Shantaram: A Novel

by Gregory David Roberts

  The elderly sculptor raised his grizzled brows when we entered his hut, but affected to ignore us and continued with the work of sanding and polishing a newly moulded section of a fibreglass religious frieze almost two metres in length. He worked at a long table made from thick builder’s planks, lashed together and resting on two carpenter’s trestles. Wood and fibreglass shavings covered the table and lay in chips and whorls, along with rinds of papier-måché, at his bare feet. Sections of the sculpted and moulded forms—heads and limbs and bodies with gorgeously rounded bellies—rested on the floor of the hut amid a venerable profusion of plaques, reliefs, statues, and other pieces.

  He took some convincing. The artist was notoriously cantankerous and he assumed, at first, that we were trying to mock the gods, and him, with a prank or a hoax. In the end, three elements persuaded him to help us. First was the bear-handlers’ impassioned appeal to the problem-solving genius of Ganesha, the Lord of Obstacles. The elephant-headed one was, as it turned out, old Rakeshbaba’s personal favourite from the abundant plane of the divine. Second, Johnny’s subtle suggestion that perhaps the task was beyond the creative skill of the old sculptor proved a telling blow. Rakeshbaba shouted that he could disguise the Taj Mahal itself in a Ganesha sculpture, if he so desired, and the camouflage of a bear was a mere trifle to such a gifted artist, as the whole world knew and proclaimed him to be. Third, and perhaps most influential, was Kano himself. Apparently growing impatient in the lane outside, the burly creature forced its way into the hut and then lay down on its back beside Rakeshbaba, with all four paws in the air. The grouchy sculptor was transformed immediately into a giggling, cackling child as he bent to scratch the creature’s belly and play with its gently whirling paws.

  He stood at last to shove all of us but the bear-handlers and the bear from his workshop. The wooden cart was wheeled inside, and the wiry, grey-haired artist drew his reed curtains across the entrance.

  Worried but excited, we waited outside, swapping stories and popping bubbles of news. The slum had survived the last monsoon with little real damage, Siddhartha told me, and no serious outbreaks of illness. Qasim Ali Hussein, celebrating the birth of his fourth grandson, had taken his extended family to his birth village in Karnataka State. He was well, and in good spirits, all of the voices confirmed. Jeetendra seemed to have recovered, inasmuch as such a thing is possible, from the death of his wife in the cholera epidemic. Although he’d vowed never to remarry, he worked and prayed and laughed enough to keep the soul bright within his eyes. His son Satish, who’d been sullen and quarrelsome for a time after his mother’s death, had at last overcome the aloofness of grieving, and was engaged to a girl he’d known since his earliest memory in the slum. The promised pair was still too young to marry, but their betrothal gave them both joy, and was a commitment to the future that gladdened Jeetendra’s heart. And one by one, each in his own way, everyone in the group that night praised Joseph, the redeemed one, the new leader who lowered his gaze shyly and only raised his eyes to share his embarrassed smile with Maria, standing at his side.

  At last, Rakeshbaba pulled aside the reed curtains and beckoned us to enter his workshop. We crowded together and stepped into the golden lamplight. A gasp, some of us breathing in and some puffing out, rustled through our group as we looked at the completed sculpture. Kano was not simply disguised—he was transfigured into the form of the elephant-headed god. A huge head had been fitted over the bear’s head, and rested on a pink, round-bellied body, with arms attached. Swathes of light blue silk surrounded the base of the figure where it rested on the trolley. Garlands of flowers were heaped on the flat table and around the neck of the god, concealing the join for the head.

  ‘Is it really in there, that Kano-bear?’Jeetendra asked.

  At the sound of his voice, the bear turned his head. What we saw was the living god, Ganesha, turn his elephant head to stare at us from his painted eyes. It was the movement of an animal, of course, and utterly unlike a human gesture. The whole group, myself included, flinched in surprise and fright. The children with us squealed, and pushed themselves backwards into the protective vines of adult legs and arms.

  ‘Bhagwaaaaan,’ Jeetendra breathed.

  ‘Wow/Johnny Cigar agreed. ‘What do you think, Lin?’

