Q & A

Jumping ahead in time, Thomas has just left Agra and gone back to Mumbai (for reasons we’ll discover in a later chapter). He runs into Salim on the street, and Salim proceeds to tell him all about his life since they’ve been apart. Much of the rest of this chapter takes place from Salim’s point of view. 

Salim begins by telling Thomas how he no longer works as a tiffin deliverer, but instead is enrolled in expensive acting classes paid for by the famous producer, Abbas Rizvi. Salim says that Rizvi has “offered me the role of a hero in his next film, which will be launched in two years’ time, when I have turned eighteen. Till then he is getting me trained” (194). Salim then explains how this good fortune came about. While working as a tiffin deliverer, a customer with ties to the film industry encouraged Salim to get head shots done in the hopes that he could work as a film extra. Salim couldn’t afford to get professional pictures done, so instead he took his own. By chance, he accidentally took a picture of Maman, the man who almost crippled Thomas and Salim. Salim runs away but finds himself stuck in a mob of angry Hindus. They almost kill him but he is saved by a Muslim man named Ahmed Khan. Khan invites Salim to work as a servant in his house, and Salim soon finds out that Khan is a professional gambler and contract killer. After realizing that Khan had been hired to kill Rizvi, Salim warns Rizvi. Rizvi goes into hiding but promises Salim that he will repay him by making him a lead in his next film and paying for his acting classes. Salim also tricks Khan into thinking that he has been hired to kill Maman, which he does. Later, Salim finds out that Khan was killed in a police shootout. 

Smita presses play and Prem Kumar asks Thomas about India’s greatest batsman. Since Thomas knows all about cricket due to Salim’s time with Khan, he gets the answer correct and wins a million rupees. 

After escaping Maman’s clutches, Thomas and Salim run away and seek the help of Neelima Kumari, a retired movie star. It is rumored that she helps orphaned children and needs a servant. She agrees to hire Thomas, but can’t hire Salim because he is Muslim and her mother, who lives with her, can’t eat food touched by a Muslim. Kumari pays for Thomas and Salim’s rent at a nearby chawl. 

Thomas finds out that Neelima Kumari used to be an award-winning, sought-after actress, but she retired because she was no longer offered leading female roles. Despite being retired, Kumari is exceptionally vain. Kumari defends her vanity by telling Thomas, “We people who work in films become very vain. We get so used to seeing ourselves in makeup that we no longer have the courage to look in the mirror and see our real faces” (219). 

Kumari’s mother dies, and Thomas moves into Kumari’s house to become a live-in servant. However, on many nights Kumari asks Thomas to stay with Salim in the chawl. Thomas comes back to Kumari’s house early one morning to see a disheveled man leaving. Thomas goes inside to see Kumari beaten and bruised. Thomas implores her to leave the man, but she says that she can’t. On another morning, Thomas again finds Kumari has been beaten, but this time it’s worse. She opens her shirt to reveal burn marks all over her breasts. She pulls Thomas’s face into her naked breasts and holds him there. Thomas says:

I do not know what Neelima Kumari was thinking when she drew me into her bosom. Whether she saw me as a son or a lover, whether she did it to forget her pain or simply to gain a cheap thrill. But as I nuzzled my face between her breasts, all consciousness of the outer world ceased in my brain and for the first time in my life I felt as though I was not an orphan anymore. That I had a real mother, one whose face I could see, one whose flesh I could touch (230). 

The moment quickly passes, and the two never speak about it again. 

Shortly after that encounter, Kumari kills herself by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Thomas finds her but runs away, afraid he will be blamed for her death. Officials don’t find her Kumari’s body for a month. 

Smita presses play. Thomas has won a million rupees. He can either continue playing, and risk losing it all, or walk away with the million. Prem Kumar is secretly speaking to Thomas and urges him to keep playing. He even tells Thomas the next question and answer beforehand. Thomas believes him and goes forward. However, Kumar has lied, and he reads an entirely different question. It’s clear that the producers of the show are trying to get Thomas to lose everything to avoid paying him. Kumar asks Thomas what year Neelima Kumari won the National Award. Thomas knows the answer, and he wins ten million rupees without any help.

In the longest of the chapters, seventeen-year-old Thomas has just been robbed on the train and escaped after shooting the robber. He now finds himself in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. He is immediately drawn to the building’s beauty and follows around a tour guide, learning everything he can about it. Soon, he becomes an unofficial tour guide himself, and grows exceptionally popular because he speaks fluent English. With dusk approaching and nowhere to sleep, he asks a young boy if he knows where he might find a room. The boy, Shankar, replies in an undecipherable gibberish, but grabs Thomas by the arm and begins walking. Thomas follows because the boy seems sweet and honest. 

