The Thing About Thugs (6 page)

Accident.

The word gives John May pause for thought. London is a place of accidents. They happen all the time: workers falling off scalloldings, children run down by carriages, women getting crushed between coal wagons, men falling into sewer holes, explosions, drownings, houses collapsing as if they were balloons pricked by an invisible pin. Why, when was it, not more than a few years ago, certainly, when a respectable woman, her babe in her arms, fell through the rotten floor of a privy and drowned in the filth underneath. Accidents are what happen most often in London.

But John May dismisses the thought. It is a temptation. But surely it is wrong.

Two beers later, John May is less sure about the wrongness of his idea. He thinks of the old woman in the opium den: what is her entire life but a continuous accident? Could one even pity such a person, a woman who lives by prostituting herself to lascars and Chinamen, by selling opium in a pigsty? A woman who can hardly be understood when she speaks? Is she a real woman? Is she even truly human? Would it be a crime in the eyes of God or man, if something were to happen to such a woman? Or would it be a service to society — and, of course, to M’lord’s science?

Not that M’lord would want to know. Yes, John May is convinced of that. M’lord would take the skulls as long as he did not know how they were procured. Why else did he hide behind a mask? May knows enough of the rich and the cultivated to be certain of this. But Shields, now Shields is another matter. Shields will need to be sounded out.

‘Another round’, shouts John May to the bartender, thumping his empty mug on the table. ‘Another round of the same for me and my good friend here.’

[WILLIAM T. MEADOWS, NOTES ON A THUG: CHARACTER AND CIRCUMSTANCES, 1840]

‘The three gangs decided to go in different directions, sahib, having agreed to meet after six months. This was the usual process. We took what was perhaps the best route — to Patna, and from there through Allahabad to Benaras, a route much travelled by pilgrims as well as traders. And just two days later, I was initiated into the intricacies of my new profession.

‘It was a humid afternoon, hotter than the season warranted. I remember this clearly. Perhaps because it was the kind of weather that frays tempers, that brings people into conflict, causes arguments. The kind of weather that makes mosquito bites itch for longer, that attracts flies to your eyes. Perhaps if the weather had not been what it was, we would not have found our first victim so soon. Who knows, sahib, for lacking your great God of Reason, we can only comprehend the ways of Allah or Bhowanee with dread and suspicion, always fearing that what we know is not enough. As it happened, we were still outside Patna when one of our sothaees returned with news.’

‘Sothaees, Amir Ali?’ I enquired, pausing from jotting down his words.

‘O sahib, excuse my oversight, for benighted that I am, I lack the forethought to avoid getting carried away by my own disturbing tale, every bit of which stands in front of me as vivid as a person in broad daylight. Perhaps sahib, you do not recall this strange word, sothaee, from when I explained to you the functions of the members of the gang: sothaees are inveiglers, they are members sent out in advance to scout around, identify victims, if possible smell out their weaknesses and plans, befriend them, lead them to us or us to them. So, Kaptaan Sahib, one of our sothaees returned, bearing news of a merchant and his son who were travelling with two menservants; the party appeared to be rich and vulnerable. By the time we caught up with them, we were in Patna, near the shops about the jama masjid, most of them closing, now that night had fallen. But this night was not cool and clear as nights usually are at that time of year. It was oppressive and humid.

‘Perhaps this was the reason why, when we reached the merchant and his party, who were travelling in a smart horse-driven buggy, with another horse, saddled for riding, tied to it, we found him engrossed in an argument with a driver who was obstructing the road with his bullock cart. There was a group of young men sitting on the cart, probably returning from or going to some marriage party, and in high if not slightly inebriated spirits. Perhaps, had the night been milder, the two groups would not have got into an argument.

‘When we reached the merchant, he was being intimidated by the greater number of his opponents who, being locals, though of a lower class, were pressing their advantage more than perhaps good breeding allowed.

‘Into that fray, my father rode his horse. We had decided that the best horse in our group would be used by my father, who assumed the role of a nobleman from Oudh on his way to Benaras on business, while the others, mostly on foot, would pretend to be his companions and servants. We already knew that the merchant was from Calcutta and on his way to Benaras: such information is what the sothaees are sent to inveigle.

‘The appearance of our larger party cowed down the men in the bullock cart, and soon they unblocked the road and let us and the merchant’s party proceed to the mughal sarai further ahead from the mosque. The merchant was already taken with the cultured language and bearing of my father, and appreciative of his support during the fracas with the bullock-cart lot. After spending the night in the same sarai and after revealing, by accident, that we were also headed for Benaras, it was not difficult to get the merchant and his party to join us on the journey.

