Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

It was Nikhil who finally said what we were all thinking. 'Bhai,' he said, 'there's a lot of cash here. Maybe we're in the wrong game.'

'It's never too late,' I said. 'You want to start a religion?'

'Let's do it.' He scratched at his golis. 'You be head godman. I'll manage the finances.'

'Meaning I do all the work and you get the largest cut, you greedy maderchod. At least come up with the rules for this new faith. What is our philosophy?'

The chutiya didn't have any trouble coming up with a creed. He sprawled back on his sofa, folded his hands over his comfortable little belly and put his feet on a table. 'There's only one rule. You gain grace by giving Bhai money. The more you give, the more karma you get rid of. Give everything you've got, and you are granted moksha.'

The boys all grunted and rattled with laughter, and I smiled too. But it hurt me in my heart, this smooth cynicism, this easy sneer. Guru-ji had no doubt made a lot of money, but I didn't believe that money alone was his objective. I knew this. I didn't pretend to understand how his mind worked, but I knew there was a plan beyond the cash, that there was a further coherence behind the faultless order of the ashram. I just didn't know how to read the meaning of this mantra, I couldn't speak this tongue, I couldn't grasp what this square with its circles inside was trying to tell me.

As I grappled with these conundrums of religion and aesthetics, Anand Prasad's secretary summoned us into his office. I let Nikhil go ahead, and came in last behind the others. Nikhil did the talking, he was supposed to be the head of an NRI association interested in donating money to Guru-ji's charities. As I listened, I was struck by how comely this Sadhu Anand Prasad was. His skin was a polished chocolate, agleam against the white robes he wore, and although he must have been at least fifty, his long dark hair fell over an unwrinkled forehead. He had a slight southern accent, and in all my life I had never seen such a handsome Tamil. His secretary was a very tall Dutchman, blond and sharp-featured enough to be an actor. The secretary stood behind Anand Prasad's chair, and together – in that airy office full of silk-covered furniture – they were like an advertisement for Guru-ji's methods. They were beautiful.

Nikhil was pushing for a meeting with Guru-ji. He told Anand Prasad that his organization had millions to give, that our members were Indian businessmen and computer programmers and doctors spread out all over the world, and that they were eager to contribute. But they were followers of Guru-ji, and to give to him they must necessarily meet him. If not in person, then why not a video conference? Or at least a phone call to start with.

'I'm very sorry,' Anand Prasad said. 'But Guru-ji is in retreat. Even before he left, he gave strict instructions. He is not to be disturbed, not even for emergencies. In fact, I can't even get in touch with him. I don't know where he is, or how to communicate with him.'

'He calls you, then?' Nikhil said.

Anand Prasad's shrug was as elegant as a dance. 'No, no,' he said. 'He has really gone.' He made a magician's gesture with both his hands. 'You could say he has vanished. He will only come back when he wants to.'

'He won't even come back for a million dollars?' Nikhil said. 'Even for poor children? And starving women?'

He was trying hard, but I could see that it was useless. Anand Prasad didn't know, and what he did know he wasn't going to tell. 'Forget it,' I told Nikhil. 'This maderchod is a flunky. He doesn't know anything.'

Anand Prasad was shocked. He was full of his holiness and his exquisite good looks, and nobody had ever spoken to him like that. 'What?' he said. 'Who are you?' he said.

I took two steps up to his desk. Next to an elaborate pen-holder and three phones, there was a golden model of an altar in the shape of an eagle, the size of two hands across. I picked it up. It was quite wonderfully detailed, down to the bricks and the samagri inside the altar, ready for burning. And it felt profoundly weighty in my hand, it fitted into my palm with an impressive density. The smoke of sacrifice was in my nostrils, that fragrance that signals both life and death. I was suffocated by yearning, I was drowning in it. Where was Guru-ji? Why wouldn't he speak to me? What had I done wrong?

'What is this?' I said. 'Gold?'

'You listen,' he said.

He puffed up from his chair now, very righteous and indignant. I took another step, and in that motion I swung the altar and cracked his forehead. 'No,' I said. 'You listen.' The metal rang like a bell, and a sprinkle of blood appeared on the clear glass of the window. 'It's hard,' I said with satisfaction. 'It's not gold.' Anand Prasad was jerking about on the floor next to his chair, his robe up around his hips. I straddled the bastard, took hold of his shoulder and raised him up, and went to work with the altar. I found a calm in the hitting, a concentration that came into me like a wash of clear water. The blows came out of me in an even rhythm, with my breathing, as if I were meditating. I was lost in the relief of it, nights of fear and anger all gone into this satisfaction. Then the altar was covered with blood, and Anand Prasad was dead.

I let go of him, and his skull clunked softly on the marble. The boys were watching me, wide-eyed. Nikhil had his ghoda pointed at the Dutchman, who was crouched in a corner. 'No,' I said. 'No bullets. This is a message. Do it like this one.' I let the altar drop.

The Dutchman had time to scream only once before they were on him. I opened a door, and inside there was a sparkling toilet, a full-fledged executive bathroom. These upper-echelon sadhus didn't begrudge themselves any of the benefits, no, they surely didn't. I clicked on the light, and saw myself in the mirror: blazing eyes, blood on the face. I washed, and in the other room the Dutchman died in a flurry of thumps and moans. When I came out, the boys were straightening themselves up.

'Better wipe down that thing, bhai,' Nikhil said, his chest heaving. 'Fingerprints.'

The altar had hair stuck to it, and little pieces of flesh. 'Bring it,' I said. 'We'll get rid of it.'

When the boys were cleaned up, we left. We walked out, cool and easy and slow, and went down to the car and got in and drove at an even pace to the gate. We waved at the sadhus and we were away.

We had our exit route already laid out. At our safe house we had a change of clothes and a black Sumo waiting. I had trained the boys well. In less than fifteen minutes we had the rooms swept clean and the Sumo loaded. We wiped down the Maruti Zen that we had driven to the ashram, and then we left. We went south, towards Delhi. We passed columns of passenger buses and laden trucks, and for a while we drove behind a marriage party. I felt very calm now, in this twilight. Now Guru-ji would have to talk to me. I had done something very wrong, and he would have to punish me. He would have to call me to scold me. I would of course apologize, but I would tell him why, and he would understand. He would forgive me.

We had left behind the industrial estates and the shops and the dhabas, and now the fields of sarson and wheat stretched to the blackening horizon. The electricity posts rushed up, raising and lowering their cables over our heads. When I was a child, travelling on a rattling bus from Digadh to Nashik, I used to imagine these posts calling out to me as I left them behind, as they swept behind me into the past. But in those long-ago days I had never seen so many prosperous farms, these pucca houses with the TV dishes and antennae reaching towards the sky. Everything had changed.

But nothing had changed. I observed this truth all over the country. Over the next many weeks I travelled with Nikhil and the boys, and we did a zigzag bharat-darshan. We went to Guru-ji's ashrams, his offices and his places of business. We followed clues, rumours, hunches and whim. So we went from Chandigarh to Delhi to Ajmer, from Nagpur to Bhilai to Siliguri. Then back to Jaisalmer, and then to Jammu and Bhopal and Digboi. Then we stopped for a week in Cochin, so Nikhil could dose himself with antibiotics to ward off a watery flu that had him groaning at the toilet every half-hour. We rented a tourist bungalow near the waterfront and watched the Chinese fishing nets rise and fall out of the water. Meanwhile Nikhil struggled, and the doctor prescribed test after test. After eleven of these tests, I told the bastard that I was on to his cut-practice. 'What is cut-practice, saar?' he said in his Malyali accent.