Sacred Games

  He knew me instantly. We had spent hours on the phone together, and he knew my voice as well as I knew his. He was supremely controlled, and there was no flinching, not a flicker of surprise, not a blink. Just a very long moment when he looked, took me in with hard eyes that cut through me, and I looked back at him. He tilted to one side, shifted in the wheelchair to catch me in the light, and I raised my face up so that it was open to him.

  ‘Ganesh,’ he said. ‘Ganesh.’

  ‘I came, Guru-ji.’ I said it, but now I was nervous. He was very opaque then, completely still, hard as thunder. I could not say that he was pleased, and I was afraid that he was angry. I had risked myself, of course, but I had also endangered him. I had put everything to the test. ‘I came because I wanted to be part of your yagna.’

  ‘And you have been here all along?’

  ‘Every day. From start to finish.’

  Then he changed. He was warm, like a sudden sun. He had not moved, and yet I felt that I was enfolded. ‘You are a fool, Ganesh,’ he whispered, ‘but a good fool.’

  ‘You said it was the most important yagna of your life,’ I said. ‘So I had to come, Guru-ji.’

  He reached out and slapped me, gently, on my cheek. ‘Bachcha, you came because I called you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This Sarvamedha was a kind of initiation for you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m pleased you came, Ganesh. But now you must get out of here, out of the country. There is too much risk.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But before you go, I have one question for you.’

  ‘Ask, Guru-ji. I’ll answer.’

  ‘What happened to your father?’

  His words were an inferno that started from a hard point deep inside me, and the red blaze grew and exploded and came into my eyes, and I was burnt empty. There were no ashes left even, no ashes to take away from the altar, I was simply combusted and where I had been there was a hollow. No more Ganesh Gaitonde. I had hidden something so deeply, so securely and behind impregnable barriers that even I had mostly forgotten it was there. How did this man in front of me dig through my flesh and find that tiny carapaced sphere, holding within it the huge energy of an exploding bomb? In that moment, I had no mind to ask, or answer, but I knew Ganesh Gaitonde had been simply destructed. He no longer existed. I had hidden my father for ever, even from myself, and I had forgotten my mother. But now Guru-ji was asking, he knew something had happened. And my usual answer – ‘My father died, my mother died’ – was no longer possible. He had cracked through, and there was no closing the fissure. So I was quiet.

  He drew me close to him. I was limp, I had no strength to resist. I sat on the ground, my shoulder against his knee. He put a hand over my bald head, and I felt the breadth of his palm cradling me.

  ‘I see a yellow wall,’ he said. ‘I see blood, a thin stream of blood running down the wall and dripping to the bottom.’

  I was crying. He knew, Guru-ji somehow knew, and I could not hide from him.

  ‘But that is all I see, Ganesh. Tell me. What happened?’

