The White Tiger

South, and dragged him out—and it was hard to keep my red bag in one hand and Dharam in the other hand (for the train station is a dangerous place for a little boy, you know—lots of shady characters around), still I began to move in this zigzag way south from Delhi.
    On the third day of traveling like this, red bag in hand, I was at Hyderabad, waiting in line at the station tea shop to buy a cup of tea before my train left. (Dharam was guarding the seat in the compartment.) There was a gecko just above the tea shop, and I was looking at it with concern, hoping it would move before it was my turn to get tea.
    The gecko turned to the left—it ran over a large piece of paper posted on the wall—it stood still for a moment, like that, then darted to the side.
    That large piece of paper on the wall was a police poster— my police poster. It had already arrived here. I looked at it with a smile of pride.
    A smile that lasted just a second. For some bizarre reason—you’ll see how sloppily things get done in India—my poster had been stapled to another poster, of two guys from Kashmir—two terrorists wanted for bombing something or the other.
    You’d almost think, looking at the posters, that I was a terrorist too. How annoying.
    I realized that I was being watched. A fellow with his hands behind his back was looking at the poster, and at me, most intently. I began to tremble. I edged away from the poster, but I was too late. The moment he saw me leaving, he ran up to me, caught my wrist, and stared at my face.
    Then he said, “What’s it say? That poster you’re reading?”
    “Read it for yourself.”
    “Can’t.”
    Now I understood why he had come running. It was the desperation of an illiterate man to get the attention of the literate man. From his accent I knew he was from the Darkness too.
    “It’s the wanted-men list for this week,” I said. “Those two are terrorists. From Kashmir.”
    “What did they do?”
    “They blew up a school. They killed eight children.”
    “And this fellow? The one with the mustache?” He tapped my photo with a knuckle of his right hand.
    “He’s the guy who caught them.”
    “How did he do that?”
    To create the illusion I was reading the printing on the wall, I squinted at the two posters, and moved my lips.
    “This fellow was a driver. Says here he was in his car, and these two terrorist guys came up to him.”
    “Then?”
    “Says he pretended he didn’t know they were terrorists, and took them for a ride around Delhi in his car. Then he stopped the car in a dark spot, and smashed a bottle and cut their necks with it.” I slashed two necks with my thumb.
    “What kind of bottle?”
    “An English liquor bottle. They tend to be pretty solid.”
    “I know,” he said. “I used to go to the English liquor shop for my master every Friday. He liked Smir-fone.”
    “Smir-noff,” I said, but he wasn’t listening. He was peering again at the photo in the poster.
    Suddenly he put his hand on my shoulder.
    “You know who this fellow in the poster looks like?”
    “Who?” I asked.
    He grinned.
    “Me.”
    I looked at his face, and I looked at the photo.
    “It’s true,” I said, slapping him on the back.
    I told you: it could be the face of half the men in India.
    And then, because I felt sorry for that poor illiterate, thinking he had just endured what my father must have endured at so many railway stations—being mocked and hoodwinked by strangers—I bought him a cup of tea before going back to the train.
     
    Sir:
    I am not a politician or a parliamentarian. Not one of those extraordinary men who can kill and move on, as if nothing had happened. It took me four weeks in Bangalore to calm my nerves.
    For those four weeks I did the same thing again and again. I left the hotel—a small, seedy place near the train station that I had taken after leaving a deposit of five hundred rupees—every morning at eight and walked around with a bag full of cash in my hands for four hours (I dared not leave it in the hotel room) before returning for lunch.
    Dharam and I ate together. What he did to keep himself amused in the mornings I don’t know, but he was in good spirits. This was the first holiday he had had in his whole life. His smiles cheered me up.
    Lunch was four rupees a plate. The food is good value in the south. It is strange food, though, vegetables cut up and served in watery curries. Then I went up to my room and slept. At four o’clock I came