Vikram Chandra
Sacred Games
For
Anuradha Tandon
and
S. Hussain Zaidi
Acknowledgements
Some of the travel for this book was funded by a University Facilitating Fund grant from George Washington University.
I'm grateful to my erstwhile colleagues at George Washington University for their support and forbearance, especially my friends in the Creative Writing Program: Faye Moskowitz; David McAleavey; Jody Bolz; Jane Shore; Maxine Claire.
S. Hussain Zaidi has been extraordinarily generous with his vast knowledge, warm friendship and unstinting support. I am indebted to him.
Many others offered me aid, information and hospitality during the writing of this book:
Anuradha Tandon; Arup Patnaik, DIG, CBI; API Rajan Gule, CID; Fazal Irani; Akbar Irani; API Sanjay Rangnekar; Violet Monis; Iqbal Khan; Imtiaz Khan; Nisha Jamwal; Rajeev Samant; Rakesh Maria, DIG; Viral Mazumdar; Bandana Tewari; Shernaz Dinshaw; Nonita Kalra; A.D. Singh; Sabina Singh; Rajiv Somani; Aftab Khan; Rasna Behl; Ashutosh Sohni; Shruti Pandit; Kalpana Mhatre; Deepak Jog, DCP; Srila Chatterjee; Sherry Zutshi; Namita Waikar; Shashi Tharoor; Julia Eckert; Jaideep and Seema Mehrotra; Dr Ashok Gupta; Namrata Sharma Zakaria; Dr Amiq Gazdhar; Farzand Ahmed; Menaka Rao; Gyan Prakash.
In Delhi, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir: Harinder Baweja; A.K. Sehgal; Amit Sehgal; Manohar Singh; Agha Shahid Ali; Shafi; Sumit (Surd) Nurpuri; Praveen Swami.
In Bihar: Sanjay Jha; Vinod Mishra; Ravinder Jadav; Ashok Kumar Singh, SP, Gaya; N.C. Dhoundial, DIG, Gaya; R.K. Prasad, Dy SP, Gaya; Sunit Kumar, IGP, Patna; Subnath Jha; Bibhuti Nath Jha 'Mastan'; Gopal Dubey; Surendra Trivedi; Sh. Shaiwal.
* * *
There are others I cannot name. They know who they are.
As always, I'm grateful to my parents, Navin and Kamna, and my sisters, Tanuja and Anupama; my friend and support, Margo True; Eric Simonoff; Julian Loose; David Davidar; Terry Karten; and Vidhu Vinod Chopra.
And to Melanie, who changed everything.
The hymns in the chapter 'Ganesh Gaitonde Explores the Self' are from the Rig Vega. I adapted Raimundo Pannikar's translations (The Vedic Experience, Motilal Banarsidass, 2001).
