Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

We went to take a look at this farm. I told the boys that this was our last leg on this journey, that whether we found success or not, we would call a halt to the mission afterwards. They were cheered and relieved, and we landed in Amritsar energized and ready to go. We followed our usual procedure and proceeded to the prearranged safe house in two groups, had a late breakfast, and collected our car and were ready to go. The morning was bright and hot, and I was dozy in the front seat of the car. Nikhil was driving. Behind us, the boys were arguing about the gold in the Golden Temple, how much exactly there was and what it was worth. Jatti, who was a Punjabi but who had only been to Punjab once before, was telling them with authority that the gold was worth arabs, not crores. The others were scoffing, and Chandar wanted to go to Jallianwalla Baug. 'Since we're here anyway,' he said.

We're not tourists, I wanted to tell him, but it would have taken too much energy to make the words emerge from my half-sleep. Besides, I was being a bit of a tourist myself. I found myself entertained by the handsome swagger of these Punjabis, their aggressive stares, and their loud voices. There was a sardar outside a garage that was on our left now, his hair piled up into a big uncovered knot on the top of his head, talking into a mobile phone. He raised his kurta to scratch at his navel as we passed, revealing a full and hairy belly. He was smiling. Maybe that was his garage, and the big pink-and-green house behind it was his, complete with satellite dish and Toyota in the driveway and a watchman with a rifle. Amritsar was a dingy little provincial town, but there was money here, and a lot of guns. A police jeep overtook us, and the three constables in the back all cradled jhadoos in their laps, with double magazines taped together. I hadn't seen so many automatic weapons on the street, on any street, not ever. In my car there was the smell of mogra. I closed my eyes, and opened them to find us racing through sarson fields, behind a truck brimming with steel rods. There were tigers painted on its back panels, and a goddess in the middle.

'We're almost there, bhai,' Nikhil said.

He turned off to the left, down an embankment. The road narrowed now, and we bumped and swayed over a flowing canal. 'We're in the proper dehat now,' Chandar muttered. 'Look at the dehatis.' There were two men walking in the middle of the road, leading a bullock. Nikhil honked, and very slowly they moved aside to let us squeeze past. They bent a little to stare into the car as we went by. Villagers all right, and prosperous ones. The land here was lush and ripe, and I could hear a water-pump thumping not far away. We drove on. We had to ask for directions once, at a fork in the road, from a young couple on a motorcycle. The wife kept her red dupatta tight on her head by biting down on one end of it, but I could see she was a fine, strapping piece. The boys thought so too, I could tell from the strained, attentive silence behind me. The husband was stringy and unkempt and altogether unimpressive, but his directions were good. We got to Guru-ji's farm just after two.

There was no steel fence around these fields, and no gates. Just green swathes of wheat, and well-kept bunds lined with trees. A house glimmered white through an orchard. 'Mango,' said Jatti as we neared the orderly rows. The road was smooth now, unfinished gravel that crunched under the tires. A peacock called, and I saw a hint of its sudden rush through the trees. Then we turned around a thick, ancient neem, and we were at the house.

It was a single-storey building, sprawling and wide. There were no windows along the front wall, which was broken only by a tall archway that led into a small open veranda. The doors in the archway were green and massive and heavy, with a smaller portal let into the one on the left, only wide enough to let a single man through. This was open, and Nikhil rattled the lock-chain hanging next to it. 'Arre,' he called. 'Koi hai?'

But the only reply came from the pigeons walking along the rafters in the archway. I leant in through the door. A cow and her calf munched happily in a stall to the left. Straight ahead, four brick steps led to a landing, which faced a single room. I could see an old-fashioned takath and two chairs, and a big round clock. The air was fresh and heavy with that old smell of cow-dung and bhoosa. The plaster on the walls facing the landing was cracked, and the bricks in the veranda were worn smooth. This was an old house, old and also old-fashioned. Near the cow-stall, water dripped from a hand-pump and tapped steadily on the iron drain-cover below.

'Are you sure we're in the right place?' I said to Nikhil.

He pointed to the far end of the landing. Behind a pillar, a ramp went up the stairs, just wide enough for a wheelchair. So yes, this was maybe Guru-ji's place, but it was nothing like anything else that he had built, that we had seen. What was it, exactly? Nikhil rattled the chain again.

A blast from the car horn made us jump. Jatti was standing next to the car, grinning. He sent up a series of blaring honks, and I shouted at him. 'Enough, maderchod,' I said, and he stopped with a hurt look on his face. The quiet was astonishing, after that din, and the pigeons fluttered nervously in the veranda. Then we heard a shuffle, and a man turned the corner of the building.

He was old, at least seventy, this I could tell straightaway from his stiff-kneed gait. When he came closer I realized he was eighty, if anything. He was wearing baggy white pyjamas, a tattered orange sweater and a grey scarf wrapped tight up to his ears. He peered at us through thick, black-rimmed glasses. There was a crack straight through the middle of the left lens.

'Hain?' he said.

'Namaskar,' Nikhil said. 'Namaste. Are you the malik of the house?'

That was obvious flattery, this budhau was far from being the owner of anything. But the old man took it in with a smile. 'No, no,' he said. 'I am the manager.'

'The manager,' Nikhil said, mocking the man's Punjabi – 'munayjer' – but only gently. 'Yes. Can we have some water? We've driven all the way from Amritsar.'

He gave us steaming hot chai. He took us inside, seated us in the room next to the veranda, and emerged fifteen minutes later with brass tumblers and a big, blackened pot. He poured us the chai, half a glass each, and only then asked us who we were. Nikhil gave him some story about how we were businessmen from Delhi, and how we were looking for good farmland to purchase. And that someone on the main road had told us about this mango orchard, and the farm, so we had come to take a look. And, by the way, who is the owner of this fine property?

'Saab comes from Delhi,' the man said.

'And his name?'

'My name is Jagat Narain.'

'Yes, Jagat Narain. You make good chai.' Nikhil took a long slurping gulp, and looked wholly appreciative. 'And Saab's name is?'

'Which Saab?'

This was going to take a long time. I got up and edged out of the door. At the side of the landing there was a door leading into a dark passageway. I groped through the hall, and came out on the other side into a large brick-lined courtyard. There was a tulsi bush at the exact centre, and rooms along all four sides. I walked along the periphery, pushing doors open. They creaked open to reveal bare floors, old wooden cupboards, simple shelves built into whitewashed walls, saggy charpais covered with rough blankets. In one room there was a black table-fan on a wooden desk, and bottles of blue and red ink and a green fountain pen. I walked on. Along one entire side of this inner square, there was a large hall, open to the courtyard. The floor was covered with chatais, and there was a row of round pillows against the far wall. In little alcoves, there were pictures of Ram and Sita, and Hanuman, and a bespectacled, grandfatherly man in a turban. I stooped closer to this last black-and-white photo, and saw a clear resemblance to Guru-ji. Who was he, Guru-ji's father or grandfather? An uncle?