Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire: A Novel by Vikas Swarup

 

PROLOGUE

I have been arrested. For winning a quiz show.

They came for me late last night, when even the stray dogs had gone off to sleep. They broke open my door, handcuffed me and marched me off to the waiting jeep with a flashing red light.

There was no hue and cry. Not one resident stirred from his hut. Only the old owl on the tamarind tree hooted at my arrest.

Arrests in Dharavi are as common as pickpockets on the local train. Not a day goes by without some hapless resident being taken away to the police station. There are some who have to be physically dragged off by the constables, screaming and kicking all the while. And there are those who go quietly. Who expect, perhaps even wait for, the police. For them, the arrival of the jeep with the flashing red light is actually a relief.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have kicked and screamed. Protested my innocence, raised a stink, galvanized the neighbours. Not that it would have helped. Even if I had succeeded in waking some of the residents, they would not have raised a finger to defend me. With bleary eyes they would have watched the spectacle, made some trite remark like 'There goes another one,' yawned, and promptly gone back to sleep. My departure from Asia's biggest slum would make no difference to their lives. There would be the same queue for water in the morning, the same daily struggle to make it to the seven-thirty local in time.

They wouldn't even bother to find out the reason for my arrest. Come to think of it, when the two constables barged into my hut, even I didn't. When your whole existence is 'illegal', when you live on the brink of penury in an urban wasteland where you jostle for every inch of space and have to queue even for a shit, arrest has a certain inevitability about it. You are conditioned to believe that one day there will be a warrant with your name on it, that eventually a jeep with a flashing red light will come for you.

There are those who will say that I brought this upon myself. By dabbling in that quiz show.

They will wag a finger at me and remind me of what the elders in Dharavi say about never crossing the dividing line that separates the rich from the poor. After all, what business did a penniless waiter have to be participating in a brain quiz? The brain is not an organ we are authorized to use. We are supposed to use only our hands and legs.

If only they could see me answer those questions. After my performance they would have looked upon me with new respect. It's a pity the show has yet to be telecast. But word seeped out that I had won something. Like a lottery. When the other waiters heard the news, they decided to have a big party for me in the restaurant. We sang and danced and drank late into the night. For the first time we did not eat Ramzi's stale food for dinner. We ordered chicken biryani and seekh kebabs from the five-star hotel in Marine Drive. The doddery bartender offered me his daughter in marriage. Even the grouchy manager smiled indulgently at me and finally gave me my back wages. He didn't call me a worthless bastard that night. Or a rabid dog.

Now Godbole calls me that, and worse. I sit cross-legged in a ten-by-six-foot cell with a rusty metal door and a small square window with a grille, through which a shaft of dusty sunlight streams into the room. The lock-up is hot and humid. Flies buzz around the mushy remains of an over-ripe mango lying squished on the stone floor. A sad-looking cockroach lumbers up to my leg. I am beginning to feel hungry. My stomach growls.

I am told that I will be taken to the interrogation room shortly, to be questioned for the second time since my arrest. After an interminable wait, someone comes to escort me. It is Inspector Godbole himself.

Godbole is not very old, perhaps in his mid forties. He has a balding head and a round face dominated by a handlebar moustache. He walks with heavy steps and his overfed stomach droops over his khaki trousers. 'Bloody flies,' he swears and tries to swat one circling in front of his face. He misses.

Inspector Godbole is not in a good mood today. He is bothered by these flies. He is bothered by the heat. Rivulets of sweat run down his forehead. He smears them off with his shirt sleeve. Most of all, he is bothered by my name. 'Ram Mohammad Thomas – what kind of a nonsense name is that, mixing up all the religions? Couldn't your mother decide who your father was?' he says, not for the first time.

I let the insult pass. It is something I have become inured to.

Outside the interrogation room two constables stand stiffly to attention, a sign that someone important is inside. In the morning they had been chewing paan and exchanging dirty jokes.

Godbole literally pushes me into the room, where two men are standing in front of a wall chart listing the total number of kidnappings and murders in the year. I recognize one of them. He is the same man, with long hair like a woman – or a rock star – who had been present during the recording of the quiz show, relaying instructions through a headset to the presenter. I don't know the other man, who is white and completely bald. He wears a mauvecoloured suit and a bright-orange tie. Only a white man would wear a suit and tie in this stifling heat. It reminds me of Colonel Taylor.

The ceiling fan is running at full speed, yet the room feels airless in the absence of a window.

Heat rises from the bleached white walls and is trapped by the low wooden ceiling. A long, thin beam bisects the room into two equal parts. The room is bare except for a rusty table in the center with three chairs around it. A metal lampshade hangs directly over the table from the wooden beam.

Godbole presents me to the white man like a ringmaster introducing his pet lion. 'This is Ram Mohammad Thomas, Sir.'

The white man dabs his forehead with a handkerchief and looks at me as though I am a new species of monkey. 'So this is our famous winner! I must say he looks older than I thought.' I try to place his accent. He speaks with the same nasal twang as the prosperous tourists I'd seen thronging Agra from far-off places like Baltimore and Boston.

The American eases himself into a chair. He has deep-blue eyes and a pink nose. The green veins on his forehead look like little branches. 'Hello,' he addresses me. 'My name is Neil Johnson. I represent NewAge Telemedia, the company that licenses the quiz. This is Billy Nanda, the producer.'

I remain quiet. Monkeys do not speak. Especially not in English. He turns to Nanda. 'He understands English, doesn't he?'

'Are you out of your mind, Neil?' Nanda admonishes him. 'How can you expect him to speak English? He's just a dumb waiter in some godforsaken restaurant, for Chrissake!'

The sound of an approaching siren pierces the air. A constable comes running into the room and whispers something to Godbole. The Inspector rushes out and returns with a short, corpulent man dressed in the uniform of a top-level police officer. Godbole beams at Johnson, displaying his yellow teeth. 'Mr Johnson, Commissioner Sahib has arrived.'

Johnson rises to his feet. 'Thank you for coming, Mr Commissioner. I think you already know Billy here.'

The Commissioner nods. 'I came as soon as I got the message from the Home Minister.'

'Ah yes . . . He is an old friend of Mr Mikhailov's.'

'Well, what can I do for you?'

'Commissioner, I need your help on W3B.'

'W3B?'

'Short for Who Will Win A Billion?'

'And what's that?'

'It's a quiz show that has just been launched – in thirty-five countries – by our company. You may have seen our advertisements all over Mumbai.'

'I must have missed them. But why a billion?'

'Why not? Did you watch Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?'

'Kaun Banega Crorepati? That show was a national obsession. It was mandatory viewing in my family.'

'Why did you watch it?'

'Well . . . because it was so interesting.'

'Would it have been half as interesting if the top prize had been ten thousand instead of a million?'

'Well . . . I suppose not.'