Slumdog Millionaire

Author:Vikas Swarup
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-09-05T23:00:00+00:00

***

It is the third night of the war. Our life in the bunker is falling into a predictable pattern. The women have begun to bring their vegetables and knitting to the hall. They sit in a group, chop tomatoes and potatoes, make sweaters, separate chaff from lentils, extract healthy leaves from spinach and coriander bunches, and exchange the latest gossip. Do you know Mrs Goswami has bought a new twenty-five-inch TV? Heaven knows where her husband gets all his money from!

Looks like Mr Bapat and his wife had a big fight the other night.

Practically the entire neighbourhood could hear it! Have you seen the latest Starburst? It says Armaan Ali might be gay!

The men listen intently to the news and discuss the latest rumours. Is it true that a state of emergency is about to be declared? They say Pathankot has been completely destroyed by bombing. Many civilians have died. Mehta has reliable information, straight from the Ministry, that petrol is to be rationed. Onions and tomatoes have virtually disappeared from the market.

Better start hoarding milk.

We youngsters have our own gang. We run around the large hall shouting and screaming and trip over each other, much to the consternation of the women. We play I Spy till we tire of it. Then Putul invents a new game. It's called, appropriately enough, War and Peace. The game is quite simple. We divide ourselves into two teams, one led by an Indian General and the other by a Pakistani General. The two teams have to tag each other. Whoever is caught first becomes a prisoner of war and can only be released in exchange for another prisoner from the opposite team. Tagging the General counts for two prisoners. The team with the largest number of captured prisoners wins the game. There is only one problem: no one wants to be the Pakistani General. Eventually they get hold of Salim. 'You are Muslim,' they tell him, 'so you become Pakistani.' Salim doesn't agree at first, but is bought off with the promise of two packs of bubblegum. I join Salim's team and we thrash the Indians.

After all our games are played, we gather in a corner, resting from our physical exertion, and discuss the war.

'I love this war,' I say. 'It's so exciting. And my employer Neelima Kumari has given me the week off, because of the curfew.'

'Yes,' says Putul. 'My school has also been closed for a week.'

'I wish we had a war every month,' says Dhyanesh.

'Stop this nonsense, I say!' a man thunders behind our backs.

We turn around in alarm to see an old Sikh on crutches standing behind us. He is thin and tall, with a small, whiskery moustache on a weather-beaten face. He wears an olive-green turban to match his army uniform with lots of pockets and a big belt. He looks at us sternly and raises a finger accusingly. 'How dare you trivialize a war? War is a very serious business. It takes lives.'

Only then do we notice that he has a leg missing.

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