  So I told him about my father, Raghavendra Gaitonde, son of a poor temple priest in Karwar, poor Brahmin himself, married to Sumangala. I didn’t want to linger on the hapless man or the deceitful woman, so I told the whole ugly story fast. Raghvendra was starving in Karwar, trying to officiate at marriages and pujas, not finding many opportunities because he was very young and mild and ineffectual. So he went when his cousin Suryakant called him to Nashik. This Suryakant Shenoy owned some farmland, did some civil construction and also dabbled in local politics. He had served as the district secretary at the local Congress office for a while. He had recently finished some school building for the government in a village called Digadh, and after the project was finished he donated substantial money for a new Lakshmi-Narayan temple there. So Raghavendra was installed as the priest in this temple, and he had a small but tidy and pucca house, also courtesy of his cousin, and the living wasn’t rich but it was enough, and Sumangala was happy at last. The conditions of the villagers slowly improved, helped by an irrigation project that Suryakant Shenoy had sanctioned, and so Raghavendra and Sumangala also experienced a bit of comfort, as the donations to the temple increased. Besides, Suryakant Shenoy came often to visit, always bringing a bag full of vegetables, ghee, butter, a good half potli of rice besides. He had lots of work in the villages in the area, and was glad to see his cousins, and there was no need for formality, it was his duty to help. Under his benign protection life went on, and a year and a half later, a son was born in the house. Of course there were celebrations and rituals, and Suryakant was a part of all this. The boy was named Kiran, on Suryakant’s suggestion. Kiran grew up bright and energetic. He walked when he was eight months and one week old, he was speaking by the time he was two, and at four he was reading, not just tracing the letters over his father’s shoulders, but managing to make out whole words. But it was also in this year the boy lost some of his natural cheer, he became inward and watchful. He was old enough now to see how the outside world saw his father. In the children who were his friends, and in their parents, he recognized a jokey contempt for the pandit, a dismissal of him as a negligible force, not quite a fool but hapless, a subject of pity, not sympathy. Kiran had no words for any of this, but he knew it as surely as he knew that his mother was regarded as beautiful. It was in this year that the Kumbh came around to Nashik again, after its absence of twelve years. Kiran went, of course, with his mother and Suryakant Kaka and neighbours, to take a dip in the waters of the sacred river, to be dazed and astonished by the unimaginable number of pilgrims, to marvel at the musk glands being sold by the gypsy women. Suryakant Kaka bought ice-cream for Kiran, and this unprecedented treat filled Kiran with a plump joy, and he hung off Suryakant Kaka’s broad wrist. Finally they made their way to Ramkund, where Shree Ram was said to have taken his daily bath, and here, through a moving thicket of elbows and hips, Kiran saw his father. Raghavendra was standing on the slippery wet stone that led down to the water, holding a thali piled with white kumkum in one hand, and a small metal stamp in the other. He was offering to put tilaks on the pilgrims, like the one he had on his own forehead. A pilgrim stopped, and Raghavendra put the naamam on him, and as his father reached up, Kiran saw how thin he was, how the skin on his arm was loose, how his stoop signalled a deference, a humility that filled Kiran with anger. The pilgrim dropped coins into Raghavendra’s hand, and for the first time ever, Kiran’s throat filled with the bitterness of contempt, of disdain for his father. This man was a weak man, he was an incapable man. Now Kiran knew why the neighbours laughed at his father, why they called out ‘Ay pandita’ as they did, and the knowledge nauseated him. He refused to go down any further towards the river, despite anything anyone said, and after that it was known in the family that Kiran was afraid of water. This story stayed, and Kiran’s contempt remained, until one afternoon when Kiran came home from the first day of class two, and found a crowd around his house. Something had happened. Hands grabbed at him, but he pulled himself loose and kicked and bit his way through to the door. Inside, there were the elders of the locality, frightened and yet titillated. One of them was pointing up. Then Kiran saw what at: a stream of blood running down the wall, a puddle at the bottom. He screamed, raced up the stairs, punched at the knees of a man who was blocking the door and burst out on to the roof. What was dead on the roof was not Kiran’s father, but Suryakant Kaka. He was lying face down on a charpai, naked to the waist. Kiran knew the breadth of the back, the bulk of the shoulders. But the back of Suryakant Kaka’s head was a pulpy mix of black and red and some other colour, creamy with shards of white. Another unsteady step, and Kiran saw that Suryakant Kaka was all intact in front, he was staring down at the ground below with a concentrated wonderment, as if the pitted brick contained whole universes of meaning. Suryakant Kaka had told Kiran about the names of stars, and the shapes of constellations. Now he was half-destroyed.

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nbsp; A neighbour took Kiran by the shoulders, tried to lead him away. Who was this man? Kiran knew his smell, this yellowed shirt, these long hands, but he couldn’t remember his name. ‘Who did it?’ Kiran said, although – somehow – he already knew. The man shook his head, tried to lead him away. Kiran screamed, jerked free and asked again, ‘Who? Who? Who?’ A gravelly voice said, ‘Tell him,’ and still there was a moment’s silence. Then the man holding Kiran said, ‘Your father. He is gone.’ And then, as an afterthought, ‘Your Aai is below. With the women.’

  The police came, and the women left, and the men left, and the body was taken away, and Kiran was alone with his mother, who sat huddled against the side of a wooden cupboard in the bedroom, her hair matted about her face.

  ‘So,’ Gaitonde told Guru-ji, ‘my father killed that Suryakant, and he left. Nobody ever saw him again. I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘I stayed till I was twelve. Then I ran away. I came to Bombay.’

