Authors: Vikas Swarup
'Welcome to the Gulag Archipelago,' the man announces in
perfect English, holding both hands together.
'What is your name?'
'My name is Red.'
'What are you in jail for?'
'Atonement.'
'And what do you think will be your punishment?'
'One hundred years of solitude.'
'Who is your best friend here?'
The Possession of Mohan Kumar
127
'The boy in the striped pyjamas.'
'Thank you. You can go now.'
'So long, see you tomorrow,' the man says. He tilts his head,
stretches his arms and begins running towards the centre of the
field like an aeroplane in flight.
Mohan is intrigued. 'Is his name really Red?'
'No,' Babloo grins. 'His name is L. K. Varshney. He used to be
a Professor of English Literature at Delhi University. One day he
discovered his wife in bed with his best student. So he killed his
wife and is now in jail, pending trial. He will probably be
sentenced to life. They say he used to be half mad when he was a
professor. Tihar has made him completely mad. Now he always
speaks in this funny kind of way.'
'And what are you in jail for?'
'For everything. I have committed almost every crime in the
Indian Penal Code and all my cases are awaiting trial. But they
won't be able to prove anything. I stay in Tihar because I prefer to
stay here. It is safer than being outside.'
As Babloo wanders off to chat to a couple of tough-looking
inmates, a young boy with a dusty face and short hair comes up to
Mohan and touches his feet. He smells of dirt.
'
Arrey
, who are you?' Mohan shrinks back.
'They say you are Gandhi Baba,' the youth says hesitatingly. 'I
came to pay my respects and ask for a favour. My name is Guddu.'
'What are you in for?' Mohan asks.
'I stole a loaf of bread from a bakery. Now I have been here
five years. They beat me every day, make me clean the toilets. I
want to see my mother. I miss her very much. I know only you can
get me out,' he says and starts sobbing.
'
Hato. Hato
.' Mohan tries to wave him away. 'Look, there is
nothing I can do. I am a prisoner too, like you. I have to get out
myself before I can think of others. And don't spread this nonsense
about my being Gandhi Baba, OK?'
He moves to the other side of the field and is almost
immediately accosted by an old man with an aquiline nose and
twinkling grey eyes.
'
Yada yada hi dharmasya glanirbhavati bharata
,' the man
intones in Sanskrit, and then translates for Mohan's benefit.
'Whenever there is a fall of righteousness, you arrive to destroy
the forces of evil. I bow to you, O great Mahatma. Only you can
save this country.'
'And who might you be?' Mohan asks wearily.
'Dr D. K. Tirumurti at your service, Sir. Sanskrit scholar from
Madurai.'
'Also professional cheat, you forgot to mention,' Babloo speaks
up from behind.
'Let's go, Babloo, I've had enough fresh air.' Mohan tugs at the
gangster's sleeve. 'There is one chap who wants me to save him,
another who wants me to save the country. Is this a jail or a lunatic
asylum?'
Babloo chuckles. 'Actually there is very little difference
between the two. Stick with me if you don't want to join the
loony brigade.'
The food at dinner time is the same bland fare. But by now Mohan
is so famished, he polishes off all four
rotis
and slurps up the cold
vegetable stew. Babloo, he notices, eats very little, sniffling most of
the time.
'How do you manage on so little food?' he asks the gangster.
Babloo gives a crafty smile. Wiping his runny nose with the
sleeve of his
kurta
, he lifts the mattress and brings out a hypodermic
syringe. 'My food is this.' He tests the syringe before
plunging it into his arm.
Mohan winces. 'So you are a drug addict?'
'No. Not an addict,' Babloo says with sudden vehemence. 'I
control the cocaine. The cocaine doesn't control me.' He completes
the injection and exhales. 'Ahh . . . this is paradise. I tell you,
nothing can beat the rush of crack. Want to try? It will make you
forget Scotch.'
'No thank you.'
'I take only one dose at night. And that keeps me going all
through the night and all through the next day.'
'Then how do you sleep?'
'I pop some sleeping tablets.'
'Thankfully I don't need sleeping pills to get to sleep,' Mohan
says and pulls the blanket over his head.
'Good night, Sir,' Babloo calls out and for no apparent reason
bursts into a fit of laughter.
