Arundhati Roy - The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

“Her mother must have left her here thinking as I did, that this place is today’s Karbala, where the battle for justice, the battle of good against evil, is being fought. She must have thought, ‘These people are fighters, the best in the world, one of them will look after the child that I cannot’—and you want to call the police ?” Though she was angry and though she was six feet tall and had broad, powerful shoulders, her manner was inflected with the exaggerated coquetry and the fluttering hand gestures of a 1930s Lucknow courtesan.

Saddam Hussain braced himself for a brawl. Ishrat and Ustad Hameed arrived to do what they could.

“Who gave these Hijras permission to sit here? Which of these Struggles do they belong to?”

Mr. Aggarwal, a slim, middle-aged man with a clipped mustache, wearing a safari shirt, terry cotton trousers and a printed Gandhi cap that said I am against Corruption are You? had the curt, authoritative air of a bureaucrat, which was indeed what he had been until recently. He had spent most of his working life in the Revenue Department, until one day, on a whim, sickened by his ringside view of the rot in the system, he had resigned his government job to “serve the nation.” He had been tinkering on the periphery of good works and social service for a few years, but now, as the tubby Gandhian’s chief lieutenant, he had shot to prominence and his picture was in the papers every day. Many believed (correctly) that the real power lay with him, and that the old man was just a charismatic mascot, a hireling who fitted the job-profile and had now begun to exceed his brief. The conspiracy theorists, who huddled on the edges of all political movements, whispered that the old man was deliberately being encouraged to promote himself, to paint himself into a corner, so that his own hubris would not allow a retreat. If the old man died of hunger publicly, on live TV, the rumor went, the Movement would have a martyr and that would kick-start the political career of Mr. Aggarwal in a way nothing else could. The rumor was unkind and untrue. Mr. Aggarwal was the man behind the Movement, but even he had been taken aback at the frenzy the old Gandhian evoked, and he was riding the tide, not plotting a stage-managed suicide. In a few months he would jettison his mascot and go on to become a mainstream politician — a veritable treasure house of many of the qualities he had once denounced — and a formidable opponent of Gujarat ka Lalla.

Mr. Aggarwal’s singular advantage as an emerging politician was his unsingular looks. He looked like many people. Everything about him, the way he dressed, the way he spoke, the way he thought, was neat and tidy, clipped and groomed. He had a high voice and an understated, matter-of-fact manner, except when he stood before a microphone. Then he was transformed into a raging, almost uncontrollable, tornado of terrifying righteousness. By intervening in the matter of the baby, he hoped to deflect another public spat (like the one between the Kashmiri Mothers and the Spitting Brigade) that could distract media attention away from what he thought of as the Real Issues. “This is our Second Freedom Struggle. Our country is on the brink of a Revolution,” he said portentously to the quickly growing audience. “Thousands have gathered here because corrupt politicians have made our lives unbearable. If we solve the problem of corruption we can take our country to new heights, right to the top of the world. This is a space for serious politics, not a circus ring.” He addressed Anjum without looking at her: “Do you have police permission to be here? Everybody must have permission to be here.” She towered over him. His refusal to meet her eye meant he was squarely addressing her breasts.

Mr. Aggarwal had misread the temperature, misjudged the situation completely. The people who had gathered were not wholly sympathetic to him. Many resented the way his “Freedom Struggle” had grabbed all the media attention and undermined everybody else. Anjum, for her part, was oblivious to the crowd. It didn’t matter to her in which direction its sympathies lay. Something had lit up inside her and filled her with resolute courage.

“Police permission?” Never could two words have been pronounced with more contempt. “This is a child , not some illegal encroachment on your father’s property. You apply to the police, Sahib. The rest of us will take the shorter route and apply straight to the Almighty.” Saddam had just enough time to whisper a small prayer of gratitude that the word she used for the Almighty was the generic Khuda and not specifically Allah mian before the battle lines were drawn.

The adversaries squared off.

Anjum and the Accountant.

What a confrontation it was.

Ironically both of them were on the pavement that night to escape their past and all that had circumscribed their lives so far. And yet, in order to arm themselves for battle, they retreated right back into what they sought to escape, into what they were used to, into what they really were .

He, a revolutionary trapped in an accountant’s mind. She, a woman trapped in a man’s body. He, raging at a world in which the balance sheets did not tally. She, raging at her glands, her organs, her skin, the texture of her hair, the width of her shoulders, the timbre of her voice. He, fighting for a way to impose fiscal integrity on a decaying system. She, wanting to pluck the very stars from the sky and grind them into a potion that would give her proper breasts and hips and a long, thick plait of hair that would swing from side to side as she walked, and yes, the thing she longed for most of all, that most well stocked of Delhi’s vast stock of invectives, that insult of all insults, a Maa ki Choot, a mother’s cunt. He, who had spent his days tracking tax dodges, pay-offs and sweetheart deals. She, who had lived for years like a tree in an old graveyard, where, on lazy mornings and late at night, the spirits of the old poets whom she loved, Ghalib, Mir and Zauq, came to recite their verse, drink, argue and gamble. He, who filled in forms and ticked boxes. She, who never knew which box to tick, which queue to stand in, which public toilet to enter (Kings or Queens? Lords or Ladies? Sirs or Hers?). He, who believed he was always right. She, who knew she was all wrong, always wrong. He, reduced by his certainties. She, augmented by her ambiguity. He, who wanted a law. She, who wanted a baby.

A circle formed around them: furious, curious, assessing the adversaries, picking sides. It didn’t matter. Which tight-arsed Gandhian accountant stood a chance in hell in a one-to-one public face-off against an old, Old Delhi Hijra?

Anjum bent low and brought her face within kissing distance of Mr. Aggarwal’s.

“ Ai Hai! Why so angry, jaan ? Won’t you look at me?”

Saddam Hussain clenched his fists. Ishrat restrained him. She took a deep breath and waded into the battlefield, intervening in the practiced way that only Hijras knew how to when it came to protecting each other — by making a declaration of war and peace at the same time. Her attire, which had looked absurd only a few hours ago, could not have been more appropriate for what she needed to do now. She started the spread-fingered Hijra clap and began to dance, moving her hips obscenely, swirling her chunni, her outrageous, aggressive sexuality aimed at humiliating Mr. Aggarwal, who had never in all his life fought a fair street fight. Damp patches appeared in the armpits of his white shirt.

Ishrat began with a song she knew the crowd would know — from a film called Umrao Jaan , immortalized by the beautiful actress Rekha.