Shankar brings Thomas to the manor of Rani Sahiba, a rich heiress who rents out a chawl in the back of her home. Thomas, who now goes by the alias Raju Sharma to avoid the cops, rents one of the chawls and becomes close with Lajwanti, a maid who is a few years older than Thomas and Shankar. Thomas finds out that Shankar is also an orphan, and Rani Sahiba took pity on him, allowing him to stay in the chawl rent-free. Although Shankar is unable to speak coherently in any language, he and Thomas become close and understand each other on a deeper, emphatic level.

While working at the Taj Mahal, a group of young rich college students ask Thomas to come party with them. He reluctantly agrees, but only because the students have given him a generous tip for the tour and he feels obligated. The students end up taking Thomas to the red-light district and pay for Thomas to sleep with a prostitute. Here he meets Nita, a seventeen-year-old prostitute who has been working at the brothel since she was twelve. Thomas loses his virginity to Nita, but ends up falling in love with her breathtaking beauty. He frequently returns to the brothel to visit her and discovers that she is part of the Bedia tribe. In her community “it is tradition for one girl from each family to serve as a communal prostitute, called the Bedni. This girl earns money for her family while the males spend their time drinking alcohol and playing cards” (266). Nita’s pimp is also her brother, Shyam. Nita is expected to work until she’s too old to make money, or she dies. Thomas tells Shyam he wants to marry Nita, but he says the only way he would release Nita is if Thomas pays him four lakh rupees (400,000 rupees).

Lajwanti, Sahiba’s maid, ends up going to jail after stealing from Sahiba to pay for her sister’s wedding. Shankar contracts rabies from a rabid dog and deteriorates quickly—Thomas is the only one taking care of him. During a fever dream, Shankar speaks coherently for the first time, revealing that Rani Sahiba is his mother. Thomas immediately goes to her, pleading that she pay for an expensive experimental treatment that could save Shankar’s life, but she says no. She also denies that Shankar is her son, though it’s clear that she’s lying. Shankar dies a slow and painful death, and Thomas brings his dead body to Rani Sahiba during one of her dinner parties, telling the attendees Shankar is her son. 

Thomas is so heartbroken over Shankar that he stops visiting Nita. One day, he receives a call that Nita is in the hospital after being beaten up by a client. He rushes to see her and finds cigarette burns on her chest; Thomas is sure that whoever did this to her was also the person who beat Neelima Kumari. Thomas steals 400,000 rupees from Rani Sahiba and goes back to the hospital. He accidentally drops the cash and a man sees it. He begs Thomas to give him the money to save his son, who has rabies. Thomas says no and instead tries to use the money to pay for Nita’s freedom. But Shyam says that he wants more than that. Thomas gives up on Nita, realizing Shyam will never free her. Just as he’s leaving the hospital, he sees the man and gives him the money to save his son. The man says that he is forever indebted to Thomas, and gives him his card. 

Smita pushes play and Prem Kumar asks Thomas which Shakespeare play has the character Costard? Thomas doesn’t know the answer, but he asks to use a lifeline known as the Friendly Tip, which means that he can call a friend for advice. After putting his hand in his pocket to use his lucky coin, he finds the card from the man in the hospital. The man turns out to be an English professor and helps give Thomas the right answer. 

This chapter, unlike the others, doesn’t flashback to Thomas’s past life. Instead, it takes place entirely in the quiz show studio, with Thomas about to answer the last question. During a commercial break Prem Kumar tells Thomas that “we don’t know how you managed to answer eleven questions so far, but there is no way you will be able to answer the final question” (301). The commercial break ends and Prem Kumar asks Thomas who was Mumtaz Mahal’s father? Since Mumtaz Mahal was the inspiration behind the Taj Mahal, Thomas knows the answer. But for the sake of suspense, the show cuts to a commercial break. Prem Kumar taunts Thomas and says that there is no way he knows the right answer, but Thomas gives him the correct answer and smiles, knowing he has won. Prem Kumar looks frantic and runs over to the producers. He comes back and the commercial break is over. Prem Kumar informs the audience that the previous question wasn’t real, and that they have a different final question to give Thomas. Thomas realizes that the show is run by crooks. 

The new question is about Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata Number 29,” and Thomas doesn’t know the answer. They go to a commercial break, and Thomas asks to use the bathroom. Prem Kumar follows him because the rules of the show mandate that contestants can’t be left alone. Once inside the bathroom, Thomas pulls out a gun and reveals why he really came on the show. It wasn’t to win money, rather it was to get revenge on Prem Kumar, the man responsible for beating Neelima Kumari and Nita. Prem Kumar admits guilt but begs for his life. Prem Kumar promises that if Thomas will let him live, he will ensure Thomas wins the billion rupees. Thomas realizes that he can’t kill a man for revenge and lets him go. Prem Kumar keeps his promise and subtly gives Thomas the correct answer. 

At the end of the DVD, Smita reveals that she is Gudiya, the girl he helped in the chawl, in Chapter Three. She tells him that her father didn’t die after he pushed him down the stairs, but he did get sober afterwards. Smita promises to fight for Thomas.