The White Tiger

by Aravind Adiga

  I charged into the paan-seller, pushing him off his perch, scattering his leaves, and spilling his water. I kicked the midget in his face. Screams broke out from above. The pimps rushed at me; shoving and kicking for dear life, I ran out of that street.

  Now, G.B. Road is in Old Delhi, about which I should say something. Remember, Mr. Premier, that Delhi is the capital of not one but two countries-two Indias. The Light and the Darkness both flow into Delhi. Gurgaon, where Mr. Ashok lived, is the bright, modern end of the city, and this place, Old Delhi, is the other end. Full of things the modern world forgot all about-rickshaws, old stone buildings, the Muslims. On a Sunday, though, there is something more: if you keep pushing through the crowd that is always there, go past the men cleaning the other men's ears by poking rusty metal rods into them, past the men selling small fish trapped in green bottles full of brine, past the cheap shoe market and the cheap shirt market, you will come to the great secondhand book market of Darya Ganj.

  You may have heard of this market, sir, since it is one of the wonders of the world. Tens of thousands of dirty, rotting, blackened books on every subject-Technology, Medicine, Sexual Pleasure, Philosophy, Education, and Foreign Countries-heaped upon the pavement from Delhi Gate onwards all the way until you get to the market in front of the Red Fort. Some books are so old they crumble when you touch them; some have silverfish feasting on them-some look like they were retrieved from a flood, or from a fire. Most shops on the pavement are shuttered down; but the restaurants are still open, and the smell of fried food mingles with the smell of rotting paper. Rusting exhaust fans turn slowly in the ventilators of the restaurants like the wings of giant moths.

  I went amid the books and sucked in the air: it was like oxygen after the stench of the brothel.

  There was a thick crowd of book buyers fighting over the books with the sellers, and I pretended to be one of the buyers. I leapt into the books, picking them up, reading them like this, flip, flip, flip, until a bookseller shouted, "You going to buy it or read it for free?"

  "It's no good," I would say, and put the book down and go to the next bookseller, and pick up something he had, and flip flip flip. Never paying anyone a single rupee, flipping through books for free, I kept looting bookseller after bookseller all evening long!

  Some books were in Urdu, the language of the Muslims-which is all just scratches and dots, as if some crow dipped its feet in black ink and pressed them to the page. I was going through one such book when a bookseller said, "Can you read Urdu?"

  He was an old Muslim, with a pitch-black face that was bedewed with sweat, like a begonia leaf after the rains, and a long white beard.

  I said: "Can you read Urdu?"

  He opened the book, cleared his throat, and read, "'You were looking for the key for years.' Understood that?" He looked at me, wide furrows on his black forehead.

  "Yes, Muslim uncle."

  "Shut up, you liar. And listen."

  He cleared his throat again.

  "'You were looking for the key for years/But the door was always open!'"

  He closed the book. "That's called poetry. Now get lost."

  "Please, Muslim uncle," I begged. "I'm just a rickshaw-puller's son from the Darkness. Tell me all about poetry. Who wrote the poem?"

  He shook his head, but I kept flattering him, telling him how fine his beard was, how fair his skin was (ha!), how it was obvious from his nose and forehead that he wasn't some pigherd who had converted but a true-blue Muslim who had flown here on a magic carpet all the way from Mecca, and he grunted with satisfaction. He read me another poem, and another one-and he explained the true history of poetry, which is a kind of secret, a magic known only to wise men. Mr. Premier, I won't be saying anything new if I say that the history of the world is the history of a ten-thousand-year war of brains between the rich and the poor. Each side is eternally trying to hoodwink the other side: and it has been this way since the start of time. The poor win a few battles (the peeing in the potted plants, the kicking of the pet dogs, etc.) but of course the rich have won the war for ten thousand years. That's why, one day, some wise men, out of compassion for the poor, left them signs and symbols in poems, which appear to be about roses and pretty girls and things like that, but when understood correctly spill out secrets that allow the poorest man on earth to conclude the ten-thousand-year-old brain-war on terms favorable to himself. Now, the four greatest of these wise poets were Rumi, Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib, and another fellow whose name I was told but have forgotten.

