The White Tiger

by Aravind Adiga

  The Stork watched her go into her room and said, "She's gone crazy, that woman. Wanting to find the family of the child and give them compensation-craziness. As if we were all murderers here." He looked sternly at Mr. Ashok. "You need to control that wife of yours better, son. The way we do it in the village."

  Then he gave me a light tap on the head and said, "The water's gone cold."

  I massaged his feet every morning for the next three days. One morning he had a little pain in his stomach, so the Mongoose made me drive him down to Max, which is one of Delhi 's most famous private hospitals. I stood outside and watched as the Mongoose and the old man went inside the beautiful big glass building. Doctors walked in and out with long white coats, and stethoscopes in their pockets. When I peeped in from outside, the hospital's lobby looked as clean as the inside of a five-star hotel.

  The day after the hospital trip, I drove the Stork and the Mongoose down to the railway station, bought them the snacks they would need for their trip home, waited for the train to leave, and then drove the car back, wiped it down, went to a nearby Hanuman temple to say a prayer of thanks, came back to my room and fell inside the mosquito net, dead tired.

  When I woke up, someone was standing in my room, turning the lights on and off.

  It was Pinky Madam.

  "Get ready. You're going to drive me."

  "Yes, madam," I said, rubbing my eyes. "What time is it?"

  She put a finger to her lips.

  I put on a shirt, and then got the car out, and drove it to the front of the building. She had a bag in her hand.

  "Where to?" I asked. It was two in the morning.

  She told me, and I asked, "Isn't Sir coming?"

  "Just drive."

  I drove her to the airport, I asked no questions.

  When she got out at the airport, she pushed a brown envelope into my window-then slammed her door and left.

  And that was how, Your Excellency, my employer's marriage came to an end.

  Other drivers have techniques to prolong the marriages of their masters. One of them told me that whenever the fighting got worse he drove fast, so they would get home quickly; whenever they got romantic he let the car slow down. If they were shouting at each other he asked them for directions; if they were kissing he turned the music up. I feel some part of the responsibility falls on me, that their marriage broke up while I was the driver.

  The following morning, Mr. Ashok called me to the apartment. When I knocked on the door, he caught me by the collar of my shirt and pulled me inside.

  "Why didn't you tell me?" he said, tightening his hold on the collar, almost choking me. "Why didn't you wake me up at once?"

  "Sir…she said…she said…she said…"

  He grabbed me and pushed me against the balcony of the apartment. The landlord inside him wasn't dead, after all.

  "Why did you drive her there, sister-fucker?"

  I turned my head-behind me I saw all the shiny towers and shopping malls of Gurgaon.

  "Did you want to ruin my family's reputation?"

  He pushed me harder against the balcony; my head and chest were over the edge now, and if he pushed me even a bit more I was in real danger of flying over. I gathered my legs and kicked him in the chest-he staggered back and hit the sliding glass door between the house and the balcony. I slid down against the edge of the balcony; he sat down against the glass door. The two of us were panting.

  "You can't blame me, sir!" I shouted. "I'd never heard of a woman leaving her husband for good! I mean, yes, on TV, but not in real life! I just did what she told me to."

  A crow sat down on the balcony and cawed. Both of us turned and stared at it.

  Then his madness was over. He covered his face in his hands and began to sob.

  I ran down to my room. I got into the mosquito net and sat on the bed. I counted to ten to make sure he hadn't followed me. Then, reaching under the bed, I took out the brown envelope and opened it again.

  It was full of one-hundred-rupee notes.

  Forty-seven of them.

  I shoved the envelope under the bed: someone was coming toward my room. Four of the drivers walked in.

  "Tell us all about it, Country-Mouse."

  They took positions around me.

  "Tell you what?"

  "The gatekeeper spilled the beans. There are no secrets around here. You drove the woman somewhere at night and came back alone. Has she left him?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "We know they've been fighting, Country-Mouse. And you drove her somewhere at night. The airport? She's gone, isn't she? It's a divorce-every rich man these days is divorcing his wife. These rich people…" He shook his head. His lips curled up in scorn, exposing his reddish, rotting, paan-decayed canines. "No respect for God, for marriage, family-nothing."