It takes an immense effort on Mohan's part to begin the slow
process of adjusting to jail life. He learns to get up at five thirty
a.m. for the head-count of prisoners, to sit on the stinking toilet
without holding his nose, to tolerate the insipid tea and inedible
rotis
, to attend the prayer assemblies and yoga sessions and even
watch the soaps on TV, which most inmates are completely
addicted to. He becomes acquainted with Punjabi murderers and
Gujarati arsonists, Nigerian drug-pushers and Uzbek counterfeiters,
South Indian cheats and North Indian rapists. He begins
playing chess and carrom. He borrows three books a week from
the jail library and starts maintaining a diary of prison life.
Throughout this period, he is sustained by Babloo's largesse
with his Scotch whisky, the punctilious delivery of Shanti's tiffin
every Wednesday loaded with mutton curry and chicken biryani,
and the soothing assurances of his lawyers that he will be out
soon.
He develops an uneasy friendship with Babloo Tiwari. He is
revolted by the criminal's crassness, his ignorance of world affairs,
but also amazed at the power he wields in jail. Babloo is the
uncrowned king of Tihar, each and every official having been
bribed or bullied into servicing him. He runs his empire from
inside the jail, spending half his time talking to his henchmen in
low whispers, arranging abductions and demanding ransoms,
receiving contraband consignments of liquor, cocaine and SIM
cards, doling out rewards to pliable policemen and bribe-taking
bureaucrats. He has a shrewd sense of their weaknesses, knowing
whom to lure with a call girl and whom with cash. But he reserves
his ultimate display of power for New Year's Eve, when he
organizes a 'private concert' for the jail staff and his cohorts.
*
In the reading room, the tables and chairs have been pushed to the
corners and a makeshift wooden stage erected next to the wall. The
central space is covered with white sheets and scattered with foam
cushions. Two bottles of Johnny Walker Black Label are placed in the
middle and salted nuts in stainless steel bowls are laid out at strategic
intervals.
Babloo Tiwari reclines against a bolster, takes a sip of whisky
from the glass tumbler in his hand, pops a cashew nut into his
mouth and gazes at the fair young woman on the stage. Dressed
in a knee-length
lehnga
and a tight
choli
, she is busy aping the
moves of Shabnam Saxena to a taped medley of her film hits.
On Babloo's left sits the warden and on his right is Mohan.
Immediately behind them are the other jail staff, and behind them
the fifteen inmates granted the privilege of attending the 'show'.
The girl thrusts her ample bosom at the men, who leer at her,
address her as '
jaaneman
' and 'darling' (Professor Varshney calls
her 'Lolita') and make vulgar gestures with their fingers. As the
night progresses and the level of inebriation increases, some of
the jail staff climb on to the stage and join in the dancing. A
constable grinds his hips suggestively while another tries unsuccessfully
to catch the girl's flared skirt. Babloo also lurches up to
the dancer and showers her with a wad of hundred-rupee notes.
The warden looks on benignly, occasionally glancing at the Rolex
watch on his wrist which Babloo had given him that morning.
'Fantastic, Babloo Saab! I could never have imagined such a
spectacle inside a jail,' Dr Tirumurti compliments the gangster.
'My motto has always been Live and Let Live,' Babloo says
smugly and looks at Mohan. 'So Kumar Sahib, what do you think?
Is Tihar a bad place to celebrate the New Year?'
'I think you are right,' Mohan agrees. 'Tihar isn't such a bad
place after all. Cheers!'
'Tender is the night,' chimes Varshney.
Just before midnight, Mohan feels the urge to take a leak. He
leaves the hall, shivering as a gust of cold wind hits him in the face.
It is a chilly night but the sky is alive with the colourful bursts of
firecrackers and rockets. As he is crossing the courtyard he hears a
faint rustling sound and suddenly a large hand clamps his mouth
from behind. He struggles frantically to free himself, but something
cold, hard and metallic is thrust into the small of his back.
'One move and the gun will blast your intestines, understand?'
Two other shadows materialize out of the darkness, flanking him.
He sees their faces and feels his mouth drying. They are the
terrorists belonging to the dreaded Lashkar-e-Shahadat. The Army
of Martyrdom.
