The White Tiger

paper.
    “Can you read, fellow?”
    “Yes, sir.” I took the paper from his hand and read:
    TO WHOMSOEVER IT MAY CONCERN,
    I, BALRAM HALWAI, SON OF VIKRAM HALWAI, OF LAXMANGARH VILLAGE IN THE DISTRICT OF GAYA, DO MAKE THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT OF MY OWN FREE WILL AND INTENTION:
    THAT I DROVE THE CAR THAT HIT AN UNIDENTIFIED PERSON, OR PERSONS, OR PERSON AND OBJECTS, ON THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 23RD THIS YEAR. THAT I THEN PANICKED AND REFUSED TO FULFILL MY OBLIGATIONS TO THE INJURED PARTY OR PARTIES BY TAKING THEM TO THE NEAREST HOSPITAL EMERGENCY WARD. THAT THERE WERE NO OTHER OCCUPANTS OF THE CAR AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. THAT I WAS ALONE IN THE CAR, AND ALONE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THAT HAPPENED.
    I SWEAR BY ALMIGHTY GOD THAT I MAKE THIS STATEMENT UNDER NO DURESS AND UNDER INSTRUCTION FROM NO ONE.
    SIGNATURE OR THUMBPRINT:
    (BALRAM HALWAI)
STATEMENT MADE IN THE PRESENCE OF THE FOLLOWING WITNESSES.
KUSUM HALWAI, OF LAXMANGARH VILLAGE,
GAYA DISTRICT
CHAMANDAS VARMA, ADVOCATE, DELHI HIGH
COURT
    Smiling affectionately at me, the Mongoose said, “We’ve already told your family about it. Your granny, what’s her name?”
    “….”
    “I didn’t hear that.”
    “…m.”
    “Yes, that’s it. Kusum. I drove down to Laxmangarh—it’s a bad road, isn’t it?—and explained everything to her personally. She’s quite a woman.”
    He rubbed his forearms and made a big grin, so I knew he was telling the truth.
    “She says she’s so proud of you for doing this. She’s agreed to be a witness to the confession as well. That’s her thumbprint on the page, Balram. Just below the spot where you’re going to sign.”
    “If he’s illiterate, he can press his thumb,” the man in the black coat said. “Like this.” He pressed his thumb against the air.
    “He’s literate. His grandmother told me he was the first in the family to read and write. She said you always were a smart boy, Balram.”
    I looked at the paper, pretending to read it again, and it began to shake in my hands.
    What I am describing to you here is what happens to drivers in Delhi every day, sir. You don’t believe me—you think I’m making all this up, Mr. Jiabao?
    When you’re in Delhi, repeat the story I’ve told you to some good, solid middle-class man of the city. Tell him you heard this wild, extravagant, impossible story from some driver about being framed for a murder his master committed on the road. And watch as your good, solid middle-class friend’s face blanches. Watch how he swallows hard—how he turns away to the window—watch how he changes the topic at once.
    The jails of Delhi are full of drivers who are there behind bars because they are taking the blame for their good, solid middle-class masters. We have left the villages, but the masters still own us, body, soul, and arse.
    Yes, that’s right: we all live in the world’s greatest democracy.
    What a fucking joke.
    Doesn’t the driver’s family protest? Far from it. They would actually go about bragging. Their boy Balram had taken the fall, gone to Tihar Jail for his employer. He was loyal as a dog. He was the perfect servant.
    The judges? Wouldn’t they see through this obviously forced confession? But they are in the racket too. They take their bribe, they ignore the discrepancies in the case. And life goes on.
    For everyone but the driver.
    That is all for tonight, Mr. Premier. It’s not yet three a.m., but I’ve got to end here, sir. Even to think about this again makes me so angry I might just go out and cut the throat of some rich man right now.
     

The Fifth Night
    Mr. Jiabao.
     
    Sir.
    When you get here, you’ll be told we Indians invented everything from the Internet to hard-boiled eggs to spaceships before the British stole it all from us.
    Nonsense. The greatest thing to come out of this country in the ten thousand years of its history is the Rooster Coop.
    Go to Old Delhi, behind the Jama Masjid, and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundreds of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages, packed as tightly as worms in a belly, pecking each other and shitting on each other, jostling just for breathing space; the whole cage giving off a horrible stench—the stench of terrified, feathered flesh. On the wooden desk above this coop sits a grinning young butcher, showing off the flesh and organs of a recently chopped-up chicken, still oleaginous with a coating of dark blood. The roosters in the coop