Dramatis Personae
Sartaj Singh: a Sikh police inspector in Mumbai
Katekar: a police constable who works with Sartaj Singh Shalini, Katekar's wife
Mohit and Rohit, their sons
Mrs Kamala Pandey: a married woman and airline hostess with a lover, an airline pilot named Umesh
Kamble: an ambitious police sub-inspector who works with Sartaj Singh
Parulkar: a deputy commissioner of police in Mumbai
Ganesh Gaitonde: a notorious Hindu gangster and don, leader of the G-Company in Mumbai
Suleiman Isa: a much-feared Muslim gangster and don, leader of a rival gang in Mumbai
Paritosh Shah: a supremely gifted money handler for gangsters, including Ganesh Gaitonde
Kanta Bai: a businesswoman who deals with Paritosh Shah and Ganesh Gaitonde
Badriya: Paritosh Shah's bodyguard
Anjali Mathur: a government intelligence agent investigating Ganesh Gaitonde's death
Chotta Badriya: Ganesh Gaitonde's bodyguard, and the younger brother of Badriya
Juliet (Jojo) Mascarenas: a television producer/agent for aspiring actors and models and a high class Madam
Mary Mascarenas: Jojo's sister who works as a hairdresser
Wasim Zafar Ali Ahmad: a social worker in a poor neighborhood in Mumbai who has political aspirations
Prabhjot Kaur, 'Nikki': Sartaj Singh's mother, originally from the Punjab Navneet, her beloved oldest sister
Ram Pari: the maidservant of Nikki's mother in the Punjab
Bunty: Ganesh Gaitonde's right hand man and organizer
Bipin Bhonsle: a Hindu fundamentalist politician whom Ganesh Gaitonde helps get elected to public office
Sharma (aka Trivedi): Bipin Bhonsle's ally who also works, through intermediaries, for Swami Shridhar Shukla
Swami Shridhar Shukla, 'Guru-ji': a Hindu guru and nationalist, a spiritual adviser of international renown, who becomes Ganesh Gaitonde's spiritual mentor
Subhadra Devalekar: Ganesh Gaitonde's wife and mother of his young son
K. D. Yadav (aka Mr Kumar): a pioneering Indian intelligence officer who 'ran' Ganesh Gaitonde and became a mentor to Anjali Mathur
Mr Kulkarni: the intelligence agent who runs Ganesh Gaitonde after K. D. Yadav
Major Shahid Khan: a Pakistani intelligence agent who masterminds a counterfeit money operation against India
Shambhu Shetty: proprietor of the Delite Dance Bar
Iffat-bibi: Suleiman Isa's maternal aunt who is one of his main controllers in Mumbai
Majid Khan: a police inspector in Mumbai, a colleague of Sartaj Singh
Zoya Mirza: an actress and a rising star in the Indian film industry
Aadil Ansari: an educated but poor man from a small rural town who flees to Mumbai to escape the violent conflicts of his native Bihar
Sharmeen Khan: the high-school-age daughter of Major Shahid Khan, who moves to the USA to work in Washington, DC, and brings his family wife, daughter, and mother with him
Daddi: Shahid Khan's mother, originally from the Punjab; to her family, she is a Muslim, but she hides a secret
Policeman's Day
A white Pomeranian named Fluffy flew out of a fifth-floor window in Panna, which was a brand-new building with the painter's scaffolding still around it. Fluffy screamed in her little lap-dog voice all the way down, like a little white kettle losing steam, bounced off the bonnet of a Cielo, and skidded to a halt near the rank of schoolgirls waiting for the St Mary's Convent bus. There was remarkably little blood, but the sight of Fluffy's brains did send the conventeers into hysterics, and meanwhile, above, the man who had swung Fluffy around his head by one leg, who had slung Fluffy into the void, one Mr Mahesh Pandey of Mirage Textiles, that man was leaning on his windowsill and laughing. Mrs Kamala Pandey, who in talking to Fluffy always spoke of herself as 'Mummy', now staggered and ran to her kitchen and plucked from the magnetic holder a knife nine inches long and two wide. When Sartaj and Katekar broke open the door to apartment 502, Mrs Pandey was standing in front of the bedroom door, looking intensely at a dense circle of two-inch-long wounds in the wood, about chest-high. As Sartaj watched, she sighed, raised her hand and stabbed the door again. She had to struggle with both hands on the handle to get the knife out.
'Mrs Pandey,' Sartaj said.
She turned to them, the knife still in a double-handed grip, held high. She had a pale, tear-stained face and tiny bare feet under her white nightie.
'Mrs Pandey, I am Inspector Sartaj Singh,' Sartaj said. 'I'd like you to put down that knife, please.' He took a step, hands held up and palms forward. 'Please,' he said. But Mrs Pandey's eyes were wide and blank, and except for the quivering of her forearms she was quite still. The hallway they were in was narrow, and Sartaj could feel Katekar behind him, wanting to pass. Sartaj stopped moving. Another step and he would be comfortably within a swing of the knife.