Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Papa, I want sev-puri,' Mohit said, tugging at Katekar's shirt.

'Let's go and sit,' Shalini said. 'They can find us.'

Rohit hadn't really gone far enough, but Katekar didn't need any more urging from Shalini. Bharti was her sister, and if Shalini thought they could go and sit, Katekar would sit.

They found two mats, as far right as possible, and arranged themselves. Katekar took off his shoes, sat cross-legged, sighed. The sun was still high enough to heat his knees, but there were the beginnings of a breeze against his chest. He opened his shirt, and mopped at the back of his neck with his handkerchief, and listened to Shalini and Rohit and Mohit place their orders with the boy who had shown them to their places. Katekar didn't want to eat yet. He was savouring the feeling of being at rest, of not having to shift from foot to foot like the waiter, who now sped off to his stall.

The boy hurried back, expertly balancing the food as he manoeuvred around and through the walkers. 'Eh, tambi,' Katekar said, 'get me narial-pani.'

'Yes, seth,' the boy said, and he was away.

'Narial-pani?' Shalini said, looking arch.

He had told her the previous month about an article he had read in an afternoon paper which asserted that coconuts were full of harmful fat. She had waved her hand at him and said that she didn't believe all these new-fangled things he read in papers, who had ever got ill from eating coconuts or drinking narial-pani? But she never forgot anything, and she wasn't going to let him get away with his backsliding from science. He tilted his head to one side, and smiled. 'Only today.'

She smiled back, and let him be. So Katekar sat and drank his narial-pani, and watched Mohit devote himself to his sev-puri, and Rohit watch the passing girls. A ship balanced on the gleaming horizon. Katekar watched it, and he knew it was moving but could not see it move.

'Dada!'

Katekar turned, and there was Vishnu Ghodke, waving frantically. He made his way over, followed by Bharti and the children. There was the usual flurry of greetings, and a lot of shifting about, and then the family was finally established on two mats. Shalini had Bharti close to her, and Vishnu was near Katekar. The children were hemmed in between Bharti and Vishnu. The two girls were typically beribboned and fancy-frocked, but the boy, who had been born last after much prayer and ritual, was dressed as if he were going to a wedding. He had on a little blue bow-tie, and a big red plastic wristwatch which he was winding and rewinding. Mohit and Rohit leaned over to push him about, and Katekar felt a surge of affection for the two, for wanting to mess up the prissy little brat's careful coif. He squeezed the cheeks of his two nieces as Shalini and Bharti launched instantly into an animated conversation about some ongoing family intrigue involving relatives of relatives. Katekar liked his older niece best, the girl who had quietly watched the boy become the centre of her parents' world with an increasing understanding and resignation.

'You've grown taller, Sudha,' he said. 'Already, so soon.'

'She eats like a horse,' said her father, with a guffaw and a hand on her head.

Katekar saw the angry squeeze of Sudha's jaw as she ducked away to whisper something in her sister's ear. Vishnu had a voice that didn't need any loudspeakers. Katekar said, 'She wants to grow up to be tall, like me. Sudha, you come here and sit next to me. I'm also very hungry. Arre, tambi.'

So Sudha sat next to Katekar, and they went over the menu together, and from that much-stained paper, chose a feast of bhelpuri, papri chaat and Sudha's favourite, pav-bhaji. They ate together, and now Katekar relished the break of sour into sweet on his tongue. Food was the greatest and most reliable of pleasures, and to sit on Chowpatty and eat it with wife and family, with the sea heaving gently, was as close to contentment as Katekar had ever been. So he sat and listened to Bharti go on. She was wearing a shiny green sari. A new one, Katekar thought. She had been a stocky little girl when he had first seen her, too shy to speak to him. A very few years later, Vishnu had given her a heavier mangalsutra than Katekar could remember from any wedding in the family, and she had never stopped talking since. She was wearing the mangalsutra now, along with a gold chain that went around her neck twice.

'That Bipin Bhonsle is such a haraamkhor,' she said. 'Before elections he told us that he would get a new extra water pipe to the colony. Now there is no new water pipe, but even the old one gets leaks every second week. Three children and no water, it is impossible.'

'Vote him out in the next election,' Katekar said.

'That is impossible, Dada,' Vishnu said. 'He has too many resources, too many connections. And the other parties have all gadhav candidates in that constituency. None of them can win. Putting a vote in for someone else is a waste of a vote.'

'Then find a good candidate.'

'Arre, Dada, who will stand against that Bhonsle? And where does one find good candidates nowadays? You need someone who is tough, who can give a jhakaas speech, who is attractive to the people. That type doesn't exist any more. You need one giant, all you get nowadays are crowds of small men.'

Shalini leaned to the side and brushed her hands off, then neatened her sari over her knees. 'You're looking everywhere but the right place,' she said.

Vishnu was very surprised. 'You know someone?'

Shalini pointed with both hands at Bharti. 'Here, here.'

'What?' Vishnu said.

Katekar pitched forward and back, shaken by laughter. It came more from the dismay on Vishnu's face, from his abject horror at his wife somehow becoming a giantess, than from Shalini's joke, but the children took it up and instantly they were all guffawing.

'See,' Shalini said, 'my sister Bharti is brave, she can impress anyone with her style, and nobody gives a speech like her. You should make her a mantri.'

Vishnu had understood by now that this was all humour, and he was grinning tightly, stretching his lip over his lower teeth. 'Yes, yes, Taai, she would make a good chief minister actually. She will keep everyone in control.'

Bharti had both hands in front of her mouth. 'Arre, devaa, I don't want any such thing. Taai, what are you saying? I have my hands full with these children, I don't want to sit on top of fifty thousand people.'

Katekar wanted to say something about her weight crushing fifty thousand, but then thought better of it and contented himself with a snort at the image of Vishnu's face compressed by her ample haunches. Vishnu looked uncertain, and then laughed along with him.

After Katekar finished eating, he and Vishnu walked along the water. Katekar had his pants rolled up, and he had left his shoes behind with Shalini. He liked to walk on the wet sand where it had been smoothed by the sea, feel it under his soles. Vishnu was walking a good five feet away, protecting his sandals. He hopped away now to save himself from an oncoming surge. 'Dada,' he said, 'one of these times you must let me pay. Otherwise we will feel embarrassed to come again.'

'Vishnu, don't start that whole argument again. I am elder, so I pay.' A bitter wash of irritation gushed up from Katekar's stomach. It was stupid, this pride of his that refused to eat meals paid for by Vishnu, but he could not stomach Vishnu's smugness, his satisfaction at his own success.

'Yes, yes, Dada,' Vishnu said, raising both hands. 'Sorry. You are doing well nowadays?'

'I am getting along,' Katekar said. Vishnu had of course noticed the thousand-rupee note that Katekar had used to pay the waiter. He never missed anything, the watchful Vishnu.

Vishnu stepped thoughtfully over a ragged branch from a palm tree. 'Dada, at this age, you should be doing much better.'