The White Tiger

gilded, like something that a royal family had owned, though it was actually made of cardboard. I made sure there were fresh tissues in the box. Pinky Madam used dozens of tissues each time we went out—she said the pollution in Delhi was so bad. She had left her crushed and crumpled used tissues near the box, and I had to pick them up and throw them out.
    The electric buzzer sounded through the parking lot. A voice over the lobby microphone said, “Driver Balram. Please report to the main entrance of Buckingham B Block with the car.”
    And so it was that I would get into the Honda City, drive up a ramp, and come out to see my first sunlight of the day.
    The brothers were dressed in posh suits—they were standing at the door to the building, chatting and chirruping; when they got in, the Mongoose said, “The Congress Party headquarters, Balram. We went there the other day—I hope you remember it and don’t get lost again.”
    I’m not going to let you down today, sir.
    Rush hour in Delhi. Cars, scooters, motorbikes, autorickshaws, black taxis, jostling for space on the road. The pollution is so bad that the men on the motorbikes and scooters have a handkerchief wrapped around their faces—each time you stop at a red light, you see a row of men with black glasses and masks on their faces, as if the whole city were out on a bank heist that morning.
    There was a good reason for the face masks; they say the air is so bad in Delhi that it takes ten years out of a man’s life. Of course, those in the cars don’t have to breathe the outside air—it is just nice, cool, clean, air-conditioned air for us. With their tinted windows up, the cars of the rich go like dark eggs down the roads of Delhi. Every now and then an egg will crack open—a woman’s hand, dazzling with gold bangles, stretches out an open window, flings an empty mineral water bottle onto the road—and then the window goes up, and the egg is resealed.
    I was taking my particular dark egg right into the heart of the city. To my left I saw the domes of the President’s House—the place where all the important business of the country is done. When the air pollution is really bad, the building is completely blotted out from the road; but today it shone beautifully.
    In ten minutes, I was at the headquarters of the Congress Party. Now, this is an easy place to find, because there are always two or three giant cardboard billboards with the face of Sonia Gandhi outside.
    I stopped the car, ran out, and opened the door for Mr. Ashok and the Mongoose; as he got out, Mr. Ashok said “We’ll be back in half an hour.”
    This confused me; they never told me in Dhanbad when they’d be back. Of course it meant nothing. They could take two hours to come back, or three. But it was a kind of courtesy that they apparently now had to give me because we were in Delhi.
    A group of farmers came to the headquarters, and weren’t allowed inside, and shouted something or other, and left. A TV van came to the headquarters and honked; they were let in at once.
    I yawned. I punched the little black ogre in its red mouth, and it bobbed back and forth. I turned my head around, from side to side.
    I looked at the big poster of Sonia Gandhi. She was holding a hand up in the poster, as if waving to me—I waved back.
    I yawned, closed my eyes, and slithered down my seat. With one eye open, I looked at the magnetic sticker of the goddess Kali—who is a very fierce black-skinned goddess, holding a scimitar, and a garland of skulls. I made a note to myself to change that sticker. She looked too much like Granny.
    Two hours later, the brothers returned to the car.
    “We’re going to the President’s House, Balram. Up the hill. You know the place?”
    “Yes, sir, I’ve seen it.”
    Now, I’d already seen most of the famous sights of Delhi—the House of Parliament, the Jantar Mantar, the Qutub—but I’d not yet been to this place—the most important one of all. I drove toward Raisina Hill, and then all the way up the hill, stopping each time a guard put his hand out and checked inside the car, and then stopping right in front of one of the big domed buildings around the President’s House.
    “Wait in the car, Balram. We’ll be back in thirty minutes.”
    For the first half an hour, I was too frightened to get out of the car. I opened the door—I stepped out—I took a look around. Somewhere inside these domes and towers that were all around me, the big men of this