Authors: Vikas Swarup
I smile at her. 'I was waiting to give you the good news. I have
just landed a new job – operations manager at the box factory on
MG Road. They will pay me ten thousand a month.'
'Ten thousand?' Mother's eyes open wide. She looks at me
sternly. 'You are not pulling my leg, are you?'
'I swear on Father, I am telling the truth,' I say solemnly.
'Lord Shiva be praised . . . Lord Shiva be praised.' Mother
looks up to the heavens and races out of the house. She will
probably start distributing sweets to everyone in the temple
complex.
Champi is not amused. 'How can you lie so brazenly? I pity
the woman who will marry you.'
'But won't she prefer a millionaire liar to an honest pauper?'
I grin.
A young woman wearing denim jeans and a printed
kurti
has
come to interview Champi. She is rather pretty, with short hair
and brown eyes. Her name is Nandita Mishra and she claims to be
a documentary film-maker.
'I am doing a film on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, and the situation
twenty-five years later. I have come to get Champi Bhopali's
perspective,' she tells me as she sets up her tripod. Champi
quickly goes to the kitchen, scrubs her face with water, puts a
flower in her hair and returns to face the video camera. She has
become quite adept at giving interviews, peppering her sentences
with words like 'contamination', 'conspiracy' and 'compensation'.
After the recording with Champi is over, the woman turns
to me.
'Do you know any people in the Sanjay Gandhi slum?'
'Why do you ask? What work could someone like you possibly
have there?'
'My next project is a film on slum life. Something along the
lines of
Salaam Bombay
, but grittier, edgier. We see slums from
afar, sitting in trains and cars, but how many of us have actually
ventured into one? My documentary will seek to give viewers an
authentic experience of slum life.'
'A slum is not a tourist attraction, Madam,' I scoff. 'To
experience slum life, you have to be born in one.'
She looks at me sharply. 'That's quite a good line. Would you
mind repeating it for the camera?'
So I, too, prepare to give an interview for the first time in my
life, expounding on life in the Sanjay Gandhi slum. It is a subject
I know well. The slum has been my playground since the age of
three. I have many insights into slum living – how a family of six
manages to squeeze itself into an eight-by-eight-foot space. How
a girl protects her modesty while bathing underneath a municipal
tap in full view of hundreds of people. How a married couple
makes clandestine love with furtive eyes watching their every
move. How grown men sit in rows and shit like buffaloes at the
edge of the railway track. How the poor breed like mosquitoes and
live like dogs, while the dogs of the rich sleep on Dunlopillo
mattresses in mosquito-free mansions.
I could have said all these things, but face to face with the lens
of the camera I falter and become tongue-tied. Nandita Mishra
tries to prompt me, but the words have suddenly dried up inside
me. She gives up after a while and begins packing up her
equipment.
After she has gone I brood upon my failure. Was it because of
the camera in my face or the briefcase under my bed? Is it possible
that because I now have wealth, I am unable to think like a
slum-dweller?
Ten days have passed since I acquired that briefcase and no one
has come looking for it. As per plan, inside the temple I will
continue my life exactly as before. I will be frugal and abstinent.
But outside, I can afford to be an entirely different person. I can
start spending some of the money, enjoy the fruits of my good
fortune. I decide to begin with a taxi ride.
The taxi stand is two streets down from the temple. There is a
yellow-and-black taxi parked on the kerb and the driver is reading
a newspaper inside the car. I knock on the window pane. 'Are
you free?'
The driver, an old Sikh with an unkempt beard, unrolls the
window and spits out something. 'Who needs the taxi?'
'I do.'
He looks at my dirty clothes and dusty face with unconcealed
disdain. '
Oy
, have you ever taken a taxi in your life? Do you know
how much it costs?' he asks tartly.
'I have been riding in taxis all my life,
sardarji
,' I bark,
surprised at the arrogance in my voice. I flash a couple of
thousand-rupee notes in front of him. 'Now take me to Ansal
Plaza. And make it quick.'
'Yes, Sahib.' The driver's demeanour changes immediately.
'Please get in.' He dumps the newspaper and cranks the meter.