  ‘You don’t know where she is?’

  ‘No.’

  They had been shunned by the village. Shunned, that is, except by the men, who came around and assured Sumangala that she need not fear, that they were there to look after her, that she would have a comfortable life. These men brought – as that other man had – vegetables and saris and money. She could not go home to her maike because her parents wouldn’t have her. So she stayed in that same house, with its new coat of whitewash which was donated by one of her new clients. That’s what they were, clients. And now Kiran felt the full force of the village’s contempt. They called him harami to his face, and the older boys made lewd jokes about his mother, about her body, about her practices and proclivities. There was no day when his body was not marked with bruises, some old, some fresh. He was always beaten in every fight, but after he picked up a large rock and sent it skimming past a tormenter’s head, the gang saw that he meant to kill one of them, and after that they shouted their insults at him from a little further away. He began to carry a knife, and they called him mad. He waited, and one day when he could overcome his fear of the huge unknown spaces, when the heft of the knife under his shirt made him strong enough, he walked to the railway station eight kos away, and waited for a train. He already knew the name of the train, and where it went, and its timings. It came, and he squeezed himself into a crowded carriage. Nobody paid any attention to him. There was nowhere to sit, and he leaned against the side of a stack of big metal trunks in the corridor and waited. The edges of the trunks bit into his ribs and legs, but this was a good pain. He was going away. At every station, he asked, ‘Is this Mumbai?’ When a man said, ‘Yes,’ he hopped off. But the man had fooled him. He wanted to stab the man, but the train was already away. Kiran waited for another train. He arrived in the city at last, and waited until the buildings grew big and crowded against each other, and the roads were filled with cars. He did not ask anyone again. When he was sure, he got off.

  ‘And you were home,’ Guru-ji said softly. ‘When did you become Ganesh?’

  ‘The first time someone asked my name. I don’t know why. I just said it.’

  ‘Ganesh is the survivor. He always lives, no matter what. He overcomes.’

  Then I sat for a long time, in silence, with Guru-ji’s hand on my head. I was exhausted, as if I had climbed a mountain and come down the other side, but I felt calm. And with every pulse that beat through me, I grew stronger.

  ‘Ganesh, beta,’ Guru-ji said, ‘you should go now. Otherwise my attendants will wonder.’

  ‘Yes, Guru-ji.’

  ‘You took a risk, but I am happy you came. Meet me in Singapore, as we planned.’

  ‘Yes, Guru-ji.’

  He hugged me close, held my bald head to his cheek. Then he sent me away. I touched his feet again, and left. But I left only his body, his crippled flesh. He had looked at me, into me. He had given me darshan, and he had had his darshan of me. He was in me now. He beat inside my heart. I took his great strength with me, and felt it throb through my arms, as real as my own blood. I whisked through the city, flew down the familiar avenues and through the packets of late traffic with an effortless ease. I could predict how the cars and auto-rickshaws would come close to each other, where they would part, I could see the geometry of their travel. I knew where they were going, the future of the streaking headlights. And I inserted myself into the gleaming stream, and I was fearless, my body knew the flow of this river. The waters came through me.

  I got home, ate with Bunty and told him to book me on the first flight to Singapore. And then I had another short journey to make. I got back on the scooter, waved away Bunty’s housewifely grumbling and sped away. Again, I found smooth roads and green lights, and was at Yari Road in twenty-five minutes. I had to ask two taxi drivers for directions once I got there, but once I turned the last corner, with the cigarette shop on the corner, I knew my way. I had had Jojo describe it for me a dozen times, so I could imagine her streets, her home. I took the curve to the left, and parked by her gate. Her blue Honda was parked in the second parking spot to the right, number 36A. I counted my way up the storeys, one two three, and found the corner apartment. Her lights were on. I dialled.

  ‘Ganesh?’ she said. ‘Ganesh?’

  ‘Who else would it be on this phone?’

  ‘Don’t act smart. Where have you been?’

  ‘I had to travel.’

  ‘Travel means you can’t call? What is wrong with you?’

