bundle.
‘Perhaps, on the second night, my father would have given the signal for the merchant and his party to be disposed of. By then, the merchant had come to trust us. He and his son would come into our camp for the evening meal, leaving his servant with the horses in their camp, and he would let his sword lie at a distance from him. But that night, after we had set up camp, one of the sothaees came with information that a contingent of the Company Bahadur’s sepoys was camping just a few yards further down the road. My father judged this to be a risk, though there were those who said that any real Thug could take care of a man without a single sound escaping his lips. Still, we waited for the third night.
‘It was a cold night. We lit a bonfire, not far from a grove of palm trees in a desolate, barren field, just off the road. The merchant and his son came to join us as usual. I thank you, Ali Sahib, he told my father, for accompanying me all this way from that unsainted town of Patna. Truly there is enjoyment in the society of gentlemen who have seen the world, and more so when one is in such desolate parts.
‘And thus the conversation continued, the merchant and his son being so used to our company by now that they did not grow suspicious of, or even notice, that three or four of my father’s companions were sitting closer to them than usual.
‘And the hospitality you have meted out to me and my son, Ali Sahib, the merchant continued. That, if I may say so, is the mark of a true gentleman. Never have I travelled with a greater feeling of safety, with less need to be watchful. With you, O gracious host, I know I will be taken care of.
‘Ay, growled an old Thug who was sitting next to me, behind my father. You will be taken care of. We will see to that.
‘How, I almost asked him, for, sahib, I was still only vaguely aware of the details of my new profession. It was then that I noticed that both the men sitting behind the merchant and his son were holding gamchas in their hands, the scarves with which bhutottoes throttle their victims.
‘My father and a couple of his older companions occupied the merchant and his son in gracious conversation all through the meal. Then, having washed our hands with a little water from the surahi, we settled back in our places, and my father raised his voice and ordered for the hookah and tobacco to be brought: tambaku lao, he shouted loudly. This was the signal.
‘Quicker than thought, the thugs with the gamchas who sat behind the merchant and his son, the bhutottoes who specialized in this business, threw their scarves around their victims’ necks. In an instant, the merchant and his son were on their backs, struggling in the agonies of death. Taajoob, sahib, not a sound escaped them, nothing but an indistinct gurgling. I knew that their servants had met a similar, silent fate a few metres away in the darkness. How easy it is, sahib, to snuff out a life; how easy it is to kill a human being!
‘Under those palm trees, in that barren piece of land, we buried the four bodies, after having slit their bellies open so that the gases of decay building up in them would not explode and disturb the loose earth of their shallow grave. As we walked away the next morning, I looked back, sahib, and already, from a little distance, there was nothing extraordinary to distinguish that piece of brown land from the barrenness all around it, those nameless stretches of straggly weeds and no irrigation, the lands where the writ of Allah and Bhowanee runs, the lands denuded of the grace of your God of Reason, sahib.’
15
Jaanam,
Yes, a blessing and a curse, that’s what our ancestral lands were to us. A blessing, for there were not many who had land of their own, and once we had vast stretches, given to one of our ancestors as a jagir by Emperor Akbar. The jagir lands have since been divided and subdivided with each contending generation, despite Chacha’s claim that in the past, only
‘Perhaps, on the second night, my father would have given the signal for the merchant and his party to be disposed of. By then, the merchant had come to trust us. He and his son would come into our camp for the evening meal, leaving his servant with the horses in their camp, and he would let his sword lie at a distance from him. But that night, after we had set up camp, one of the sothaees came with information that a contingent of the Company Bahadur’s sepoys was camping just a few yards further down the road. My father judged this to be a risk, though there were those who said that any real Thug could take care of a man without a single sound escaping his lips. Still, we waited for the third night.
‘It was a cold night. We lit a bonfire, not far from a grove of palm trees in a desolate, barren field, just off the road. The merchant and his son came to join us as usual. I thank you, Ali Sahib, he told my father, for accompanying me all this way from that unsainted town of Patna. Truly there is enjoyment in the society of gentlemen who have seen the world, and more so when one is in such desolate parts.
‘And thus the conversation continued, the merchant and his son being so used to our company by now that they did not grow suspicious of, or even notice, that three or four of my father’s companions were sitting closer to them than usual.
‘And the hospitality you have meted out to me and my son, Ali Sahib, the merchant continued. That, if I may say so, is the mark of a true gentleman. Never have I travelled with a greater feeling of safety, with less need to be watchful. With you, O gracious host, I know I will be taken care of.
‘Ay, growled an old Thug who was sitting next to me, behind my father. You will be taken care of. We will see to that.
‘How, I almost asked him, for, sahib, I was still only vaguely aware of the details of my new profession. It was then that I noticed that both the men sitting behind the merchant and his son were holding gamchas in their hands, the scarves with which bhutottoes throttle their victims.
‘My father and a couple of his older companions occupied the merchant and his son in gracious conversation all through the meal. Then, having washed our hands with a little water from the surahi, we settled back in our places, and my father raised his voice and ordered for the hookah and tobacco to be brought: tambaku lao, he shouted loudly. This was the signal.
‘Quicker than thought, the thugs with the gamchas who sat behind the merchant and his son, the bhutottoes who specialized in this business, threw their scarves around their victims’ necks. In an instant, the merchant and his son were on their backs, struggling in the agonies of death. Taajoob, sahib, not a sound escaped them, nothing but an indistinct gurgling. I knew that their servants had met a similar, silent fate a few metres away in the darkness. How easy it is, sahib, to snuff out a life; how easy it is to kill a human being!
‘Under those palm trees, in that barren piece of land, we buried the four bodies, after having slit their bellies open so that the gases of decay building up in them would not explode and disturb the loose earth of their shallow grave. As we walked away the next morning, I looked back, sahib, and already, from a little distance, there was nothing extraordinary to distinguish that piece of brown land from the barrenness all around it, those nameless stretches of straggly weeds and no irrigation, the lands where the writ of Allah and Bhowanee runs, the lands denuded of the grace of your God of Reason, sahib.’
15
Jaanam,
Yes, a blessing and a curse, that’s what our ancestral lands were to us. A blessing, for there were not many who had land of their own, and once we had vast stretches, given to one of our ancestors as a jagir by Emperor Akbar. The jagir lands have since been divided and subdivided with each contending generation, despite Chacha’s claim that in the past, only
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