Sacred Games

by Vikram Chandra

  ‘Mathu, you bastard,’ I said. ‘Where have you been? What happened to you?’ I had been annoyed by him then, long ago, but now I was stirred by affection and surprise and concern, I got up and thumped him on the back, and stopped because his shoulder blades cut into my hands. He was starved and he was trembling. ‘Mathu, you want to eat something?’

  That got his attention. ‘Yes, Ganesh.’

  So we got him some food. He hunched over his bhakri and garlic chutney and ate. His papers were carefully tucked under his right thigh. I called in the warder and questioned him about Mathu. ‘He’s been in here as long as I’ve been here, bhai,’ the warder said. ‘Which is almost five years. And I know he was here for a while before that, and he was shifted from Arthur Road, where he had been for at least a year.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘As far as I know, bhai, the charges are that he killed his brother.’

  ‘Then why has he not been tried?’

  ‘His family is saying he is mentally unfit to stand trial, bhai. They’ve got some tame doctor to write that. So they keep having him moved from jail to jail.’

  They would keep on avoiding a trial, and keep Mathu in jail for longer than his possible sentence if he were convicted of murder. Bastards. ‘Who are these people who put him in here?’

  ‘He has another brother, and one sister. It is all about property.’

  It turned out that Mathu had taken his gold and gone home, to Vasai. He told his sister and brothers that he had been in Dubai, that he had had a windfall, and now he was back to take care of everyone. So of course they made him the big man of the house, even though he was the youngest. The gaandu spent his money on them: he bought them all houses, all within the same compound, and they started a business together. They got him married. Then of course the brothers and the sister and the sisters-in-law and the brother-in-law started fighting. They fought over land, and cash, and who was going to get how much profit from the business, and who was responsible for the losses. So finally the decision was made to split up the business, and split up the property. Mathu didn’t want to, he saw all his gold flying away, but he had made the deeds out in the names of the siblings, and the business had many partners. The others made alliances and conspired against each other, and Mathu went from one side to the other asking them to be good to each other, and let go of their anger, and remember their father and mother. But the fighting got worse, and finally the eldest brother was murdered. He was found in his office one morning with a lamp wire wound around his neck, pulled tight till it cut the flesh, and he had thirty-two stab wounds. Nothing had been stolen, nothing had been disturbed. The only door into the room was locked. The investigating policemen decided that the killer must be someone known to the victim. A bloody knife was found behind Mathu’s house. He had no witnesses who could place him anywhere the night before. His wife was visiting her parents. All his relatives said that he had been acting crazy recently, and that he had cursed and ranted against the dead brother, and threatened to kill him. So Mathu went away to remand, and then to jail to await trial, and he was still waiting. He had no money left, and anyway he couldn’t have hired a lawyer. He was crazy.

  ‘What is that on the paper, Mathu?’ I said.

  He cringed, and doubled over, and began to make a low whine.

  ‘He is afraid you’ll take it from him. In the general barracks, the prisoners used to make fun of him, and steal his paper and pencils and pens. That’s why we put him in with the old men. He sits and draws all day long.’

  ‘What, Mathu, what do you draw?’ I rubbed his shoulder. ‘Come on. You remember me. We went out on the boat together. See, you said you knew me. You know me. I am Ganesh Gaitonde.’

  He turned to me then, and let me straighten him up and take the papers from under his leg. They were scraps of paper, old newspapers, envelopes flattened out and made wide, bits of receipts and jail documents. Every clear space on these scraps had been filled with tiny drawings of men and women and buildings and animals. He was a good artist, our Mathu. You could tell what a man was feeling, or if an animal was afraid. The trees bent to the force of a great wind, and there were streetlights on a dark lane. The people spoke to each other in little balloons, but the drawings were so crammed in and so tiny that you could hardly make out what they were saying, even when you had your eye an inch away from the paper. It was like some sort of gaandu crazy comic, it made you dizzy just to look at it, all those figures moving up and down the paper and spreading from one sheet to the next, every inch filled with some discussion or quarrel or love, but still you could tell that it was all connected, that it made some sense somehow.

