Shantaram: A Novel

by Gregory David Roberts

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I answered, shocked that I’d inadvertently used the word sir. I loathed the word. In the punishment unit we were beaten whenever we failed to address the guards as sir. ‘I know your name, of course. The people call you Khaderbhai.’

  The word bhai, at the end of his name, meant elder brother. It was a term of respectful endearment. He smiled and nodded his head slowly when I said it: Khaderbhai.

  The driver adjusted his mirror and fixed me in it, staring expression-lessly. There were fresh jasmine flowers hanging in garlands from the mirror, and the perfume was intoxicating, almost dizzying after the fresh wind from the sea. As I leaned into the doorway of the car, I became acutely conscious of myself and my situation: my stooping posture; the wrinkles in my frown as I lifted my face to see his eyes; the rim of guttering at the edge of the car’s roof under my fingertips; and a sticker, pasted to the dashboard, that read GOD BLESS I AM DRIVING THIS CAR. There was no-one else on the street. No cars passed. It was silent, but for the idling engine of the car and the muffled churning of the shuffling waves.

  ‘You are the doctor in the Colaba hutments, Mr. Lin. I heard of it at once, when you went to live there. It is unusual, a foreigner, living in the hutments. This belongs to me, you understand. The land where those huts stand—it belongs to me. You have pleased me by working there.’

  I was stunned into silence. The slum where I lived, known as the zhopadpatti, or the hutments, half a square kilometre, with twenty-five thousand men, women, and children, belonged to him? I’d lived there for months, and I’d heard Khaderbhai’s name mentioned many times, but no-one had ever said that he owned the place. It can’t be, I heard myself thinking. How can any one man own such a place, and all its lives?’

  ‘I, er, I’m not a doctor, Khaderbhai,’ I managed to tell him.

  ‘Perhaps that is why you are having such success in treating the sick, Mr. Lin. Doctors will not go into the hutments willingly. We can compel men not to be bad, but we cannot compel them to be good, don’t you find? My young friend, Abdullah, recognised you just now, as we passed you, sitting on the wall. I turned the car to come back here for you. Come—sit inside the car with me. I will take you somewhere.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Please, don’t trouble yourself. I …’

  ‘No trouble, Mr. Lin. Come and sit. Our driver is my very good friend, Nazeer.’

  I stepped into the car. Abdullah closed the door behind me, and then sat in the front next to the driver, who adjusted the mirror to find and fix me in it again. The car didn’t move off.

  ‘Chillum bono,’ Khaderbhai said to Abdullah. Make a chillum.

  Abdullah produced one of the funnel-shaped pipes from his jacket pocket, placed it on the seat beside him, and set about mulling together a mix of hashish and tobacco. He pressed a ball, known as a goli, of hashish onto the end of a matchstick, and burned it with another match. The smell of the charras coiled into the perfume of the jasmine flowers. The engine of the car was still idling slowly and quietly. No-one spoke.

  In three minutes the chillum was prepared, and offered to Khaderbhai for the first dumm, or puff. He smoked, and passed the pipe to me. Abdullah and the driver smoked then, passing the chillum for one more round. Abdullah cleaned the pipe quickly and efficiently, and returned it to his pocket.

  ‘Challo,’ Khader said. Let’s go.

  The car moved away from the kerb slowly. Streetlights began to stream into the sloping windshield. The driver snapped a cassette into the dashboard player. The soul-wrenching strains of a romantic gazal slammed out at maximum volume from speakers behind our heads. I was so stoned that I could feel my brain trembling within my skull, but when I looked at the other three men they appeared to be perfectly controlled and composed.

  The ride was eerily similar to a hundred stoned drives with friends in Australia and New Zealand when we’d smoked hash or grass, put loud music on the dashboard player, and cruised together in a car. Within my own culture, however, it was mainly the young who smoked and cruised with the music on max. There, I was in the company of a very powerful and influential senior man who was much older than Abdullah, the driver, and me. And while the songs followed regular rhythms, they were in a language that I couldn’t understand. The experience was familiar and disturbing at the same time—something like returning, as an adult, to the schoolyard of childhood—and despite the soporific slump of the drug, I couldn’t entirely relax.