‘And thus we proceeded for two more nights, sahib, heading for Allahabad, on our way to Benaras. My father, Allah pardon him his crimes, was always a careful man. Some members of the gang used to complain about it. But the graver minds knew that his care and planning saved them much trouble — for, unlike many other gangs, we never ended up running a risk by killing someone who turned out to have only a donkey and two rupees in a 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.’

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 the eldest son inherited the land — a claim that was true, I suppose, only for the last two or three generations, when siblings got along better than was the custom. For, surely the original jagir must have been bigger: what we possessed was not substantial enough to be a gift from an emperor, but of course no one had a copy of the original jagirnama, though we had other records of ownership.

And yet, by local standards, what my father and Mustapha Chacha inherited was substantial. It would have enabled us to live a life of fullness, if not abundance and ease. But, alas, my love, we could cultivate only a quarter of the land we had inherited. Oh, we had the papers to those plots all right, for all they were worth, but Mirza Habibullah, a much richer man who was related to us, or whose forefathers had been to ours
so
far back in time that I for one never understood the connection, this rich and powerful relation had laid claim to all our lands. Most of it he had occupied by force, and even the quarter that we cultivated was repeatedly claimed by him. Every planting season, his men would divert our water channels or block them; every harvest season his cattle would be accidentally herded into our fields.

Mustapha Chacha had the respect of many in the village and I think that was the only thing that protected us from the wrath of Mirza Habibullah and his henchmen. For Mirza Habibullah was a powerful man, one of the richest farmers in the village, a person who aspired to set himself up as more than a landlord, which probably explained his appropriation of the title, Mirza.

What angered him the most was that Mustapha Chacha defied him instead of coming to a compromise, perhaps conceding him ownership rights in return for the right to continue farming the land. I think that would have been acceptable to Mirza Habibullah: he already owned most of the land, and the bit that we cultivated would not have added much to his wealth in any case. But Mustapha Chacha was a man of principles, and he would never agree to being browbeaten; he would never resort to subterfuge, or cower in front of superior might. This was what he taught his sons and me too, but his life taught me another lesson — would that my youngest cousin, Shahid, had learnt the lesson too. For jaanam, the bending doob-grass survives the storm; the upright palm breaks like a twig in this world of ours.

There were other reasons for Habibullah’s enmity. We knew his father and uncles had feuded with our grandfather. We also knew that on at least two or three occasions, Mustapha Chacha had worsted Mirza Habibullah in the eyes of the village — once at the village panchayat.

I remember the occasion of the panchayat. A servant in the house of Habibullah’s brother, who was a rich farmer, just like Habibullah, and like him, a fat man with a sparse hennaed beard and no moustache, had been accused of stealing an expensive necklace. The servant, Haldi Ram, and his family were reputed to be honest people, and despite threats and beatings, Haldi Ram continued to proclaim his innocence. The matter was brought before the village panchayat, which had assembled, as was the custom, under the peepal tree in the village square. Most of the village had turned up too, quite a few siding with Haldi Ram and his family despite their Cow-caste status. However, Habibullah, who had recently had himself chosen sarpanch, was convinced that Haldi Ram, a villainous-looking, pockmarked man — faces can deceive as much as words — was the guilty party. The interrogation that followed was so one-sided as to get members of Habibullah’s party twirling their whiskers in satisfaction. But then Mustapha Chacha interfered.

Do not misunderstand me, jaanam; Mustapha Chacha was not a man who opposed people out of dislike or a desire for prestige. He was a studious, religious man, regular in his prayers, and he was a member of the panchayat only because every villager, except Habibullah and his henchmen, wanted him there. If you had met him, I am sure you too would have seen him as the villagers saw him: a man hardened and leathery with work, with deep lines etched on his face, but seldom without a smile on his lips or a twinkle in his dark eyes. What he exuded was both a love for knowledge and a tolerance for the weaknesses of others — the two characteristics that he believed were enjoined upon all Muslims. He would not interfere in other people’s affairs unless he was driven by a higher purpose. I think he was moved to interfere in this case because he genuinely believed in the innocence of Haldi Ram, having known his family for years. But perhaps there was also the desire — what Kaptaan Meadows might call ‘scientific curiosity’ — to apply his learning to a concrete situation.