Slumdog Millionaire: A Novel (33 page)

'Name?' asks the Inspector.

'Odxifxn,' replies Shankar.

'What did you say?'

'Q Oxqa Hu Ixhz Qo Odxifxn.'

'Bastard, trying to act smart with me . . .' the Inspector says through gritted teeth. I explain again and the Inspector relents. He waves Shankar away. This time the policemen go away empty

handed. Without any necklace and without any suspect.

The same evening a mangy little street dog with black spots dies near the Taj Mahal. No one takes any notice of this fact.

* * *

Lajwanti returns from her village the next day and is immediately arrested. A sweaty constable drags her from her room to the jeep with the flashing red light. She wails inconsolably.

Helplessly I watch the spectacle unfold. I am with Abdul, who works as a gardener in Swapna Palace.

'Abdul, why are the police taking Lajwanti away? Why doesn't Rani Sahiba do something? After all, Lajwanti is the best maid she has ever had.'

Abdul grins. 'Madam has herself called the police to arrest Lajwanti.'

'But why?'

'Because Lajwanti stole the necklace from her safe. The police searched her house in the village and found it today.'

'But how did Swapna Devi know it was Lajwanti who stole the necklace? She wasn't even here when the robbery took place.'

'Because she left behind a tell-tale sign. You see, she did not go to her village straight away. She stayed in Agra and waited for an opportunity to break into the house unnoticed. When she finally entered the bedroom to steal the necklace, Madam was at a party. But just before leaving for the party, Madam had combed her hair on the bed and there were a few of her pins and clips lying on the satin bedspread. When Madam returned late at night, she discovered all her pins and clips neatly arranged on her dressing table. This immediately alerted her. She checked her safe and found a necklace was missing. So she knew instantly that it could have been none other than Lajwanti.'

I thump my forehead. Lajwanti couldn't resist being the perfect maid, even when on a mission to steal!

I try to intercede with Swapna Devi on Lajwanti's behalf, but she rebuffs me with icy disdain. 'I run a household, not a charity. Why did she have to arrange such a lavish wedding for her sister?

You people who are poor should never try to overreach yourselves. Stay within your limits and you will not get into trouble.'

I feel genuine hatred towards her that day. But perhaps she is right. Lajwanti made the cardinal mistake of trying to cross the dividing line which separates the existence of the rich from that of the poor. She made the fatal error of dreaming beyond her means. The bigger the dream, the bigger the disappointment. That is why I have small, manageable dreams. Like marrying a

prostitute after paying off her crooked pimp brother the minor sum of four hundred thousand rupees. Only.

* * *

I have barely recovered from Lajwanti's arrest when another tragedy strikes me.

Shankar comes coughing to my room and flops down on the bed. He looks tired and complains of pain in his arms and knees. 'Q Xh Oqyf,' he says, flapping his hands.

I check his forehead and find he has a slight fever. 'You have caught a chill, Shankar,' I tell him.

'Go to your room and rest. I will come round soon to give you some medicine.' He gets up from the bed and tiptoes to his room. He seems restless and irritable.

Later that night, I give Shankar some painkillers, but his condition continues to deteriorate. By the second day, he is becoming violent. He is unable to move his arm and shrieks when the light is switched on. With great difficulty I manage to take his temperature and am shocked to

discover that it has shot up to 103 degrees. I immediately go out to call a doctor. The physician working in the government dispensary flatly refuses to come with me, so I am forced to go to a private doctor. He charges me eighty rupees to come to the outhouse. He examines Shankar and asks me whether I have noticed any recent cuts or bruises on him. I tell him about the grazed knee. The doctor nods his head and pronounces his diagnosis. Shankar has got rabies – probably from a mad dog. He should have had a series of injections of human diploid cell vaccine and human rabies immune globulin as soon as he was infected, but now it is too late. His condition is very serious. He will soon develop an aversion to water. He might show signs of agitation and confusion and even have hallucinations. He could have muscle spasms and seizures. And he may stop speaking completely as the vocal cords become paralysed. Finally, he will slip into a coma and stop breathing. In simple language, he will die. And all within forty-eight hours.

