Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram

So, with my dishonest heart thrilling at the nearness of my once and favourite home, I joined the group and then gasped as a huge, shrouded figure emerged from beside the hut and stood among us.

"Holy shit!" I said, gawking at the towering, immense form. The blue-grey burkha covered the standing bear from its head to the ground. I found myself wondering at the size of the woman that garment had been intended to cover, because the standing bear was a full head taller than the tallest man in our group. "Holy shit!"

As we watched, the shapeless form took a few lumbering steps, knocking over a stool and water pot as it swayed and lurched forward.

"Maybe," Jeetendra suggested helpfully, "she is a very tall, fat ... clumsy kind of a woman."

The bear suddenly stooped and then fell forward onto its four paws. We followed it with our eyes. The blue-grey, burkha-clad figure trundled forward, all the while emitting a low, grumbling moan.

"Maybe," Jeetendra amended, "she is a small, fat... growling woman."

"A growling woman?" Johnny Cigar protested. "What the hell is a growling woman?"

"I don't know," Jeetendra whined. "I am only trying to be helping."

"You're going to help this bear all the way back to jail," I muttered, "if you let it go out of here like that."

"We could try the hat and coat again," Joseph offered. "Maybe a bigger hat... and... and a more fashionable coat."

"I don't think fashion's your problem," I sighed. "From what Johnny tells me, you have to get Kano from here to Nariman Point without the cops spotting you, is that right?"

"Yes, Linbaba," Joseph answered. In the absence of Qasim Ali Hussein, who was enjoying a six-month holiday in his home village with most of his family, Joseph was the head man of the slum. The man who'd been beaten and disciplined by his neighbours for the brutal, drunken attack on his wife had become a leader. In the years since that day of the beat- ing, Joseph had given up drinking, regained his wife's love, and earned the respect of his neighbours. He'd joined every important council or committee, and worked harder than any other in the group. Such was the extent of his reform and his sober dedication to the well-being of his family and his community that, when Qasim Ali nominated Joseph as his temporary replacement, no other name was tendered for consideration. "There is a truck parked near to the Nariman Point. The driver says that he will take the Kano and carry him out of the municipality, out of the state, also. He will put him and the bear-wallahs back in their native place, back in U.P., all the way back to Gorakhpur side, near to the Nepal. But that truck driver, he is afraid to come near this place to collect the Kano. He wants that we take that bear to _him only. But how to do it, Linbaba? How to get such a big bears to that place? Sure thing a police patrol will see Kano and make an arrest of him. And they will be arresting us, also, for the help of escaping bears. And then? What then? How to do it, Linbaba? That is the problem. That is why we were thinking about the disguises."

"Kano-walleh kahan hey?" I asked. Where are Kano's handlers?

"Here, baba!" Jeetendra replied, pushing the two bear-handlers forward.

They'd washed themselves clean of the brilliant blue dye that usually covered their bodies, and they'd stripped away all of their silver ornaments. Their long dreadlocks and decorated plaits were concealed beneath turbans, and they wore plain white shirts and trousers. Unadorned and decolourised, the blue men seemed spiritless, and much smaller and slighter than the fantastic beings I'd first encountered in the slum.

"Tell me, will Kano sit on a platform?"

"Yes, baba!" they said with pride.

"For how long will he sit still?"

"For an hour, if we are with him, near him, talking to him. Maybe more than one hour, baba-unless he needs to make a wee. And if so, he is always telling first."

"Okay. Will he sit on a small, moving platform-one on wheels-if we push it?" I asked them.

There was some discussion while I tried to explain what kind of platform or table I had in mind: one mounted on wheels for carrying fruit, vegetables, and other goods around the slum and displaying them for sale. When it was clear, and such a hawker's cart was found and wheeled into the clearing, the bear-handlers waggled their heads excitedly that yes, yes, yes, Kano would sit on such a moving table. They added that it was possible to steady him on the table by using ropes, and that he wouldn't find that secure fastening objectionable if they first explained its necessity to him. But what, they wanted to know, did I have in mind?

"On my way in with Johnny just now, I passed old Rakeshbaba's workshop," I explained quickly. "The lamps were lit, and I saw a lot of pieces from his Ganesh sculptures. Some of them are pretty big. They're made from papier-mache, so they're not very heavy, and they're all hollow inside. They're big enough, I think, to fit right over the top of Kano's head, and to cover his body if he's sitting down. With a bit of silk for trimming, and a few garlands of flowers for decoration..."

"So... you think..." Jeetendra stammered.

"We should disguise Kano as Ganesh," Johnny Cigar concluded, "and push him on the trolley, like a Ganpatti devotion, all the way to Nariman Point, right down the middle of the street. It's a great idea, Lin!"

"But Ganesh Chaturthi finished last week," Joseph said, referring to the annual festival where hundreds of Ganesh figures-some small enough to hold in the hand, and others towering ten metres tall-were pushed through the city to Chowpatty Beach and then hurled into the sea amid a crowd of close to a million people. "I myself was in the mela at Chowpatty. The time for it has finished, Linbaba."

"I know. I was there, too. That's what gave me the idea. I don't think it'll matter that the festival is over. I wouldn't think twice if I saw a Ganpatti at any time of the year. Would any of you ask questions if you saw a Ganesha, on a trolley, being wheeled down the street?"

Ganesh, the elephant-headed God, was arguably the most popular in all the Hindu pantheon, and I was sure no-one would think to stop and search a little procession featuring a large sculpture of his form on a moving trolley.

"I think he is right," Jeetendra agreed. "Nobody will say anything about a Ganesha. After all, Lord Ganesha is the Lord of Obstacles, na?"

The elephant-headed god was known as the Lord of Obstacles and the Great Solver of Problems. People in trouble appealed to him with prayers in much the same way that some Christians appealed to their patron saints. He was also the divine ministrant of writers. "It will be not a problem to push a Ganesha to Nariman Point,"

Joseph's wife, Maria, pointed out. "But how to put that Kano bear into the disguise-that is a problem. Just putting him in the dress was a very difficult job."

"He did not like the dress," one of the bear-handlers declared reasonably. "He is a man bear, you know, and sensitive about such things."

"But he will not mind the Ganesha disguise," his friend added. "I know he will think it is very good fun. He is very greedy for attention, I have to say. That is one of his two bad habits: that, and flirtations with girls."

We were speaking in Hindi, and the last exchange was too swift for me to follow.

"What did he say?" I asked Johnny. "What was Kano's bad habit?"

"Flirtations," Johnny replied. "With girls."

"Flirtations? What the hell do they mean?"

"Well, I'm not exactly sure, but I think-"

"No, don't!" I interrupted him, disowning the question. "Please ... don't tell me what it means."

I looked around me at the press of expectant faces. For a moment I felt a thrill of wonder and envy that the little community of neighbours and friends worried so much about the problems of two itinerant bear-handlers-and the bear, of course. That unequivocal involvement, one with another, and its unquestioning support-stronger and more urgent than even the co-operation I'd seen in Prabaker's village-was something I'd lost when I'd left the slum to live in the comfortable, richer world. I'd never really found it anywhere else, except within the high-sierra of my mother's love. And because I knew it with them, once, in the sublime and wretched acres of those ragged huts, I never stopped wanting it and searching for it.