  ‘I’m … glad I’m not stoned,’ I muttered, staring as the god tilted his head and uttered a low, moaning sound. I forced myself to act. ‘Come on, let’s do it!’

  We rolled out of the slum with a knot of supporters. Once past the World Trade Centre and into the residential boulevard leading to the Back Bay area, we began a tentative chant. Those nearest to the cart put their hands on it and helped to push or pull it along. Those like Johnny and me, on the fringe, clung to the others and added our voices to the chant. As we gathered speed to a fast walk, the chanting grew more vigorous. In a while, many of the helpers seemed to forget that we were bear-smugglers, and hurled their voices into devoutly passionate chants and responses, no less inspired, I was sure, than they’d been a week before on the real pilgrimage.

  As we walked, it occurred to me that the slum had been strangely devoid of pariah dogs. I noticed that there were none visible anywhere on the streets. Remembering how violently the dogs had reacted to Kano’s first visit to the slum, I felt moved to mention it to Johnny.

  ‘Arrey, kutta nahin,’ I said. Gee, there’s no dogs here.

  Johnny, Narayan, Ali, and the few other men who’d heard the comment turned their faces to me quickly and stared, wide-eyed with amazement and worry. Sure enough, seconds later a shrill, whining howl broke out from the footpath to our left. A dog rushed out from its cover and launched itself at us, barking furiously. It was a small, wizened, mangy cur of a thing, not much bigger than a fair-sized Bombay rat, yet the barking was loud enough to pierce the screen of sound in our chanting.

  It took only seconds, of course, for more pariah dogs to join in the howling affray. They came from left and right, single animals and groups of them, yelping and yowling and growling hideously. In an attempt to drown them out, we raised our chants to greater volume, all the while keeping our wary eyes on the snapping jaws of the dogs.

  As we approached the Back Bay area we passed an open maidan, or field, where a party of wedding musicians dressed in bright red-and-yellow uniforms, complete with tall, plumed hats, was rehearsing its songs. Seeing our little procession as an opportunity to practise their music on the march, they swung in behind us and struck up a rousing, if not particularly canorous, version of a popular devotional song. Incited by the spectacle that our smuggling mission had become, happy children and pious adults left the footpaths and streamed toward us, joining in the thunderous chants and swelling our numbers to more than a hundred souls.

  Agitated, no doubt, by the wild throng and frenzied barking, Kano the bear swayed from side to side on the cart, turning his head to follow the peaks of sound. At one point we passed a group of strolling policemen, and I risked a glance to see them standing completely still, their mouths open and their heads turning as one, like a row of mouth-clown dummies at a carnival sideshow, as we passed.

  After too many long minutes of that brawling and roistering, we were near enough to Nariman Point to see the tower of the Oberoi Hotel. Worried that we’d never rid ourselves of the wedding band, I ran back to press a bundle of notes into the hand of their bandmaster, with instructions that he should turn right, away from us, and march along Marine Drive. As we neared the sea, he led his men right when we moved left. Emboldened, perhaps, by their successful tour with our little parade, the musicians launched into a medley of dance hits as they marched away toward the brighter lights of the ocean drive. Most of the crowd jigged and danced away with them. Even the dogs, lured too far beyond their prowling domain, turned away from us and crept back into the mean shadows that had spawned them.

  We pushed the cart further along the sea road toward the deserted spot where the truck was parked. Just then I heard a car horn sounding, close by. My hea
rt sinking at the thought that it was the police, I slowly turned to look. Instead, I saw Abdullah, Salman, Sanjay, and Farid standing beside Salman’s car. They’d stopped in a wide parking bay, surfaced with gravel stones, that was empty but for them.

  ‘Are you all right, Johnny?’ I asked. ‘Can you take it from here?’

  ‘Sure, Lin,’ he replied. ‘The truck is just there, ahead of us, you see? We can do it.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll peel off here, man. Let me know how it all goes. I’ll see you tomorrow. And, hey, see if you can find me one of those wanted posters, brother!’

  ‘No problem,’ he laughed, as I walked away.

  I crossed the road to join Salman, Abdullah, and the others. They’d been eating take-away food bought at one of the Nariman caravans parked near the sea wall. As I greeted them, Farid swept the rubble of containers and paper towels from the roof of the car onto the gravel park space. I felt the wince of guilt that litter-conscious westerners invariably experience, and reminded myself that the mess on the road would be collected by rag-pickers who depended on the litter for their livelihood.

