Wild Life

21 March 2009

Fixer wallah

Underground, the miners smoke pipes of ganja, shrugging off fears of a methane-gas explosion. Back on the surface, Ajay is partial to pan. Pan, a leaf into which one folds betel nut, may be India’s most offensive creation (together with the motorised rickshaw). If Ajay does condescend to come along for the ride while we are rushing to make an interview in time, he will order the driver to stop at Manilal’s Pan Shop. ‘I am addicted to pan,’ he confides. I ask about its effect. ‘Hard to explain,’ Ajay replies. ‘Can you explain the pleasure of sex?’ When I sample pan all I get is backache and stained teeth.

Ajay also likes Gold Leaf cigarettes. To smoke these he waits until we are all in the car with the windows closed. Outside, Jaria’s collieries are a vision of hell. Open-cast mining has destroyed the landscape, exposing seams of coal to the air so that they oxidise and then spontaneously ignite. The conflagration is out of control, spreading underground, spewing blue flames and poisonous gases from yawning cracks that swallow up entire villages. Chimneys belch smoke and coal dust hangs in a soupy smog. And right in the middle of all this is Ajay blowing Gold Leaf smoke in my face.

For several days Ajay vanished almost completely. We met him once for a meal at which he held forth on the Indian deities, whose number ‘exceeds 36 crore’. Then one day he appeared in the restaurant looking complacent. ‘This has been a most successful visit,’ he said, lighting up another fag. ‘I have concluded arrangements for my daughter’s marriage.’ At last this explained his long absences. I asked if his daughter loved the groom. ‘They knew each other only in childhood.’ I asked if she was happy. ‘What is happiness? Yes, she is happy. The boy has a booming business in Haryana and the father owns a silicate factory.’ I am glad to have helped in some small way with the wedding plans.