Sacred Games

by Vikram Chandra

  Every channel we found was rolling the same images, of the smouldering tower and its twin. Then we found a Hong Kong channel which was running a Fox satellite feed. ‘The North Tower continues to burn,’ the reporter said. The smoke spilled out of the side of the building. Then another slim silver shape came skimming in at camera right. I was on my feet, breathless. The airliner disappeared behind the burning skyscraper, and then a spiky gout of flame grew out of the other tower. All in silence.

  We were quiet. I knew then what this was. I just knew. ‘It’s not an accident,’ I said. ‘This is terror.’

  I was in front of the television until three in the morning. I had food brought to me, and had the boys turn the sound up when I went to the bathroom, which I used with the door open. I watched until I could no longer keep my eyes open. Then I told the boys to stay awake in relays, and call me if there were further attacks or new revelations.

  In my cabin, my solitude was unbearable. Water slapped at the boat, and I flung my clothes off and tried to breathe. Why was I so agitated? Yes, a lot of people had probably died, but people died every day. What was it then, that whipped me into this frenzy of agitation? The boys and I had decided that the attack had to be engineered by Muslims, yes, maybe Arabs. But so what? Yes, this was an escalation, and now America would attack with its giant strength, and make more enemies, but that was an ongoing affair. I had no answers, and I needed to sleep. I forced myself into the shower, and then I lay down and took a pill.

  I kept falling into a light doze filled with smoke and dust, and gasping out of it. I saw, again and again, the true line that the plane made as it went to its meeting with the elegant vertical of the building. I turned on my side, tried to think about work, women, but that shape kept coming back to me. Yes, this was terror.

  I sat up. Where was Guru-ji now? In Europe somewhere. Prague. Yes, I could call him. I picked up the phone.

  He picked up on the first ring. ‘Ganesh? Are you all right?’

  ‘Guru-ji, did you see on television today?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was terrible.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I mean, those bastard Americans act like they own the entire world, someone was going to hit them sooner or later. But still, that was…’

  ‘Yes, Ganesh?’

  What I wanted to ask was spinning in my head in a thousand fragments. I worried at my chin, rubbed my eyes and tried to bring it all together. ‘You said the world was beautiful.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It had a beginning.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that means…that it will have an end.’

  ‘It must. Before it can be born again.’

  So the tensions and struggles of the world would rise, in an exquisite arc, and then a stunning explosion, a culmination would follow, and then, nothing. I had heard people talk about the end of the world before, and had seen films about many disasters, but none of it had seemed real to me, ever. But here was that end, sitting in my belly as hard and heavy as a diamond. It was real. ‘This will happen,’ I said.

  ‘It is inevitable. This is why all the great religious traditions speak of the destruction that must come. Pralay, qayamat, apocalypse. But, Ganesh, don’t be frightened. This fear comes from the small ego that traps you. You are infinitely larger than that. From that larger perspective, there is no need for fear.’

  I knew he meant well, but this was no comfort to me. Yes, I could maybe think of myself as a distant, dispassionate eye hovering far above the ground I walked on, reading – with pleasure – everything that lay beyond my body’s knowledge and over the horizon, but I couldn’t feel this. No. I said goodbye to Guru-ji and lay down, and imagined this great web of ricocheting events sweeping always forward, always towards fire and water, towards dissolution, and my mouth was dry. I propped myself up on an elbow, reached for my water. When I put the glass back down, it made a small clink against the gold coaster, and this ringing boomed through my head. I felt my hands shaking. All motion flowed together, every action drove the next one, and a ripple became a wave, and then a torrent hurtling over the unavoidable chasm. Maybe even that tiny jangling of the glass had in some way led us a small way towards echoing doom. A sound crashed into me, maybe my pulse, or maybe some resonance made of everything else, containing beginning and end, birth and life and all-consuming death.

