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A CROWBAR, A TROWEL, AND AULIYA’S SHRINE
    Now, listen to what happened that day, a few hours before the encounter.
    According to Govind, who sells chai on the street corner in front of A-11/DX33, Saket, that night at ten, a police Gypsy came with three plain-clothes cops and two regular ones. They went into the gym, kicked out all the girls and boys who were exercising, and then, later, themselves left. About an hour later, as Govind was closing his stall, the Esteem pulled up. It didn’t have any licence plates, and a Sikh, not too tall, not too short, got out.
    Ramnivas stepped out of the backseat right after him. They went inside and stayed for about an hour and a half. They kept carrying things from the building and loading them into the back seat and boot of the vehicle. An undercover Ambassador car with concealed sirens pulled up right around the corner, where Khanna Travels and Couriers shop is, and followed the Esteem when it began to pull away.
    Govind’s shop was closed – he was getting ready to go home – when the greenish Esteem without licence plates pulled up right next to him. Ramnivas rolled down the window and asked for a bidi. Govind had an open, half-smoked pack of Ganesh brand bidis in his shirt pocket, and gave him what he had.
    Govind said Ramnivas looked incredibly stressed, his eyes glazed over like those of a corpse. He’d tried to say something to him, but the Esteem was gone in a flash – the Sikh was driving.
    If you’re at Dhaula Kuan crossing and instead of taking Ring Road, take the next left, Ridge Road, you’ll run into Buddha Jayanti Park. It’s right off Ridge Road, and that’s where the photo was taken.
    According to what Ramnivas told me about the hollow wall in the gym at Saket, it must have been pretty large. Conservatively, I figured, it had to have enclosed an area of about twelve by four feet. Ramnivas had said the space was crammed full of onehundred and five-hundred-rupee bills. Based on that, I did the maths. What I came up with was that there was easily anywhere from a hundred to a hundred and fifty million rupees in there.
    Do you remember the case where the Central Bureau raided a cabinet minister’s house, along with a few of his other properties? The investigation was launched by the government that had just come into power, and the cabinet minister under investigation had been part of the previous government. The minister was charged with taking something like a billion rupees in kickbacks from some foreign company that supplied sophisticated high-tech equipment. The man did a little time, and was later released. He then joined the very same government that had earlier begun the investigation. It’s clear that Ramnivas, guided by auspicious astrological alignments, or just dumb luck, had discovered a problem with his broom, and, in order to solve it, he began banging the broom head against the wall. He figured out the wall was hollow, put his hands inside, and was suddenly face-to-face with money hidden from the eyes of the Central Bureau and from the tax man. It was unaccounted money, untraceable money – dirty money.
    Astrologer Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay set up shop to the right of Sanjay’s, and just a few steps away from Madan’s. He spread out his square of cloth on the sidewalk. I approached him and told him the whole story, changing what needed to be changed to remain discreet. The astrologer-ji told me this: If Jupiter, in the third house, aligns with Mars, while in the sixth house, Mars first aligns with Venus, then Jupiter, and then, by luck, it’s the fourth or ninth lunar day of the waning moon, and a moonless night, and Delphinus is visible, then Kuvera, the god of wealth, will stir the senses of a man, and what this all adds upto is that there’s a great likelihood of stumbling on some buried treasure, or major wealth.
    Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay, originally from Baliya but now living next