The three men propel him towards the gate. The courtyard is
deserted – the sentries are all enjoying the dance programme
whose faint sounds can still be heard. There is a lone guard on
duty at the main gate. He is watching the fireworks in the sky, his
rifle resting against his leg. The leader of the group tiptoes up to
the guard. In one swift move, he grabs him by the neck and wrestles
him to the ground.
'What . . . what . . . what are you people doing out of your
cells?' the flustered sentry asks as he is pinned to the ground.
'Shut up!' the leader barks, while one of his partners picks up
the rifle and trains it on the guard. 'Open the gate.'
Shaking with fear, the sentry takes a bunch of keys from his
trouser pocket. With trembling fingers he unlocks the padlock and
the gate swings open. At that very instant the leader strikes the
guard with the butt of the pistol. He topples down soundlessly.
Mohan begins shivering. 'Please don't kill me,' he pleads with
his abductors. The leader laughs. It is the last thing Mohan hears
before his head explodes in pain and everything turns black.
When he regains consciousness, Professor Varshney is bending
over him. 'I'm OK, you're OK?'
'Where am I?' Mohan asks.
'In custody.'
He looks around and finds himself in the prison's dispensary.
There is a newspaper on the side table. He picks it up and finds
his picture plastered on the front page. 'DARING JAIL BREAK IN
TIHAR – GANDHI BABA INJURED', the headline proclaims. Below
it are the details:
Red-faced officials were hard put to explain what
they were doing watching a cabaret in the highsecurity
prison while three dreaded terrorists
managed their getaway. How they escaped from
their cells and smuggled a pistol into the Tihar complex
is still being investigated. Meanwhile, a
massive shake-up has been ordered.
The government's retribution is swift. The warden is
suspended. Eighteen jail staff are summarily transferred. A tough
new jailer is appointed. Babloo Tiwari and Mohan Kumar are
shifted from their swanky cell to a narrow dormitory with two
new cellmates – Professor Varshney and Dr Tirumurti.
The gangster curses the Kashmiris. 'Bloody bastards, now I will
have to suffer like the rest. They have taken away my mobile. Even
the radio and TV have been banned. How will I survive in this hell
hole?'
'The
Gita
says, give up attachments and dedicate yourself to
the service of God and your fellow men,' Mohan intones.
'Who is this Gita?'
'
Gita
is the key to the scriptures of the world. It teaches the
secret of non-violence, the secret of realizing self through the
physical body.'
'What crap are you talking, Mohan Sahib?'
'True development consists of reducing ourselves to a cipher.'
'Has he gone mad?' Babloo looks at Tirumurti.
'No, Babloo Saab. He is revealing the knowledge that so far he
has kept hidden from us. We are witnessing the rebirth of Gandhi
Baba.'
'This is very convenient,' Babloo sneers. 'As long as we were in
that VIP cell he had no qualms about drinking my whisky. And
now that we are in this hell hole, he becomes Gandhi Baba? I tell
you, he is nothing but a fraud.'
'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?' Varshney interjects.
'Have you seen this report, Babloo Saab?' Tirumurti points to
the newspaper in his hand. 'It says that judgment in Vicky Rai's
case has been postponed to 15 February.'
'What difference does it make when they pronounce the
verdict? The outcome is already known to everyone.' Babloo
waves dismissively.
'Yes, there is no justice in this country,' Tirumurti sighs. 'A man
like Gandhi Baba is in jail and a murderer like Vicky Rai is out on
bail.'
'We have entered the heart of darkness,' Varshney says gravely.
The mention of Vicky Rai makes Mohan Kumar suddenly alert.
His brow furrows and his pupils dilate. 'Vicky Rai . . . Vicky Rai . . .
Vicky Rai,' he mumbles, as though someone has raked an old wound.
'I am going to make a wager on this case. I will bet you a
million to one that Vicky Rai will walk free,' Babloo declares.
'I agree,' Tirumurti nods his head.
'He will be gone with the wind,' adds Varshney.
'What is this?' Mohan berates them. 'You people are speaking
as if the British are still ruling India. In those days, I agree, justice
was denied in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. But now we are
our own rulers. I am sure Vicky Rai will get his just desserts. We
should have faith in the judiciary.'
'Fine, Gandhi Baba, we shall see who is proved right on 15
February,' says Babloo and shivers slightly.
'Have you got a fever?' Mohan asks with concern.
'No. It is just a passing chill,' Babloo says.