  (Who was that fourth poet? It drives me crazy that I can't recall his name. If you know it, send me an e-mail.)

  "Muslim uncle, I have another question for you."

  "What do I look like? Your schoolteacher? Don't keep asking me questions."

  "The last one, I promise. Tell me, Muslim uncle, can a man make himself vanish with poetry?"

  "What do you mean-like vanish through black magic?" He looked at me. "Yes, that can be done. There are books for that. You want to buy one?"

  "No, not vanish like that. I meant can he…can he…"

  The bookseller had narrowed his eyes. The sweat beads had grown larger on his huge black forehead.

  I smiled at him. "Forget I asked that, Muslim uncle."

  And then I warned myself never to talk to this old man again. He knew too much already.

  My eyes were burning from squinting at books. I should have been heading back toward Delhi Gate to catch a bus. There was a foul taste of book in my mouth-as if I had inhaled so much particulated old paper from the air. Strange thoughts brew in your heart when you spend too much time with old books.

  But instead of going back to the bus, I wandered farther into Old Delhi. I had no idea where I was going. Everything grew quiet the moment I left the main road. I saw some men sitting on a charpoy smoking, others lying on the ground and sleeping; eagles flew above the houses. Then the wind blew an enormous gust of buffalo into my face.

  Everyone knows there is a butchers' quarter somewhere in Old Delhi, but not many have seen it. It is one of the wonders of the old city-a row of open sheds, and big buffaloes standing in each shed with their butts toward you, and their tails swatting flies away like windshield wipers, and their feet deep in immense pyramids of shit. I stood there, inhaling the smell of their bodies-it had been so long since I had smelled buffalo! The horrible city air was driven out of my lungs.

  A rattling noise of wooden wheels. I saw a buffalo coming down the road, pulling a large cart behind it. There was no human sitting on this cart with a whip; the buffalo just knew on its own where to go. And it was coming down the road. I stood to the side, and as it passed me, I saw that this cart was full of the faces of dead buffaloes; faces, I say-but I should say skulls, stripped even of the skin, except for the little black bit of skin at the tip of the nose from which the nostril hairs still stuck out, like last defiant bits of the personality of the dead buffalo. The rest of the faces were gone. Even the eyes had been gouged out.

  And the living buffalo walked on, without a master, drawing its load of death to the place where it knew it had to go.

  I walked along with that poor animal for a while, staring at the dead, stripped faces of the buffaloes. And then the strangest thing happened, Your Excellency-I swear the buffalo that was pulling the cart turned its face to me, and said in a voice not unlike my father's:

  "Your brother Kishan was beaten to death. Happy?"

  It was like experiencing a nightmare in the minutes before you wake up; you know it's a dream, but you can't wake up just yet.

  "Your aunt Luttu was raped and then beaten to death. Happy? Your grandmother Kusum was kicked to death. Happy?"

  The buffalo glared at me.

  "Shame!" it said, and then it took a big step forward and the cart passed by, full of dead skinned faces, which seemed to me at that moment the faces of my own family.

  * * *

  The next morning, Mr. Ashok came down to the car, smiling, and with the red bag in his hand
. He slammed the door.

  I looked at the ogre and swallowed hard.

  "Sir…"

  "What is it, Balram?"

  "Sir, there's something I've been meaning to tell you for a while." And I took my fingers off the ignition key. I swear, I was ready to make a full confession right there…had he said the right word…had he touched my shoulder the right way.

  But he wasn't looking at me. He was busy with the cell phone and its buttons.

  Punch, punch, punch.

  To have a madman with thoughts of blood and theft in his head, sitting just ten inches in front of you, and not to know it. Not to have a hint, even. What blindness you people are capable of. Here you are, sitting in glass buildings and talking on the phone night after night to Americans who are thousands of miles away, but you don't have the faintest idea what's happening to the man who's driving your car!