  "She just went out for some fresh air. And I brought her back. That gatekeeper has gone blind."

  "Loyal to the last. They don't make servants like you anymore."

  I waited all morning for the bell to ring-but it did not. In the afternoon, I went up to the thirteenth floor, and rang the bell and waited. He opened his door, and his eyes were red.

  "What is it?"

  "Nothing, sir. I came to…make lunch."

  "No need for that." I thought he was going to apologize for almost killing me, but he said nothing about it.

  "Sir, you must eat. It's not good for your health to starve…Please, sir."

  With a sigh, he let me in.

  Now that she was gone, I knew that it was my duty to be like a wife to him. I had to make sure he ate well, and slept well, and did not get thin. I made lunch, I served him, I cleaned up. Then I went down and waited for the bell. At eight o'clock, I took the elevator up again. Pressing my ear against the door, I listened.

  Nothing. Not a sound.

  I rang the bell: no response. I knew he couldn't be out-I was his driver, after all. Where could he go without me?

  The door was open. I walked in.

  He lay beneath the framed photo of the two Pomeranians, a bottle on the mahogany table in front of him, his eyes closed.

  I sniffed the bottle. Whiskey. Almost all of it gone. I put it to my lips and emptied the dregs.

  "Sir," I said, but he did not wake up. I gave him a push. I slapped him on the face. He licked his lips, sucked his teeth. He was waking up, but I slapped him a second time anyway.

  (A time-honored servants' tradition. Slapping the master when he's asleep. Like jumping on pillows when masters are not around. Or urinating into their plants. Or beating or kicking their pet dogs. Innocent servants' pleasures.)

  I dragged him into his bedroom, pulled the blanket over him, turned the lights off, and went down. There was going to be no driving tonight, so I headed off to the "Action" English Liquor Shop. My nose was still full of Mr. Ashok's whiskey.

  The same thing happened the next night too.

  The third night he was drunk, but awake.

  "Drive me," he said. "Anywhere you want. To the malls. To the hotels. Anywhere."

  Around and around the shiny malls and hotels of Gurgaon I drove him, and he sat slouched in the backseat-not even talking on the phone, for once.

  When the master's life is in chaos, so is the servant's. I thought, Maybe he's sick of Delhi now. Will he go back to Dhanbad? What happens to me then? My belly churned. I thought I would crap right there, on my seat, on the gearbox.

  "Stop the car," he said.

  He opened the door of the car, put his hand on his stomach, bent down, and threw up on the ground. I wiped his mouth with my hand and helped him sit down by the side of the road. The traffic roared past us. I patted his back.

  "You're drinking too much, sir."

  "Why do men drink, Balram?"

  "I don't know, sir."

  "Of course, in your caste you don't…Let me tell you, Balram. Men drink because they are sick of life. I thought caste and religion didn't matter any longer in today's world. My
father said, 'No, don't marry her, she's of another…' I…"

  Mr. Ashok turned his head to the side, and I rubbed his back, thinking he might throw up again, but the spasm passed.

  "Sometimes I wonder, Balram. I wonder what's the point of living. I really wonder…"

  The point of living? My heart pounded. The point of your living is that if you die, who's going to pay me three and a half thousand rupees a month?

  "You must believe in God, sir. You must go on. My granny says that if you believe in God, then good things will happen."

  "That's true, it's true. We must believe," he sobbed.

  "Once there was a man who stopped believing in God, and you know what happened?"

  "What?"

  "His buffalo died at once."

  "I see." He laughed. "I see."

  "Yes, sir, it really happened. The next day he said, 'God, I'm sorry, I believe in You,' and guess what happened?"

  "His buffalo came back to life?"

  "Exactly!"

  He laughed again. I told him another story, and this made him laugh some more.