I settle down on the back seat of a taxi for the first time in my
life, cup my hands behind my head and stretch my legs. The high
life has begun.
I shop with a vengeance at the upmarket mall. Everything which
my heart has always desired but my wallet couldn't afford, I buy.
I purchase a shirt from Marks & Spencer, a leather jacket from
Benetton, jeans from Levi, sunglasses from Guess, perfume
from Lacoste and shoes from Nike. I compress ten years of
window-shopping into an hour of frenzied purchasing, blowing
twenty thousand rupees in just these six stores. Then I go into the
fancy toilets, wash my face and change, putting on my new jeans,
shirt and shoes, with the leather jacket on top. I spray my body
with the expensive perfume and stand in front of the full-length
mirror. The man who stares back at me is a handsome stranger, tall
and lean with a clean-shaven face and curly, tousled hair like actor
Salim Ilyasi's. I snap my fingers at the mirror and strike a pose like
Michael Jackson. Then I stuff my old clothes and shoes in a
shopping bag and swagger out of the toilets in my dark glasses. A
hep-looking girl in jeans and T-shirt glances at me appreciatively.
Ten minutes ago she wouldn't have noticed me. It makes me
realize how much garments can change a man. And I know that
there is nothing intrinsically different about the rich. They just
wear better clothes.
I feel like breaking into a jig and singing, '
Saala main to sahab
ban gaya!
' Munna Mobile has become a gentleman. And now he
needs a rich lady friend.
I spend the rest of the evening in South Extension Market,
watching the chic girls in their chic clothes. They alight from their
expensive cars and enter expensive stores selling designer handbags
and brand-name shoes. I follow a group of girls into the
Reebok showroom and the guard at the entrance salutes me and
holds open the door. The manager inside asks me if I would like a
soft drink or a cup of tea. I laugh and chat with the sales girls. They
flirt with me. The experience makes me feel all warm and happy
inside. Stepping out of the centrally heated showroom, I decide to
try the Deluxe Indian Restaurant next door. I have a lavish meal
of butter chicken, seekh kebabs and naan bread, costing eight
hundred rupees. Back again on the main street, I make a final
survey of the stretch of brightly lit emporiums, their plexiglass
windows full of dazzling goods. The lurid glitter of the city does
not seem alien today. I, too, have become a denizen of its showy
world.
My next stop is Infra Red, an exclusive dance club, considered
to be the most hip and happening place in the capital after dark.
Dinoo, a friend from the slum who worked there briefly as a
waiter, had told me that the best-looking girls come to the joint,
and 'half naked' too.
The taxi drops me right in front of the club's sparkling neonlit
entrance. It is only nine p.m. but there is already a fairly long
queue in front of the carved wooden door, which is blocked off by
a velvet rope. Two muscular, bald bouncers in identical black suits
stand in front of the door and screen customers. There are a
couple of beggars on the pavement who line up hopefully before
every car that pulls up. I get in the queue and reach the door after
a fifteen-minute wait. One of the bouncers gives me a quick onceover.
He nods to his partner, who asks me to fork out three
thousand rupees as a 'cover charge for singles'. 'Three thousand
rupees? That's outrageous!' I want to shout, but say nothing and
strip off three more notes from my wad. I am given a voucher, the
velvet rope is unhooked and I am ushered through the door. I go
down nearly twenty steps to what seems like a basement. I can
hear the distant sound of pumping music. The sound becomes
louder as I reach another door. A uniformed doorman checks my
voucher and presses a button. The door flips open and I step into
a dimly lit hall packed with people. The music is so loud I fear my
ear drums will shatter. Immediately to my right is a bar shaped
like an island surrounded by small yellow sofas. To my left is the
dance floor, a vast space constructed almost entirely of mirrors,
with a massive strobe light hanging like a chandelier, flashing
green, blue and yellow at regular intervals. The mood is
celebratory and the floor is packed with swaying, sweaty bodies
dancing with manic energy. The DJ sits some twenty feet above on
a projecting balcony made of glass and steel. From time to time
white smoke erupts from the middle of the dance floor like a
ghostly fountain.
