Shantaram

A more pressing problem, however, was my tourist visa. When Anand had signed me in to the hotel, he'd warned me that my visa had expired. Every hotel in Bombay had to supply a register of foreign guests, with a valid visa entry for each foreign name and passport number. The register was known as the C-Form, and the police were vigilant in its supervision. Overstaying on a visa was a serious offence in India. Prison terms of up to two years were sometimes imposed, and the police levied heavy fines on hotel operators who permitted C-Form irregularities.

Anand had explained all that to me, gravely, before he fudged the figures in his register and signed me in. He liked me. He was Maharashtrian, and I was the first foreigner he'd ever met who spoke the Marathi language with him. He was happy to break the rules for me, once, but he warned me to visit the Foreigner Registration Branch, at police headquarters, immediately, to see about an extension on my visa.

I sat in my room, and weighed the options. There weren't many. I had very little money. True, I'd inadvertently discovered a way to earn money as a middleman, a go-between, helping wary foreigners to deal with black marketeers. However, I wasn't sure if it would provide me with enough money to live in hotels and eat in restaurants. It certainly wouldn't pay for a plane ticket out of India. Moreover, I was already an overstayer on my visa, and technically guilty of a criminal offence. Anand assured me that the cops would see the lapsed visa as a mere oversight, and extend it without enquiry, but I couldn't risk my freedom on that chance. I couldn't visit the Foreigner Registration Branch. So, I couldn't alter my visa status, and I couldn't stay at a hotel in Bombay without a valid visa. I was caught between the rock of regulations and the hard place of the fugitive life.

I lay back on the bed, in the dark, listening to the sounds of the street that rose to my open window: the paanwalla, calling customers to the delights of his aromatic morsels; the watermelon man, piercing the warm, humid night with his plangent cry; a street acrobat, shouting through his sweaty exertions for a crowd of tourists; and music, always music. Did ever a people love music, I wondered, more than the Indians?

Thoughts of the village, thoughts I'd avoided and resisted until that music began, danced into my mind. On the day that Prabaker and I had left the village, the people had invited me to live with them. They'd offered me a house and a job. In the last three months of my stay I'd been helping the teacher at the local school with special lessons in spoken English. I gave him clear pronunciations of English words, helping him to correct the heavily accented versions of the language that he'd been teaching to the children. The teacher and the village council had urged me to stay. There was a place for me-a place and a purpose.

But it wasn't possible for me to return to Sunder village. Not then. A man can make his way in the city with his heart and his soul crushed within a clenched fist; but to live in a village, he has to unfurl his heart and his soul in his eyes. I carried crime and punishment with me in every hour of my life. The same fate that helped me to escape from prison had clamped its claws on my future. Sooner or later, if they looked hard enough and long enough, the people would see those claws in my eyes. Sooner or later, there would be a reckoning. I'd passed myself off as a free man, a peaceful man, and for a little while I'd known real happiness in the village, but my soul wasn't clean. What would I do to prevent my recapture? What wouldn't I do? Would I kill to save myself from prison?

I knew the answers to those questions, and I knew that my presence in Sunder defiled the village. I knew that every smile I took from them was swindled. Life on the run puts a lie in the echo of every laugh, and at least a little larceny in every act of love.

There was a knock at the door. I called out that it was open.

Anand stepped into my room and a

"Oh, Lin!" Prabaker beamed, when our eyes met. "I have the very good news for you! This is my friend, Joh

I shook hands with the two men. Joh

We talked for a while, the new men asking me questions about Prabaker's village and my impressions of life there. They asked me about the city, as well, wanting to know my favourite places in Bombay, and the things that I liked to do most. When the conversation seemed likely to continue, I invited them to join me at one of the nearby restaurants for chai.

"No, no, Lin," Prabaker declined, waggling his head. "We must be leaving now. Only I wanted you to meet the Joh

He looked at Joh

"We made a decision for you," Joh

"Yes, Lin!" Prabaker added quickly. "One family is leaving tomorrow. And then, the day after tomorrow, that house will be yours."

"But... but..." I stammered, flattered by the generous gesture, and yet horrified at the thought of life in the slum. I remembered my one visit to Prabaker's slum only too well. The smell of the open latrines, the heart-breaking poverty, the cramp and mill of people, thousands upon thousands of people-it was a kind of hell, in my memory, a new metaphor that stood for the worst, or almost the worst, that could happen.

"No problem, Lin," Prabaker laughed. "You will be too happy with us, you will see. And you know, you're looking like a different fellow now, it is true, but after a few months with us you will look exactly the same as everyone else there. People will think you are already living in the slum for years and years and years. You will see."

"It is a place for you," Raju said, reaching out slowly to touch my arm. "A safe place, until you can save your money. _Our hotel is free."

The others laughed at that, and I joined them, inspired by their optimism and enthusiasm. The slum was filthy and crowded beyond imagining, but it was free, and there were no C-Forms for the residents. It would give me time to think, I knew, and time to plan.

"I... well... thanks, Prabu. Thanks, Joh

"No problem," Joh

I didn't know then that Joh