  ‘This is very good, Mathu. What is this you have been drawing?’

  He was ecstatic that I had asked. For a minute I saw the Mathu I had known once, the Mathu who was faithful to his Dev Anand even in the days of Amitabh Bachchan, who liked to fly kites from morning till night all the way until Sakranti, who liked to wear navy blue because a friend of his sister’s had once told him he looked handsome in it. He smiled wide, showing gaps in his yellowed teeth, and said, ‘My life, Ganesh.’

  I took that in. Now that he had said it, you could see that there was a little boy, about five or so, in shorts and chappals, who walked along the torn edge of an envelope, carrying a school-bag. ‘This is you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re going to draw your whole life?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  That closed him up. He didn’t have an answer to that. He hung his head down and after a while he began to cry. I hugged him and put him close to me, and got one of the boys to bring me a pad we had been using. ‘Here, Mathu. Here’s lots of paper. You want more paper?’

  ‘Yes.’ His nose was running, dripping on to the pad. He groped at the lined paper. ‘And pens. With different colours.’

  ‘I’ll get you all that. Don’t you worry.’

  He nodded happily, and in that gesture I saw the young Mathu saying ‘yes’ to the idea of a movie, saying ‘yes’ to falooda and an outing. I had him cleaned up, and sent him back to the barrack laden with paper, escorted by two of my boys. Then I shivered, and pulled my knees up and thought. I could have him sent out into the world, of course, but the warder had told me he could barely get by without help even inside the jail. He gave his food to anyone who would give him a pen, and forgot to eat when he had food. All he wanted to do was draw his life. At the rate he was going at now – after seven, eight years of drawing he had reached his first day in class two – he would get to our trip with Salim Kaka in twenty or thirty years. He was no danger to me. So the next morning I gave orders, and deputed the warder who had brought Mathu to me to look after him in perpetuity. I gave Mathu a monthly pension, a sizeable one considering that his accommodation was free and all he really needed was paper and writing implements. He was to be fed and clothed and taken to the hospital once a month. And anyone who disrupted his drawing would have to answer to me.

  So Mathu was drawing his life. I had time in jail to think about mine. Despite all my tragedies, my life had been a good one, I could see that. I had fame, I had power, I was still growing. I had suffered defeats, but I knew how to recover and respond. I learnt from my mistakes. I went on. But to what? Where was I going? If I were to draw my life, where would I send it after this meeting with Mathu?

  Then, during my confusion, Bunty came to me with a report. He didn’t want to give it to me over the phone, and he didn’t want to send anything in writing. Our practice was that none of our controllers came to the jail. There were several cases pending against Bunty, but still he came to the warden’s office. He shut the doors, and drew up a chair close to me. ‘Bhai,’ he said. ‘It’s about Sharma-ji.’

  ‘So you finally found out who he’s working for?’

  ‘First we found him, bhai. A little money here, a few questions there…Sharma-ji’s name is actually Trivedi. He owns petrol pumps in Meerut, and has old relationships with
all the politicians there. He used to be a Jana Sanghi, but left the party in the early eighties. He and a cousin of his and a few others started a new party, Akhand Bharat. The party is still around, but they’ve only managed a few municipal seats, never anything in the state elections or for parliament.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He lives well, bhai. He has a house called Janki Kutir, three storeys, big as a cinema house. All white marble. This Akhand Bharat party is still running, they spend too much money for how small they are. It’s not all coming from petrol pumps. And there’s not enough to pay for our shipments. So I looked a bit more. We followed him for a couple of months. Nothing. He has a very routine life, temple in the morning, petrol pumps, party office in the afternoon. Nine children, many grandchildren, big joint family. He has an office in the house, spends his evenings there.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘We made a source in the telephone department, didn’t have to spend too much. We got lists of all the outgoing calls from his office number. We tracked down most of the repeating numbers, but there was one mobile he calls every Saturday. Around the time of our last shipment he was calling it every day. So then we had to make a source inside the mobile phone company. That took longer, some more money.’