Dinoo wasn't wrong about the club. Every other girl wears a
body-hugging dress, halter tops with plunging necklines expose
half their breasts, short T-shirts leave midriffs bare and micro mini
skirts barely conceal underwear. The dance floor has more skin on
display than Fashion TV.
The smoke, the light, the music all contribute to an atmosphere
of reckless abandon, as if India has been left behind and we
are in some bold new country with its own rules and regulations.
As I become more accustomed to the translucent neon décor
and the dim lighting, I recognize some famous faces sitting at the
bar. There is Smriti Bakshi, the TV soap star, Simi Takia, the
actress, and Chetan Jadeja, the former cricketer. Another familiarlooking
man with gelled hair and bulging biceps is chatting to a
foreigner. There is a group of girls in designer jeans and stiletto
heels, looking like glamour models. Everyone seems important. I
feel like I have gatecrashed a party full of movie stars and
celebrities.
The bartender, a young man with slick hair and a bow tie, asks
me if I would like a drink. 'What do you have?' I ask. 'Everything,
Sir.' He points to the array of bottles stacked behind him. I try to
eavesdrop on what the models are ordering. They ask for drinks
like Long Island Ice Tea, Pina Colada and Strawberry Margarita
which I have never heard of and flash their credit cards
nonchalantly.
I feel like taking a leak and move to the men's toilets. As soon
as I open the door I hear strange sounds. There are a couple of
firang
white girls inside, giggling and snorting cocaine at the washbasin.
They glower at me, making me feel like an intruder. 'Go
away,' says one.
I leave hurriedly and head for the dance floor. The DJ, who has
been playing English music till now, puts on a remix from the film
Dhoom 2
and a loud cheer goes up. It is a song I know very well, having
seen the film no less than twelve times. I have memorized each
and every move of Hrithik Roshan's amazing dance routine. And I
am not alone. Every slum kid is a Michael Jackson waiting for his
moment in the sun. It has always been my secret fantasy to go to a
dance club one day where the DJ will put on my favourite number
and I will show off the moves perfected over ten years of watching
dance shows on TV. I will do the moonwalk and the spot shimmy, I
will spin on my head and walk on my hands. The crowds will part
and everyone will stand to the side, applauding my every move. But
now, when I have the opportunity, I feel strangely nervous and diffident,
as if my dancing will expose me as an impostor.
I feel suffocated. The dance floor doesn't seem rocking any
more. That is when I notice that behind the dance floor there is
another screened-off area. I push my way through the packed,
jostling mass of bodies and enter yet another lounge, which is much
more informal. Instead of sofas and bar stools it has carpets and
cushions. There is a widescreen TV and a few artificial plants. There
is also a small bar with a bartender who is yawning. Only a handful
of people are in the lounge – a couple sitting in a corner exchanging
whispered confidences, a bored-looking girl with an older guy,
trying to send a text message from her mobile phone, and a group
of foreigners with long hair taking turns smoking a hookah.
I see a girl sitting all alone, with her back towards me, watching
the TV, which is tuned to NDTV instead of MTV. She is
slender, with long black hair, and is probably the only girl in the
entire club wearing a
desi
dress, a blue
salwar kameez
.
I step closer to her. She senses my presence and turns around.
I glimpse an oval face, a well-shaped nose, full lips and a pair of
dark eyes which look like they will break into tears at any minute.
She is one of the most beautiful girls I have seen in my life.
'Hi!' I say, because rich people speak only in English.
She looks at me with a helpless expression and does not
respond. I notice she is biting her lip.
Another girl, wearing tight jeans and a studded belt, appears
suddenly by her side. She has put on crimson lipstick to match
her red-striped T-shirt, whose deep V-neck clearly displays her
cleavage. 'Ritu, I hope you are not getting terribly bored,
yaar
,' she
says in Hindi. '
Bas
,Tony and I will have a couple more dances and
then we'll leave.'
Then she notices me standing behind Ritu. 'Hello, Mister.
Aren't you going to buy my friend a drink?' she says in English.
By now I have exhausted all the English I know. 'I prefer to
speak Hindi,' I tell her, sounding sheepish.
'Cool,' says the girl and offers her hand. 'My name is Malini.
This is my friend Ritu. She also speaks only chaste Hindi.'