The White Tiger

jabbering like monkeys.
    The driver with the diseased lips was sitting apart from them, engrossed in his magazine. On this week’s cover, there was a photo of a woman lying on a bed, her clothes undone; her lover stood next to her, raising a knife over her head.
MURDER WEEKLY
RUPEES 4.50
EXCLUSIVE TRUE STORY:
“HE WANTED HIS MASTER’S WIFE.”
LOVE—RAPE—REVENGE!
    “Been thinking about what I said, Country-Mouse?” he asked me, as he flipped through a story.
    “About getting your master something he’d like? Hashish, or girls, or golf balls? Genuine golf balls from the U.S. Consulate?”
    “He’s not that kind.”
    The pink lips twisted into a smile. “Want to know a secret? My master likes film actresses. He takes them to a hotel in Jangpura, with a big, glowing T sign on it, and hammers them there.”
    He named three famous Mumbai actresses his master had “hammered.”
    “And yet he looks like a goody-goody. Only I know—and I tell you, all the masters are the same. One day you’ll believe me. Now come read a story with me.”
    We read like that, in total silence. After the third murder story, I went to the side, to a clump of trees, to take an ammonia break. He walked along with me.
    Our piss hit the bark of the tree just inches apart.
    “I’ve got a question for you.”
    “About city girls again?”
    “No. About what happens to old drivers.”
    “Huh?”
    “I mean what will happen to me a few years from now? Do I make enough money to buy a house and then set up a business of my own?”
    “Well,” he said, “a driver is good till he’s fifty or fifty-five. Then the eyes go bad and they kick you out, right? That’s thirty years from now, Country-Mouse. If you save from today, you’ll make enough to buy a small home in some slum. If you’ve been a bit smarter and made a little extra on the side, then you’ll have enough to put your son in a good school. He can learn English, he can go to university. That’s the best-case scenario. A house in a slum, a kid in college.”
    “ Best -case?”
    “Well, on the other hand, you can get typhoid from bad water. Boss sacks you for no reason. You get into an accident—plenty of worst-case scenarios.”
    I was still pissing, but he put a hand on me. “There’s something I’ve got to ask you, Country-Mouse. Are you all right?”
    I looked at him sideways. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
    “I’m sorry to tell you this, but some of the drivers are talking about it openly. You sit by yourself in your master’s car the whole time, you talk to yourself…You know what you need? A woman. Have you seen the slum behind the malls? They’re not bad-looking—nice and plump. Some of us go there once a week. You can come too.”
    “DRIVER BALRAM, WHERE ARE YOU?”
    It was the call from the microphone at the gate of the hotel. Mr. Turban was at the microphone—speaking in the most pompous, stern voice possible: “DRIVER BALRAM REPORT AT ONCE TO THE DOOR. NO DELAY. YOUR MASTER WANTS YOU.”
    I zipped up and ran, wiping my wet fingers on the back of my pants.
    Mr. Ashok was walking out of the hotel with his hands around a girl when I brought the car up to the gate.
    She was a slant-eyed one, with yellow skin. A foreigner. A Nepali. Not even of his caste or background. She sniffed about the seats—the seats that I had polished—and jumped on them.
    Mr. Ashok put his hands on the girl’s bare shoulders. I took my eyes away from the mirror.
    I have never approved of debauchery inside cars, Mr. Jiabao.
    But I could smell the mingling of their perfumes—I knew exactly what was going on behind me.
    I thought he would ask me to drive him home now, but no—the carnival of fun just went on and on. He wanted to go to PVR Saket.
    Now, PVR Saket is the scene of a big cinema, which shows ten or twelve cinemas at the same time, and charges over a hundred and fifty rupees per cinema—yes, that’s right, a hundred and fifty rupees! That’s not all: you’ve also got plenty of places to drink beer, dance, pick up girls, that sort of thing. A small bit of America in India.
    Beyond the last shining shop begins the second PVR. Every big market in Delhi is two markets in one—there is always a smaller, grimier mirror image of the real market, tucked somewhere into a by-lane.
    This is the market for the servants. I crossed over to this second PVR—a line of stinking restaurants, tea stalls, and giant frying pans where bread was toasted in oil. The men who