The Thing About Thugs (8 page)

How peaceful it is, the break of dawn, in the villages of India. You would have no idea of it, jaanam, for here the fog and the buildings obscure the sun and the sky. But that morning, my second morning on the road, the sky stretched above me, a grey-blue washed by streaks of white cloud, those to the east tinged with the colour of the rising sun. Birds sang. Now that I was close to my village, I could identify each birdsong: the sibilant cheee-ee of the shoubeegi, the scolding observations of the myna, the chit-chit-chit of the baya, the soft cooing of the wood-dove, the shocking beast-screech of the peacock. A jackal, late from foraging on the outskirts of some village, slunk past on the mud road. A couple of peacocks sat on a low branch, watching me pass.

My part of India is not lush green wilderness, as you like to picture India. No, jaanam, it has been cultivated far too long to be the jungle that you imagine. But there are trees, sometimes twisted and deprived, sometimes wide and majestic. Sometimes there are patches of lush wilderness, sometimes barren, straggly land or a brown hillock, and everywhere there are more animals and birds than I can name. There are semi-arid stretches at times, and then there are rivulets and suddenly, across a brown mound, the gleam of a broad river, descending perhaps from the mighty Himalayas four hundred miles away, or flowing into the Ganga or the Jamuna further on.

I walked on, and by the time I caught sight of the twin-hillocks that marked the passage to our village, the beauty of the morning had almost erased my misgivings. But nature, jaanam, can be as misleading as art.

A kilometre from my village, still hidden behind brown hillocks, at the final turning of the road which would bring the village and its fields into view, I was hailed by a shout. It was the first vague indication that something was seriously wrong, for no one knew the time of my arrival. I was stopped by two young men, whom, after a moment of alarm that had me fingering the dagger hidden under my kurta, I recognized as the sons of Haldi Ram. Haldi Ram and his community, being low caste, resided in a hamlet just outside the main village. Could it be a coincidence that the two boys had run into me, perhaps having gone a little too far to relieve themselves this morning? But no, that was not the case. The men of the family had taken turns, all through the night, to keep an eye on this road, for they knew that I or Hamid Bhai would be coming down it sometime. Something very bad had happened the previous evening, and I had to be warned of it. More than that the boys would not say. They requested that I accompany them to their hamlet, instead of first going to Mustapha Chacha’s home in the village.

You might not realize, jaanam, how worried I was by then. No, I had no reason to distrust the boys of the clan of Haldi Ram. He and his family had worked for mine when we needed extra help in the fields. I knew they were honest people, and grateful to Mustapha Chacha for various minor favours, not least the matter of that theft. But the invitation to first go to their hamlet was disturbing — not least because Haldi Ram was very conscious of his low-caste status, and though the Muslims of the village did not observe the rituals of caste purification, he would not easily assume the authority to invite any respectable member of the village into his lowly hamlet. But here he was now, running up to me, followed by other members of the family, all carrying lathis, and with much courtesy but no further information, he ushered me into the village. It was done in a way that made it clear that he did not want my arrival to be widely broadcast.

How can I narrate to you, jaanam, the events of that early morning? I lack the words, and I can hardly explain to you the love and reverence that I bore towards Mustapha Chacha and his wife. Remember, my love, I was an orphan, like you, and I had been brought up by them.

Perhaps you will understand my feelings for them if you think of your own feelings for your aunt. I have seen that you love your old aunt in your own way; though she runs an opium den in the rookery, which you would not have her do, it was she who brought you up when your mother was deported. Or perhaps you will not understand my feelings, for you have had your share of fights and disagreements with your aunt, and I, strangely, do not recall one harsh word from Mustapha Chacha or Chachijaan. Sometimes they scolded their sons; sometimes they had disagreements with Hamid Bhai; between me and them, there was nothing but an unbroken stream of understanding and love. I could not have imagined better parents. No, jaanam, even parents could not have been as good to me as they were, for one needs to strain against the leash of parenting sooner or later, and parents do resent, if only in part, the fact that children, especially sons, grow into lives of their own.