  INSET: Five Fragments, Scattered in Time

  I

  Suryakant Trivedi is drinking a cappuccino in a café near the British Museum. He has been in England for almost two years now, and this is the only vilayati vice he has acquired. He has not given in to any other temptation or pressure. He dresses exactly as he did in Meerut, in long starched kurtas and sober pyjamas. In the winter he sometimes makes a concession and wears thermal underwear, which his America-based son sent him from St Louis. His eldest son, the one he lives with here in Hounslow, worries about him riding on the tube in such flagrantly foreign clothes, but Trivedi knows that putting on some fancy jacket is not going to make him look less Indian. And if he is attacked by some hooligans, well, he is not afraid of injury, or death. Guru-ji has asked him to live in London for a while and do what needs to be done, and Trivedi owes everything to Guru-ji. Even here, watching the tourists walk by in the bright May sunshine, he feels the presence of Guru-ji. This constant support is not just a comfort, but the basis on which he has built his whole life. Only one who has had such a guru can understand how this preceptor is also father and mother and friend, how merely thinking of him flattens obstacles and vanquishes dread. But right now there is no fear, the cappuccino is very hot, exactly the way Trivedi likes it, and the froth is delicious, with its little sprinkling of mocha. He savours it on the tip of his tongue, then lets it swirl back. He feels lazy and content, and allows himself to think of his wife, who died in 1987 of congestive heart failure, who gave him many children and suddenly left. With Guru-ji’s help he was able to look past the illusion of death and the haze of hurt that descended, and now he is able to think of her with only fondness and joy.

  So Suryakant Trivedi is somewhat fuzzy and absent when Milind enters. Milind is twenty-two, handsome and open-faced and tall. He greets Trivedi effusively, and puts down a bulky gym bag on the floor between them.

  ‘All peaceful?’ Trivedi says.

  ‘Yes, sir. No problems.’ Milind was born in London, and has only been back to India five times, never for more than two months. But his Hindi is orthodox and flawless. He comes from an old Jana Sanghi family, his grandfather was an eminent professor of Sanskrit at Benares Hindu University. He has grown up in an environment of learning and piety, and he is fiercely patriotic. He knows Trivedi as a leader of the small but fervent political party Akhand Bharat, and he thinks Trivedi is in London to expand the organization and spread the message. He is very willing to do the clandestine work that Trivedi tasks him with. Milind is really quite thrilled to pick up a bag from the Left Luggage office at King’s Cross station, to bring it to Trivedi-ji with care and dispatch, to be careful and watchful.

  Trivedi understands all this, and therefore invents carefully calibrated dangers for Milind to be afraid of, and stories to be titillated by. He tells Milind that the bag contains military documents from a certain eastern European country, to be passed on to his own governmental contacts at home. Trivedi also pays Milind for his trouble in good English pounds, and buys him an occasional gift, a watch, or a medium-expensive pen. ‘Have some coffee,’ he says today. ‘This is good.’

  Milind drinks a Coke instead, and then another one. He has been warned never to speak of their work while doing the work, so he talks about local politics. Trivedi doesn’t follow English elections, so he has only the barest idea of what the boy is talking about, but he nods and occasionally interjects, and lets Milind talk his excitement away. He drinks another cappuccino, and savours the irony of what he has pulled off – yet again – for Guru-ji. The gym bag contains money, ten lakhs in five-hundred-rupee notes. The ori
gin of this crisp new money, where it comes from, is what makes this triumph particularly tangy. Trivedi has three cut-outs between himself and the source. There is Milind, there is another delivery boy named Amir and finally there is a clandestine and very extreme Muslim group called Hizbuddeen. Setting up the Hizbuddeen was Guru-ji’s idea. The name, though, was Trivedi’s. His Urdu is quite good actually, and the name came easily to him: Hizbuddeen, the Army of the Final Day. Guru-ji loved the name instantly, and had praised Trivedi for his quick, precise thinking. Such an organization would, yes, have such a name. A fake Islamist extremist group is essential to Guru-ji’s future plans. But accepting money through the Hizbuddeen was completely Trivedi’s contribution. After all, raising funds is one of the primary objectives of any such outfit. So of course the Hizbuddeen collected funds for their activities, and when it transpired that the Pakistanis wanted to contribute, the irony was by far one of the best rewards for all Trivedi’s work over the years. At the Pakistani embassy in London, there is a man named Shahid Khan who is listed as a First Secretary, who is quite obviously an intelligence officer. Eight months ago, this Shahid Khan initiated contact with Hizbuddeen, cultivated them, offered them training, resources, money. So, earlier this week, the Pakistanis gave money to Hizbuddeen, who gave it to Amir, who left it for Milind to collect, and now it is with Trivedi. And Trivedi will use it to fuel Guru-ji’s activities. He will pass some of it down to the Kalki Sena, which needs much money for arms, for recruitment, for the laying-in of resources. They must be ready for the final day. Trivedi thinks of the Kalki Sena as the operational arm of Akhand Bharat, and he likes the fact that it is small and fleet and well-armed. Sometimes, despite his age, he can’t help thinking of himself as a modern version of Shivaji or Rana Pratap. Trivedi takes another sip of his cappuccino. Quite completely delicious.