  I had no idea where we were going. I had no idea how or when we would return. We were travelling toward Tardeo, which was the opposite direction to my home in the Colaba slum. As the minutes passed, I reflected on that particularly Indian custom of amiable abduction. For months, in the slum, I’d succumbed to the vague and mysterious invitations of friends to accompany them to unspecified places, for unknown purposes. You come, people said with smiling urgency, never feeling the need to tell me where we were going, or why. You come now! I’d resisted it a few times, at first, but I soon learned that those obscure, unplanned journeys were invariably worthwhile, frequently interesting and enjoyable, and quite often important. Little by little, I learned to relax, and submit, and trust my instincts, just as I was doing with Khaderbhai. I never regretted it, and I was never once hurt or disappointed by the friends who abducted me.

  As the car crested the long, slow hill, leading down to the Haji Ali Mosque, Abdullah turned off the cassette and asked Khaderbhai if he wanted to make his regular stop at the restaurant there. Khader stared at me reflectively for a moment, and then smiled and nodded to the driver. He tapped me on the hand twice with the knuckles of his left hand, and touched his thumb to his lips. Be silent now, the gesture said. Look, but don’t speak.

  We pulled into a parking bay, beside and a little apart from a row of twenty other cars outside the Haji Ali Restaurant. Although most of Bombay slept after midnight, or at least pretended to sleep, there were centres of sound and colour and activity in the city. The trick lay in knowing where to find them. The restaurant near the Haji Ali shrine was one of those places. Hundreds of people gathered there every night to eat, and meet, and buy drinks or cigarettes or sweets. They came in taxis and private cars and on motorcycles, hour after hour, until dawn. The restaurant itself was small and always full. Most of the patrons preferred to stand on the footpath, and sit in or on their cars, to eat. Music blasted from many of the cars. People shouted in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi, and English. Waiters scurried from the counter to the cars and back, carrying drinks, parcels, and trays with stylish skill.

  The restaurant broke the business curfew, and should’ve been closed down by the officers of the Haji Ali police post, which was only twenty metres away. But Indian pragmatism recognised that civilised people in large, modern cities needed places to gather and hunt. The owners of certain oases of noise and fun were permitted to bribe various officials and cops in order to stay open, virtually all night. That wasn’t, however, the same thing as having a licence. Such restaurants and bars were operating illegally, and sometimes the appearance of compliance had to be displayed. Regular phone calls alerted the police post at Haji Ali when a commissioner or a minister or some other VIP intended to drive past. With a co-operative bustle, the lights were turned out, the cars dispersed, and the restaurant was forced to a temporary close. Far from discouraging people, that small inconvenience added a touch of glamour and adventure to the commonplace act of buying snacks. Everyone knew that the restaurant at Haji Ali, like every other illegal nightspot in town that faked a close, would reopen in less than half an hour. Everyone knew about the bribes that were paid and taken. Everyone knew about the warning phone calls. Everyone profited, and everyone was well pleased. The worst thing about corruption as a system of governance, Didier once said, is that it works so well.

  The headwaiter, a young Maharashtrian, hurried up to the car and nodded energetically as our driver ordered for us. Abdullah got out of the car, and walked to the long, crowded take-away counter. I watched him. He walked with an at
hlete’s touchy grace. He was taller than most of the other young men around him, and there was a striking, heads-up confidence in his bearing. His black hair was long at the back, reaching almost to his shoulders. He wore simple, inexpensive clothes—soft black shoes, black trousers, and a white silk shirt—but they suited him well, and he carried them with a certain martial elegance. His body was well muscled, and he looked to be about twenty-eight years old. He turned toward the car, and I caught sight of his face. It was a handsome face, calm and composed. I knew the source of that composure. I’d seen the swift and lethal way he’d moved to disarm the swordsman at the den of the Standing Babas.

