The White Tiger "The Fourth Night"

"Ramanathan is a sleazy, oily cretin.

We—a dozen or so chauffeurs—were waiting for our masters to finish their shopping.

You see, the murderer in the magazine is so mentally disturbed and sexually deranged that not one reader would want to be like him—and in the end he always gets caught by some honest, hardworking police officer (ha!), or goes mad and hangs himself by a bedsheet after writing a sentimental letter to his mother or primary school teacher, or is chased, beaten, buggered, and garroted by the brother of the woman he has done in.

Somewhere inside these domes and towers that were all around me, the big men of this country—the prime minister, the president, top ministers and bureaucrats—were discussing things, and writing them out, and stamping papers.

Wisps of blue exhaust glowed in front of every headlight; the exhaust grew so fat and thick it could not rise or escape, but spread horizontally, sluggish and glossy, making a kind of fog around us.

But my father, if he were alive, would be sitting on that pavement, cooking some rice gruel for dinner, and getting ready to lie down and sleep under a streetlamp, and I couldn't stop thinking of that and recognizing his features in some beggar out there.

The paan—which I'd chewed for years, like my father and like Kishan and everyone else I knew—was discoloring my teeth and corroding my gums.

I said contemptuously.

My eyes had touched his conscience; he nudged Pinky Madam and said, "We're not alone, you know."

"Sure, he's a connoisseur of fine art."

She was too drunk to brake at once—by the time she had, we had hurtled on another two or three hundred yards, and then we came to a complete stop.

I SWEAR BY ALMIGHTY GOD THAT I MAKE THIS STATEMENT UNDER NO DURESS AND UNDER INSTRUCTION FROM NO ONE.

But they are in the racket too.

They take their bribe, they ignore the discrepancies in the case.

I SWEAR BY ALMIGHTY GOD THAT I MAKE THIS STATEMENT UNDER NO DURESS AND UNDER INSTRUCTION FROM NO ONE.