  ‘What the fuck were you doing in that show?’ Sanjay asked me when the greetings were made and received.

  ‘It’s a long story’ I grinned.

  ‘That’s a damn scary Ganpatti you got there,’ he said. ‘I never saw anything like it. It looked so real. It was like it was moving. I got quite a religious feeling. I tell you, man, I’m going to pay a bahinchudh to light some incense when I get home.’

  ‘Come on, Lin,’ Salman prodded. ‘What’s it all about, yaar?’

  ‘Well,’ I groaned, knowing that no explanation would seem sensible. ‘We had to smuggle a bear out of the slum, and get him up to this spot, right here, because the cops had a warrant out on him and wanted to arrest him.’

  ‘Smuggle a what?’ Farid asked politely.

  ‘A bear.’

  ‘What … kind of a bear?’

  ‘A dancing bear, of course,’ I said stiffly.

  ‘You know, Lin,’ Sanjay pronounced, grimacing happily as he picked his teeth clean with a match, ‘you do some very weird shit.’

  ‘Are you talking about my bear?’ Abdullah asked, suddenly interested.

  ‘Yes, fuck you. It’s really all your fault, if you want to go back far enough.’

  ‘Why do you say it was your bear?’ Salman wanted to know.

  ‘Because I arranged that bear,’ Abdullah replied. ‘I sent him to Lin brother, a long time ago.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, it was all about the hugging,’ Abdullah began, laughing.

  ‘Don’t start,’ I said through pressed lips, warning him off the subject with my eyes.

  ‘What is all this with fuckin’ bears?’ Sanjay asked. ‘Are we still talking about bears?’

  ‘Oh, shit!’ Salman cut in, looking over Sanjay’s shoulder. ‘Faisal is in a big hurry. And he’s got Nazeer with him. This looks like trouble.’

  Another Ambassador gravelled to a stop near us. A second car followed, only two seconds behind it. Faisal and Amir leapt from the first car. Nazeer and Andrew rushed forward from the second. I saw that another man got out of Faisal’s car and waited there, watching the approach road. I recognised the fine features of my friend Mahmoud Melbaaf. One more man, a heavy-set gangster named Raj, waited with the boy Tariq in the second car.

  ‘They’re here!’ Faisal announced breathlessly when he joined us. ‘They’re supposed to come tomorrow, I know, but they’re already here. They just joined up with Chuha and his guys.’

  ‘Already? How many?’ Salman asked.

  ‘Just them,’ Faisal replied. ‘If we move now, we get all of them. The rest of the gang is at a wedding in Thana. It’s like a sign from heaven or something. It’s the best chance we’ll ever have. But we’ve got to be damn quick!’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Salman muttered, as if to himself.

  My stomach dropped and then set hard. I knew exactly what they were talking about, and what it meant for us. There’d been reports and rumours for days that Chuha and his gang within the Walidlalla council had made contact with the Sapna survivor and two of his family members, a brother and a brother-in-law. They were planning a strike against our group. The border war for new gang territory had flared, pitting Chuha’s mafia council against ours, and Chuha was hungry.

  The Sapna-Iran connection, all survivors from Abdul Ghani’s treacherous attempted coup, had learned of the hostility between the councils, and had appeared at just the right moment to capitalise on Chuha’s greed and ambition. They’d promised to bring weapons—new guns—and lucrative contacts in the Pakistani heroin trade. They were renegades: the Sapna killers were working without Abdul Ghani, and the Iranians had no official support from the Savak. It was hatred that had brought them together. They wanted revenge for the deaths of their friends, and their hate had combined with Chuha’s to put murder in their minds.

  The situation had been so tense, for so long, that Salman had infiltrated the Chuha gang with his own man, Little Tony, a gangster from Goa who was unknown in Bombay. He’d provided information from the inside. They were his reports that had alerted Salman to the Sapna-Iran connection and the imminent attack. With Faisal’s confirmation of their arrival at Chuha’s house, we all knew there was only one option Salman would consider. Fight. Make war. Put an end to the Sapna killers and the Iranian spies, once and for all. Finish Chuha. Absorb his territory. Seize his operations.