  ‘Finally?’

  ‘Finally the mobile belongs to one Bhatia, Jaipal Bhatia, who lives in Delhi, in South Extension. Nice bungalow also, this Bhatia has. His one and only job is that he works as personal secretary to Madan Bhandari.’

  ‘Bhandari is who?’

  ‘Bhandari is nobody. Just a businessman, has interests in plastics, textiles. Twenty, thirty crore turnover. He’s only interesting because, outside his factories, he has one main love in his life, bigger even than his wife and children. He is the main supporter and bhakt of Shridhar Shukla.’

  ‘Shridhar Shukla the swami?’

  ‘That one. He is their boss. He’s the top. I am sure of that.’

  That certainly changed the whole game. Swami Shridhar Shukla was an international swami, he had lunches with presidents and prime ministers, and told fortunes for ministers, and had film stars by the dozen at his darshans. I had seen him often on television, sitting in a wheelchair and smiling. He had perfect northern Brahmin Hindi, and fast English. Very impressive man. Very connected.

  ‘Maderchod,’ I said. ‘Maderchod.’

  Bunty nodded. He saw our problem, which was that we didn’t have the slightest maderchod idea of what our problem was. We didn’t know this sea we were swimming in. I got up, walked around the room once. Nehru was looking down at me. I gave him back a stare: I’ve been learning about you, bastard, you weren’t that great for the country. ‘We act directly,’ I said. ‘You get on the phone to that, that bastard, what’s his name?’

  ‘Trivedi.’

  ‘Yes, Trivedi. You tell him that I want to talk to this Shukla. Latest by tomorrow evening. No arguments, no this or that. I talk to Shukla, directly. Otherwise we have trouble.’

  I hugged him. He had done good work. I went back to the barrack, and that night I was restless, agitated. Jojo noticed it. ‘You sound different,’ she said. ‘It’s been hard to talk to you. You’ve been all far away. Today you’re different.’

  ‘I’m not lying down.’ I was walking the breadth of the barrack, one end to the other on my side, away from the disgusting heap of sleeping prisoners beyond our company’s borders.

  ‘That’s not it. It’s different. You’re angry or something.’

  It wasn’t quite anger, but something. I was excited, like I was about to walk through a door. I talked to Jojo, then slept very lightly. At six the next morning my other phone rang, and I picked it up on the first ring.

  ‘Ganesh,’ a voice said.

  I was quiet. I recognized the voice, but couldn’t place it.

  ‘Ganesh,’ he said again. It was a round, deep voice. An expensive, expansive voice, and very kind.

  ‘Swami-ji,’ I said. I hadn’t meant to add the ‘ji’, but it came out.

  ‘Don’t use my name on the phone, beta.’

  ‘Did my friend give you this number?’

  ‘Yes, it was passed to me.’

  ‘We need to speak.’

  ‘I agree. But not like this. Face to face.’

  ‘That may not be soon.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I have looked at your charts. You have freedom in your future, beta.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know details, beta. I am always honest about that. But I can see it. You will be out of this jail very soon. Then, we will meet.’

  ‘You have my charts?’

  ‘I have been observing you. I was waiting for you. And now you have found me.’

  ‘You were waiting?’

  ‘Yes. Now you are ready. Life had to teach you its lessons, your yoga had to deepen your consciousness. Then you were ready. So you have come to me.’

  It was impossible to argue with him. In the gentle flow of his voice there was an irresistible power. There was a tightness in my throat, and I blinked away the blurriness in my eyes. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Ganesh,’ he said. ‘Be calm, be quiet. Practise your yoga. Wait. Time will turn and switch its curves. Time will turn and turn. Be patient.’

