Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram

"Where to?" I asked Johnny.

"World Trade Centre," he told the driver, smiling at me but clearly concerned about something.

"What's up?"

"There is a problem at the zhopadpatti," he answered me.

"Okay," I said, knowing that he wouldn't say anything else about the problem until he thought the moment was right. "How's the baby?"

"Fine, very fine," he laughed. "He has such a strong grab on my fingers. He will be big and strong-bigger than his father, sure.

And Prabaker's baby, from the sister of my Sita, Parvati, that baby is also very beautiful. He is very much like Prabaker... in his face and his smiling."

I didn't want to think about my dead, beloved friend.

"And how's Sita? And the girls?" I asked.

"They are fine, Lin, all fine."

"You'll have to watch out, Johnny," I warned him. "Three kids in less than three years-before you know it, you'll be a fat, old guy with nine kids climbing all around you."

"It is a fine dream," he sighed happily.

"How's work? How are you... how you doing for money?"

"Also fine, very fine, Lin. Everybody pays taxes, and nobody likes it. My business is good. Sita and me, we decided to buy the house next to ours, and make a bigger house for the family."

"That's fantastic! I can't wait to see it."

There was a little silence and then Johnny turned to me with an expression of worry, almost of torment.

"Lin, that time when you asked me to work for you, to work with you, and I refused-"

"It's okay, Johnny."

"No, it is not okay. I want to tell you, I should have said yes, and I should have worked beside you." "Are you in trouble?" I asked, not understanding him. "Is business not as good as you said it was? Do you need money?"

"No, no, everything is fine with me. But if I was with you that time, watching you, maybe you would not still be working for all these months at the black business, with those goondas."

"No, Johnny."

"I blame myself every day, Lin," he said, his lips pulled wide in an anguished grimace. "I think that you asked me to work with you, to be your friend, because you did need a friend at that time. I was a bad friend, Lin, and I blame myself. Every day I feel bad about it. I am so sorry that I refused you."

I put my hand on his shoulder, but he wouldn't meet my eye.

"Look, Johnny, you've got to understand. What I do, I don't feel good about it, but I don't feel bad about it, either. You do feel bad about it. And I respect that. I admire it. And you're a good friend."

"No," he murmured, his eyes still downcast.

"Yes," I insisted. "I love you, man."

"Lin!" he said, grabbing my arm with sudden, urgent concern.

"Please, please, be careful with these goondas. Please!"

I smiled, trying to put him at ease.

"Man," I protested, "are you ever gonna tell me what this damn trip is about?"

"Bears!" he said.

"Bears?"

"Well, actually, you know, only one bear is our problem. You know Kano? Kano the bear?"

"Sure I know him," I muttered. "Bahinchudh bear-what's happened?

Has he got himself put in jail again?"

"No, no, Lin. He is not in the jail."

"Good. At least he's not a recidivist."

"Actually, you know, he escaped from the jail."

"Shit..."

"And now he is a fugitive bear, with a reward price on his head, or his paws, or any part of him they can catch."

"Kano's on the run?"

"Yes. They even have a wanted poster."

"A what?" "A wanted poster," he explained patiently. "They took a photo of him, that Kano, with his two blue bear-wallahs, when they arrested them again. Now, they are using that photo for the wanted poster."

"Who's _they?"

"The state government, the Maharashtra police, the Border Security Force, and the Wildlife Protection Authority."

"Christ, what did Kano do? Who did he kill?"

"Not killed anyone, Lin. The story, what happened, the Wildlife Authority has a new policy, to stop cruelty to the dancing bears.

They don't know that Kano's bear-wallahs, they love him so much, like a big brother, and he loves them also, and they would never hurt him. But the policy is the policy. So, the Wildlife-wallahs, they captured Kano, and they took him to the animal jail. And he was crying and crying for his blue bear-wallahs. And the bear wallahs, they were outside the animal jail, and they were also crying and crying. And two of those Wildlife-wallahs, two watchmen on duty, they got very upset about all the crying, so they went outside, and they started beating Kano's blue men with lathis. They gave them a solid pasting. And Kano, he saw his two blue men getting that beating, and he just lost his control. He broke down that cage and made an escape. The two bear-wallahs got a big feeling of courage, and they beat up the Wildlife fellows and ran away with Kano. Now they are hiding in our zhopadpatti, in the same hut that you used to have as your house. And we have to try to get them out of the city without getting captured. Our problem is how to get that Kano from the zhopadpatti to Nariman Point. There is a truck waiting there, and the driver has agreed to take Kano away with his bear-wallahs."

"Not easy," I murmured. "And with a goddamn wanted poster for the blue guys and the bear. Jesus!"

"Will you help us, Lin? We feel very sorry for that bear. Love is a special thing in the world. When two men have so much love in their hearts, even so it is for a bear, it must be protected, isn't it?"

"Well..."

"Isn't it?"

"Sure it is," I smiled. "Sure it is. I'll be glad to help, if I can. And you can do me a favour as well."

"Anything."

"Try to get me one of those wanted posters with the picture of the bear and the blue guys. I gotta have one of those posters."

"The poster?"

"Yeah. It's a long story. Don't worry about it. Just, if you see one, grab it for me. Have you got a plan?"

The taxi pulled up outside the slum as the evening, emptied of its sunset and pale enough to unveil the first few stars, drew squealing, playing faronades of children back to their huts, where plumes of smoke from cooking fires fluttered into the cooling air.

"The plan," Johnny announced as we walked quickly through the familiar lanes, nodding and smiling to friends along the way, "is to dress up the bear in a disguise."

"I dunno," I said doubtfully. "He's real tall, as I remember, and kinda big."

"At first, we put a hat and a coat on him, and even an umbrella hanging from his coat, like an office-working fellow."

"How did he look?"

"Not so good," Johnny replied without a trace of irony or sarcasm. "He still looked quite a lot like a bear, but a bear with clothes."

"You don't say."

"Yes. So, now the plan is to get a big Muslim dress, you know the one? From Afghanistan? Covering all the whole body, with only a few holes to see out of it."

"A burkha."

"Exactly. The boys went to Mohammed Ali Road to buy the biggest one they could find. They should be-ah! Look! They are here already, and we can try it, to see how does it look."

We came upon a group of a dozen men and a similar number of women and children gathered near the hut where I'd lived and worked for almost two years. And although I'd left the zhopadpatti, convinced that I could never live there again, it always gave me a thrill of pleasure to see the humble little hut, and stand near it. The few foreigners I'd taken to the slum-and even the Indians, such as Kavita Singh and Vikram, who'd visited me there - had been horrified by the place and aghast to think that I'd chosen to stay there so long. They couldn't understand that every time I entered the slum I felt the urge to let go and surrender to a simpler, poorer life that was yet richer in respect, and love, and a vicinal connectedness to the surrounding sea of human hearts. They couldn't understand what I meant when I talked about the purity of the slum: they'd been there, and seen the wretchedness and filth for themselves. They saw no purity. But they hadn't lived in those miraculous acres, and they hadn't learned that to survive in such a writhe of hope and sorrow the people had to be scrupulously and heartbreakingly honest. That was the source of their purity: above all things, they were true to themselves.