The doctor explains this catalogue of horrors in his normal bedside manner. I am utterly

devastated. Even thinking about Shankar's death brings tears to my eyes. 'Doctor, is there absolutely nothing that can be done to save Shankar?' I implore him.

'Well,' the doctor hesitates. 'There was nothing till a month ago, but I am told a brand-new experimental vaccine from America has just been imported to India. It is called RabCure and is only available at the Gupta Pharmacy.'

'The one in Rakab Ganj?'

'Yes. But I don't think you can afford it.'

'How much does it cost?' I ask with a sinking heart.

'Approximately four lakh rupees.'

I reflect on the irony of the situation. Shankar's treatment requires four lakh rupees and Nita's pimp has also demanded exactly this amount. And I have the princely sum of four hundred

rupees in my pocket.

I do not know where I will get money from for Shankar's treatment, but I know that he cannot be left alone, so I decide to take him to my room. I pick him up in my arms. Even though he is almost my age, his body seems weightless. His hands and legs droop limply by his side, and it feels as if I am not carrying a living person but a sack of potatoes. I deposit Shankar on my bed and lie down on the ground, in an exact reversal of what he did for me almost two years ago, although it now seems like twenty.

Shankar tosses and turns and sleeps fitfully. I too have a difficult night, my sleep interspersed with nightmares about mad dogs and babies who speak only in nonsense syllables. And then, suddenly, in the middle of the night, I seem to hear the words 'Mummy, Mummy' shouted loudly.

I wake up, and find Shankar sleeping peacefully. I rub my eyes and wonder whether Shankar's dream had unexpectedly intersected with mine.

The whole of the next day, Shankar stays in bed, getting weaker and weaker. I know that he is under sentence of death, but I pretend he has got nothing more than a mild case of flu. It breaks my heart to see his gentle face and to imagine that I will never see it again. Even his nonsense syllables today seem like profound statements which should be memorized.

Night comes and Shankar begins having spasms in his arms. He has difficulty taking in fluid and eats just one chapatti with lentils, his favourite dish. His forehead burns. I take his temperature and find it has shot up to 105 degrees. 'Q Akip Sxip Pk Aqe, Nxej,' he says and begins crying. I try to comfort him as best I can, but it is difficult to give strength to another when you yourself feel completely hollow inside.

I sleep fitfully again, tormented by the demons of my past. Late that night, when it is almost two o'clock, I hear a sound coming from Shankar's bed, like someone moaning. I get up slowly, still quite disoriented. I look at Shankar's face. His eyes are closed, but his lips are moving. I strain to hear what he is mumbling and almost jump out of my skin. Because I swear Shankar says,

'Please don't beat me, Mummy.'

'Shankar! Shankar!' I scramble to his bed. 'You just said something, didn't you?'

But Shankar is completely oblivious to me, lost in his own private world. His eyes are lolling upwards and he is clearly delirious. His chest convulses as if in a spasm and phlegm drips from his mouth. 'Why did you throw me out, Mummy?' he mumbles. 'I am sorry, I should have

knocked. How could I know Uncle was inside with you? I love you, Mummy. I draw pictures of you. My blue diary is full of pictures. Your pictures. I love you, Mummy. I love you very much.

Don't hit me, Mummy. I promise I won't tell anyone, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy .'

Shankar speaks in the voice of a six-year-old. He has regressed to a long-lost time. To a time when he had a mother. To a time when his life, and his words, had a meaning. I do not know how he can suddenly speak so sensibly and lucidly when the doctor said he would stop speaking completely. But I have no desire to find out the reason. One doesn't question a miracle.

That is all I hear from Shankar that night, and when he wakes up the next morning, he becomes the same sixteen-year-old who speaks in nonsense syllables. But I remember his reference to a blue diary. I search his room and find it hidden underneath his bed.

It contains loose sheets of drawing paper, all with beautiful pencil drawings of a woman. The drawings are very accurate, down to the last detail. But I stand transfixed not by the excellence of the drawings, but by the identity of their subject. Because the woman in the pictures is Swapna Devi.

* * *

'I know what you have been hiding from me all this while, Shankar. I know that Swapna Devi is your mother,' I tell Shankar, holding aloft the blue diary.

His eyes dilate with fear and he tries to grab the diary from my hands. 'Cqrz Hz Wxyf Hu

Aqynu,' he shrieks.