  ‘Everything is right, Jojo. Why are you so angry?’

  ‘Because you are a careless idiot.’

  I had to laugh. Nobody else in the world spoke to me like this. ‘I think you like me, Jojo.’

  ‘Very little. And even that, I don’t understand why. I must be mad.’

  A shadow crossed the second window. I could imagine her, stamping about and jabbing with her free hand at the idiot far away. ‘If you like me a little, Jojo, I have a suggestion.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s meet.’

  ‘Gaitonde, I thought we had been through that.’

  ‘This is different.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m different now.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You just have to meet me and see. Otherwise you’ll never know.’

  She thought about it. The shadow crossed the window again. She said, ‘Gaitonde, I’m still the same.’

  ‘So you don’t want to meet?’

  ‘I don’t want to meet.’

  ‘Last chance.’

  ‘Don’t argue with me, Gaitonde. I’m too tired.’

  I didn’t argue with her. I talked to her for ten more minutes, about her work, her new thoku, her girls. It was good to speak to her, to fall back into our banter and our friendship.

  ‘You sound happy,’ she said.

  ‘I am,’ I said. ‘I am.’ I raised my hand at her building watchmen, two of them, who finally, after all this time, had noticed I was there, and had roused themselves to come to the gate from their comfortable chairs. ‘I have to go, Jojo,’ I said. I hung up.

  ‘What, hero?’ one of the watchmen said through the gate. ‘You’re blocking our gate.’

  I wasn’t blocking anything, and they were being bothersome, but I was feeling kindly. ‘I’m going,’ I said quietly. I turned the key in the ignition, and switched on my headlight. She came to her window then, Jojo did. She must have seen the single weak shaft of yellow in the dark. I saw her, the touch of light on her head and shoulders. But I’m sure she didn’t see me.

  I was in Singapore when we hit the mullah in London. ‘Maulana Mehmood Ghouse Assassinated in London,’ the Straits Times announced at the bottom of the front page. The BBC World Report devoted a full segment to the killing, and then had a panel discussion with two reporters and one professor. They discussed the implications of the killing, and listed the possible assassins: rival militant organizations in Pakistan, revolutionary Afghan groups, various intelligence
agencies, the Israelis, the Indians, the Americans. The consensus was that it was probably the Israelis.

  The date for the mullah’s visit to London had been moved up, and Mr Kumar had moved up the date of the operation, to the mullah’s first day in London. ‘If you can, get him before he opens his mouth to the media,’ he had said. And we had. Despite all the hurrying up, we did it clean. It was difficult. He had two layers of security, his own men and the British police. We had been told not to use a big bomb, there was to be no massacre of civilians in a friendly capital. So we did it with a small bomb. His hotel room had been swept, and the car he used also. All very tight. Mr Kumar knew far in advance the name of the small and exclusive hotel he would stay in, and also that in this hotel there were only two suites on the top floor. The detailed brief that Mr Kumar had sent us emphasized the fact that the mullah had once been an electrical engineer, that he travelled with a laptop that he used for reading the newspapers around the world and – probably – exchanging encrypted e-mails with his people. Mr Kumar’s file told us that he liked to do this in bed, at night, while munching on pistachios. So we had rigged the outlets on both sides of the bed, in both suites. The security teams checked for bugs and bombs, but the outlets passed. On his first night in the hotel, the mullah plugged in his laptop, and fried his power supply and the machine itself. He cursed, ranted and had his people call reception. The woman at reception apologized, and offered to open the business centre downstairs so he could use the broadband connection there. The mullah cursed some more, picked up his bowl of pistachios and went off to the business centre. His security people went over the room, but he was fuming and angry and talking to them from just outside the door. The computer inside was already up and running, and the mullah wanted the broadband very badly. He was impatient. In he went, and sat at the machine. For ten minutes he skimmed from newspaper to newspaper, and littered the floor with pistachio shells. Then a certain man, a white European who was sitting in the lobby, made a call on his handy. And then another man, an Indian man sitting in a parked car outside the hotel, pressed at something in his pocket. And the keyboard under the mullah’s hands exploded, and blew off both arms at the elbow. And sent little plastic keys marked with English letters dashing into his brain.