  A few customers and all of the counter staff recognised Abdullah, and talked, smiled, or joked as he ordered cigarettes and paan. Their gestures were exaggerated. Their laughter was louder than it had been moments before. They crowded against one another, and reached out to touch him often. It seemed that they were almost desperate to be liked by him, even just to be noticed by him. But there was hesitancy as well—a kind of reluctance—as if, despite everything in their talk and smiles, they didn’t really like or trust him. It was also very clear that they were afraid of him.

  The waiter returned, and passed our food and drinks to the driver. He lingered at the open window beside Khaderbhai, his eyes pleading to speak.

  ‘Your father, Ramesh, he is well?’ Khader asked him.

  ‘Yes, bhai, he is well. But … but … I have a problem,’ the young waiter answered, in Hindi. He tugged nervously at the edge of his moustache.

  Khaderbhai frowned, and stared hard into the worried face.

  ‘What kind of problem are you having, Ramesh?’

  ‘It’s … it’s my landlord, bhai. There is … there will be an eviction. I, we, my family, we are paying double rent already. But the landlord … the landlord is greedy, and he wants to evict us.’

  Khader nodded thoughtfully. Drawing encouragement from his silence, Ramesh plunged on in rapid Hindi.

  ‘It’s not just my family, bhai. All the families in the building are to be evicted. We have tried everything, made very good offers, but the landlord will not listen to us. He has goondas, and those gangsters have made threats, and even done some beatings. My own father was beaten. I am ashamed that I have not killed that landlord, bhai, but I know that this would only bring more trouble on my family and the other families in the building. I told my very honoured father that we should tell you, and that you would protect us. But my father is too proud. You know him. And he loves you, bhai. He will not disturb your peace to ask for help. He will be very angry if he knows that I spoke of our trouble in this way. But when I saw you tonight, my lord Khaderbhai, I thought that … that the Bhagwan had brought you here to me. I … I am very sorry to disturb you He fell silent, swallowing hard. His fingers were white in their grip on his metal tray.

  ‘We will see what can be done about your problems, Ramu,’ Khaderbhai said slowly. The affectionate diminutive of the name Ramesh, Ramu, provoked a wide, child’s smile on the young face. ‘You will come and see me tomorrow, at two o’clock sharp. We will talk further. We will help you, Inshallah. Oh, and Ramu—there will be no need to speak to your father about this, until the problem, Inshallah, has been solved.’

  Ramesh looked as though he wanted to seize Khader’s hand and kiss it, but he simply bowed and backed away, muttering his thanks. Abdullah and the driver had ordered plates of fruit salad and coconut yoghurt, and they ate with noisy appreciation when the four of us were alone. Khaderbhai and I had ordered only mango-flavoured lassi. As we sipped the iced drinks, another visitor came to the window of the car. It was the chief officer of the Haji Ali police post.

  ‘A great honour to see you again, Khaderji,’ he said, his face writhing into a grimace that was either a reaction to stomach cramp, or an oily smile. He spoke Hindi with the strong accent of some dialect, and I found it difficult to understand. He asked after Khaderbhai’s family, and then made some reference to business interests.

  Abdullah put his empty plate down on the front seat, and drew a packet, wrapped in newspapers, from under the seat. He passed it across to Khader, who opened a corner of the packet to reveal a thick bundle of hundred-rupee notes, and then passed it casually through the window to the cop. It was done so openly, and even ostentatiously, that I felt sure it was important to Khader that everyone within a hundred metres would see the bribe made and taken.

  The cop scrunched the parcel into the front of his shirt, and leaned aside to spit twice noisily, for luck. He came close to the window once more, and began to speak in a quick, urgent murmur. I caught the words body and bargain, and something about the Thief Bazaar, but I couldn’t make sense of it. Khader silenced him with a raised hand. Abdullah looked from Khader to me, and then broke into a boyish grin.

  ‘Come with me, Mr. Lin,’ he said quietly. ‘We will see the mosque, isn’t it?’

