Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

I hugged him. He had done good work. I went back to the barrack, and that night I was restless, agitated. Jojo noticed it. 'You sound different,' she said. 'It's been hard to talk to you. You've been all far away. Today you're different.'

'I'm not lying down.' I was walking the breadth of the barrack, one end to the other on my side, away from the disgusting heap of sleeping prisoners beyond our company's borders.

'That's not it. It's different. You're angry or something.'

It wasn't quite anger, but something. I was excited, like I was about to walk through a door. I talked to Jojo, then slept very lightly. At six the next morning my other phone rang, and I picked it up on the first ring.

'Ganesh,' a voice said.

I was quiet. I recognized the voice, but couldn't place it.

'Ganesh,' he said again. It was a round, deep voice. An expensive, expansive voice, and very kind.

'Swami-ji,' I said. I hadn't meant to add the 'ji', but it came out.

'Don't use my name on the phone, beta.'

'Did my friend give you this number?'

'Yes, it was passed to me.'

'We need to speak.'

'I agree. But not like this. Face to face.'

'That may not be soon.'

'Don't worry. I have looked at your charts. You have freedom in your future, beta.'

'How?'

'I don't know details, beta. I am always honest about that. But I can see it. You will be out of this jail very soon. Then, we will meet.'

'You have my charts?'

'I have been observing you. I was waiting for you. And now you have found me.'

'You were waiting?'

'Yes. Now you are ready. Life had to teach you its lessons, your yoga had to deepen your consciousness. Then you were ready. So you have come to me.'

It was impossible to argue with him. In the gentle flow of his voice there was an irresistible power. There was a tightness in my throat, and I blinked away the blurriness in my eyes. 'Yes,' I said. 'Yes.'

'Don't worry, Ganesh,' he said. 'Be calm, be quiet. Practise your yoga. Wait. Time will turn and switch its curves. Time will turn and turn. Be patient.'

And with that, he was gone. I watched him that afternoon on television. He sat cross-legged on a dais, leaning back against round white pillows, and spoke into a gleaming silver microphone. Out of focus, in the background, behind his head, I could see the metallic shine of the spokes of a wheel on his chair. I had never before noticed how good-looking a man he was, with his thick white hair sweeping back over his head but not too long, setting off the healthy springiness of his clean-shaven jaw. I couldn't tell at all how old he might be. His disciples sat in orderly rows, men on one side and women on the other. The discourse that day was about success. Why, he asked, does failure torment us so bitingly? And then, why does success sometimes leave us feeling dissatisfied all over again? Why does arrival let us down, even after we have dreamt of it for so long, have fought so hard for it along a cruel road? Why? The answer in both cases, Shukla-ji said, is because we believe in the illusion of the self. I am the doer, we believe. We shout this out at the world, I am doing this, I am doing that, I, I, I. Believing in this most slippery of all illusions, we think that our failures are our fault, that they flow from the shape of this self. We think we own our victories. And yet, when we find success, we discover that this self-illusion, this illusion of the self, can only live in the future, or in the past. It is eternally separated from the present, and so as long as we believe in it we know only loss. It is only when we transcend this illusion and laugh at it that we can know the pleasure of this moment, laugh because then you are truly alive. Swami-ji said, my children, give away your actions and discover your true nature. Know yourself.

I had to walk away from the television. It was as if he was speaking to me, to me alone. And yet I had to control myself, to be casual in my listening, to make jokes about gurus and swamis, and I couldn't stay with him too long. We had a secret connection, he and I, and because of that I couldn't make a public connection with him. It was too risky, too dangerous. Not only for me, but also for him. So I stood myself up and walked away. The boys switched channels to a filmi-song countdown.

I let them listen to their songs, but I followed Swami-ji's advice. I hardened my meditation, did it longer and with deeper concentration. The boys were impressed by my deepened calm, my improved memory, my larger love. I asked after their families, remembered the names of their wives and chaavis, asked after their children. We had arranged for Date to be brought back from Nashik Jail so that he could be with me in the barrack. He hugged me when he first saw me, embraced me for a long time. Then, the first thing he said was, 'Bhai, you even look younger. You look so fresh, like a boy.'

I felt weathered, like an old field that has been ploughed. But what he saw was the budding of the new shoots from a recent planting. Outside, the monsoons had just set in, and we sat near the windows and watched the water crash off the roofs. Business was good. The money came in, the money went out, more money came in. Our war with Suleiman Isa rumbled on. I knew the boys expected a decisive strike, a terrible retribution to be visited upon our enemies. I told them to be patient. When the crop is ripe, then cut it. Wait, wait. And so I waited. I was calm.

At the end of July I received a summons from Advani's office. 'Saab needs to see you in his office,' the warder said. 'It's very urgent.'

It was morning, still my prayer hour, and I knew a sudden dread. Advani would never disturb me at this time, and so something very bad must have happened for him to call me out. I put on my chappals, and we hopped from stone to stone along the yard, which was now a lake of rainwater. The clouds were black and low overhead, and it was quite still, the entire world filled only with the fall of water. Beside Advani's office, three men in white shirts stood in a row. I went past them, and Advani was at his desk, looking straight-backed and very official. He didn't get up.

'Saab,' I said, quite humbly. I was a good actor when my subordinates needed me to be one.

From Advani's right, a man was watching me intently. What I saw of him first was his dome-like head, quite bald and brown in the dark monsoon light. And then his eyes, watching me.

'This is Mr Kumar,' Advani said. 'He wants to talk to you.'

Advani got up and left, without another word or a glance at me. So this Mr Kumar was a powerful man. A senior official, maybe. 'Sit,' he said.

I did.

'I work for a certain part of the government, the central government,' he said. 'I have been following your fight with Suleiman Isa.'

Me, I kept quiet, didn't even nod. Let the man explain. He was very thin, with a sharp nose, and looked something like a statue of a starving Buddha I had seen on television. But there was power in him, a kind of certainty. Here was a man who knew who he was.

'I am aware of your present difficulties. But I appreciate the effort you have put in against this Suleiman Isa, and against his Pakistani friends.'

He was waiting for me to say something. I gave him a response: 'Yes, saab. That bastard is a traitor. He is a dog who lives on the Pakistanis' waste.' He nodded. 'He is anti-national,' I said.

'And you, Ganesh Gaitonde? Are you a patriot?'

'I am,' I said.

I am. It was as simple as that. In that moment, I realized that a patriot was what I am. I had once been an ignorant boy, interested only in money, in my dream of fame and luxury. But since then I had learnt much, understood much. In this world there is no man who can stand alone, and say I am free of everything but myself. I was a patriot. Looking at this Mr Kumar, I recognized in him a patriot, and knew myself to be one.