  ‘Fuck, man! How lucky can we get?’ Sanjay whooped, his eyes glittering in the grey-white streetlight.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Salman asked, fixing his friend Amir, an older man, with his sternest frown.

  ‘I’m sure, Salman,’ Amir drawled, running his hand over the short, grey hair on his blunt head. He twirled the ends of his thick moustache with the same hand as he spoke. ‘I saw them myself. Abdullah’s guys, from Iran, they came half an hour ago. The Sapna fucks, you know, they’ve been there all day. They came in the morning. Little Tony, he told us as soon as he could. We’ve been watching them for two hours at Chuha’s place. The last time he talked to me, Little Tony said they were all getting together—Chuha and his closest guys, the Sapnas, and the guys from Iran. They were waiting for the Iran guys to get here and then they want to hit us. Soon. Maybe tomorrow night. The day after tomorrow, at the latest. Chuha sent word for a lot more guys. They’re coming from Delhi and Calcutta. They’re working out some kind of a plan where they hit us at about ten places at once, like, to stop us from coming back at them. I told Tony to go back and to let us know when the Iran guys got there. We were watching the place, like usual. Then we saw them walk in, a day early like, but we were pretty sure. Not long after, Little Tony came out and lit a cigarette. That was the signal. They’re the ones—the ones who are after Abdullah. Now they’re all in there together, and we’re only two minutes away. I know it’s early, but we have to go. We have to do it now, Salman, in the next five minutes.’

  ‘How many, all together?’ Salman demanded.

  ‘Chuha and his buddies,’ Amir answered in his lazy drawl. I think the slow, softly slurring style of the man gave everyone there new heart: he wasn’t, or didn’t seem to be, anywhere near as nervous as the rest of us. ‘That makes six. One of them, Manu, is a good man. You know him. He put the Harshan brothers down, all three of them, on his own. His cousin Bichchu is also a good fighter—they don’t call him the Scorpion for nothing. The rest of them, including Chuha, that madachudh, are not much. Then there’s the Sapnas. That makes three more. And from Iran, two more. That’s eleven. Maybe one or two more, at the most. Hussein is watching the place. He’ll tell us if any more arrived.’

  ‘Eleven,’ Salman murmured, avoiding the eyes of the men while he considered the situation. ‘And we are … eleven—twelve, counting Little Tony. But we have to lose two, on the street outside Chuha’s house—one on each side, to slow up the cops if they come screaming on us while we’re inside. I’ll make a call before we go
in, to keep the cops away, but we need to be sure. Chuha might have more guys coming, as well, so we need at least two on the outside. I don’t mind fighting my way in there, but I don’t want to fight my way out again if I don’t have to. Hussein is already there. Faisal, you’re the number two on the street outside, okay? Nobody goes in, or out, but us.’

  ‘No problem,’ the young fighter agreed.

  ‘Check the guns, now, with Raj. Get them ready.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ he said, collecting guns from a few of the men and then jogging over to the cars, where Raj and Mahmoud waited.

  ‘And two will have to go back to Khader’s house with Tariq,’ Salman continued.

  ‘It was Nazeer’s idea to bring him with us,’ Andrew put in. ‘He didn’t want to leave him behind there when Faisal and Amir came to give us the news. I told him not to bring the kid, but you know how Nazeer is when he gets an idea in his head.’

  ‘Nazeer can take the boy to Sobhan Mahmoud’s house in Versova, and watch over him,’ Salman declared. ‘And you’ll go with him.’

  ‘Oh, come on, man!’ Andrew complained. ‘Why do I have to do that? Why do I have to miss all the action?’

  ‘I need two men to watch over old Sobhan and the boy. Especially the boy—Nazeer was right not to leave him. Tariq is a target. As long as he’s alive, the council is still Khader’s council. If they kill him, Chuha will take a lot of power from it. The same goes for old Sobhan. Take the boy out of the city, and keep him and Sobhan Mahmoud safe.’

  ‘But why do I have to miss the action, man? Why does it have to be me? Send someone else, Salman. Let me go with you to Chuha’s.’

  ‘Are you going to argue with me?’ Salman said, his lip curling with anger.