The Brave New World - 155 The Emperor's New Bodyguard

It was a very wise move. The clerk who received the food became very helpful. Samir had the mint certificate in his pocket before an hour had passed. He also got some unasked-for advice from the clerk.

“You will have to work very hard to make your mint a success, my friend,” the clerk told him. “There are over three hundred mints registered in our area. I believe the total for all of Mumbai is over fifty thousand mints. You aren’t going to find any scrap metal for your mint, either. Not around here, and probably it’s the same everywhere else.”

“I have a source,” Samir told him.

“I hope it is a good source,” the clerk said. After a pause, he added:

“Last week, the army shot three men who were trying to steal a drum of cable.”

“I don’t need or intend to steal anything.”

“Things change,” the clerk said mystically. “Things always change.”

The clerk’s verdict made Samir feel vaguely unhappy. He didn’t really feel like going home right away. He wanted to be alone for a while. He tried to think of the last time when he met with other people simply to have fun. For the past couple of months, practically every conversation involved solving a problem.

There was a man selling small packs of cigarettes off a wooden tray right outside the town hall entrance, and he was taking old money. Samir had a couple of hundred-rupee notes in his trouser pocket, and decided he’d buy a pack. He wasn’t a smoker, although he didn’t refuse a cigarette offered by someone else when he was drinking.

The last time he had smoked a cigarette was at the Christmas party at work. Mr Go always threw Christmas parties for his employees. Everyone got a paper plate with a few spoonfuls of food, and a bottle of Kingfisher beer. Suddenly, Samir felt a great longing for those times. Maybe a cigarette would help?

After a lot of haggling, he managed to purchase a pack. The seller wanted three hundred rupees; he told Samir he was saving up money to buy a colonist’s license.

His disclosure put Samir in a bad mood. He got on his bike, and pedaled until he came to the turnoff that led directly to his house. A large tree was growing on that corner, and in its shade a very old man sat on a wooden bench, smoking a cigarette.

Samir asked him for a light, and sat down beside him. For a while they smoked in silence, sitting side by side. Suddenly the old man said:

“So you’re Samir Sharma.”

Samir had been smoking in a comfortable hunch, his forearms resting on his knees. He jerked straight and turned to look at the old man. He was sure he’d never met him before.

“How do you know my name?” he asked.

The old man grinned. He was missing a couple of teeth in his upper jaw, and somehow that made his grin seem evil. He said:

Samir uttered a joyless, short laugh.

“Famous? You must be pulling my leg. Famous for what?”

“You are prospering at a time when others are becoming destitute.”

That didn’t sound good at all. That promised trouble, and Samir was quick to say:

“Oh yes, I am very prosperous. So prosperous that I had to haggle for a long time to buy those cigarettes. My pockets are full of money. See?”

He pulled the side pocket of his trousers out. The only thing it contained was a bit of fluff that had stuck to the bottom seam. Samir pinched it between his fingers and held it up in front of the old man’s face.

“Gold,” he said. “Finest gold.”

He flicked the fluff away, and pulled on his cigarette. The old man said:

“You bought your house. You have people working on it. You have plenty of food. You have been to the New World.”

“Who told you that?”

The old man shrugged, and turned his face away from Samir’s.

“Everyone around here knows those things,” he said. He bent down and stubbed out his cigarette on the ground: he’d already burned it down to the filter.

Samir took out the small pack of Player’s Medium that he’d bought. He slid a cigarette half-out and offered it to the old man.

“Thank you,” the old man said, and stuck the cigarette behind his ear. Samir asked:

“The men working on my house have been talking?”

“I haven’t seen your workmen,” the old man said with great dignity, the kind of dignity that’s often used to cover a lie.

Samir nodded in acknowledgement; he didn’t trust himself to speak. The old man had to know what the workmen looked like in order to say he hadn’t seen them. Samir was very tempted to point that out, and make a fool of the old man. But he’d already learned the first rule of ruling: do not make new enemies unless it’s absolutely necessary.

