The White Tiger

lazing in muddy ponds; past the creepers and the bushes; past the paddy fields; past the coconut palms; past the bananas; past the neems and the banyans; past the wild grass with the faces of the water buffaloes peeping through. A small, half-naked boy was riding a buffalo by the side of the road; when he saw us, he pumped his fists and shouted in joy—and I wanted to shout back at him: Yes, I feel that way too! I’m never going back there!
    “Can you talk now, Ashoky? Can you answer my question?”
    “All right. Look, when I came back, I really thought it was going to be for two months, Pinky. But…things have changed so much in India. There are so many more things I could do here than in New York now.”
    “Ashoky, that’s bullshit.”
    “No, it’s not. Really, it’s not. The way things are changing in India now, this place is going to be like America in ten years. Plus, I like it better here. We’ve got people to take care of us here—our drivers, our watchmen, our masseurs. Where in New York will you find someone to bring you tea and sweet biscuits while you’re still lying in bed, the way Ram Bahadur does for us? You know, he’s been in my family for thirty years—we call him a servant, but he’s part of the family. Dad found this Nepali wandering about Dhanbad one day with a gun in his hand and said—”
    He stopped talking all at once.
    “Did you see that, Pinky?”
    “What?”
    “Did you see what the driver did?”
    My heart skipped a beat. I had no idea what I had just done. Mr. Ashok leaned forward and said, “Driver, you just touched your finger to your eye, didn’t you?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Didn’t you see, Pinky—we just drove past a temple”—Mr. Ashok pointed to the tall, conical structure with the black intertwining snakes painted down the sides that we had left behind—“so the driver…”
    He touched me on the shoulder.
    “What is your name?”
    “Balram.”
    “So Balram here touched his eye as a mark of respect. The villagers are so religious in the Darkness.”
    That seemed to have impressed the two of them, so I put my finger to my eye a moment later, again.
    “What’s that for, driver? I don’t see any temples around.”
    “Er…we drove past a sacred tree, sir. I was offering my respects.”
    “Did you hear that? They worship nature. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
    The two of them kept an eye open for every tree or temple we passed by, and turned to me for a reaction of piety—which I gave them, of course, and with growing elaborateness: first just touching my eye, then my neck, then my clavicle, and even my nipples.
    They were convinced I was the most religious servant on earth. (Take that, Ram Persad!)
    Our way back into Dhanbad was blocked. There was a truck parked on the road. It was full of men with red headbands shouting slogans.
    “Rise against the rich! Support the Great Socialist. Keep the landlords out!”
    Soon another set of trucks drove by: the men in them wore green headbands and shouted at the men in the other truck. A fight was about to break out.
    “What’s going on?” Pinky Madam asked in an alarmed tone of voice.
    “Relax,” he said. “It’s election time, that’s all.”
    Now, to explain to you what was going on with all this shouting from the trucks, I will have to tell you all about democracy—something that you Chinese, I am aware, are not very familiar with. But that will have to wait for tomorrow, Your Excellency.
    It’s 2:44 a.m.
    The hour of degenerates, drug addicts—and Bangalore-based entrepreneurs.
     

The Fourth Morning
    For the Desk of…
But we don’t really need these formalities anymore, do we, Mr. Jiabao?
    We know each other by now. Plus we don’t have the time for formalities, I’m afraid.
    It’ll be a short session today, Mr. Premier—I was listening to a program on the radio about this man called Castro who threw the rich out of his country and freed his people. I love listening to programs about Great Men—and before I knew it, it had turned to two a.m.! I wanted to hear more about this Castro, but for your sake, I’ve turned the radio off. I’ll resume the story exactly where we left off.
    O, democracy!
    Now, Mr. Premier, the little take-home pamphlet that you will be given by the prime minister will no doubt contain a very large section on the splendor of democracy in India—the awe-inspiring spectacle of one billion people casting their votes to determine their own future, in full