Free Slumdog Millionaire: A Novel by Vikas Swarup

careful, because one mistake could cost him his job. He dare not hand over a container with beef to a Hindu, or one with pork to a Muslim or one with garlic and onions to a Jain vegetarian.

    * * *
It is nine at night. Salim is flipping through the pages of a film magazine. I am kneeling on my bed with my left ear inside a stainless-steel cup held to the wall. I hear Shantaram speaking to his daughter. 'Here, Gudiya, see through the eyepiece. I have adjusted the telescope now. Can you see the bright-red object in the middle? That is Mars.'
    I whisper to Salim, 'Quick, get a cup. You must hear this.'
    Salim also glues his ear to the wall. Over the next thirty minutes, we listen to a running commentary on the state of the sky. We hear about stellar constellations and galaxies and comets. We hear about the Great Bear and the Little Bear. We hear of something called the Milky Way and the Pole Star. We learn about the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter.
    Listening to Shantaram, I am filled with a strange longing. I wish I too had a father who would teach me about stars and planets. The night sky, which till now was just a big black mass to me, suddenly becomes a place of meaning and wonder. As soon as Shantaram's tutorial ends, Salim and I crane our necks out of our first-floor window and try to find the celestial landmarks pointed out by him. Without the aid of a telescope we see only little white dots in the dark sky, but we squeal with delight when we recognize the seven stars of the Great Bear, and even the
    knowledge that the dark patches on the moon are not blemishes but craters and seas fills us with a sense of satisfaction, as though we have unlocked the mysteries of the universe.
    That night I don't dream about a woman in a fluttering white sari. I dream about rings around Saturn and moons around Jupiter.

    * * *
A week later, I am alerted by a totally new sound coming from Shantaram's room. 'Meow!' I
    scramble to the wall with my stainless-steel listening device in hand.
    I hear Gudiya speaking. 'Papa, look, I've got a cat. Isn't he lovely? My friend Rohini gave him to me from her cat's new litter. Can I keep him?'
    'I am not in favour of any pets,' Mrs Shantaram grumbles. 'There's hardly space in this room for humans – where will we keep an animal?'
    'Please, Mummy, he is such a tiny thing. Papa, please agree,' she pleads.
    'OK, Gudiya,' says Shantaram. 'You can keep him. But what will you call him?'
    'Oh, thank you, Papa. I was thinking of calling him Tommy.'
    'No, that is such a commonplace name. This cat is going to live in an astronomer's family, so it should be named after one of the planets.'
    'Which one? Should we call him Jupiter?'
    'No. He is the smallest in the family, so he can only be called Pluto.'
    'Great, I love the name, Papa. Here, Pluto! Pluto, come and have some milk.'
    'Meow!' says Pluto.

    * * *
These little snippets force me to reconsider my opinion of Shantaram. Perhaps he is not so bad after all. But, once again, I learn that appearances can be deceptive and the dividing line between good and bad is very thin indeed.
    I see Shantaram come home one evening, completely drunk. His breath stinks of whisky. He
    walks with unsteady steps and needs help to climb up the flight of stairs. This happens the next day, and the day after that. Pretty soon it is common knowledge in the chawl that Mr Shantaram is a drunkard.
    Drunkards in Hindi films are invariably funny characters. Think of Keshto Mukherjee with a bottle and you cannot help bursting out laughing. But drunkards in real life are not funny, they are frightening. Whenever Shantaram comes home in a stupor, we don't need listening devices.
    He hurls abuses at the top of his voice and Salim and I quiver with fear in our room as if we are the ones being shouted at. His swearing becomes such a ritual that we actually wait for the sound of his snoring before falling asleep ourselves. We come to dread the interval between
    Shantaram's return from