Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'It's dry,' Mary said. 'Let's take it off.'

He led her into the bathroom by the hand, and took the sheet from her and tucked it behind the towels. She twisted at the knobs on the wall, and a jet of water frilled out across the narrow room. She laughed, turning to him, and her smile cracked through the clay. He laughed too, for no good reason. They washed it off each other's faces, and the mud ran down their bodies and they were covered with a glaze of it, and Sartaj saw Mary – the Mary he knew something of – emerge from the layer of red, and he wanted to touch every part of her, and he did.

* * *

A party of Municipal men were working on a hole in the road. They weren't actually working, they were standing around the hole looking at it, and apparently waiting for something to happen. Meanwhile, a vast funnel of traffic pressed up against the bottleneck. Sartaj was somewhere towards the front, on his motorcycle. He was hemmed in by a BEST bus and two autos, and there was nowhere for anyone to go, so they all waited companionably. The bus was crammed full of office-goers, and the autos were taking college students to their classes. Young boys were working the stalled traffic, selling magazines and water and gaudy Chinese statues of a laughing man with his hands above his head. A pair of maimed beggars went from car to car, tapping their stumps on the windscreens. There were two radios playing somewhere close, mixing channels. Sartaj drank it all in, incredulous that he had missed all this while he had been away, and that he was glad to be back. Even this particular stench of exhaust and burning and heated tar, even this was delectable. I must be mad, he thought. And he remembered Katekar, who had been crazy in the same way, who had complained endlessly but had confessed to yearning for the city when he went to his in-laws' village. 'Once the air of this place touches you,' Katekar had said, 'you are useless for anywhere else.' And he had twirled his finger at his forehead, and laughed, his shoulders shaking.

The bus moved, and Sartaj swerved ahead, risking a meeting with tonnes of metal, and then he was past the Municipal men and through the gap. He sped ahead. A curve festooned with bright new film posters brought him near a beach, and the sea lay flat and brown. There was new construction near the Kailashpada naka, a hulking steel scaffold thrust itself out of the ground. The labourers had built their red and blue tents in its shadow, and naked babies crawled over the piles of gravel. Sartaj slowed for a pair of rangy white dogs which crossed the road full of purpose, looking exactly as if they had an important meeting in five minutes. A breeze blew against Sartaj's chest, and he was happy.

He coasted easily through the gates of the police station, and parked in front of the zonal headquarters. From where he was sitting, he could see through the reception area to the gallery that led to the senior inspector's office and the detection room. Kamble was sitting at the desk directly in front of the main door, bent over and writing something in a register. A man and a woman sat across from him, leaning towards each other, their shoulders huddled. A constable led a shackled prisoner past. The scrape of a jhadoo against stone came from the balcony above, slowly repeating itself. Majid Khan called out to an inspector, and the booming curl of his friendly abuse made Sartaj grin.

Sartaj got off the bike. He put his shoes up on the pedal, one by one, and buffed them with a spare handkerchief until they shone. Then he ran a finger around his waistline, along the belt. He patted his cheeks, and ran a forefinger and thumb along his moustache. He was sure it was magnificent. He was ready. He went in and began another day.

A full glossary is available for download at www.VikramChandra.com.

Note: Some of the words below can be used in more than one language; for example, 'Ma' ('Mother') is used in Hindi, Punjabi and many other north Indian languages.

AaiMother.

aaiyejhavnaya, aaiyejhavnayiMotherfucker.

Aaj ka Kanoon'The Law of our Times'.

aaja gufaon mein aa This is a line from a song from the 2001 Hindi film Aks : 'Come, come into the cave'. The next line is Aaja gunaah kar le— 'Come, commit a sin'.

aane wala pal Part of a line from a song from the Hindi film Gol Maal ('Fraud', 1979): 'The coming moment…' The full line is 'The coming moment will also pass…'

aatyaAunt—father's sister.

ACPAssistant Commissioner of Police.

Adhyapika-jiA very formal way of addressing a teacher: 'Respected teacher'.

adrakGinger.

agarbattiesIncense sticks.

akhaFull, absolute.

akharaRegiment.

almirahCupboard.

Ambabai A goddess especially popular in Maharashtra.

andaEgg.

angadiaTraditional Indian courier. Angadia companies are often used by diamond merchants, who send their shipments with trusted angadias. Like many traditional Indian services, the angadia system operates solely on trust.

angulaLiterally, a finger. Here, a measure of length.

antraA term from classical music for the introduction to the main body of the song. The antra may be repeated during the song itself.

appamA flat, pancake-like dish made from fermented rice. Native to Kerala.

apradhiCriminal, convict.

apsarasHeavenly nymphs, often the cause of the downfall of ascetic yogis and masters.

Arre chetti kar, dooty par jaana hai This is a Punjabi phrase that would translate roughly into something like, 'Hey, hurry up, I have to go to my duty'. The 'duty' in question is the speaker's police shift. In India, putting in a day of work is often referred to as 'doing duty'.

arthiFuneral byre on which a person is carried to the burning grounds.

ashianaLiterally, 'nest'.

attaFlour.

AvadhiPrior to British rule, Avadh (also known as Oude) was a kingdom at the centre of what is now the modern state of Uttar Pradesh. After the British occupation, the area was subsumed into the United Provinces.

AyAn exclamation to attract somebody's attention, 'Hey'.

Baap, baap reFather. Or an exclamation, 'O my father'.

babaAn affectionate way to address somebody. (Note that the same word can be used, depending on context, to mean 'young child' or 'old man'.)

bachchaChild.

badbooBad smell.

badmashA shady character, a bad man.

badshahEmperor.

baiA respectful title for women, but in Bombay it is often used to refer to maid servants, as in 'the bai who sweeps the house'.

baithakSitting room.

bajaMusical instrument.

bajao'To play', and often, 'to thump', as with a drum. So 'bajao' is used in the context of music, and it can often be used in the context of violence or sex. To 'bajao' somebody (or something) can mean to hit them, or to have vigorous sex with them. It has a similar connotation as 'to bang' in American slang.

Bakr'idA Muslim festival that commemorates the faith and sacrifice of Hazrat Ibrahim (Abraham), who was asked by Allah to sacrifice his son. The day is marked by the sacrifice of animals. Outside the subcontinent, the festival is known as Id-ul-Zuha or Id-ul-Azha.