  ‘When do we meet next, Trivedi-ji?’ Milind says.

  This was usually Milind’s first question after he had cooled down from all the tension of the current job. Trivedi always answered it the same way: ‘I don’t know yet. I will be in touch.’ The boy was useful, but somewhat irritating. Given a choice, Trivedi would have liked to use someone quieter, and perhaps more intelligent, but you worked with what was at hand. He sends Milind off, pays the waiter and shoulders the gym bag. It is satisfyingly heavy. The Pakistanis are good paymasters for their people. Every month their man meets a representative of the Hizbuddeen and hands over the money. Every month Trivedi collects their contribution and sends it off to Guru-ji’s people. Every month he experiences these moments of sublime satisfaction. Let the bastards pay for their own defeat, which was sure to be final and conclusive.

  Trivedi walks past the museum. He has been in it only once, and has never gone back. He had been amazed and appalled by the corridors of splendid plunder that the British Empire had looted from all over the world and put in this mausoleum for idiots to gawk at. It nauseated him, to think of the British flag fluttering over Delhi. Never again, he had said to himself, and he swears it again. Trivedi has learned the Great Game. He knows now about cut-outs and false-flag operations, and he has tamped down his distaste and interacted with bad men, disgusting men. He has shared meals with drunkards, shaken hands with criminals. He has called himself Sharma and listened for hours to the foul-mouthed Ganesh Gaitonde and his company of brutes, he has pretended laughter at their obscene jokes. Yes, Trivedi has demeaned and dirtied himself. But he has done it all for Guru-ji, he has done it for the future. He is doing what needs to be done. He is tired now, his feet ache and he feels his age. By the time he gets home, his shoulders will hurt as well. He will be a little afraid during that last walk home from the station in the dusk, when the sky will turn into a very foreign blue-grey, and the responsibility that he carries on his shoulder will weigh more than ever, but he will whisper to Guru-ji, and he will walk on. He is confident. He turns his mind to the present, to maintaining his brisk pace which he has practised since he first met Guru-ji almost three decades ago. He passes an English family and smiles at the little boy who walks between his parents, holding their hands. The unblemished innocence of children is a good thing to see, it has always been a fount of hope to him. Trivedi thinks of the money, and what lies ahead, and he is happy.

  II

  Ram Pari scrubs a pot. She is squatting in the courtyard of Bibi-ji’s house, in front of the hand-pump, scouring the blackened pot with ash. She likes the skid of her palm across the curved side of the pot, but her shoulders are beginning to twinge with the pain that will stay in them until the end of the day, until she sleeps. She is getting too old for this work, but then what other work is there? Her nose itches, and she rubs at it, not very successfully, with the back of her forearm. She is watching Navneet, Bibi-ji’s daughter, who is lying face down in the baithak, writing a letter. The girl is moony, as usual, and she has been working on the same piece of paper for the last hour. Ram Pari knows that she is writing a letter to her fiancé. Ram Pari thinks that the girl is shameless for doing this, and that her parents are fools. Such laxity can only end in disaster. Ram Pari can recall many a scandal, among rich and poor, to prove her point. But it is useless to say anything to Bibi-ji, she is a stubborn and proud woman who will brook no criticism from those she thinks of as her inferiors. And anyway there is no reason for Ram Pari to be concerned, it isn’t her business what these people do. She realizes that she has stopped rubbing, and that any moment Bibi-ji will hear the pause, and come out and snipe at her, so she settles back and sets to scrubbing again.

