The White Tiger

him. A big crowd had gathered to watch him from a distance, but when the policeman charged at us, we turned and ran in a stampede. So I never saw what they did to that brave, mad man.
    I heard about it the next day, while pretending to scratch a dirty spot out of a tabletop. Vijay and a policeman had knocked the rickshaw-puller down, and they had begun beating him; they hit him with their sticks, and when he thrashed at them they kicked him. They took turns. Vijay hit him and the policeman stamped on his face and then Vijay did it again. And after a while the body of the rickshaw-puller stopped wriggling and fighting back, but they kept stamping on him, until he had been stamped back into the earth.
    If I may go back for a moment to that WANTED poster, Your Excellency. Being called a murderer: fine, I have no objection to that. It’s a fact: I am a sinner, a fallen human. But to be called a murderer by the police!
    What a fucking joke.
    Here’s a little souvenir of your Indian visit to keep with you. Balram Halwai is a vanished man, a fugitive, someone whose whereabouts are unknown to the police, right?
    Ha!
    The police know exactly where to find me. They will find me dutifully voting on election day at the voting booth in the school compound in Laxmangarh in Gaya District, as I have done in every general, state, and local election since I turned eighteen.
    I am India’s most faithful voter, and I still have not seen the inside of a voting booth.
     
    Now, though the elections were due soon in Dhanbad, life went on as ever within the high walls of the Stork’s house. He sighed as his legs were pressed in warm water; games of cricket and badminton went on around him; and I washed and cleaned the two Pomeranian dogs faithfully.
    Then one day a familiar face turned up at the gate. Vijay, the bus conductor from Laxmangarh. My childhood hero had a new uniform this time. He was dressed all in white, and wore a white Nehru cap on his head, and had rings of solid gold on eight of his fingers!
    Public service had been good to him.
    I waited by the gate and watched. The Stork himself came out to see Vijay, and bowed down before him, a landlord bowing before a pigherd’s son! The marvels of democracy!
    Two days later, the Great Socialist came to the house.
    The entire household was abuzz because of the visit. Mr. Ashok stood at the gate, waiting with a garland of jasmine flowers. His brother and his father were by his side.
    A car came to the gate, its door opened, and then the face I had seen on a million election posters since I was a boy emerged—I saw the puffy cheeks, the spiky white hair, the thick gold earrings.
    Vijay was wearing his red headband today, and holding up the flag with the breaking-shackles symbol. He shouted, “Long live the Great Socialist!”
    The great man folded his palms and bowed all around him. He had one of those either/or faces that all great Indian politicians have. This face says that it is now at peace—and you can be at peace too if you follow the owner of that face. But the same face can also say, with a little twitch of its features, that it has known the opposite of peace: and it can make this other fate yours too, if it so wishes.
    Mr. Ashok put the garland on the great man’s thick, bull-like neck.
    “My son,” the Stork said. “Returned from America recently.”
    The Great Socialist squeezed Mr. Ashok’s cheeks. “Good. We need more boys to come back and build India into a superpower.”
    And then they went into the house, and all the doors and windows were closed. After a while, the Great Socialist came out into the courtyard, followed by the old man, the Mongoose, and Mr. Ashok.
    I was trying to overhear them, and so pretended to be sweeping the ground, while inching closer and closer to them. I had swept myself right into hearing distance when the Great Socialist tapped me on the back.
    “What’s your name, son?” he asked.
    Then he said, “Your employers are trying to bugger me, Balram. What do you say to this?”
    Mr. Ashok looked stunned. The Stork simpered.
    “A million and a half is a lot, sir. We’ll be happy to come to a settlement with you.”
    The Great Socialist waved his hands as if dismissing that plea.
    “Bullshit. You’ve got a good scam going here—taking coal for free from the government mines. You’ve got it going because I let it happen. You were just some little village landlord when I found you—I brought you here—I made you what you are