Read Online Chankya's Chant by Ashwin Sanghi - Free Book Online Page B

can help you better from outside than from within.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘In India’s untidy democracy, politics and business shall always need each other. The former is about power but needs money to realise it; the latter is about wealth but needs power to create and sustain it. Let me become your political strength.’
    ‘And what would you want from me?’
    ‘Economic support. I shall repay it with political support when you need it.’
    ‘My blessings are with you, Gangasagar.’

    Gupta, the paan vendor, was blissfully smoking his cheroot as he lovingly layered lime, cardamom, areca nuts, and rose-petal paste onto a bright green betel leaf for Gangasagar. The filth surrounding his stall was unbearable, a thick stench of sewage making it impossible to breathe. ‘That’s why I smoke these cheroots,’ said Gupta, ‘they make it easier to breath in this foul air. I don’t mind the carcinogens!’
    Kanpur was home to some of India’s biggest tanneries, and the area housed one of them. Hides came to the tannery with animal flesh and hair still hanging on them and the tannery used urine and limestone sludge to remove the residue. The workers then treated the hides with pigeon droppings. A permanent and disgusting smell of rotting flesh, stale urine and pigeon shit hung over the entire area. The poorest of the poor worked in tanneries like this one and they had no alternative but to live in shanties around the area. The result was a burgeoning slum.
    For the wealthy of Kanpur, slums like this one were embarrassing boils that needed to be lanced; for those who lived in them, the slum was their only source of sustenance—no matter how wretched. With just one lavatory for every fifteen hundred dwellers, most residents were left with little alternative but to defaecate out in the open drains. Stinking slaughterhouses that supplied the hides to the tanneries discharged bloody remains into the very same open sewers choked with untreated human and industrial waste. Typhoid, cholera and malaria were common conditions in this hellhole.
    Along its perimeter were little shops like those of Gupta. The slum was a self-sufficient little community and paan and cigarette stalls, tea shops, grocery stores, and chemists did roaring business because they had captive consumers who lived right there. ‘Are there any schools here?’ asked Gangasagar, masticating his paan.
    ‘There used to be a municipal school but the teachers ran away. The local mafia thugs wanted the space to set up their bootlegging operation,’ said Gupta, blowing a puff of acrid smoke. ‘The local politicos are quite happy to wax eloquent about the need for schools to educate our young, but the reality is that they wish to keep us illiterate and uneducated. It’s the perfect way to maintain a vote bank,’ said Gupta conspiratorially.
    ‘If I open a school here, will parents send their children?’ asked Gangasagar.
    ‘I don’t know about the others, but I’ll send my daughter happily,’ said Gupta.
    ‘What’s her name?’
    ‘Chandini. She’s just ten.’

    He was a rough and uncouth character but his clothes were immaculate. His paan-stained teeth matched the colour of his eyes, blood-red. Not that Ikrambhai ever drank. It was against his religion. He ran extremely profitable ventures in land-grabbing, illegal betting, extortion, and bootlegging. But he refused to drink. His eyes were red because he rarely slept. Hard work was essential, even if you were a slumlord. His swarthy skin boldly contrasted with the pure-white embroidered kurta that he wore. The buttons were sparkling diamonds and on his fingers he wore several rings, each set with a different stone.
    He wore a ruby to give him good health and longevity, although his own longevity often meant the reduced life-expectancy of others. He wore a cat’s-eye to bestow him with patience, and he often remained exceedingly patient while his thugs beat up a poor sucker who refused to fall in