  As we got out of the car I heard the cop say loudly, The gora speaks Hindi? Bhagwan save us from foreigners!

  We walked to a deserted spot on the sea wall. The mosque, at Haji Ali, was built upon a small, flat island that was connected to the mainland by a stone path, three hundred and thirty-three steps long. From dawn to dusk, the tide permitting, that broad pathway was thronged with pilgrims and tourists. At high tide, the path was completely submerged, and deep waters isolated the island. Seen from the retaining wall on the road beside the sea, the mosque at night seemed like a great moored ship. Brass lanterns, throwing green and yellow light, swung from brackets on the marble walls. In the moonlight, the teardrop arches and rounded contours glowed white and became the sails of that mystic ship, and the minarets were so many towering spars.

  On that night, the swollen, flattened, yellow moon—known in the slum as a grieving moon—hovered hypnotic-full, above the mosque. There was a breeze from the sea, but the air was warm and humid. Swarms of bats flying overhead, along the lines of electrical wires, thousands of them, were like musical notes on a strip of sheet music. A very small girl, awake past her bedtime and still selling ribbons of jasmine flowers, came up to us and gave Abdullah a garland. He reached into his pocket to give her some money, but she refused, laughing, and walked away singing the chorus of a song from a popular Hindi movie.

  ‘There is no act of faith more beautiful than the generosity of the very poor,’ Abdullah said, in his quiet tone. I had the impression that he never raised his voice above that softness.

  ‘You speak English very well,’ I commented, genuinely impressed by the sophisticated thought and the way he’d expressed it.

  ‘No, I don’t speak well. I knew a woman, and she taught me those words,’ he replied. I waited for more, and he hesitated, looking out over the sea, but when he spoke again it was to change the subject. ‘Tell me, Mr. Lin, that time at the den of the Standing Babas, when that man was coming for you with a sword—what would you have done if I was not there?’

  ‘I would’ve fought him.’

  ‘I think …’ He turned to stare into my eyes, and I felt my scalp tightening with an unaccountable dread. ‘I think you would have died. You would have been murdered, and you would now be dead.’

  ‘No. He had a sword, but he was old, and he was crazy. I would’ve beaten him.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, not smiling. ‘Yes, I think you are right—you would have beaten him. But the others, the girl and your Indian friend, one of them would have been hurt, or even killed, if you had survived. When the sword came down, if it did not strike you, it would have hit one of them, I think it is so. One of you would have died. You or your friends—one of you would be dead.’

  It was my turn to be silent. The sense of dread I’d felt a moment before was suddenly a full-blown alarm. My heart was thumping a loudness of blood. He was talking about having saved my life, and yet I sensed a threat in his words. I didn’t like it. Anger began to rise in me. I tensed, ready to fight him, and stared hard into his eyes.

  He smiled, and put a hand on my shoulder, j
ust as he’d done less than an hour before at another sea wall, on Marine Drive. As quickly as the tingling, intuitive sense of alarm arose, it also passed; as powerful as it had been, it was suppressed and gone. It was months before I thought of it again.

  I turned to see the cop saluting and moving away from Khader’s car.

  ‘Khaderbhai was very conspicuous about giving that cop a bribe.’

  Abdullah laughed, and I remembered the first time I’d heard him laugh out loud, in the den of the Standing Babas. It was a good laugh, guileless and completely unselfconscious, and I suddenly liked him because of it.

  ‘We have a saying in Persian—Sometimes the lion must roar, just to remind the horse of his fear. This policeman has been making problems here at Haji Ali. The people do not respect him. For that, he is unhappy. His unhappiness is causing him to make problems. The more problems he makes, the less respect he gets from the people. Now they see such big baksheesh, more than a policeman like him is getting, and they will respect him a little. They will be impressed that the great Khaderbhai pays him so well. With this little respect, he will make less problems for all of us. But still, the message is very clear. He is a horse, but Khader is a lion. And the lion, it has roared.’

  ‘Are you Khaderbhai’s bodyguard?’