Q & A (103-210)

Summary
From page one to page 210, Ram has won a million rupees already. During the first one-third section of the book, Ram won 10 thousand rupees. Now by the end of the second-third of the book, he won a million already from the quiz show. However, the stories behind his reasons for answering the questions correctly, are not so good.
Through his stories, Ram traveled from place to place - or, more specially, ran away from one place to other by events that took place in his life. He worked at a home of an Australian family who had a father who was the "Man Who Knows" everything. Ram soon found out he was secretly an illegal spy and secretly reported Colonel Taylor himself. Since Colonel Taylor was to be deported with his family, Ram was able to receive all this earnings of 52 thousand rupees on his dismissal. With that money, he bought expensive watch, clothes and a coach train ticket back to Mumbai, with the remainder of 50 thousand rupees ensconced safely inside his underwear. Unfortunately, while he sleeps on the train, he is awoken by a dacoit (Indian criminal) who strips the passengers of the train of their valuables and money, including Ram's. Before the dacoit makes his departure, he ordered a young girl that Ram fell in love with to reveal her breast or she will be killed. Eventually, somehow, Ram gets hold of the criminal's gun and shoots him (he doesn't even know how). When he realized what happened, he ran away from the train, and kept on switching on and off of random trains, not knowing their destinations. He ends up in Agra where he stays for a while until he heads back to Mumbai to attend the quiz show. On his arrival in Mumbai, he encounters Salim after five long years and learns of his story of living and working in a home of a secret serial murderer, and his victory of escaping the home and turning the murderer in to the police (even if the murderer had previously saved his life). Salim also spoke of his acting school and how he was promised by a producer to be a movie star hero. Meanwhile, Ram still does not have the nerves to tell Salim of his plan of attending the quiz show.
Within these pages, Ram also witness the suicidal hanging of an ex-soldier who lied about being a hero in the war and he learned of the story of Julie, the Haitian voodoo women who took advantage of a guy Ram met at the bar he worked at.

Quote
"First there are advertisements. This war is sponsored by Mother India toothpaste and Jolly Tea" (Swarup 167).

Reaction
When I first read this, I stopped and laughed. Then I reread it over more than three times and laughed every time. Ram in sitting in front of the TV watching the news of the war of India vs. Pakistan, and all of the sudden there are advertisement of random companies supporting sponsoring the news. But Ram says that the war is sponsored by them, making it seem like these companies are the ones responsible for the war between the two countries. I thought that was funny.