Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram

"Hey, Lin! How you doin', man? Fuck this fuckin' rain, yaar."

We shook hands, and I ordered him a cane juice. He tipped his flat, black Flamenco hat onto his back, where it hung from a cord at his throat. His black shirt featured white embroidered figures down the button-strip at the front. The white figures were waving lassoes over their heads. His belt was made from American silver dollar coins linked one to the other and fastened with a domed concho as a belt buckle. The black flamenco pants were embroidered with fine white scrolls down the outside of the leg, and ended in a line of three small silver buttons. His Cuban heeled boots had crossover loops of leather that fastened with buckles at the outside.

"Not really riding weather, na?" "Oh, shit!" he spat. "You heard about Lettie and the horse?

Jesus, man! That was fuckin' weeks ago, yaar. I haven't seen you in too fuckin' long."

"How's it going with Lettie?"

"Not great." He sighed as he said it, yet his smile was happy.

"But I think she's coming around, yaar. She's a very special kind of chick. She needs to get all the hating done, like, before she can kind of cruise into the loving part. But I'll get her, even if the whole world says I'm crazy."

"I don't think you're crazy to go after her."

"You don't?"

"No. She's a lovely girl. She's a great girl. You're a nice guy.

And you're more alike than people think. You both have a sense of humour, and you love to laugh. She can't stand hypocrites, and neither can you. And you're interested in life, I think, in pretty much the same way. I think you're a good couple, or at least you will be. And I think you'll get her in the end, Vikram.

I've seen the way she looks at you, even when she's putting shit on you. She likes you so much that she has to put you down. It's her way. Just stick with it, and you'll win her in the end."

"Lin... listen, man. That's it! Fuck it! I _like you. I mean, that's a fuckin' cool rave, yaar. I'm going to be your friend from now on. I'm your fuckin' blood brother, man. If you need anything, you call on me. Is it a deal?"

"Sure," I smiled. "It's a deal."

He fell silent, staring out at the rain. His curly black hair had grown to his collar, at the back, and was trimmed at the front and sides. His moustache was fastidiously snipped and trimmed to little more than the thickness that a felt-tipped pen might've made. In profile, his face was imposing: the long forehead ended in a hawk-like nose and descended past a firm, solemn mouth to a prominent, confident jaw. When he turned to face me it was his eyes that dominated, however, and his eyes were young, curious, and shimmering with good humour.

"You know, Lin, I really love her," he said softly. He let his eyes drift downward to the pavement and then he looked up again quickly. "I really love that English chick."

"You know, Vikram, I really love it," I said, mimicking his tone of voice and the earnest expression on his face. "I really love that cowboy shirt."

"What, _this old thing?" he cried, laughing with me. "Fuck, man, you can have it!"

He jumped off the stool and began to unbutton his shirt. "No! No! I was only joking!"

"What's that? You mean you don't like my shirt?"

"I didn't say that."

"So, what's wrong with my fuckin' shirt?"

"There's nothing wrong with your fuckin' shirt. I just don't want it."

"Too late, man!" he bellowed, pulling his shirt from his back and throwing it at me. "Too fuckin' late!"

He wore a black singlet under the shirt, and the black hat was still hanging at his back. The cane juice crusher had a portable hi-fi at his stall. A new song from a hit Hindi movie started up.

"Hey, I love this song, yaar!" Vikram cried out. "Turn it up, baba! _Arre, full _karo!"

The juice-wallah obligingly turned the volume up to the maximum, and Vikram began to dance and sing along with the words. Showing surprisingly elegant and graceful skill, he swung out from under the crowded awning and danced in the lightly falling rain. Within one minute of his twirling, swaying dance he'd lured other young men from the footpath, and there were six, seven, and then eight dancers laughing in the rain while the rest of us clapped, whooped, and hollered.

Turning his steps toward me once more, Vikram reached out to grasp my wrist with both of his hands, and then began to drag me into the dance. I protested and tried to fight him off, but many hands from the street assisted him, and I was pushed into the group of dancers. I surrendered to India, as I did every day, then, and as I still do, every day of my life, no matter where I am in the world. I danced, following Vikram's steps, and the street cheered us on.

The song finished after some minutes, and we turned to see Lettie standing under the awning and watching us with open amusement.

Vikram ran to greet her, and I joined them, shaking off the rain.

"Don't tell me! I don't wanna know!" she said, smiling but silencing Vikram with the raised palm of her hand. "Whatever you do, in the privacy of your own rain shower, is your own business.

Hello, Lin. How are you, darlin'?"

"Fine, Lettie. Wet enough for you?"

"Your rain dance seems to be working a treat. Karla was supposed to join me and Vikram, right about now. We're going to the jazz concert at Mahim. But she's flooded in, at the Taj. She just called me, to let me know. The whole Gateway's flooded. Limousines and taxis are floatin' about like paper boats, and the guests can't get out.

They're stranded at the hotel, and our Karla's stranded there, and all."

Glancing around quickly, I saw that Prabaker's cousin Shantu was still sitting in his taxi, parked with several others outside the restaurants where I'd seen him earlier. I checked my watch. It was three-thirty. I knew that the local fishermen would all be back on shore with their catches. I turned to Vikram and Lettie once more.

"Sorry, guys, gotta go!" I pushed the shirt back into Vikram's hands. "Thanks for the shirt, man. I'll grab it next time. Keep it for me!"

I jumped into Shantu's taxi, twirling the meter to the on position through the passenger window. Lettie and Vikram waved as we sped past them. I explained my plan to Shantu on the way to the kholi settlement, adjacent to our slum. His dark, lined face creased in a weathered smile and he shook his head in wonder, but he pushed the battered taxi a little faster through the short ride on the rain-drenched road.

At the fishermen's settlement, I enlisted the support of Vinod, who was a patient at my clinic and one of Prabaker's close friends. He selected one of his shorter punts, and we lifted the light, flat boat onto the roof of the taxi and sped back to the Taj Hotel area, near the Radio Club Hotel.

Shantu worked in his taxi sixteen hours a day for six days every week. He was determined that his son and two daughters would know lives that were better than his own. He saved money for their education and for the substantial dowries he would be required to provide if the girls were to marry well. He was permanently exhausted, and beset by all the torments, terrible and trivial, that poverty endures. Vinod supported his parents, his wife, and five children from the fish that he hauled from the sea with his thin, strong arms. On his own initiative, he'd formed a co operative with twenty other poor fishermen. That pooling of resources had provided a measure of security, but his income seldom stretched to luxuries such as new sandals, or school books, or a third meal in any one day. Still, when they knew what I wanted to do, and why, neither Vinod nor Shantu would accept any money from me. I struggled to give it to them, even trying to force the money down the fronts of their shirts, but they refused to allow it. They were poor, tired, worried men, but they were Indian, and any Indian man will tell you that although love might not have been invented in India, it was certainly perfected there. We put the long, flat punt down in the shallow water of the flooded road near the Radio Club, close to Anand's India Guest House. Shantu gave me the oilskin cape he used to keep himself dry with whenever the taxi broke down, and the weathered black chauffeur's cap that was his good-luck charm. He waved us off as Vinod and I struck out for the Taj Mahal Hotel. We poled our way along the road that was usually busy with taxis, trucks, motorcycles, and private cars. The water grew deeper with every stroke of the poles until, at Best Street corner, where the Taj Mahal Hotel complex began, it was already waist deep.