It was the driver with the diseased lips. I put a big smile on my face and went up to him.

"Any more questions about city life, Country-Mouse?" he asked. Cannonades of laughter all around him.

He put a hand on me and whispered, "Have you thought about what I said, sweetie pie? Does your master need anything? Ganja? Girls? Boys? Golf balls-good-quality American golf balls, duty-free?"

"Don't offer him all these things now," another driver said. This one was crouching on his knees, swinging a key chain with the keys to his master's car like a boy with a toy. "He's raw from the village, still pure. Let city life corrupt him first." He snatched the magazine-Murder Weekly, of course-and began reading out loud. The gossip stopped. All the drivers drew closer.

"It was a rainy night. Vishal lay in bed, his breath smelling of alcohol, his eyes glancing out the window. The woman next door had come home, and was about to remove her-"

The man with the vitiligo lips shouted, "Look there! It's happening today too-"

The driver with the magazine, annoyed at this disturbance, kept reading-but the others were standing up now, looking in the direction of the mall.

What was happening, Mr. Premier, was one of those incidents that were so common in the early days of the shopping mall, and which were often reported in the daily newspapers under the title "Is There No Space for the Poor in the Malls of New India?"

The glass doors had opened, but the man who wanted to go into them could not do so. The guard at the door had stopped him. He pointed his stick at the man's feet and shook his head-the man had sandals on his feet. All of us drivers too had sandals on our feet. But everyone who was allowed into the mall had shoes on their feet.

Instead of backing off and going away-as nine in ten in his place would have done-the man in the sandals exploded, "Am I not a human being too?"

He yelled it so hard that the spit burst from his mouth like a fountain and his knees were trembling. One of the drivers let out a whistle. A man who had been sweeping the outer compound of the mall put down his broom and watched.

For a moment the man at the door looked ready to hit the guard-but then he turned around and walked away.

"That fellow has balls," one of the drivers said. "If all of us were like that, we'd rule India, and they would be polishing our boots."

Then the drivers got back into their circle. The reading of the story resumed.

I watched the keys circling in the key chain. I watched the smoke rising from the cigarettes. I watched the paan hit the earth in red diagonals.

The worst part of being a driver is that you have hours to yourself while waiting for your employer. You can spend this time chitchatting and scratching your groin. You can read murder and rape magazines. You can develop the chauffeur's habit-it's a kind of yoga, really-of putting a finger in your nose and letting your mind go blank for hours (they should call it the "bored driver's asana"). You can sneak a bottle of Indian liquor into the car-boredom makes drunks of so many honest drivers.

But if the driver sees his free time as an opportunity, if he uses it to think, then the worst part of his job becomes the best.

That evening, while driving back to the apartment, I looked into the rearview mirror. Mr. Ashok was wearing a T-shirt.

It was like no T-shirt I would ever choose to buy at a store. The larger part of it was empty and white and there was a small design in the center. I would have bought something very colorful, with lots of words and designs on it. Better value for the money.

Then one night, after Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam had gone up, I went out to the local market. Under the glare of naked yellow lightbulbs, men squatted on the road, selling basketfuls of glassy bangles, steel bracelets, toys, head scarves, pens, and key chains. I found the fellow selling T-shirts.

"No," I kept saying to each shirt he showed me-until I found one that was all white, with a small word in English in the center. Then I went looking for the man selling black shoes.

I bought my first toothpaste that night. I got it from the man who usually sold me paan; he had a side business in toothpastes that canceled out the effects of paan.

SHAKTI WHITENER

WITH CHARCOAL AND CLOVES TO CLEAN YOUR TEETH

ONLY ONE RUPEE FIFTY PAISE!

As I brushed my teeth with my finger, I noticed what my left hand was doing: it had crawled up to my groin without my noticing-the way a lizard goes stealthily up a wall-and was about to scratch.

I waited. The moment it moved, I seized it with the right hand.

I pinched the thick skin between the thumb and the index finger, where it hurts the most, and held it like that for a whole minute. When I let go, a red welt had formed on the skin of the palm.

There.

That's your punishment for groin-scratching from now on.

In my mouth, the toothpaste had thickened into a milky foam; it began dripping down the sides of my lips. I spat it out.

Brush. Brush. Spit.

Brush. Brush. Spit.

Why had my father never told me not to scratch my groin? Why had my father never taught me to brush my teeth in milky foam? Why had he raised me to live like an animal? Why do all the poor live amid such filth, such ugliness?

Brush. Brush. Spit.

Brush. Brush. Spit.

If only a man could spit his past out so easily.

Next morning, as I drove Pinky Madam to the mall, I felt a small parcel of cotton pressing against my shoe-clad feet. She left, slamming the door; I waited for ten minutes. And then, inside the car, I changed.

I went to the gateway of the mall in my new white T-shirt. But there, the moment I saw the guard, I turned around-went back to the Honda City. I got into the car and punched the ogre three times. I touched the stickers of the goddess Kali, with her long red tongue, for good luck.

This time I went to the rear entrance.

I was sure the guard in front of the door would challenge me and say, No, you're not allowed in, even with a pair of black shoes and a T-shirt that is mostly white with just one English word on it. I was sure, until the last moment, that I would be caught, and called back, and slapped and humiliated there.

Even as I was walking inside the mall, I was sure someone would say, Hey! That man is a paid driver! What's he doing in here? There were guards in gray uniforms on every floor-all of them seemed to be watching me. It was my first taste of the fugitive's life.

I was conscious of a perfume in the air, of golden light, of cool, air-conditioned air, of people in T-shirts and jeans who were eyeing me strangely. I saw an elevator going up and down that seemed made of pure golden glass. I saw shops with walls of glass, and huge photos of handsome European men and women hanging on each wall. If only the other drivers could see me now!

Getting out was as tricky as getting in, but again the guards didn't say a word to me, and I walked back to the parking lot, got into the car, and changed back into my usual, richly colored shirt, and left the rich man's plain T-shirt in a bundle near my feet.

I came running out to where the other drivers were sitting. None of them had noticed me going in or coming out. They were too occupied with something else. One of the drivers-it was the fellow who liked to twirl his key chain all the time-had a cell phone with him. He forced me to take a look at his phone.

"Do you call your wife with this thing?"

"You can't talk to anyone with it, you fool-it's a one-way phone!"

"So what's the point of a phone you can't talk to your family with?"