The Sultan's Battery by Aravind Adiga Page A

get his strength back, then put a hand into the red bag, and took out four green brochures, each of which had an image of three large rats on the cover. He held the brochures up high in one hand, in the manner of a gambler holding up his cards, and spoke at the top of his voice:
    “Ladies and gentlemen! All of you know that we live in a rat race, where there are few jobs, and many job applicants. How will your children survive, how will they get the jobs you have? For life in this day and age is a veritable rat race. Only in this booklet will you find thousands of useful general knowledge data, arranged in question and answer form, that your sons and daughters need to pass the civil service entrance examination, the bank entrance examination, the police entrance examination, and many other exams which are needed to win the rat race. For instance” – he took a quick breath – “The Mughal empire had two capitals; Delhi was one of them. Which was the other? Four capital cities of Europe are built on the banks of one river.
    Name that river. Who was the first king of Germany? What is the currency of Angola? One city in Europe has been the capital of three different empires. Which city? Two men were involved in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Nathuram Godse was one of them. Name the other man.
    What is the height of the Eiffel Tower in metres?” Holding the pamphlets up with his right hand, he staggered forward, bracing himself as the bus bumped over the potholes of the road. One passenger asked for a pamphlet, and handed him a rupee. Ratna walked back, and waited near the exit door; when the bus slowed down, he dipped his head in silent thanks to the conductor, and got off.

    He walked into his house , hung his shirt on a hook next to the door, kicked the door open, and walked in scratching his armpits and hairy chest. He sat down on a chair, exhaled, said “O
    Krishna, O Krishna,” and stretched his legs out; even though they were in the kitchen, his daughters knew at once that he had come in – a powerful odour of stale feet went through the house like a warning cannon shot. They dropped their women’s magazines, and rushed at once to their work. The wife was making noise with some plates and pots.
    After he had smoked his second beedi, and his body had visibly relaxed, she built up the courage to come near: “The astrologer said he would come at nine.”
    “Uhm.”
    The radio was turned on; he put it on his thigh, and slapped his palm on his other thigh to the beat of the music, humming constantly, and singing the words whenever he knew them.
    “He’s here,” she whispered. He turned the radio off, as the astrologer came into the room and folded his palms in a namaste.
    Sitting down on his chair, he took off his shirt, which Ratna’s wife hung for him on the hook next to Ratna’s own shirt. While Ratna’s wife and the girls waited in the kitchen, the astrologer showed Ratna the choice of boys.
    He opened an album, in which he had black and white photos; he gazed at the faces of boy after boy, who looked back at him in tense, unsmiling portraits. Ratna scraped one with his thumb.
    The astrologer slid it out of the album.
    “Boy looks OK,” Ratna said, after a moment’s concentration. “The father does what for a living?”
    “Owns a firecracker shop in Car Street. A very good business. Boy inherits it.”
    “His own business,” Ratna exclaimed, with genuine satisfaction. “It’s the only way ahead in the rat race: being a salesman is a dead end.”
    His wife dropped something in the kitchen; then coughed; then dropped something else.
    “What’s going on?” he shouted.
    A timid voice said something about “horoscopes”.
    “Shut up!” Ratna shouted. He jerked the photo at the kitchen – “I have three daughters to marry off and this damn bitch thinks I can be choose?” – and he threw the photo back into the astrologer’s lap.
    The astrologer drew an X across the back of the