Mohsin Hamid - How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Your shift is six hours long, in the evening from seven to one, its brief periods of intense activity interspersed with lengthy lulls, and because of this you have developed speed as well as stamina. You have also been exposed to a wide range of people, including to women, who in the homes of the rich think nothing of meeting you alone at the door, alone, that is, if you do not count their watchful guards and drivers and other outdoor servants, and then asking you questions, often about image and sound quality but also sometimes about whether a movie is good or not. As a result you know the names of actors and directors from all over the world, and what film should be compared with what, even in the cases of actors and directors and films you have not yourself seen, there being only so much off-time during your shifts to watch what happens to be playing at the shop.

In the same market works the pretty girl. Her father, a notorious drunk and gambler rarely sighted during the day, sends out his wife and daughter to earn back what he has lost the night before or will lose the night to come. The pretty girl is an assistant in a beauty salon, where she carries towels, handles chemicals, brings tea, sweeps hair off the floor, and massages the heads, backs, buttocks, thighs, and feet of women of all ages who are either wealthy or wish to appear wealthy. She also provides soft drinks to men waiting in cars for their wives and mistresses.

Her shift ends around the time yours begins, and since you live on adjacent streets you frequently pass each other on your ways to and from work. Sometimes you don’t, and then you walk your bicycle by the salon to catch a glimpse of her inside. For her part, she seems fascinated by the video shop, and stares with particular interest at the ever-changing posters and DVD covers. She does not stare at you, but when your eyes meet, she does not look away.

Every so often it happens that you don’t pass her on your way to work and also don’t see her when you walk by the windows of the salon. On these occasions you wonder where she might have gone. Perhaps she has a rotating day off in addition to the day the salon shuts. Such arrangements are, after all, not unheard of.

One winter evening, when it is already dark, and the two of you approach each other in the unlit alley that cuts through the factories, she speaks to you.

“You know a lot about movies?” she asks.

You get off your bicycle. “I know everything about movies.”

She doesn’t slow down. “Can you get me the best one? The one that’s most popular?”

“Sure.” You turn to keep pace with her. “You have a player to watch it on?”

“I will. Stop following me.”

You halt as though at the lip of a precipice.

That night a video is quietly stolen from your shop. You carry it under your tunic the following day, but there is no sign of the pretty girl, neither on the way to work nor in her salon. You next see her the day after, her shawl halfheartedly draped over her head in a disdainful nod to the accepted norms of your neighborhood, as it always is when she is out on the street. She walks awkwardly, burdened with a large plastic bag containing a carton for a combination television and DVD player.

“Where did you get that?” you ask.

“A gift. My movie?”

“Here.”

“Drop it in the bag.”

You do. “That looks heavy. Can I help?”

“No. Anyway you’re like me. Skinny.”

“I’m strong.”

“I didn’t say we weren’t strong.”

She continues on her way, adding nothing further, not even a thank-you. You spend the rest of the evening in turmoil. Yes, you have spoken to the pretty girl twice. But she has given you no sign that she intends to speak to you again. Moreover, the strong-versus-skinny debate has been raging in your head for some time, so her comments cut close to the bone.

When asked why, despite your regular workouts, your physique looks nothing like his in photos of him at his competitive prime, your neighbor, the bodybuilder turned gunman, blames your diet. You are not getting enough protein.

“You’re also young,” he says, leaning against his doorway and taking a hit of his joint while a little girl clings to his leg. “You won’t be at your max for another few years. But don’t worry about it. You’re tough. Not just here.” He taps your bicep, which you flex surreptitiously beneath your tunic. “But here.” He taps you between the eyes. “That’s why the other kids usually don’t mess with you.”

“Not because they know I know you?”

He winks. “That too.”

It’s true that you have earned a savage reputation in the street brawls that break out among the boys of your neighborhood. But the issue of protein is one that rankles. These are relatively good times for your family. With one less mouth to feed since your sister returned to the village, and three earners since you joined your father and brother in employment, your household’s per capita income is at an all-time high.

Still, protein is prohibitively expensive. Chicken is served in your home on the rarest of occasions, and red meat is a luxury to be enjoyed solely at grand celebrations, such as weddings, for which hosts save for many years. Lentils and spinach are of course staples of your diet, but vegetable protein is not the same thing as the animal stuff. After debt payments and donations to needy extended relatives, your immediate family is only able to afford a dozen eggs per week, or four each for your mother, brother, and you, and a half-liter of milk per day, of which your share works out to half a glass.

For the past several months, your one secret indulgence, which you are both deeply guilty about and fiercely committed to, has been the daily purchase of a quarter-liter packet of milk. This consumes ten percent of your salary, the precise amount of a raise you neglected to inform your father you received. Per week, your milk habit is also roughly equivalent to the price your employer’s customers are willing to pay for the delivery of one pirated DVD, a fact that alternately angers you in its preposterousness and soothes you by putting your theft from your family into diminished perspective. The daily sum of money involved is, after all, worth a mere thumb’s-width slice of a disc of plastic.

You are thinking of your complicated protein situation when you spy the pretty girl the next evening. This time she stops in the alley, produces the DVD you gave her, and thumps it without a word against your chest.

“You didn’t like it?”

“I liked it.”

“You can keep it. It’s a gift.”

Her face hardens. “I don’t want gifts from you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Do you have a phone?”

“Yes.”

“Give it to me.”

“Well, the problem is it’s from work…”

She laughs. It is the first time you have seen her do so. It makes her look young. Or rather, since she is in fact young and normally appears more mature than her years, it makes her look her age.

She says, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to take it with me.”

You hand over your phone. She presses the keys and a single note emerges from her bag before she hangs up.

She says, “Now I have your number.”

“And I have yours.” You try to match her cool tone. It is unclear to you if you succeed, but in any case she is already walking away.

Because of the nature of your work and the need to be able to reach you on your delivery rounds at any moment, your employer has provided you with a mobile. It is a flimsy, thirdhand device, but a source of considerable pride nonetheless. Paying for outbound calls is your own responsibility, so you maintain a bare minimum of credit in your account. Tonight, though, you rush to buy a sizable refill card in anticipation.