"I... I... I'm not sure what you mean?" I stammered, my brain soundlessly exploding in fractal repetitions of the pattern in the carpet beneath my feet.

"Give us a subject, Lin. Life and death, love and hate, loyalty and betrayal," Abdul Ghani explained, waving a plump hand in effete little circles with each couplet. "We are like a debating society here, you see. We meet every month, at least one time, and when our business and private matters are finished, we talk about philosophical subjects and the such-like. It's our amusement. And now we have you, an Englishman, to give us a subject to discuss, in your language."

"I'm not English, actually."

"Not English? Then what are you?" Madjid demanded to know. Deep suspicions were planted in the furrows of his frown.

It was a good question. The false passport in my backpack in the slum said that I was a New Zealand citizen. The business card in my pocket said that I was an American named Gilbert Parker.

People in the village at Sunder had re-named me Shantaram. In the slum they knew me as Linbaba. A lot of people in my own country knew me as a face on a wanted poster. But is it my own country, I asked myself. Do I have a country?

It wasn't until I'd asked myself the question that I realised I already had the answer. If I did have a country, a nation of the heart, it was India. I knew that I was as much a refugee, a displaced and stateless person, as the thousands of Afghans, Iranians, and others who'd come to Bombay across the burning bridge; those exiles who'd taken shovels of hope, and set about burying the past in the earth of their own lives.

"I'm an Australian," I said, admitting it for the first time since I'd arrived in India, and obeying an instinct that warned me to tell Khaderbhai the truth. Strangely, I felt it to be more of a lie than any alias I'd ever used. "How very interesting," Abdul Ghani remarked, lifting one eyebrow in a sage nod to Khaderbhai. "And what will you have as a subject, Lin?"

"Any subject?" I asked, stalling for time.

"Yes, your choice. Last week we discussed patriotism-the obligations of a man to God, and what he owes to the state. A most engaging theme. What will you have us discuss this week?"

"Well, there's a line in that poster of Sapna's... our suffering is our religion-something like that. It made me think of something else. The cops came again, a few days ago, and smashed down a lot of houses in the zhopadpatti, and while we were watching it one of the women near me said... our duty is to work, and to suffer-or as near to that as I can make out. She said it very calmly and simply, as if she accepted it, and was resigned to it, and understood it completely. But I don't understand it, and I don't think I ever will. So, maybe the question could be about that. Why do people suffer? Why do bad people suffer so little? And why do good people suffer so much? I mean, I'm not talking about me-all the suffering I've gone through, I brought most of it on myself. And God knows, I've caused a lot of it to other people. But I still don't understand it-especially not the suffering that the people in the slum go through. So... suffering. We could talk about that... do you think?"

I trailed off a little lamely into the silence that greeted my suggestion, but moments later I was rewarded with a warmly approving smile from Khaderbhai.

"It is a good theme, Lin. I knew that you would not disappoint us. Majidbhai, I will call on you to start us on this talk."

Madjid cleared his throat and turned a gruff smile on his host.

He scratched at his bushy eyebrows with thumb and forefinger, and then plunged into the discussion with the confident air of a man much used to expressing his opinions.

"Suffering, let me see. I think that suffering is a matter of choice. I think that we do not have to suffer anything in this life, if we are strong enough to deny it. The strong man can master his feelings so completely that it is almost impossible to make him suffer. When we do suffer things, like pain and so, it means that we have lost control. So I will say that suffering is a human weakness."

"Achaa-cha," Khaderbhai murmured, using the repetitive form of the Hindi word for good, which translates as Yes, yes, or Fine, fine. "Your interesting idea makes me ask the question, where does strength come from?"

"Strength?" Madjid grunted. "Everyone knows that it... well... what are you saying?"

"Nothing, my old friend. Only, is it not true that some of our strength comes from suffering? That suffering hardship makes us stronger? That those of us who have never known a real hardship, and true suffering, cannot have the same strength as others, who have suffered much? And if that is true, does that not mean that your argument is the same thing as saying that we have to be weak to suffer, and we have to suffer to be strong, so we have to be weak to be strong?"

"Yes," Madjid conceded, smiling. "Maybe a little bit is true, maybe a little bit of what you say. But I still think it is a matter of strength and weakness."

"I don't accept everything that our brother Madjid said," Abdul Ghani put in, "but I do agree that there is an element of control that we have over suffering. I don't think you can deny that."

"Where do we get this control, and how?" Khaderbhai asked.

"I would say that it is different for all of us, but that it happens when we grow up, when we mature and pass from the childishness of our youthful tears, and become adults. I think that it is a part of growing up, learning to control our suffering. I think that when we grow up, and learn that happiness is rare, and passes quickly, we become disillusioned and hurt.

And how much we suffer is a mark of how much we have been hurt by this realisation. Suffering, you see, is a kind of anger. We rage against the unfairness, the injustice of our sad and sorry lot.

And this boiling resentment, you see, this anger, is what we call suffering. It is also what leads us to the hero curse, I might add."

"Hero curse! Enough of your hero curses! You bring every subject back to this," Madjid growled, scowling to match the smug smile of his portly friend.

"Abdul has a pet theory, Lin," said Khaled, the dour Palestinian.

"He believes that certain men are cursed with qualities, such as great courage, that make them commit desperate acts. He calls it the hero curse, the thing that compels them to lead other men to bloodshed and chaos. He might be right, I think, but he goes on about it so much he drives us all crazy." "Leaving that aside, Abdul," Khaderbhai persisted, "let me ask you one question about what you have said. Is there a difference, would you say, between suffering that we experience, and suffering that we cause for others?"

"Of course, yes. What are you getting at, Khader?"

"Just that if there are at least two kinds of suffering, quite different to each other, one that we feel, and one that we cause others to feel, they can hardly both be the anger that you spoke of. Isn't it so? Which one is which, would you say?"

"Why... ha!" Abdul Ghani laughed. "You've got me there, Khader, you old fox! You always know when I'm just making an argument for the sake of it, _na? And just when I thought I was being bloody clever, too! But don't worry, I'll think it around, and come back at you again."

He snatched a chunk of sweet barfi from the plate on the table, bit a piece of it, and munched happily. He gestured to the man on his right, thrusting the sweet in his pudgy fingers.

"And what about you, Khaled? What have you to say about Lin's topic?"

"I know that suffering is the truth," Khaled said quietly. His teeth were clenched. "I know that suffering is the sharp end of the whip, and not suffering is the blunt end-the end that the master holds in his hand."

"Khaled, dear fellow," Abdul Ghani complained. "You are more than ten years my junior, and I think of you as dearly as I would of my own younger brother, but I must tell you that this is a most depressing thought, and you're disturbing the good pleasure we've gained from this excellent charras."