Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

So Suryakant Trivedi is somewhat fuzzy and absent when Milind enters. Milind is twenty-two, handsome and open-faced and tall. He greets Trivedi effusively, and puts down a bulky gym bag on the floor between them.

'All peaceful?' Trivedi says.

'Yes, sir. No problems.' Milind was born in London, and has only been back to India five times, never for more than two months. But his Hindi is orthodox and flawless. He comes from an old Jana Sanghi family, his grandfather was an eminent professor of Sanskrit at Benares Hindu University. He has grown up in an environment of learning and piety, and he is fiercely patriotic. He knows Trivedi as a leader of the small but fervent political party Akhand Bharat, and he thinks Trivedi is in London to expand the organization and spread the message. He is very willing to do the clandestine work that Trivedi tasks him with. Milind is really quite thrilled to pick up a bag from the Left Luggage office at King's Cross station, to bring it to Trivedi-ji with care and dispatch, to be careful and watchful.

Trivedi understands all this, and therefore invents carefully calibrated dangers for Milind to be afraid of, and stories to be titillated by. He tells Milind that the bag contains military documents from a certain eastern European country, to be passed on to his own governmental contacts at home. Trivedi also pays Milind for his trouble in good English pounds, and buys him an occasional gift, a watch, or a medium-expensive pen. 'Have some coffee,' he says today. 'This is good.'

Milind drinks a Coke instead, and then another one. He has been warned never to speak of their work while doing the work, so he talks about local politics. Trivedi doesn't follow English elections, so he has only the barest idea of what the boy is talking about, but he nods and occasionally interjects, and lets Milind talk his excitement away. He drinks another cappuccino, and savours the irony of what he has pulled off – yet again – for Guru-ji. The gym bag contains money, ten lakhs in five-hundred-rupee notes. The origin of this crisp new money, where it comes from, is what makes this triumph particularly tangy. Trivedi has three cut-outs between himself and the source. There is Milind, there is another delivery boy named Amir and finally there is a clandestine and very extreme Muslim group called Hizbuddeen. Setting up the Hizbuddeen was Guru-ji's idea. The name, though, was Trivedi's. His Urdu is quite good actually, and the name came easily to him: Hizbuddeen, the Army of the Final Day. Guru-ji loved the name instantly, and had praised Trivedi for his quick, precise thinking. Such an organization would, yes, have such a name. A fake Islamist extremist group is essential to Guru-ji's future plans. But accepting money through the Hizbuddeen was completely Trivedi's contribution. After all, raising funds is one of the primary objectives of any such outfit. So of course the Hizbuddeen collected funds for their activities, and when it transpired that the Pakistanis wanted to contribute, the irony was by far one of the best rewards for all Trivedi's work over the years. At the Pakistani embassy in London, there is a man named Shahid Khan who is listed as a First Secretary, who is quite obviously an intelligence officer. Eight months ago, this Shahid Khan initiated contact with Hizbuddeen, cultivated them, offered them training, resources, money. So, earlier this week, the Pakistanis gave money to Hizbuddeen, who gave it to Amir, who left it for Milind to collect, and now it is with Trivedi. And Trivedi will use it to fuel Guru-ji's activities. He will pass some of it down to the Kalki Sena, which needs much money for arms, for recruitment, for the laying-in of resources. They must be ready for the final day. Trivedi thinks of the Kalki Sena as the operational arm of Akhand Bharat, and he likes the fact that it is small and fleet and well-armed. Sometimes, despite his age, he can't help thinking of himself as a modern version of Shivaji or Rana Pratap. Trivedi takes another sip of his cappuccino. Quite completely delicious.

'When do we meet next, Trivedi-ji?' Milind says.

This was usually Milind's first question after he had cooled down from all the tension of the current job. Trivedi always answered it the same way: 'I don't know yet. I will be in touch.' The boy was useful, but somewhat irritating. Given a choice, Trivedi would have liked to use someone quieter, and perhaps more intelligent, but you worked with what was at hand. He sends Milind off, pays the waiter and shoulders the gym bag. It is satisfyingly heavy. The Pakistanis are good paymasters for their people. Every month their man meets a representative of the Hizbuddeen and hands over the money. Every month Trivedi collects their contribution and sends it off to Guru-ji's people. Every month he experiences these moments of sublime satisfaction. Let the bastards pay for their own defeat, which was sure to be final and conclusive.

Trivedi walks past the museum. He has been in it only once, and has never gone back. He had been amazed and appalled by the corridors of splendid plunder that the British Empire had looted from all over the world and put in this mausoleum for idiots to gawk at. It nauseated him, to think of the British flag fluttering over Delhi. Never again, he had said to himself, and he swears it again. Trivedi has learned the Great Game. He knows now about cut-outs and false-flag operations, and he has tamped down his distaste and interacted with bad men, disgusting men. He has shared meals with drunkards, shaken hands with criminals. He has called himself Sharma and listened for hours to the foul-mouthed Ganesh Gaitonde and his company of brutes, he has pretended laughter at their obscene jokes. Yes, Trivedi has demeaned and dirtied himself. But he has done it all for Guru-ji, he has done it for the future. He is doing what needs to be done. He is tired now, his feet ache and he feels his age. By the time he gets home, his shoulders will hurt as well. He will be a little afraid during that last walk home from the station in the dusk, when the sky will turn into a very foreign blue-grey, and the responsibility that he carries on his shoulder will weigh more than ever, but he will whisper to Guru-ji, and he will walk on. He is confident. He turns his mind to the present, to maintaining his brisk pace which he has practised since he first met Guru-ji almost three decades ago. He passes an English family and smiles at the little boy who walks between his parents, holding their hands. The unblemished innocence of children is a good thing to see, it has always been a fount of hope to him. Trivedi thinks of the money, and what lies ahead, and he is happy.

II

Ram Pari scrubs a pot. She is squatting in the courtyard of Bibi-ji's house, in front of the hand-pump, scouring the blackened pot with ash. She likes the skid of her palm across the curved side of the pot, but her shoulders are beginning to twinge with the pain that will stay in them until the end of the day, until she sleeps. She is getting too old for this work, but then what other work is there? Her nose itches, and she rubs at it, not very successfully, with the back of her forearm. She is watching Navneet, Bibi-ji's daughter, who is lying face down in the baithak, writing a letter. The girl is moony, as usual, and she has been working on the same piece of paper for the last hour. Ram Pari knows that she is writing a letter to her fiancé. Ram Pari thinks that the girl is shameless for doing this, and that her parents are fools. Such laxity can only end in disaster. Ram Pari can recall many a scandal, among rich and poor, to prove her point. But it is useless to say anything to Bibi-ji, she is a stubborn and proud woman who will brook no criticism from those she thinks of as her inferiors. And anyway there is no reason for Ram Pari to be concerned, it isn't her business what these people do. She realizes that she has stopped rubbing, and that any moment Bibi-ji will hear the pause, and come out and snipe at her, so she settles back and sets to scrubbing again.