  Has there ever been a master-servant relationship like this one? He was so powerless, so lost, my heart just had to melt. Whatever anger I had against him for trying to pin Pinky Madam's hit-and-run killing on me passed away that evening. That was her fault. Mr. Ashok had nothing to do with it. I forgave him entirely.

  I talked to him about the wisdom of my village-half repeating things I remembered Granny saying, and half making things up on the spot-and he nodded. It was a scene to put you in mind of that passage in the Bhagavad Gita, when our Lord Krishna-another of history's famous chauffeurs-stops the chariot he is driving and gives his passenger some excellent advice on life and death. Like Krishna I philosophized-I joked-I even sang a song-all to make Mr. Ashok feel better.

  Baby, I thought, rubbing his back as he heaved and threw up one more time, you big, pathetic baby.

  I put my hand out and wiped the vomit from his lips, and cooed soothing words to him. It squeezed my heart to see him suffer like this-but where my genuine concern for him ended and where my self-interest began, I could not tell: no servant can ever tell what the motives of his heart are.

  Do we loathe our masters behind a facade of love-or do we love them behind a facade of loathing?

  We are made mysteries to ourselves by the Rooster Coop we are locked in.

  The next day I went to a roadside temple in Gurgaon. I put a rupee before the two resident pairs of divine arses and prayed that Pinky Madam and Mr. Ashok should be reunited and given a long and happy life together in Delhi.

  * * *

  A week passed like this, and then the Mongoose turned up from Dhanbad and Mr. Ashok and I went together to the station to collect him.

  The moment he arrived, everything changed for me. The intimacy was over between me and Mr. Ashok.

  Once again, I was only the driver. Once again, I was only the eavesdropper.

  "I spoke to her last night. She's not coming back to India. Her parents are happy with her decision. This can end only one way."

  "Don't worry about it, Ashok. It's okay. And don't call her again. I'll handle it from Dhanbad. If she makes any noise about wanting your money, I'll just gently bring up that matter of the hit-and-run, see?"

  "It's not the money I'm worried about, Mukesh-"

  "I know, I know."

  The Mongoose put his hand on Mr. Ashok's shoulder-just the way Kishan had put his hand on my shoulder so many times.

  We were driving past a slum: one of those series of makeshift tents where the workers at some construction site were living. The Mongoose was saying something, but Mr. Ashok wasn't paying attention-he was looking out the window.

  My eyes obeyed his eyes. I saw the silhouettes of the slum dwellers close to one another inside the tents; you could make out one family-a husband, a wife, a child-all huddled around a stove inside one tent, lit up by a golden lamp. The intimacy seemed so complete-so crushingly complete. I understood what Mr. Ashok was going through.

  He lifted his hand-I prepared for his touch-but he wrapped it around the Mongoose's shoulder.

  "When I was in America, I thought family was a burden, I don't deny it. When you and Father tried to stop me from marrying Pinky because she wasn't a Hindu I was furious with you, I don't deny it. But without family, a man is nothing. Absolutely nothing. I had nothing but this driver in front of me for five nights. Now at last I have someone real by my side: you."

  I went up to the apartment with them; the Mongoose wanted me to make a meal for them, and I made a daal and chapattis, and a dish of okra. I served them, and then I cleaned the utensils and plates.

  During dinner, the Mongoose said, "If you're getting depressed, Ashok, why don't you try yoga and meditation? There's a yoga master on TV, and he's very good-this is what he does every morning on his program." He closed his eyes, breathed in, and then exhaled slowly, saying, "Ooooooom."

  When I came out of the kitchen, wiping my hands on the sides of my pants, the Mongoose said, "Wait."

  He took a piece of paper from his pocket and dangled it with a big grin, as if it were a prize for me.

  "You have a letter from your granny. What is her name?" He began to cut the letter open with a thick black finger.

  "Kusum, sir."

  "Remarkable woman," he said, and rubbed his forearms up and down.

  I said, "Sir, don't bother yourself. I can read."

  He cut the letter open. He began reading it aloud.

  Mr. Ashok spoke in English-and I guessed what he said: "Doesn't he have the right to read his own letters?"

