"Yes, sir."

The Mongoose turned to Mr. Ashok and touched him on the forearm. "Take some interest in this, Ashok Brother, you'll have to check up on the driver when I'm gone."

But Mr. Ashok was playing with his cell phone. He put it down and said, "The driver's honest. He's from Laxmangarh. I saw his family when I went there." Then he went back to his cell phone.

"Don't talk like that. Don't make a joke of what I'm saying," the Mongoose said.

But he was paying no attention to his brother-he kept punching the buttons on his cell phone: "One minute, one minute, I'm talking to a friend in New York."

Drivers like to say that some men are first-gear types. Mr. Ashok was a classic first-gear man. He liked to start things, but nothing held his attention for long.

Looking at him, I made two discoveries, almost simultaneously. Each filled me with a sense of wonder. Firstly, you could "talk" on a cell phone-to someone in New York -just by punching on its buttons. The wonders of modern science never cease to amaze me!

Secondly, I realized that this tall, broad-shouldered, handsome, foreign-educated man, who would be my only master in a few minutes, when the long whistle blew and this train headed off toward Dhanbad, was weak, helpless, absentminded, and completely unprotected by the usual instincts that run in the blood of a landlord.

If you were back in Laxmangarh, we would have called you the Lamb.

"Why are you grinning like a donkey?" the Mongoose snapped at me, and I almost fell over apologizing to him.

That evening, at eight o'clock, Mr. Ashok sent a message to me through another servant: "Be ready in half an hour, Balram. Pinky Madam and I will be going out."

And the two of them did come down, about two and three-quarters of an hour later.

The moment the Mongoose left, I swear, the skirts became even shorter.

When she sat in the back, I could see half her boobs hanging out of her clothes each time I had to look in the rearview mirror.

This put me in a very bad situation, sir. For one thing, my beak was aroused, which is natural in a healthy young man like me. On the other hand, as you know, master and mistress are like father and mother to you, so how can you get excited by the mistress?

I simply avoided looking at the rearview mirror. If there was a crash, it wouldn't be my fault.

Mr. Premier, maybe when you have been driving, in the thick traffic, you have stopped your car and lowered your window; and then you have felt the hot, panting breath of the exhaust pipe of a truck next to you. Now be aware, Mr. Premier, that there is a hot panting diesel engine just in front of your own nose.

Me.

Each time she came in with that low black dress, my beak got big. I hated her for wearing that dress; but I hated my beak even more for what it was doing.

At the end of the month, I went up to the apartment. He was sitting there, alone, on the couch beneath the framed photo of the two Pomeranians.

"Sir?"

"Hm. What's up, Balram?"

"It's been a month."

"So?"

"Sir…my wages."

"Ah, yes. Three thousand, right?" He whipped out his wallet-it was fat with notes-and flicked out three notes onto the table. I picked them up and bowed. Something of what his brother had been saying must have got to him, because he said, "You're sending some of it home, aren't you?"

"All of it, sir. Just what I need to eat and drink here-the rest goes home."

"Good, Balram. Good. Family is a good thing."

At ten o'clock that night I walked down to the market just around the corner from Buckingham Towers B Block. It was the last shop in the market; on a billboard above it, huge black letters in Hindi said:

"ACTION" ENGLISH LIQUOR SHOP

INDIAN-MADE FOREIGN LIQUOR SOLD HERE

It was the usual civil war that you find in a liquor shop in the evenings: men pushing and straining at the counter with their hands outstretched and yelling at the top of their voices. The boys behind the counter couldn't hear a word of what was being said in that din, and kept getting orders mixed up, and that led to more yelling and fighting. I pushed through the crowd-got to the counter, banged my fist, and yelled, "Whiskey! The cheapest kind! Immediate service-or someone will get hurt, I swear!"

It took me fifteen minutes to get a bottle. I stuffed it down my trousers, for there was nowhere else to hide it, and went back to Buckingham.

"Balram. You took your time."

"Forgive me, madam."

"You look ill, Balram. Are you all right?"

"Yes, madam. I have a headache. I didn't sleep well last night."

"Now make some tea. I hope you can cook better than you can drive?"

"Yes, madam."

"I hear you're a Halwai, your family are cooks. Do you know some special traditional type of ginger tea?"

"Yes, madam."

"Then make it."

I had no idea what Pinky Madam wanted, but at least her boobs were covered-that was a relief.

I got the teakettle ready and began making tea. I had just got the water boiling when the kitchen filled up with perfume. She was watching from the threshold.

My head was still spinning from last night's whiskey. I had been chewing aniseed all morning so no one would notice the stench of booze on my breath, but I was still worried, so I turned away from her as I washed a chunk of ginger under the tap.

"What are you doing?" she shouted.

"Washing ginger, madam."

"That's with your right hand. What's your left hand doing?"

"Madam?"

I looked down.

"Stop scratching your groin with your left hand!"

"Don't be angry, madam. I'll stop."

But it was no use. She would not stop shouting:

"You're so filthy! Look at you, look at your teeth, look at your clothes! There's red paan all over your teeth, and there are red spots on your shirt. It's disgusting! Get out-clean up the mess you've made in the kitchen and get out."

I put the piece of ginger back in the fridge, turned off the boiling water, and went downstairs.

I got in front of the common mirror and opened my mouth. The teeth were red, blackened, rotting from paan. I washed my mouth out, but the lips were still red.

She was right. 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.

The next evening, Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam came down to the entranceway fighting, got into the car fighting, and kept fighting as I drove the Honda City from Buckingham Towers B Block onto the main road.

"Going to the mall, sir?" I asked, the moment they were quiet.

Pinky Madam let out a short, high laugh.

I expected such things from her, but not from him-yet he joined in too.

"It's not maal, it's a mall," he said. "Say it again."

I kept saying "maal," and they kept asking me to repeat it, and then giggled hysterically each time I did so. By the end they were holding hands again. So some good came out of my humiliation-I was glad for that, at least.

They got out of the car, slammed the door, and went into the mall; a guard saluted as they came close, then the glass doors opened by themselves and swallowed the two of them in.

I did not get out of the car: it helped me concentrate my mind better if I was here. I closed my eyes.

Moool.

No, that wasn't it.

Mowll.

Malla.

"Country-Mouse! Get out of the car and come here!"

A little group of drivers crouched in a circle outside the parking lot in the mall. One of them began shouting at me, waving a copy of a magazine in his hand.