years ago, I made a killing in the India–Australia match. You remember the famous match in Eden Gardens? At a time when India were 232 for 4 and staring at an innings defeat, and the odds were a thousand to one against India, I bet on Laxman and India and cleaned up ten lakh rupees!”