  And his brother replied in English, and again I guessed, rather than understood, his meaning: "He won't mind a thing like this. He has no sense of privacy. In the villages there are no separate rooms so they just lie together at night and fuck like that. Trust me, he doesn't mind."

  He turned so that the light was behind him and began to read aloud:

  "Dear grandson. This is being written by Mr. Krishna, the schoolteacher. He remembers you fondly and refers to you by your old nickname, the White Tiger. Life has become hard here. The rains have failed. Can you ask your employer for some money for your family? And remember to send the money home."

  The Mongoose put the letter down.

  "That's all these servants want. Money, money, money. They're called your servants, but they suck the lifeblood out of you, don't they?"

  He continued reading the letter.

  "With your brother Kishan I said, 'Now is the time,' and he did it-he married. With you, I do not order. You are different from all the others. You are deep, like your mother. Even as a boy you were so; when you would stop near the pond and stare at the Black Fort with your mouth open, in the morning, and evening, and night. So I do not order you to marry. But I tempt you with the joys of married life. It is good for the community. Every time there is a marriage there is more rain in the village. The water buffalo will get fatter. It will give more milk. These are known facts. We are all so proud of you, being in the city. But you must stop thinking only about yourself and think about us too. First you must visit us and eat my chicken curry. Your loving Granny. Kusum."

  The Mongoose was about to give me the letter, but Mr. Ashok took it from him and read it again.

  "Sometimes they express themselves so movingly, these villagers," he said, before flinging the letter on the table for me to pick up.

  In the morning, I drove the Mongoose to the railway station, and got him his favorite snack, the dosa, once again, from which I removed the potatoes, flinging them on the tracks, before handing it over to him. I got down onto the platform and waited. He chomped on the dosa in his seat; down below on the tracks, a mouse nibbled on the discarded potatoes.

  I drove back to the apartment block. I took the elevator to the thirteenth floor. The door was open.

  "Sir!" I shouted, when I saw what was going on in the living room. "Sir, this is madness!"

  He had put his fee
t in a plastic bucket and was massaging them himself.

  "You should have told me, I would have massaged you!" I shouted, and reached down to his feet.

  He shrieked. "No!"

  I said, "Yes, sir, you must-I'm failing in my duty if I let you do it yourself!" and forced my hands into the dirty water in the bucket, and squeezed his feet.

  "No!"

  Mr. Ashok kicked the bucket, and the water spilled all over the floor.

  "How stupid can you people get?" He pointed to the door. "Get out! Can you leave me alone for just five minutes in a day? Do you think you can manage that?"

  * * *

  That evening I had to drive him to the mall again. I stayed inside the car after he got out; I did not mix with any of the other drivers.

  Even at night, the construction work goes on in Gurgaon-big lights shine down from towers, and dust rises from pits, scaffolding is being erected, and men and animals, both shaken from their sleep and bleary and insomniac, go around and around carrying concrete rubble or bricks.

  A man from one of these construction sites was leading an ass; it wore a bright red saddle, and on this saddle were two metal troughs, filled to the brim with rubble. Behind this ass, two smaller ones, of the same color, were also saddled with metal troughs full of rubble. These smaller asses were walking slower, and the lead ass stopped often and turned to them, in a way that made you think it was their mother.

  At once I knew what was troubling me.

  I did not want to obey Kusum. She was blackmailing me; I understood why she had sent that letter through the Mongoose. If I refused, she would blow the whistle on me-tell Mr. Ashok I hadn't been sending money home.

  Now, it had been a long time since I had dipped my beak into anything, sir, and the pressure had built up. The girl would be so young-seventeen or eighteen-and you know what girls taste like at that age, like watermelons. Any diseases, of body or mind, get cured when you penetrate a virgin. These are known facts. And then there was the dowry that Kusum would screw out of the girl's family. All that twenty-four-karat gold, all that cash fresh from the bank. At least some of it I'd keep for myself. All these were sound arguments in favor of marriage.