Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Bastard,' I said. 'What a fine guard you are.'

'Sorry, bhai,' he said. 'I was seeing leopards all over the place. So I thought I would never sleep. But then suddenly I must have fallen asleep.'

'You were, chutiya. Like a baby.' But I was rubbing the top of his head. He was a good boy. Brave and watchful, watchful for me, and intelligent. He noticed things, the look on people's faces, cars parked where they shouldn't be, and felt rumours on his nerve-endings. But he couldn't help me now, with my quandary, my delicate puzzle which could break hearts and heads. None of them could. It made me angry, this sudden slide down and back into the slithering mess of family. I had lifted away, I had left everything behind. I had been alone. But there was no escape. The wheels slapped at the road and we went back to the city.

* * *

The next day we waged the final battles of the elections. Bipin Bhonsle called again and again, polite as he had been during our first meeting, but nerve-racked and needing reassurance that we would give him his precious seat yet. The Congress incumbent had been going around the bastis, handing out hundred-rupee notes and rum and whole sheep to the citizens. Good fresh mutton is the basis of many a political career, I came to know. It made sense. A poor man fills his stomach, he takes pleasure in his dinner, he lubricates himself with two free pegs, maybe three, not too many because he has other plans, he rides his wife, in the morning they both go to the voting booth happy, in that uplifted haze their bodies feel light, and they forget all about how the khadi-wearing bhenchod politician has done nothing for them for years, how he has robbed and stolen and maybe murdered. All of that is gone, vanished, and the happy couple cast their votes, and the servant of the people is in once again, ready to serve them out of roti, kapda and makaan. Hungry, naked and without shelter, they have no memory after meat. So you feed sheep to sheep to herd them in the right direction, towards the slaughterhouse gate. Quite simple.

But I had my own schemes ready. For two days I had sent out rumours. My boys went into the markets and bazaars and restaurants of the Congress and RPI areas and whispered, 'The goondas are coming on election day, thugs have been hired.' A rumour is the most cost-effective weapon ever, anywhere, you start it for nothing and then it grows, mutates, has offspring. In the morning you plant a little red squirming worm in some shopkeeper's ears and by night there are a hundred skyscraper-sized gory Ghatotkachas stalking the land. So I had the enemy voters nicely primed, covered in a sticky marinade of fear. Now it was time to stoke the fire. I had thirty motorcycles ready, with licence plates removed. We put two boys on each, faces covered with dakoo scarves, with bags full of soda bottles for the pillion riders, a crate's worth for every bike. They went roaring out into the lanes. Through the enemy area they went, roaring and hooting. They cleared the streets with the bottles, gave each bottle a few shakes and lobbed it end over end at the few citizens brave enough to be still walking around. The glass flies like shrapnel, but really with soda bottles it's the shattering burst that does the trick, sends the trembling civilians scuttling back to their homes with their pants heavy with piss. The boys had a good time, riding around in the cool of the morning, exercising their bowling arms. Chotta Badriya came back home flushed red and singing. 'Any more, bhai?' he yelled up to me from the road. I was sitting on the water tank on the roof. 'Any more to do?'

'Bas, Badriya, bas,' I said. 'Calm down. That was enough. Now the police will come.'

'Phatak, phachak, the bottles burst, bhai.'

'I know.'

'Great fun, bhai.'

'I know. Now sit quietly, and maybe we'll do it again next year.'

Sure the police came, they came running to the affected areas. They came with their rifles and lathis all ready. Inspector Samant slipped around a corner and found a phone and called me. 'DCP Saab and ACP Saab are here, bhai,' he said. 'You got everybody moving. We are patrolling the streets. Preventing any disturbances, you see.'

'Good, good,' I said. Bipin Bhonsle had paid the policemen too, all the way to the top. They would organize the right kind of peace. 'No more disturbances must happen. But you see anyone on the roads?'

'Not one man, not one woman. I see only three dogs.'

'Good,' I said. 'Typical Congress voters. We'll let them go.'

So I laughed and put down the phone. Just this much was enough to keep the enemy at home, to make the battlefield ours. No booth-capturing, no ballot-stuffing, just this. Meanwhile the boys had fanned out in our areas, and were taking the voters to the booths. 'We are from the Fair Election Committee,' they said, and they took our voters, in tens and twenties, to the voting centres. 'All is peaceful,' they said. 'Come, come.' And the voters came, safe and escorted, and Bipin Bhonsle's men, wearing nice yellow party badges, smiled at them outside the booths. And the voters filed in, and were left all alone, and they made their little black marks on the ballot, and the folded pieces of paper fell into the slotted wooden boxes, making small rustles, and the lines moved efficiently along, and the day passed, and so the machinery of democracy moved and spun, with a little help from us.

In Gopalmath, I sat on my roof and did my daily business. In the courtyard below, and out on the street, the usual clusters of supplicants gathered. Money was brought in, and I gave it out. Lives were brought to me, and I mended them. I gave justice. I ruled. The sun puddled, hovered and died its daily death. I ate, and retired to my bedroom. It was another quiet, ordinary day.

Bipin Bhonsle won by six thousand three hundred and forty three-votes.

* * *

I was dreading the wedding. Of course I had to go, but I didn't know how I would face Dipika, show her my face with no magic solution to grant her eternal happiness. I was angered by this feeling of helplessness, this paralysis of will. The problem stayed with me, gnawing with a thousand tiny teeth at the edges of my mind, like a flood of relentless ants. I was furious with Dipika. Who was she? What did she mean to me, that I owed her this? A little nothing of a girl, to come between me and my friend, to haunt and bother me with her huge staring eyes, she wasn't even pretty, why couldn't I just tell her to take her dirty mashooq and go to hell? Why? But I couldn't. She had begged me, and I had made a promise. There was no logic in it, but it was the truth, it had happened. So I had to act. But I still didn't know what I was going to do.

I took my gifts – gold bracelets, gold earrings and a gold necklace – and went to Paritosh Shah's house on the wedding day. I hardly had my shoes off when Dipika came running to the door, stopped herself from falling by clutching at the jamb. She swayed there, in her sari of gold, and I could sense my boys averting their eyes. I knew they were thinking: what is Bhai doing now? This much was all it took to start a story that would get longer and fuller as it went out across the city. 'Beti,' I said. I patted her head paternally. Then I took her by the shoulder and led her inside. In a corridor, while her aunts and cousins brushed past, all shiny and magnificent in their very best, I leaned close to her and pretended to give her something out of my wallet. 'Be calm, you fool,' I told her. 'If you act mad I can't do anything for you. Behave yourself now. When I want to tell you something, I'll tell you.'

'But,' she said. 'But.'

'Be quiet,' I said. 'If you want to do this big thing, be brave. Control yourself. Learn control. Leave fear behind. Look at me. Learn from me. You told me you were not a child, but you behave like one. Can you be a woman?'