  What is it, Balram?

  Just this, sir-that I want to smash your skull open!

  He leaned forward-he brought his lips right to my ear-I was ready to melt.

  "I understand, Balram."

  I closed my eyes. I could barely speak.

  "You do, sir?"

  "You want to get married."

  "…"

  "Balram. You'll need some money, won't you?"

  "Sir, no. There's no need of that."

  "Wait, Balram. Let me take out my wallet. You're a good member of the family. You never ask for more money-I know that other drivers are constantly asking for overtime and insurance: but you never say a word. You're old-fashioned. I like that. We'll take care of all the wedding expenses, Balram. Here, Balram-here's…here's…"

  I saw him take out a thousand-rupee note, put it back, then take out a five-hundred, then put it back, and take out a hundred.

  Which he handed to me.

  "I assume you'll be going to Laxmangarh for the wedding, Balram?"

  "…"

  "Maybe I'll come along," he said. "I really like that place. I want to go up to that fort this time. How long ago was it that we were there, Balram? Six months ago?"

  "Longer than that, sir." I counted the months off on my fingers. "Eight months ago."

  He counted the months too. "Why, you're right."

  I folded the hundred-rupee note and put it in my chest pocket.

  "Thank you for this, sir," I said, and turned the ignition key.

  Early next morning I walked out of Buckingham B onto the main road. Though it was a brand-new building, there was already a leak in the drainage pipe, and a large patch of sewage darkened the earth outside the compound wall; three stray dogs were sleeping on the wet patch. A good way to cool off-summer had started, and even the nights were unpleasant now.

  The three mutts seemed so comfortable. I got down on my haunches and watched them.

  I put my finger on the dark sewage puddle. So cool, so tempting.

  One of the stray dogs woke up; it yawned and showed me all its canines. It sprang to its feet. The other mutts got up too. A growling began, and a scratching of the wet mud, and a showing of teeth-they wanted me off their kingdom.

  I surrendered the sewage to the dogs and headed for the malls. None of them had opened yet. I sat down on the pavement.

  No idea where to go next.

  That's when I saw the small dark marks in the pavement.

  Paw prints.

  An animal had walked on the concrete before it had set.

  I got up and walked after the animal. The space between the prints grew wider-the animal had begun to sprint.

  I walked faster.

  The paw prints of the accelerating animal went all the way around the malls, and then behind the malls, and at last, where the pavement ended and raw earth began, they vanished.

  Here I had to stop, because five feet ahead of me a row of men squatted on the ground in a nearly perfect straight line. They were defecating.

  I was at the slum.

  Vitiligo-Lips had told me about this place-all these construction workers who were building the malls and giant apartment buildings lived here. They were from a village in the Darkness; they did not like outsiders coming in, except for those who had business after dark. The men were defecating in the open like a defensive wall in front of the slum: making a line that no respectable human should cross. The wind wafted the stench of fresh shit toward me.

  I found a gap in the line of the defecators. They squatted there like stone statues.

  These people were building homes for the rich, but they lived in tents covered with blue tarpaulin sheets, and partitioned into lanes by lines of sewage. It was even worse than Laxmangarh. I picked my way around the broken glass, wire, and shattered tube lights. The stench of feces was replaced by the stronger stench of industrial sewage. The slum ended in an open sewer-a small river of black water went sluggishly past me, bubbles sparkling in it and little circles spreading on its surface. Two children were splashing about in the black water.

  A hundred-rupee note came flying down into the river. The children watched with open mouths, and then ran to catch the note before it floated away. One child caught it, and then the other began hitting him, and they began to tumble about in the black water as they fought.

  I went back to the line of crappers. One of them had finished up and left, but his position had been filled.

  I squatted down with them and grinned.

  A few immediately turned their eyes away: they were still human beings. Some stared at me blankly as if shame no longer mattered to them. And then I saw one fellow, a thin black fellow, was grinning back at me, as if he were proud of what he was doing.