Even today, scribbling these words as I kneel beside a single candle in the scullery, I can feel my eyes fill with tears of sorrow and frustration when I think of that morning. Aren’t there moments when you wish time could be wound back, that you could change one thing, just one thing, in the past? How often, after listening to Haldi Ram that morning, have I wished the same!

Haldi Ram was frightened. I could see it in his face, in his unusually dilated eyes, his occasional stutter, the tense manner in which he clutched his lathi. And so were the other members of the community: they were all frightened. Almost all of them were outside, crowded around the khaat on which they had seated me. Of course, I was the only person sitting on the khaat. Haldi Ram and an older man who, I knew, was their headman, squatted on their haunches in front of me. The others, men, women and children, stood, faces strangely impassive but postures fraught with tension. Haldi Ram’s wife brought me chai; I was in no mood to eat or drink but I accepted it as I thought my refusal would be seen as a recognition of their low caste and Mustapha Chacha had always maintained that both Islam and humanity — ‘insaniyat’ was a word he relished — refused to recognize such divisions between human beings. It was only when I had sipped a bit of the tea that Haldi Ram commenced his explanation. His words are still stamped on my memory, and I could write them down verbatim but for the fact that the language he spoke was not the language I write in and the language I write in is not legible to you, jaanam.

Forgive us, Amir babu, said Haldi Ram. Forgive us for interrupting your journey, not even providing you with a decent breakfast, for what can we poor people serve to a gentleman like you, son of the noble Syed Zahid Ali sahib, nephew of the learned and gracious Mustapha Ali sahib.

Small, wizened, much darker than I am, with a tiny, thin moustache, reddish eyes and a pockmarked face, Haldi Ram was a hard worker and a harder drinker, but he was also a cautious man. My heart in my mouth, I had to make the appropriate noises until he got to the matter that was troubling him. But for once Haldi Ram’s vernacular eloquence failed him. As soon as he started giving me an account of ‘the sacrilege that took place yesterday’, he broke down and started to cry like a baby. I was worried now. Haldi Ram did not cry easily; he came from a long line of impoverished peasants who had borne more than most people, suffered more, lost more, and tears did not come easily to his eyes.

The headman took up the narrative and this, jaanam, with some interpolations and exclamations from me (which I will leave out), is what they said:

Headman: Forgive him, Amir babu. His soul is burdened by the many kindnesses of Mustapha sahib, kindnesses he can never repay in this lifetime.

(At this, some of the women in the crowd started weeping too. But the way they wept was disturbing. These were women who usually wept in a public manner, deriving the only relief sometimes available to them from an extravagant explosion of grief. But this time, they were sobbing into their pallus, stifling their wails.)

Headman: It is not right to fet our sorrow prevent you from learning, as soon as possible, what I can see you are anxious to know.

Haldi Ram: It is my duty, the least I can do...

Headman: It happened yesterday, Amir babu. Three of our boys, children of eight or nine, who were working in the adjoining field, saw it, though they were careful enough to avoid being seen.

Haldi Ram: We think it had to do with one of your uncle’s cows getting into Mirza Habibullah’s fields of mustard. At least, that is what the boys heard him claim. In any case, the Mirza came with his men and started harvesting the crop in a part of Mustapha sahib’s fields. It was to compensate for the mustard cropped by the cow, he claimed Mustapha sahib and Shahid babu ran to stop it, but this time it appears that Mirza Habibullah and his men were prepared to go further than they had in the past
...

Headman (spitting on the ground in disgust): Habibullah has been doing this to us and to the Yadavs and Jollahs as well. But I never thought he would do it to a Syed, and that too a gentleman of Mustapha sahib’s piety and learning
...

Haldi Ram: But that is why he dared, because he knew that Mustapha sahib and his family would not stoop to such roughness, such coarseness.

Headman: I think you can guess what happened, Amir babu. Habibullah’s men attacked your uncle and cousin and started beating them with lathis. They fought back but they were outnumbered.

Haldi Ram: And that was not all, Amir babu. How we wish it had ended there! How I wish...