'I know it is true, Shankar. I think you discovered her dirty secret and that is why she threw you out of the house. And that is when you lost the ability to speak like a normal boy. I think your mother has lived with this guilt all her life. Perhaps for this reason she pays your rent and gives you money. But I am going to your mummy right now, to ask her to pay for your treatment.'

'Ik, Ik, Ik, Lgzxoz Akip Ck Pk Hu Hjhhu,' he cries. But I have already set off for Swapna Palace for a heart-to-heart chat with Rani Sahiba.

Rani Sahiba refuses to meet me at first, claiming that she meets people only by appointment. I camp on her doorstep for two hours, until finally she relents.

'Yes, why have you come to bother me?' she asks insolently.

'I know your secret, Swapna Devi,' I tell her to her face. 'I have discovered that Shankar is your son.'

Her regal mask slips for an instant and her face turns pale, but she regains her composure equally swiftly and her haughty manner returns to freeze me with contempt. 'You worthless boy, how dare you make such a scurrilous allegation? I have no relationship with Shankar. Just because I showed a little bit of sympathy for that boy, you made him my son? Get out of here right now, or I will have you thrown out.'

'I will go,' I tell her. 'But only after collecting four lakh rupees from you. I need the money for Shankar's treatment. He has contracted rabies.'

'Are you out of your mind? You think I will give you four lakhs?' she shrills.

'But if I don't get the money, Shankar will die of hydrophobia within twenty-four hours.'

'I don't care what you do, but don't bother me.' And then she says the most spiteful thing I have ever heard a mother say. 'Perhaps it is for the best that he dies. The poor boy will be put out of his misery. And don't you dare repeat that lie to anyone about him being my son.' She closes the door.

I stand on her doorstep with tears in my eyes. I was at least lucky enough to have been discarded by my mother at birth, but poor Shankar was cast off by his mother midway through life, and now she was refusing to lift a finger even to prevent his imminent death.

I return to Shankar's room with a heavy heart. Swapna Devi's words resonate in my ears with the force of a hammer blow. She wants Shankar to die like a rabid dog. At no other time has my poverty riled me as much as it does now. I wish I could explain to the dog that bit Shankar that before biting he should have checked whether the person he was attacking could afford the antidote.

The next day, I do something which I have not done for a decade. I pray. I go to the Durga temple and offer flowers for Shankar's recovery. I go to the Church of St John and light a candle for Shankar. I go to the Kali Masjid and bow my head before Allah, asking him to have mercy upon Shankar. But even the power of prayer proves to be insufficient. All day Shankar remains in agony, with pain in virtually all parts of his body. His breathing becomes more irregular.

Night falls. It is moonless, but it does not appear so in the outhouse because of the reflected glow of the thousand lights which have lit up Swapna Palace like a giant candle. There is a party in the palace. The Police Commissioner has come, as well as the District Magistrate, and a whole host of businessmen, socialites, journalists and writers. The sound of soft music and laughter drifts down to the outhouse. We hear the clink of wine glasses, the buzz of conversation, the jingle of money. In my room there is an eerie silence, broken only by Shankar's laboured breathing. Every half-hour or so his body is racked by convulsions. But he is most bothered by the constriction in his throat, where a viscous, stringy spittle has formed, causing him great discomfort. Now he goes into a spasm even at the sight of a glass of water. The slightest gust of air produces the same result.

Of the many ailments a person can die from, perhaps the cruellest is hydrophobia, where water, which is supposed to give life, becomes the cause of death. Even a cancer patient is able to entertain some hope, but a rabies patient has none.

Watching Shankar's slow death, I can only imagine how utterly heartless Swapna Devi must be, to allow her son to die in this horrible fashion while she was having a party in her house. It is lucky that I threw that Colt revolver into the river, otherwise I would definitely be committing another murder tonight.

As the night progresses, Shankar's spasms become more frequent, he shrieks in agony and begins foaming at the mouth. I know that the end is near.

Shankar finally dies at twelve forty-seven am. Just before dying, he has another lucid moment.

He holds my hand and utters a single word, 'Raju.' Then he clutches his blue notebook and cries,

'Mummy, Mummy,' and then he closes his eyes for ever.