Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Why?' said our Meetu, yawning. 'If you've already peloed, why sing anything?'

Kataruka sat up, reached over and rapped Meetu on the head with his knuckles. 'Listen, gaandu. Listen carefully. You sing Rafi because otherwise you'll never get to pelo her again. Rafi is your royal return road to her chut.' He turned to me. I was laughing. 'What are we going to do with these farmers, bhai?'

I shook my head. 'And after Rafi, what do we sing next?'

'Ah, here's a man who knows life,' Kataruka said. He lay back again, stretched. 'When it is over, after she leaves you, or after you leave her – are you listening, chutiyas? – when you feel like your heart is being pulled out through your throat on a hook, then you sing Mukesh. Then Mukesh is your only way out, the only way you'll live to see another monsoon. Mukesh will heal you, so you can start singing Kishore again. So you have another chance. Understood, bastards? Kishore, Rafi, Mukesh.'

Meetu and Dipu nodded, but I knew they had barely understood anything. They were too young to know that you needed Rafi, much less Mukesh. They were grinning though, with their huge rabbit teeth. 'Let's have some Kishore,' I said. It was that kind of evening. We were all happy.

It turned out that Date was the one with the voice. ' Khwaab ho tum ya koi haqiiqat, kaun ho tum batalaao ,' he sang. And then, ' Khilte hain gul yahaan, khilake bikharane ko, milte hain dil yahaan, milke bichhadne ko .' The whole barrack grew quiet, and we listened to him. Each time he finished a song, there were calls for more, and requests for favourite numbers, and laughter. He acquired a team of backing singers and two tabla players, who used empty Dalda tins. When Date sang, he held his hand to his ear like a professional, and somewhere between songs I learnt that he had studied music as a child, that he came from a family of musicians, that his father played the trumpet in a wedding band until age took the power from his lungs, that Date's dream had been to be a playback singer. He sang ' Pag ghungru baandh Mira naachi thi ' and ' Ye dil na hota bechaara ', and then it was time for dinner.

Later that night Date came to me, nudged at my shoulder. 'Bhai,' he said. 'Can't sleep?' I had been turning and curling, trying to find a stretch in my body, a repose that would let me drift off. I was trying to breathe long, evenly.

'What, Kishore Kumar?' I said.

'The trouble is we need women, bhai.'

'Of course we need women, sala. You'll get me a woman, maderpat? From their barrack?'

'No, no, bhai. Impossible. The jailers won't risk it, there's too much risk. The warders don't have access. In any jail. Only once it's happened – you remember that woman Kamardun Khan?'

'Drug smuggler, yes?'

'Yes, she was an independent, ran brown sugar. She was in Arthur Road jail, and her boyfriend Karan Pradhan was in the men's barracks.'

'From the Navlekar company?'

'Yes, that Karan. Bhai, this Kamardun Khan was in love with Karan Pradhan. So she used to climb the nine-foot wall of the barrack, jump into the main compound. She bribed the sentries and the warders, and went to the men's barrack and spent many nights in every week with her chhava.'

'That's a woman.'

'Some say she gave the sentries a little taste too, just to get to Karan Pradhan.'

'That's love.'

'After they got out, she gave him a car. A brand-new Contessa.'

'He's dead now?'

'The Dubai boys got him, at his garage. They killed him in the Contessa.'

'And her?'

'She went crazy. Started trying to fight Suleiman Isa. She learnt how to fire a gun, got involved with a police inspector. She thought the inspector would help her get her revenge.'

'But?'

'The Dubai boys had her stabbed to death. Some say that the inspector sold her out to S-Company, told them where to find her.'

'That's tragedy.'

He sighed. For a moment I thought he would sing a Mukesh song. Then he gathered himself, and said, 'In this story there is drama, there is emotion, there is tragedy.' And we burst out into long cackles of laughter. We guffawed until the boys began to laugh at our laughter, at our frenzy.

'So,' I said, 'the Navlekar company has boys who are so handsome and so daring that women leap walls for them. What are my boys going to do for me?'

'I can't get you a woman,' Date said. 'But there is the other barrack.'

I knew of course which one he meant. 'The baba room?'

'There's one boy there, bhai,' he said, 'who has a bottom like you wouldn't believe, you see it and you'll swear it was Mumtaz's gaand.'

'How much?' I said.

'Three hundred for the warder, five for the sentry. A hundred or so for the gaadi.'

'Fine. Get five gaadis.'

'Five, bhai. One each for you and Kataruka and me?'

'And one each for the hero brothers.'

'But Mumtaz is yours, bhai. You just wait and see.'

Once I had counted out the money, it took less than half an hour to bring them over. Then there was a great huffing and humping in the darkness. Under my fingers the gaadi did feel like Mumtaz. In my early days in the city, when I had lived on the footpath and slept on cement, I had taken boys. But now I knew much more about women, and so I shut my eyes and saw Mumtaz. She moaned under me. Afterwards I was relaxed, and slept well.

The next morning, in my tiffin, wrapped in plastic and hidden in rice, there was a phone. It was like a small brick, but dense and heavy, and came with its own plug. Date and Kataruka sat close to me as I peeled away the plastic. There was a small quill of paper rubber-banded to the phone. 'PWR button makes it go on. Dial 022, then my number, then press OK,' was what it said, in Bunty's writing. We did, and he picked up on the first ring. 'Who is it?' he said.

'Your baap.'

'Bhai!'

'Where did you get this?'

'It's just off the boat, bhai. And very expensive. But fine, no?'

'Very fine.'

'You're the first man in the city to get one.'

'I am?'

'Okay, maybe second or third.'

He was exaggerating, of course. There were probably a few dozen rich bastards who already had mobile phones then, in those days long ago, but among the companies ours was the first to use them extensively. And this, in jail, was our first. I was very pleased with Bunty, and I told him so. He was the kind of man I liked, always looking ahead, moving with the times. We talked business. There was much to talk about. There was the ordinary business to take care of – our collections from various industries and businesses, our interests in real estate, our importing of electronics and computer parts, our cash investments in the entertainment industry. And then there was the uncommon project of arms smuggling, which took much care, we had to make the plans foolproof, pay much attention to detail. We moved only one shipment every six months or so, but each boatload ran into the crores, and the product itself was heavy and difficult to disguise and transport. Yet we had been completely successful so far, and our client was pleased. We used my old friends Gaston and Pascal, only their boat, and a minimal crew. And my company was better equipped as a result. We were confident in our strength. Bunty and I talked this back and forth, and were careful to code: AK-47s were jhadoos, and bullets were sweets, and a trawler was a bus. In all our dealings for these arms, our only client was Sharma-ji, who was always on time, always punctual with his substantial payments, always perfectly dressed in his perfect white dhotis. Bunty was satisfied with Sharma-ji, and so was I. And then there was also the matter of us providing support to a couple of small splinter companies in their movement of drugs through Bombay, to Europe and beyond. Bunty had in the past argued for us entering the drug-transit field directly, for the large money involved and to oppose the domination of the trade by the Pathans. But I had always resisted: since there was no local production here, the money wasn't large enough to justify giving up the publicity value of saying, 'We don't touch drugs.' And to oppose for the sake of opposing was a young man's foolishness. I was old enough to know that expanding too fast and too rapidly could make a company sick. Consolidate, consolidate, I often told Bunty. So now I told him to go ahead and provide logistics and muscle to the drug-traders. But be careful, I told him, keep our distance.