Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'What?'

'I see that you will attempt to close some deal with some Thai fellows in the next few days. Be careful. Do not trust them. They mean you harm.'

Now it was true that we were about to tie up a sale with some fellows from Krabi province, we had brought in four million tablets of methamphetamine for the Thais, but Guru-ji could just have made a guess: at any given time we would be making some deal or other with some group of Thais, nothing especially insightful in that. So I didn't take him too seriously, thanked him politely all the same and forgot about it until the morning of the exchange. Then, tickled uncomfortably by the recalling of Guru-ji's prediction, I woke up and called the boys – who had already left – and told them to be careful, and to keep a shooter in reserve. And the Thais, the idiots, tried the most hackneyed, the most boring grab and run that any of us had seen in fifteen years. They had brought some extra personnel and hidden them in a house up the beach, and they thought that was enough to overpower our unit. Of course we cut them down, our reserve shooter caught their back-up as they came blundering out of the house on cue, and that was that.

So it happened, leaving the question of Guru-ji's prediction entirely up in the air, hovering over my head like a bomb suspended in mid-fall. I was afraid to accept, to let it come down, lest it explode my mind. The long cycles of creation and destruction were all very well, but – maderchod! – how was a man able to look into the future? It was impossible. Time ran one way, from before to after, and physically you couldn't thrust yourself into what was to come.

Guru-ji heard me out patiently. Then he said, 'So you think you know what time is?'

'Guru-ji, what is there to know? Time is time. It goes from here to there, and we live inside it. The road is marked, and you can't do a U-turn.'

'But do you know, Ganesh, that scientists have discovered particles that travel backwards in time? And do you know that time is not constant, that it bends and stretches and compresses? If there is a jet plane passing above your head, going fast, its pilot is ageing a little less slowly than you? For him, time is passing more slowly compared to your time.'

'No. That can't be.'

'But it is. Even the scientists have known that for more than a hundred years. They have admitted that a travelling particle of light, which was born billions of years ago during the Big Bang, has not aged a second since then. So, Ganesh, if you could travel at the speed of light, you would be young for ever.'

I didn't understand any of this. I didn't understand the articles he e-mailed me, or the videos he had me watch, all his Einstein and relativity and black holes and the universe curving round on itself, it all made me as dazzled as a small child looking into the sun. But he convinced me that the world I thought I knew was only a shallow illusion, that how things looked and felt was a dream, not inconsequential but not substantial either. And he convinced me that some people, some men and women, even some children, could look through the spiral of time. 'It's an inborn ability,' he said to me. 'The horoscopes, the readings of the palm, all those are props that enable this ability, make it move and energize itself. If you have this ability, and you train it and discipline it and exercise it, make it supple and strong, you can read the narrative of the universe, and sometimes see where the story is going, catch glimpses of the future plot, because this future already exists. If you are a true master, then nothing is hidden from you. Me, I have a modest gift. And if it makes you uncomfortable to be paying attention to a jyotishi, if you feel like you are in the grip of some wicked fraud, then just think of me as a friend who offers advice now and then, with the best of intentions. Don't take me too seriously. I may be wrong now and then, I may misinterpret the scattered images and intuitions that I get. So take it for what it is worth, Ganesh. Maybe the information will be useful to you. Don't trust it without corroboration, treat it like any other intelligence you acquire.'

That's what he said. And then he grabbed pieces of what was to come and dropped them into my lap. He didn't do it every day, and he didn't always have crucial, life-saving information for me. He told me that a delayed shipment from Rotterdam would arrive on such-and-such a day, and it did. Or he said that one of my boys would face health problems in late July, and of course one dirty fool nurtured some monstrous fungal infection between his toes that finally kept him from walking. Guru-ji made mistakes also, twice what he said didn't come to pass. But the other fifty-two times it did. Yes, I counted, I made notes in a diary. The numbers taught me that what he was doing was true, that he had not lied. He had a talent. You can believe or not, as you wish, but I had resisted as long as I could. Now I believed.

Now the Guru-ji phone buzzed. I wiped my hands on my pants, and picked it up. I put in my eighteen-digit encryption code, and he spoke to me.

'I was thinking of you when I wrote today's pravachan, Ganesh.'

'Pranaam, Guru-ji. I was just reading it.'

'I know.'

He did that sometimes. He would know what you had been doing, what you were thinking, what you wanted but were afraid even to admit to yourself. Once, in long-ago days, I had been subject to fits of scepticism, but all my rock-like disbelief had been shattered and vanquished by the thunder of his insight. He knew you better than you, he saw into your life, he knew your future and your past, and he never made any judgements. That was the most amazing thing about Guru-ji, that he was himself the most sattvic man, more undesiring of the base things of life than the Buddha himself, but he never looked down on those of us who still thrashed about in the nets of wanting. I had asked him once whether my dhandas upset him, all the various businesses I ran to make a living. I asked him why he didn't try to have me give up those activities the world called criminal. A tiger is glorious as a tiger, he said, a tiger who tries to become a vegetarian sheep is a pitiful abomination. In Kaliyug, there are no simple acts, he said, and there has never been a clear path to salvation. 'So, Guru-ji,' I said now, grinning. 'You were thinking of me. What do you think? Am I ready for celibacy?'

He laughed his usual glorious burble, as free as a baby in his mother's arms. 'Beta, you are a warrior. You are my Arjun. You need not only your Draupadi, but also the other gifts of the earth as you wander. To block your own nature would be a crime, and would make you incapable of the work you must do.'

All this I had heard him say before, but I liked listening to him. There was something golden about the timbres of his voice, something dense, and they settled into my chest and comforted me. I grew calm listening to him, so sometimes I asked him questions just to hear him talk. But today I had a real question. 'Did you look at the papers, Guru-ji?' I meant six-foot Jamila's charts and biodata, which I had faxed to him in Denmark. He of course had no problem with the fact that she was Muslim, but wanted to consider her stars and her future.

I could feel him smiling. 'You are impatient, Ganesh.'

'No, no, Guru-ji. I know how busy you are. There's no hurry.'

'Ganesh, I understand. It has been a while. Too long.'

It had been a while since I had a woman. Of course I didn't partake of the common girls that were brought in for the boys. For me, Jojo only sent special cases, and all of those were approved by Guru-ji. But I wasn't so weak that I would grow impatient with him. 'Guru-ji, nothing like that. This one is more interesting than usual, that's all.'

'I agree with you, Ganesh. Her stars and signs and lines are very interesting indeed. This woman will go far. She has intelligence, but more than that she has luck. Every time she needs something, someone will come into her life who can provide. Her path will be smoothed and built for her.'