The High-Rise

In conversations with ordinary working class Indians such as our friends, train companions, taxi drivers and others, we hear complaints about the corruption that runs throughout all levels of this society. In our daily newspaper, The Times of India-Allahabad, there are stories regularly of corruption within parts of the government, the medical profession, the police, certain film stars, the education system, etc.

Down the lane from our apartment, the apartment that is upstairs from Anand’s battery and inverter business (a good business to be in, in this town of frequent power cuts) and the adjoining nursery school, at the corner of the small road that connects with the larger road, is a room, a business, run by Bapuji. Across the lane from this corner room is a pile of about 15 red steel 45 gallon drums.

Bapuji is a money lender, a loan shark, and a black market kerosene dealer. He is about 60 with a round smiling face. On his face is a slightly bemused expression. His head is covered in a small white cloth wrap, a sort of turban and he is dressed in a blue checked lungi (a sarong, a common garment for men) and a white shirt. He sits with his tin box full of money which he was only too happy to open and show and pose for a photograph. His clients are the poor to which he makes loans at exorbitant interest rates. Somewhat in the shadows sits Pupay, tall, with a long, handsome, somewhat arrogant face, slightly sinister. He is armed, so says Anand, and is Bapuji’s body guard and debt collector.

Kerosene is rationed to 3 litres per month and can be purchased only with a ration card. Bapuji has 3000 legitimate customers and has had printed 3000 fake ration cards so he can buy double the amount of kerosene. He buys it for 11 rupees per litre, the government rate, and sells it for 20 to 25 rupees per litre. The inspectors know he does this and they receive their cut. The Supply Officer knows about it and receives his cut. The Supply Commissioner knows and receives his portion. The State Secretaries know and skim off their bit., then the Supply Minister and finally the Chief Minister. Bapuji’s main kerosene customers are truck drivers who illegally mix the kerosene with diesel, 50-50. Diesel sells for 35 rupees per litre so they are saving 5 rupees per litre.

Next to our building, on this lane of mostly family apartments, stands an unfinished gray concrete building, five stories high, if you count the open-air roofed top level. Compared to the other buildings on this lane, it is a high-rise. This structure was built by Bapuji, it seems, as a place to use up some of his ill-gotten gains. It has stood there for the past four or five years as an empty, incomplete monument to small-time corruption.