Sacred Games - pg. 233

After he left I turned to my English books. I was teaching myself, with children's books and the newspapers and a dictionary. Only Chotta Badriya knew, because he had bought me the books and the dictionary. I closed my door when I studied English because I didn't want anyone seeing me squatting on the floor, one uncertain and slow finger on the letters, which I had to laboriously knock together with moving lips until they adhered into a word:''p-a-r-l-i-a-m-e-n-t...parliament'. It was humiliating, but necessary. I knew that much of the real business of the country was done in English.