It makes Dinesh laugh.
“You really think you’re something, don’t you?” Sunny says.
Dinesh ignores him, picks up the nimbu pani. “When I taught myself about art,” he says, “I did it because I thought it was something modern people do, people like you. I taught myself about art like I was ticking off a shopping list. But I found it fascinating. And I discovered,” he frowns in thought, “in the Old Masters, in hushed galleries, and then later, in certain photographers, I discovered something in them that I later discovered was in me. Empathy. It was empathy. I was scared of it at first. I reserved it for the frame. But then I sometimes walked from my hotel and wandered. I did this in Paris, around the Gare du Nord, saw the bums and the down-and-outs. I looked at them like I was looking at a painting, then I took that painting into the world. I told myself, these men and women, they have autonomy, they are fully formed, I can look at them, I understand their pain.”
“What the fuck are you on about?”
“Empathy, Sunny. When I returned from that trip, I started to think. About the things we said in the past, and what we really meant, and about what was possible with the power we have. Would you like to hear my conclusion?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“I choose morality over aesthetics. I choose empathy. That’s my conclusion. In the current moment, morality should be above everything.”
“What’s the ‘current moment’?”
“The moment of our fathers.”
Dinesh sits back, lapses into silence.
Sunny’s head is foggy.
“I might look her up,” Dinesh says. “When I go to London next. I always liked her. I hear she’s doing well. With the apartment she was given, and the money . . . it must have been hard for her to go through what she did all alone.”
“Fuck off.”
“The real fool,” Dinesh says, “such as the gods mock or mar, is he who does not know himself.”
“Oh great. Quoting Shakespeare at me now.”
“It’s not Shakespeare.”
“And we’re not having this conversation.”
“OK,” Dinesh says brightly. “Let’s talk about something else. Tell me what you’re into these days. Talk to me about architecture, cocktails, watches. Sunny, talk to me about the big fucking cities you’re going to build on the land my father has given to yours.”
“Fuck you.”
“But this is our time, Sunny!”
Sunny just stares out.
Across the road, a liquor vend is opening.
Men line up before the metal grilles waving their rupee notes into the darkness within, until they are snatched away and replaced with little plastic bottles and clear plastic bags of hooch.
Dinesh’s voice becomes hard, flat. “You aren’t enjoying any of this, are you? Tell me. When was the last time you enjoyed anything?”
“Fuck off.”
“Tell me, the guy I once knew, who wanted to change the world, did he even exist?”
“He grew up.”
“Who wanted to make things better.”
“I never wanted to make things better.”
“Because it’s something we can actually do, you know that, right?” Dinesh becomes animated, passionate. “You do understand, it’s in our hands to do something good, not to make their mistakes. To do the right thing. Listen to me. Look at me. Take the shades off. Look at me.”
Sunny slowly lowers his shades.
His eyes are bloodshot.
“You’ll never be your father.”
The words strike Sunny terribly. Split his brain in two.
“You’ll never be your father, and that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. I’ll never be mine, you’ll never be yours. But we can be more than both.”
“What do you want?”
“Do you know,” Dinesh says, “how many people there are in this state? Two hundred million, give or take. If we were a country, we’d have the fifth-largest population on earth. And it’s ours. All ours, you and I, we’re supposed to inherit it all. But look at it! Look. The people are miserable. This state is almost as miserable as you are!” He pauses meaningfully. “What’s the common denominator? Our fathers.” Dinesh lowers his voice. “We both know the pact our fathers made: yours bankrolls mine into power, then mine makes them both richer than anyone can imagine. That was the deal. That was the dream, right?”
“If you say so.”
“But it’s turned into a nightmare. Why?”
“Because your father got greedy.”
“No! Because your father is relentless.”
“You’re blaming my father for making too much money now?”
“I’m blaming him for trying to control the world. He wants it all, all the power. He’s a vampire. A locust. He consumes it all. Health care, education, infrastructure, mining, even the media. He has his hand in everything. But he takes from the people.”
“He takes from no one.”
“Don’t be so naive. The hospitals have no medicine. Why? It gets stolen, sold on the black market. To whom? Private hospitals? Who steals it? Who sells it? Who owns the private hospitals? You know who. There’s a pattern emerging. Everything public ends up stripped down, sold, taken away. But what is there in abundance? Liquor. Your father’s liquor, from the sugarcane he grows, through the distilleries he owns, the distribution he controls, to the shops he sells out of. Like the one right across the street. Look at it. It shouldn’t even be open this early in the morning, but there it is. Just so you can forget the misery of your life. It goes round and round. The poor get screwed, and I can see it on your face that you act like you don’t care. And I guess you don’t. So let me put it another way. The poor get screwed, but the poor also vote. They fucking vote, Sunny. It’s the one thing we can’t yet take away from them. We can try to buy them off. More liquor, meat, money. But sooner or later they’ll kick us out.”
Sunny gives a strange, self-satisfied smirk.
“I advised against this land deal of yours,” Dinesh goes on, “this deal to give you your fantasy city. You should know that. I advised against it completely. It’s political suicide. It’s self-immolation. It’s going to be the death of us. The farmers won’t forgive us. They’ll tip things over. Come election time, we’ll be done.”
“Correction. You’ll be done. They’ll vote you out. But the next guy who comes along will smell the money, he’ll smell it and run to my father and fall in line.”
“You believe that, don’t you?” Dinesh replies. “But sooner or later the people will vote in someone who can’t be bought.”
Sunny gets up from the table.
Lights a cigarette.
“Everyone can be bought.”
Reaches into his pocket and tosses several hundred rupee notes down.
Dinesh shakes his head. “You don’t know the monsters you’re letting in the door.”
But Sunny is already walking to the street.
Across to the liquor vend.
He turns, shrugs, give a bitter smile that says: I. Just. Don’t. Fucking. Care.
2007
DEVELOPMENT BEAT
Tales of Precious Dirt