Anurag’s call ends. He says,
“This is how it works. The biggest businessmen don’t go to banks for funding. This Gujarati company has a lot of projects, they need 15 lakh crores, and they know the only place they can get it is from the Congress Party. They went to Ambani [Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest businessman], but Ambani can’t give that kind of money. So they came to us.
“The Congress has so much money they have to invest it. And it’s excellent for the country. They are growing India now. And soon I’ll make money for myself and I can do something for the country too. If I make 1 per cent or 2 per cent on any of my deals, I can really start out. I need 1,000 crores [$200 million] for myself, and if my deals start happening it won’t be difficult. I have a friend who made 320 crores [$64 million] on a black money deal recently. He bought himself a Bugatti. I wouldn’t do that. I would do up my house really nice. But I need money for other things.”
In Anurag’s stories, the membrane separating reality and fantasy is exquisitely permeable. One never knows how to tell the two apart. It is not clear that he does, either. In fact what I find interesting about him is that he finds society so extreme that there is almost nothing that cannot plausibly be asserted. His Delhi is a bewildering place, full of vast monsters whose species and scale are indiscernible in the spiritual night, and I understand why he is so lost. And why finding himself again can be imagined only in one way: earning loads of money.
“I want to make things better. If only I had 5 crores [$1 million] I would just have a good life and drive a BMW. But then I’d just be living for myself. I wouldn’t be able to do anything for my nation. I want to change things. I want to show people how to live. That’s why I need 1,000 crores.
“Delhi is a good place but the people are bastards. They’re big show-offs. They don’t know about life. They have dirty minds and they only think about money. I want to make them feel. Money has killed their feelings. God did not do this. We did it and we can change. If I have the money I will change people’s souls.”
Delhi is obsessed with money, it is the only language it understands, and to buy myself out of its vulgarity and its money-mindedness, I need lots of money. It is a strange, self-defeating logic which obviously universalises the escalation of that which it hates.
“There was a wedding party in the street where I live, and they put up a marquee outside my house. There was a tree in the way and they cut it down just to put up their marquee. They cut down a tree that took forty years to grow just for one party. They don’t understand anything. I went to ask them, ‘Why are you fucking this tree?’ But they don’t care what I think. I can’t fight with them right now. That’s why I need money. I want to be strong and when I find people like that, I want to fuck their happiness. You can say there’s a fire in me right now.”
It’s true, it seems, since Anurag, sitting in his shirt, is apparently unaffected by the cold of this February night, while I, wrapped up in a coat, am shivering violently.
The watchman comes back to ask for a drink. Anurag pours him some rum.
“Where have all the good dogs gone?” he asks him.
The watchman spreads his hands in ignorance.
“That black-and-white one was a brilliant dog,” Anurag says.
The watchman walks off into the blackness of the park.
“Animals are so pure,” says Anurag, “so true to their nature. They don’t change. You have no idea how much I love animals. I used to bring food for that black-and-white dog all the time. If I woke up in the night and it was raining I used to drive over here and put up tarpaulin sheets between the trees so he could keep dry. I used to bring a coat for him in the winter.
“People are bastards. I’ve given up on people. Everyone I have ever trusted has fucked me. I don’t have friends anymore. My girlfriend doesn’t care about me. My father is a good man, he’s worked hard, but he has never believed in me. He has never put his hand on my shoulder and said, I understand you. Animals are the only ones who are loyal. Not humans. The simplicity of animals keeps me going. Animals want very few things. They only want money—” He laughs at his own mistake: “I mean they only want food. Nothing else.”
He shows me pictures on his cell phones of animals being maimed and killed. Hundreds of them. There is a majestic, powerful lizard with its feet broken so it cannot move.
“When I found the guy who had maimed this lizard, I broke his ribs and his jaw. I fucked his happiness. People don’t know how to behave. I knew this family who had a Pomeranian that was irritating them and they threw it off their seventh-floor balcony. I would set up a separate animal police to deal with people like that. I would introduce strict laws and have advertising campaigns to educate people about animal rights. I would introduce a 1 per cent tax just to take care of animals.”
The watchman circles back to us, making a drunken show of keeping watch, banging his stick exaggeratedly on the ground.
“You see him?” says Anurag. “He’s a villager, he’s been looking after this place for twenty-five years. He is a real human being. Not like everyone else.”
The moon is very high now. The park is silent and the city seems far away. Owls hoot now and again. We are quiet for a while. Anurag is musing.
“I had this idea for a house,” he says. “In the front there’s the garden and swimming pool. At the back of the house is the car park. There are remote control doors at the front and the back of the house and a wide passageway between them, so you can drive your car right through the house. So in the evening you go out to get your Ferrari, drive it into the house, stop at the bedroom to pick up your girl, and drive away to your party.”
He lets the picture form.
“What do you think of the idea?” he asks.
“I’m not sure,” I say. “You have a few practical problems. You’d need to get rid of exhaust fumes. And a Ferrari would make a huge noise inside a house.”
“It doesn’t have to be a Ferrari. It could be a Lamborghini.”
“I guess so.”
Anurag pours more rum into our plastic cups, and tops them up with Coke. He returns to his rant about “Delhi people” — the same rant that occupies the lives of so many of those same Delhi people too.
“People are not beautiful in Delhi. Look at how they treat women. In Mumbai they don’t harass women, but here a woman can’t take ten paces without being mistreated. Once I saw this man abusing this girl in public. I knew the man a little bit and I said, ‘Why are you abusing her, man? You’re abusing her in front of so many people and she’s crying. Let it be.’ Then I went away and when I came back he was still abusing her. I fucked his happiness. First of all I slapped him. Then he said you have no idea who my dad is. So I said, ‘This one is for your dad,’ and I broke his rib. And then a big court case happened.”
Anurag breathes deeply.
“I just helped her as a human. I’m a human and if I see innocent people suffering I have to help them.
“Another time, I was in Bangkok with my cousin. My cousins have amazing money. But if I asked to borrow a lakh [$2,000] they would fuck my happiness forever. One day I was out biking on the beach, and I came to the hotel and my cousin had a girl with him. She was naked and he was filming her. She was crying. She was saying she was supposed to get married and now he was telling her he was going to send this video of her all over the world. I said to her, ‘He’s not going to do that, don’t worry.’ My cousin was laughing. He said, ‘Of course I will. I’ll make sure everyone sees it.’ I said, ‘What the fuck, man? Your business with her is over, now pay her and let her go. What are you trying to prove?’ Then he started throwing money at her. 1,000 baht. 1,000 more. And she just threw the money on the floor. I said, ‘Not everyone lives for money, man.’ I snatched his phone from him, then I changed the phone language into Thai and I let her delete the video. And I shook her hand, and she hugged me and she cried. That was the best part actually.”