The White Tiger

his cell phone. He put it down and said, “The driver’s honest. He’s from Laxmangarh. I saw his family when I went there.” Then he went back to his cell phone.
    “Don’t talk like that. Don’t make a joke of what I’m saying,” the Mongoose said.
    But he was paying no attention to his brother—he kept punching the buttons on his cell phone: “One minute, one minute, I’m talking to a friend in New York.”
    Drivers like to say that some men are first-gear types. Mr. Ashok was a classic first-gear man . He liked to start things, but nothing held his attention for long.
    Looking at him, I made two discoveries, almost simultaneously. Each filled me with a sense of wonder. Firstly, you could “talk” on a cell phone—to someone in New York—just by punching on its buttons. The wonders of modern science never cease to amaze me!
    Secondly, I realized that this tall, broad-shouldered, handsome, foreign-educated man, who would be my only master in a few minutes, when the long whistle blew and this train headed off toward Dhanbad, was weak, helpless, absentminded, and completely unprotected by the usual instincts that run in the blood of a landlord.
    If you were back in Laxmangarh, we would have called you the Lamb.
    “Why are you grinning like a donkey?” the Mongoose snapped at me, and I almost fell over apologizing to him.
    That evening, at eight o’clock, Mr. Ashok sent a message to me through another servant: “Be ready in half an hour, Balram. Pinky Madam and I will be going out.”
    And the two of them did come down, about two and three-quarters of an hour later.
    The moment the Mongoose left, I swear, the skirts became even shorter.
    When she sat in the back, I could see half her boobs hanging out of her clothes each time I had to look in the rearview mirror.
    This put me in a very bad situation, sir. For one thing, my beak was aroused, which is natural in a healthy young man like me. On the other hand, as you know, master and mistress are like father and mother to you, so how can you get excited by the mistress?
    I simply avoided looking at the rearview mirror. If there was a crash, it wouldn’t be my fault.
    Mr. Premier, maybe when you have been driving, in the thick traffic, you have stopped your car and lowered your window; and then you have felt the hot, panting breath of the exhaust pipe of a truck next to you. Now be aware, Mr. Premier, that there is a hot panting diesel engine just in front of your own nose.
    Me.
    Each time she came in with that low black dress, my beak got big. I hated her for wearing that dress; but I hated my beak even more for what it was doing.
     
    At the end of the month, I went up to the apartment. He was sitting there, alone, on the couch beneath the framed photo of the two Pomeranians.
    “Sir?”
    “Hm. What’s up, Balram?”
    “It’s been a month.”
    “So?”
    “Sir…my wages.”
    “Ah, yes. Three thousand, right?” He whipped out his wallet—it was fat with notes—and flicked out three notes onto the table. I picked them up and bowed. Something of what his brother had been saying must have got to him, because he said, “You’re sending some of it home, aren’t you?”
    “All of it, sir. Just what I need to eat and drink here—the rest goes home.”
    “Good, Balram. Good. Family is a good thing.”
    At ten o’clock that night I walked down to the market just around the corner from Buckingham Towers B Block. It was the last shop in the market; on a billboard above it, huge black letters in Hindi said:
“ACTION” ENGLISH LIQUOR SHOP
INDIAN-MADE FOREIGN LIQUOR SOLD HERE
    It was the usual civil war that you find in a liquor shop in the evenings: men pushing and straining at the counter with their hands outstretched and yelling at the top of their voices. The boys behind the counter couldn’t hear a word of what was being said in that din, and kept getting orders mixed up, and that led to more yelling and fighting. I pushed through the crowd—got to the counter, banged my fist, and yelled, “Whiskey! The cheapest kind! Immediate service—or someone will get hurt, I swear!”
    It took me fifteen minutes to get a bottle. I stuffed it down my trousers, for there was nowhere else to hide it, and went back to Buckingham.
     
    “Balram. You took your time.”
    “Forgive me, madam.”
    “You look ill, Balram. Are you all right?”
    “Yes, madam. I have a headache. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
    “Now make some tea. I hope you can