  Still crouching, I moved myself over to where he was squatting and faced him. I smiled as wide as I could. So did he.

  He began to laugh-and I began to laugh-and then all the crappers laughed together.

  "We'll take care of your wedding expenses," I shouted.

  "We'll take care of your wedding expenses!" he shouted back.

  "We'll even fuck your wife for you, Balram!"

  "We'll even fuck your wife for you, Balram!"

  He began laughing-laughing so violently that he fell down face-first into the ground, still laughing, exposing his stained arse to the stained sky of Delhi.

  As I walked back, the malls had begun to open. I washed my face in the common toilet and wiped my hands clean of the slum. I walked into the parking lot, found an iron wrench, aimed a couple of practice blows, and then took it to my room.

  A boy was waiting for me near my bed, holding a letter between his teeth as he adjusted the buttons on his pants. He turned around when he heard me; the letter flew out of his mouth and to the ground. The wrench fell out of my hand at the same time.

  "They sent me here. I took the bus and train and asked people and came here." He blinked. "They said you have to take care of me and make me a driver too."

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "Dharam," he said. "I'm Luttu Auntie's fourth son. You saw me when you came to Laxmangarh last time. I was wearing a red shirt. You kissed me here." He pointed to the top of his head.

  Picking up the letter, he held it out to me.

  Dear grandson,

  It has been a long time since you came to visit us-and an even longer time, a total of eleven months and two days, since you last sent us any money. The city has corrupted your soul and made you selfish, vainglorious, and evil. I knew from the start that this would happen, because you were a spiteful, insolent boy. Every chance you got you just stared at yourself in a mirror with open lips, and I had to wring your ears to make you do any work. You are just like your mother. It is her nature and not your father's sweet nature that you have. So far we have borne our sufferings patiently, but we will not do so. You must send us money again. If you don't, we'll tell your master. Also we have decided to arrange for your wedding on our own, and if you do not come here, we will send the girl to you by bus. I say these things not to threaten you but out of love. After all, am I not your own grandmother? And how I
used to stuff your mouth with sweets! Also, it is your duty to look after Dharam, and take care of him as if he were your own son. Now take care of your health, and remember that I am preparing lovely chicken dishes for you, which I will send to you by mail-along with the letter that I will write to your master.

  Your loving Granny,

  Kusum

  I folded the letter, put it in my pocket, and then slapped the boy so hard that he staggered back, hit the side of the bed, and fell into it, pulling down the mosquito net as he fell.

  "Get up," I said. "I'm going to hit you again."

  I picked up the wrench and held it over him-then threw it to the floor.

  The boy's face had turned blue, and his lip was split and bleeding, and he still hadn't said a word.

  I sat in the mosquito net, sipping from a half bottle of whiskey. I watched the boy.

  I had come to the edge of the precipice. I had been ready to slay my master-this boy's arrival had saved me from murder (and a lifetime in prison).

  That evening, I told Mr. Ashok that my family had sent me a helper, someone to keep the car tidy, and instead of getting angry that he would now have to feed another mouth-which is what most of the masters would have done-he said, "He's a cute boy. He looks like you. What happened to his face?"

  I turned to Dharam. "Tell him."

  He blinked a couple of times. He was thinking it over.

  "I fell off the bus."

  Smart boy.

  "Take care in the future," Mr. Ashok said. "This is great, Balram-you'll have company from now on."

  Dharam was a quiet little fellow. He didn't ask for anything from me, he slept on the floor where I told him to, he minded his own business. Feeling guilty for what I'd done, I took him to the tea shop.

  "Who teaches at the school these days, Dharam? Is it still Mr. Krishna?"

  "Yes, Uncle."

  "Is he still stealing the money for the uniforms and the food?"

  "Yes, Uncle."

  "Good man."

  "I went for five years and then Kusum Granny said that was enough."

  "Let's see what you learned in five years. Do you know the eight-times table?"