The White Tiger

Another half hour of waiting. Another truck came. Another scramble, another fight. After the fifth or sixth fight of the day, I finally found myself at the head of the crowd, face-to-face with the truck driver. He was a Sikh, a man with a big blue turban. In one hand he held a wooden stick, and he swung the stick to drive back the crowd.
    “Everyone!” he shouted. “Take off your shirts! I’ve got to see a man’s nipples before I give him a job!”
    He looked at my chest; he squeezed the nipples—slapped my butt—glared into my eyes—and then poked the stick against my thigh: “Too thin! Fuck off!”
    “Give me a chance, sir—my body is small but there’s a lot of fight in it—I’ll dig for you, I’ll haul cement for you, I’ll—”
    He swung his stick; it hit me on the left ear. I fell down, and others rushed to take my place.
    I sat on the ground, rubbed my ear, and watched the truck leave in a big cloud of dust.
    The shadow of an eagle passed over my body. I burst into tears.
    “White Tiger! There you are!”
    Kishan and Cousin Dilip lifted me up from the ground, big smiles on their faces. Great news! Granny had agreed to let them invest in my driving classes. “There’s only one thing,” Kishan said. “Granny says you’re a greedy pig. She wants you to swear by all the gods in heaven that you won’t forget her once you get rich.”
    “I swear.”
    “Pinch your neck and swear—you’ll send every rupee you make every month back to Granny.”
    We went into the house where the taxi drivers lived. An old man in a brown uniform, which was like an ancient army outfit, was smoking a hookah that was warmed up by a bowl of live coals. Kishan explained the situation to him.
    The old driver asked, “What caste are you?”
    “Halwai.”
    “Sweet-makers,” the old driver said, shaking his head. “That’s what you people do. You make sweets. How can you learn to drive?” He pointed his hookah at the live coals. “That’s like getting coals to make ice for you. Mastering a car”—he moved the stick of an invisible gearbox—“it’s like taming a wild stallion—only a boy from the warrior castes can manage that. You need to have aggression in your blood. Muslims, Rajputs, Sikhs—they’re fighters, they can become drivers. You think sweet-makers can last long in fourth gear?”
    Coal was taught to make ice, starting the next morning at six. Three hundred rupees, plus a bonus, will do that. We practiced in a taxi. Each time I made a mistake with the gears, he slapped me on the skull. “Why don’t you stick to sweets and tea?”
    For every hour I spent in the car, he made me spend two or three under it—I was made a free repair mechanic for all the taxis in the stand; late every evening, I emerged from under a taxi like a hog from sewage, my face black with grease, my hands shiny with engine oil. I dipped into a Ganga of black—and came out a driver.
    “Listen,” the old driver said when I was handing him over the hundred rupees he had been promised as bonus. “It’s not enough to drive. You’ve got to become a driver . You’ve got to get the right attitude, understand? Anyone tries to overtake you on the road, do this”—he clenched his fist and shook it—“and call him a sister-fucker a few times. The road is a jungle, get it? A good driver must roar to get ahead on it.”
    He patted me on the back.
    “You’re better than I thought—you are a surprise package, little fellow. I’ve got a reward for you.”
    He walked; I followed. It was evening. We went through dim streets and markets. We walked for half an hour, while everything around us grew dark—and then it was as if we had stepped out into fireworks.
    The street was full of colored doors and colored windows, and in each door and each window, a woman was looking out at me with a big smile. Ribbons of red paper and silver foil glittered between the rooftops of the street; tea was being boiled in stalls by the sides of the road. Four men rushed at us at once. The old driver explained that they should keep away, since it was my first time. “Let him enjoy the sights first. That’s the best part of this game, isn’t it—the looking!”
    “Sure, sure,” the men said, and stepped back. “That’s what we want him to do—enjoy!”
    I walked with the old driver, my mouth open, gaping at all the gorgeous women jeering and taunting me from behind their grilled windows—all of them begging me to dip my beak into