So he got back on his bike without comment, and even waved goodbye toi the old man as he pushed off. It was wasted: the old man was busy examining the cigarette Samir had given him, probably expecting to find gold and diamonds inside.

As he rode his bike home, Samir digested his newfound knowledge. Everyone was talking about him! He was famous! Wasn’t that something to be happy about?

It wasn’t, not for Samir. Rani had showed up for their very first date with a cheap magazine devoted to celebrity gossip sticking out of the flat basket she used for a handbag. When Samir had noticed that magazine, he said:

“Don’t you feel sorry for all those celebrities?”

It had been the right thing to say. Rani had had a number of first dates with various men prior to meeting Samir, but this definitely was an original conversation opener. She was intrigued. She said:

“Why should I feel sorry for them? They have it so good that I envy them.”

“That’s exactly why you should feel sorry for them,” Samir told her. “Just imagine what it is to be like, being envied by everyone. Everyone hates you. Everyone lies to you. Everyone is after your money. People pretend to be your friends because they want to give their careers a boost or for some other profit. And you cannot move anywhere without people recognizing you. By the end of the day, your face aches from all that smiling.”

Rani laughed.

“I never thought about it this way,” she said.

Emboldened by her laugh, Samir continued:

“It doesn’t stop there. If you’re really wealthy and famous, you run a great risk of being imprisoned, sometimes even executed. History books have plenty of examples. If you have any children, chances are that someone’s thinking about kidnapping them for ransom at any given time. And – ”

“Stop,” Rani said, laughing. Much later, she told Samir that this was when she’d started to fall in love with him.

Of course, a lot of what Samir had said to Rani on the subject of fame was pure affectation. But there was a core of truth in what he told her.

He truly wasn’t ever hungry for fame, and he thought that people who craved fame were stupid. Fame wasn’t a blessing, it was a curse.

And so, he didn’t enjoy in the least the news that he’d become famous.

His face was dark with worry when he got off his bike in front of his house. As it turned out, that was a stroke of good luck.

Sergeant Arjun Varma was waiting for him inside the house. Sergeant Varma informed Samir that he and his men were more than ready to to replicate in the New World. Glancing at Samir’s worried face, he added:

“I would also like to ask your permission for me and my men to camp on your property.”

“What? What do you mean, camp on my property?”

Sergeant Varma became fidgety. In fact, he was acting a little as if Samir was his commanding officer. He was practically standing at attention when he said:

“We have been ordered to seek our own food and lodging by the high command.”

“By who? What command?”

“Our regimental commander said the army cannot afford to pay or feed us any more.”

“I saw some soldiers today,” Samir said. “They looked well-fed and generally satisfied to me.”

“It doesn’t affect all the units. They’re cutting a regiment from every brigade.”

“It doesn’t make sense. There’s no shortage of work for soldiers, these days.”

“We’re on call-up. They’ll send for us when they need us. That’s what they told us.”

“So basically, you want to live here now.”

“That’s correct.”

The magic of chance! Had Samir not bought a pack of cigarettes, he wouldn’t have stopped to have a smoke on his way home, would have never had the enlightening conversation with the old man. The prospect of having Varma and his men living on the premises would have dismayed him.

It made him happy. Having a bodyguard of eight professional soldiers was the right thing to have when one became a local celebrity. Within minutes, him and the sergeant had everything worked out. The soldiers would bring tents, and pitch them along the lane connecting the plot to the road. And they would start construction of a wooden barracks on the western edge of Samir’s property.

Sergeant Varma was overjoyed that Samir had proven to be so agreeable. He had been expecting difficulties, great difficulties when he saw Samir’s troubled face. He declared Samir would never regret his decision. When he was about to leave, he added in a conspiratorial manner:

“I’ll be bringing five implant kits. We confiscated them yesterday and didn’t get the chance to turn them in, you understand.”

“I do,” Samir said. “Believe me, I can understand almost everything now.”

Sergeant Varma smiled.

“I am so glad,” he said.

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