Arms Race Read Online Free PDF Page B

bag.
    Feel that, he said.
    What’s in there?
    About ten lakh cash.
    Raj laughed and weighed the bag in his hand. Books, na ? How many copies did you get
changed?
    Have a look.
    Raj opened the bag and went still. He looked up at his uncle, then back down into
the bag. What is—he said. How is this—
    That’s for you, Jora said. I want you to buy every photocopier in Rajasthan.
    Raj and his brothers’ battered yellow Maruti became a familiar sight, trundling back
and forth with copiers strapped to the roof. In a month they acquired enough machines
to fill a derelict tannery. The north wall was half buried beneath sand blown in
from the desert, but the rent was cheap.
    Next Jora went to his brothers in the restaurant kitchen. He laid an original Lonely
Planet on the chopping block. Sharpen your knives, he said. Imagine you are cutting
a diamond.
    His brothers went to work on the binding, slicing out each page.
    Then Jora sat down with his niece Nisha. Your ignorant uncle can’t read or write,
he said. How’d you like to do it for me?
    In the mornings and after school Nisha studied the guidebook. Then she carefully
composed a paragraph about Shahi Palace on the hotel’s antiquated laptop, and pasted
it over the entry for Sarkar Mansions. It was hard to tell that it wasn’t part of
the original.
    On the morning of the first printing Jora closed the hotel and assembled his staff
at the tannery. It was the dead of winter and there were no guests. Jora issued instructions,
his breath fogging in the cold, and there were questions and laughter and barking
dogs, but soon enough everyone stood ready. Though there would be no race, Jora couldn’t
help himself. He raised his arms, and brought them swiftly down.
    Go!
    When the copies were made and the bindings done and the books stacked in the hotel
lobby, Jora was proud. He took one and thumbed through it. They were rough: pages
were upside down or missing, and in his copy someone had swapped the entry on Shimla
for a photograph of Kabir Bedi in very small shorts. But to Jora, who could not read
and could not write, they were perfect. He was in there. His family, his hotel, his
life.
    He snapped the book shut and turned to the desk. Raj, he called. Have you been to
the city before?
    All the time.
    Jora laughed. Not Jodhpur. How’d you like to go to Delhi? On my money?
    Raj attempted a shrug. Then he broke into an enormous smile.
    You take these to Delhi, Jora said, and you don’t come back until you’ve sold every
last one.
    Two days after the family had seen Raj and Sunil off from the bus station, the boys
were back. Sunil’s arm was broken. Raj’s handsome face was an ugly pulp.
    We set up at Old Delhi, Raj said through swollen lips. We were only there a day and
these five men came up to us and said it was their corner. You know what the bastards
said? Fuck off back to your village. India is full.
    Jora hurled his drink off the balcony. That dog, he cried. India is never full! What
about the books?
    Raj dropped his gaze. I’m sorry, Uncle- ji .
    Jora spent the days shouting at his waiters, and the nights drinking Old Monk by
himself in the restaurant. He’d spent everything. There was no more money for toner
or paper. There were few guests and no books. All he had was a sand-strewn room full
of ancient photocopiers, and crushing debt.
    India, he told his glass, is empty.
    One morning Nisha came to see him.
    Why aren’t you at school? he asked.
    Nisha handed him a sheet of paper. I made this for you, Uncle- ji .
    It was the main Jaisalmer page from the guidebook, except that Nisha had pasted new
paragraphs over the entire text, and replaced the photographs with hand-drawn pictures.
It looked like a school assignment.
    That’s lovely, Jora said. I’ll put it on the wall in my office.
    No, Nisha said, pointing to the new paragraphs. That’s Sunil’s camel treks, and that’s
the taxi drivers, and