  Navneet sits up, yawns and then gets up and walks across the courtyard. She goes into the room that she shares with her two sisters, and then emerges, wearing her going-out chappals. She must be going to that college again. Ram Pari doesn’t know what use it is to educate a girl so much, but she respects reading and writing. She herself can’t do either, and knows she is too old to learn. But she knows that men who read and write have an advantage. She has her own bitter experience to prove that. But she doesn’t want to think about such disasters, and her illiterate husband’s failures, so she whispers, ‘Rabb mehar kare,’ and pumps water, and the splash fills her ears.

  Navneet is standing near her. ‘Ram Pari,’ she says absently, ‘your eldest daughter is very pretty. When she’s old enough, you should find a handsome boy for her.’

  Ram Pari feels irritation swirl in her throat. This vain cow with her white skin thinks that everyone has time to look at themselves in the mirror all day long, and think about handsome lafangas. ‘She’s already married,’ she says shortly.

  ‘What, that little thing?’

  ‘She’s not that small. She will go to her sasural soon.’

  ‘How old was she when she got married?’

  Ram Pari moves a flat hand in the air, less than the height of the hand-pump. ‘Among our people it is like that.’

  Navneet puts a hand over her mouth and sits on the stool near the pillar, which her father uses every morning when he puts on his shoes. ‘And she has never seen her husband since then?’

  ‘No. Why should she?’ Ram Pari says this and then is afraid that she is being too curt. But she doesn’t know how to demonstrate now that she is appropriately docile and respectful, so she picks up a karhai and puts it under the pump. She scoops up a fistful of ash, and as the karhai rattles under her scrubbing, she understands what Navneet wants. So she turns, and smiles sweetly, and says, ‘But, you talk to him all the time, no?’

  ‘No, no. I don’t talk to him, I only write letters once in a while.’ The girl has a shadow of darker pink on her cheeks, and she does have the grace to look somewhat embarrassed.

  Ram Pari is confident now. She laughs, and says, ‘Maybe, but he writes all the time, every day.’

  Navneet shrugs shyly, and Ram Pari – despite herself – feels a kinship with her. Yes, it is good to be very young, to be full of anticipation and longing and a little dash of delicious fear, to hover on the edge of a new life. She decides to be generous. ‘Is he very han
dsome?’

  ‘You want to see a photo?’ Navneet is on her feet already, and even before Ram Pari can get out her yes, she is half-way across the courtyard, and even Ram Pari recognizes – without a trace of envy – the unconscious grace in her youthful run. Let the girl be happy. It is her time to be happy.

  Navneet comes back and squats next to Ram Pari. She opens a notebook filled with indecipherable marks, flips a page, and there is her man. He wears a very high-pointed turban, and stares at Ram Pari with insouciant arrogance, a hint of a smile playing over his lips. He is indeed very good-looking. The photo has been tinted, and the red of his cheeks stands out against the blinding brilliance of his teeth. ‘Vah,’ Ram Pari says, ‘just like some hero.’

  ‘Yes, I tell him all the time that he could easily be an actor if we went to Bombay. But of course he doesn’t want to shave his beard, and of course I don’t want him to. He used to act in college, and a lot of his friends say he looks like Karan Dewan, but I think he really looks like Ashok Kumar.’

  Ram Pari nods.

  But Navneet wants more. ‘Don’t you think so?’

  ‘I don’t know Ashok Kumar.’

  ‘What? Haven’t you seen Kismet?’

  A great burst of raucous laughter bursts out of Ram Pari. All her rancour is swept away. ‘No, I haven’t seen Kismet.’ She now feels only tenderness towards this child who believes that everyone has the money and the time to go to some Kismet, who sees her future unfolding before her on a screen that glitters with romance and promise. Ram Pari feels in her stomach, in her groin, the heartbreak that awaits Navneet, which will come only because she hopes for so much. Ram Pari does not know what the catastrophe will be, but she knows it will arrive. She says as kindly as she can, ‘Maybe I will see Kismet some day.’