  And with that, he was gone. I watched him that afternoon on television. He sat cross-legged on a dais, leaning back against round white pillows, and spoke into a gleaming silver microphone. Out of focus, in the background, behind his head, I could see the metallic shine of the spokes of a wheel on his chair. I had never before noticed how good-looking a man he was, with his thick white hair sweeping back over his head but not too long, setting off the healthy springiness of his clean-shaven jaw. I couldn’t tell at all how old he might be. His disciples sat in orderly rows, men on one side and women on the other. The discourse that day was about success. Why, he asked, does failure torment us so bitingly? And then, why does success sometimes leave us feeling dissatisfied all over again? Why does arrival let us down, even after we have dreamt of it for so long, have fought so hard for it along a cruel road? Why? The answer in both cases, Shukla-ji said, is because we believe in the illusion of the self. I am the doer, we believe. We shout this out at the world, I am doing this, I am doing that, I, I, I. Believing in this most slippery of all illusions, we think that our failures are our fault, that they flow from the shape of this self. We think we own our victories. And yet, when we find success, we discover that this self-illusion, this illusion of the self, can only live in the future, or in the past. It is eternally separated from the present, and so as long as we believe in it we know only loss. It is only when we transcend this illusion and laugh at it that we can know the pleasure of this moment, laugh because then you are truly alive. Swami-ji said, my children, give away your actions and discover your true nature. Know yourself.

  I had to walk away from the television. It was as if he was speaking to me, to me alone. And yet I had to control myself, to be casual in my listening, to make jokes about gurus and swamis, and I couldn’t stay with him too long. We had a secret connection, he and I, and because of that I couldn’t make a public connection with him. It was too risky, too dangerous. Not only for me, but also for him. So I stood myself up and walked away. The boys switched channels to a filmi-song countdown.

  I let them listen to their songs, but I followed Swami-ji’s advice. I hardened my meditation, did it longer and with deeper concentration. The boys were impressed by my deepened calm, my improved memory, my larger love. I asked after their families, remembered the names of their wives and chaavis, asked after their children. We had arranged for Date to be brought back from Nashik Jail so that he could be with me in the barrack. He hugged me when he first saw me, embraced me for a long time. Then, the first thing he said was, ‘Bhai, you even look younger. You look so fresh, like a boy.’

  I felt weathered, like an old field that has been ploughed. But what he saw was the budding of the new shoots from a recent planting. Outside,
the monsoons had just set in, and we sat near the windows and watched the water crash off the roofs. Business was good. The money came in, the money went out, more money came in. Our war with Suleiman Isa rumbled on. I knew the boys expected a decisive strike, a terrible retribution to be visited upon our enemies. I told them to be patient. When the crop is ripe, then cut it. Wait, wait. And so I waited. I was calm.

  At the end of July I received a summons from Advani’s office. ‘Saab needs to see you in his office,’ the warder said. ‘It’s very urgent.’

  It was morning, still my prayer hour, and I knew a sudden dread. Advani would never disturb me at this time, and so something very bad must have happened for him to call me out. I put on my chappals, and we hopped from stone to stone along the yard, which was now a lake of rainwater. The clouds were black and low overhead, and it was quite still, the entire world filled only with the fall of water. Beside Advani’s office, three men in white shirts stood in a row. I went past them, and Advani was at his desk, looking straight-backed and very official. He didn’t get up.

  ‘Saab,’ I said, quite humbly. I was a good actor when my subordinates needed me to be one.

  From Advani’s right, a man was watching me intently. What I saw of him first was his dome-like head, quite bald and brown in the dark monsoon light. And then his eyes, watching me.

  ‘This is Mr Kumar,’ Advani said. ‘He wants to talk to you.’

  Advani got up and left, without another word or a glance at me. So this Mr Kumar was a powerful man. A senior official, maybe. ‘Sit,’ he said.

  I did.

  ‘I work for a certain part of the government, the central government,’ he said. ‘I have been following your fight with Suleiman Isa.’

  Me, I kept quiet, didn’t even nod. Let the man explain. He was very thin, with a sharp nose, and looked something like a statue of a starving Buddha I had seen on television. But there was power in him, a kind of certainty. Here was a man who knew who he was.