Headman: Your Chachijaan ran out to stop the men and, we think, she was hit on the head by mistake. She seems to have died on the spot.

Haldi Ram: Calm yourself, Amir babu. Listen: there is more, there is more
...

Headman: One of our boys had already run to fetch us. The others were watching from hiding, for they could do nothing against Habibullah and his henchmen. They thought the tragedy was over now. Your uncle had collected his wife in his arms and was rocking her back and forth.

Haldi Ram: The boys say that Habibullah, may he rot in hell, was shocked and frightened. He approached your uncle and suggested, in his blustering way, that they should let the matter drop and his men would help carry the body back.

Headman: But you know your uncle, Amir babu. Never was a man with more honesty and less subterfuge born in this village. He refused the offer. A lesser man would have pretended to accept it. But no, not your uncle, Amir babu, not that sainted man
...
Some things, he told Habibullah, cannot be forgotten, because they affect not the man you are or the man I am, but all of humanity...

Haldi Ram: Habibullah heard a threat in those words, Amir babu; the mean always consider wisdom a threat. Habibullah knew that he could not allow your uncle to take the matter to the panchayat. He turned and rode away, but his men, as if by his order, fell upon your uncle andShahid babu. We were running towards the spot then. We were still half a kos away, but we could see what was happening. Your uncle had not expected such a premeditated crime from Habibullah and his men. He realized this only when they stabbed Shahid babu, who was standing by his side. Then your uncle fought like the brave man he was. He snatched a lathi from one of his assailants and defended himself. But alas, there were about twenty of them and he was alone. By the time we reached the spot, he had been stabbed and beaten to death. I... I...

Headman: There were only seven of us, Amir babu. And we had only a couple of lathis between us; we are not fighting men. But this Haldi Ram, this tiny Haldi Ram, would have thrown himself on Habibullah’s henchmen and clawed their eyes out had I and the others not held him back by force.

Haldi Ram: I wish I had died there. I wish I had died with that noble man
...

Headman: Don’t be a fool, Haldi Ram. No, Amir babu, no, do not stand up. Hold him, boys. Yes, yes, hold him, hold him down. Do not let him run into the village and get himsef killed. Habibullah’s men are waiting for him. He has gone too far this time to stop ... Listen, Amir babu. Listen to me, for the sake of my white hair, for your uncle’s sake. Habibullah had the bodies carted to the outskirts of his property, and he has buried all three in one grave next to the abandoned well, the one below the neem tree. He has proclaimed: No one digs in my land without my permission. If anyone wants to dig here, let him beg my permission first. He wants you and Hamid babu to accept his power, and if you refuse to do so, if you take him on, his men have been instructed to kill you. Listen to me, Amir babu, calm down. Do not get yourself killed
...

They held me down, jaanam; they tied me to the khaat until I promised not to run off in a rash bid to avenge my family. Those good men who had stayed awake all night to save me and Hamid Bhai. Had they not intercepted me and held me until my fit of anger and ranting subsided, I would not be writing this unreadable, never-to-be-sent letter to you. If it were not for those half-starved, half-naked men and women, people we considered
dirty and uncultured, perhaps I would have lost that faith in humankind which Mustapha Chacha instilled in us and which, at times, I feel is still in danger of slipping away.

We say in our parts that a tiger never attacks a human being until his first taste of human blood. And once a tiger has tasted human blood, he never attacks anything else. It is like that with the powerful: once they have tasted blood, they feast more and more upon the weak. Perhaps it was the same with Habibullah: over the years his atrocities had been increasing; a labourer whipped here, a tribal woman abducted there, and it had finally fed to this, the premeditated murder of his only rival in the village. Or perhaps, as the headman suggested, it was not like that. Perhaps a minor dispute of the sort that his family often had with mine went out of hand, a thoughtless blow proved fatal, and Habibullah and his henchmen were left with no choice but to finish the job. Whatever it was, there they now fay, hastily buried under loose earth in the lands of Habibullah, not even accorded a decent funeral.