The White Tiger

today,” he said, getting up from the bed. “I want to see my birthplace. You’ll drive me.”
    “Yes, sir!”
    Going home! And in my uniform, driving the Stork’s car, chatting up his son and daughter-in-law!
    I was ready to fall at his feet and kiss them!
    The Stork had wanted to come along with us, and that would really make it a grand entry for me into the village—but at the last minute he decided to stay back. In the end, it was just Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam whom I was taking in the Honda City, out into the countryside, toward Laxmangarh.
    It was the first time I was driving the two of them—Ram Persad had had the privilege until now. I still wasn’t used to the Honda City, which is a moody car with a mind of its own, as I’ve said. I just prayed to the gods—all of them—not to let me make a mistake.
    They said nothing for half an hour. Sometimes you can feel as a driver when there is tension in the car; it raises the temperature inside. The woman inside the car was very angry.
    “Why are we going to this place in the middle of nowhere, Ashoky?” Her voice, breaking the silence at last.
    “It’s my ancestral village, Pinky. Wouldn’t you like to see it? I was born there—but Father sent me away as a boy. There was some trouble with the Communist guerrillas then. I thought we could—”
    “Have you decided on a return date?” she asked suddenly. “I mean to New York.”
    “No. Not yet. We’ll get one soon.”
    He was silent for a minute; my ears were really wide open now. If they went back to America—would they no longer need a second driver in the home?
    She said nothing; but I swear, I could hear teeth gritting.
    Mr. Ashok had no clue, though—he began humming a film song, until she said, “What a fucking joke.”
    “What was that?”
    “You lied about returning to America, didn’t you, Ashok—you’re never going back, are you?”
    “There’s a driver in the car, Pinky—I’ll explain everything later.”
    “Oh, what does he matter! He’s only the driver. And you’re just changing the topic again!”
    A lovely fragrance filled the car—and I knew that she must have moved about and adjusted her clothes.
    “Why do we even need a driver? Why can’t you drive, like you used to?”
    “Pinky, that was New York—you can’t drive in India, just look at this traffic. No one follows any rules—people run across the road like crazy—look—look at that—”
    A tractor was coming down the road at full speed, belching out a nice thick plume of black diesel from its exhaust pipe.
    “It’s on the wrong side of the road! The driver of that tractor hasn’t even noticed!”
    I hadn’t noticed either. Well, I suppose you are meant to drive on the left side of the road, but until then I had never known anyone to get agitated over this rule.
    “And just look at the diesel it’s spewing out. If I drive here, Pinky, I’ll go completely mad.”
    We drove along a river, and then the tar road came to an end and I took them along a bumpy track, and then through a small marketplace with three more or less identical shops, selling more or less identical items of kerosene, incense, and rice. Everyone stared at us. Some children began running alongside the car. Mr. Ashok waved at them, and tried to get Pinky Madam to do the same.
    The children disappeared; we had crossed a line they could not follow us beyond. We were in the landlords’ quarter.
    The caretaker was waiting at the gate of the Stork’s mansion; he opened the door of the car even before I had brought it to a full stop, and touched Mr. Ashok’s feet.
    “Little prince, you’re here at last! You’re here at last!”
    The Wild Boar came to have lunch with Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam—he was their uncle, after all. As soon as I saw him enter the mansion for lunch, I went to the kitchen and told the caretaker, “I love Mr. Ashok so much you must let me serve him lunch!” The cook agreed—and I got to take my first good look at the Wild Boar in years. He was older than I remembered, and more bent over, but his teeth were exactly the same: sharp and blackened and with two distinctive hooked ones curving up by the side. They ate in the dining room—a magnificent place, with high ceilings, heavy, old-fashioned furniture all around, and a huge chandelier.
    “It’s a lovely old mansion,” Mr. Ashok said. “Everything’s gorgeous in here.”
    “Except the chandelier—it’s a bit tacky,” she said.
    “Your father