The Story of My Assassins

by Tarun J. Tejpal

  Under the semul tree, I turned off the car lights, locked the doors and dialled Guruji’s number. It was not yet ten, but the colony lanes were empty, with not a single after-dinner stroller visible. Only one-eyed Jeevan was moving around, and had jumped out of his nest amid the dried leaves in the gutter and headed towards me and the car. He was a determined bastard, with a saint’s faith in humanity. For some reason I didn’t kick him away as I tended to, and he stood next to me, wagging his weak tail, as I opened the door and fired the engine.

  Guruji was relaxed as ever when he came on the line. ‘What trouble have you got into now?’ he said, with the hint of laughter in his voice.

  I told him the story of Kafka’s castle.

  He said, ‘Just as the temple stands between man and god, in India the government stands between man and justice. Don’t let it worry you.’

  I said, ‘But how does one get to know what the truth is?’

  He said, and I could see him sitting on his charpoy under a billion stars, bare of torso and smiling, ‘The truth is what it is. It doesn’t change whether you know it or not. So why let it worry you? Men chase the truth as if it’s Aladdin’s djinn, and will solve all their problems—instead of doing the right thing, secure in the knowledge that the truth is unalterable and will remain what it is whether we know it or not. What is it about all this that is worrying you now?’

  So like Guruji. The large wisdom, and in the same breath, the small tactic.

  I said, ‘All I want to know is whether I should worry at all. While they are saying these are killers contracted by Pakistan, she says she’s been checking and they are fully innocent, and have been trapped in all this.’

  Of all the people in the world, Sippy staggered by. His sparse hair was standing on end, and his pants were dangerously low, getting in the way of his stagger. I could almost smell the stench of booze through the closed windows. He went past without noticing me. How could he possibly push up the shutter in this state? One of these days he was just going to die on the veranda and we’d be dealing with another hundred conspiracy theories.

  Guruji said—I could almost see him beaming—‘If she means innocent because they are the victims of their circumstances, then of course they are innocent. Just as the police are, and she is, and you are, and I am!’ He laughed, and added, ‘And Ravana was, and Duryodhana was, and Pakistan is!’

  I said, ‘This leaves me no wiser.’

  He said, ‘Of course it won’t. And in any case this is not what she means. This is not the way to look at the world. Only holy men and fools are supposed to find everyone blameless. And you all are neither. Trust is not like love. It is good to give love freely to everybody, but trust is like good karma—it must always be earned. Men must remember that they live among men. There is no wisdom in forgetting that. For men, we know, are the least reliable of all animals. For money and power they can forsake the womb that birthed them, slice the loins that spawned them, murder the friend that sheltered them. Remember, Gandhi was killed by a Hindu, and Issa betrayed by his followers and nailed to a cross. The universe manufactures more bad than good men so that the good may be continually tested. Because it is not enough to be good once or twice; it’s not enough to get the better of one bad man—the warriors of god need to best battalions of the bad in the course of their lives.’

  Fuck. I was regretting I had called. This was not the sermon for a man transporting his tumescence across town. By the time I got to her she’d probably have reverted from Durga to Mahakali. Somewhere behind me I could hear the jangle of steel. Sippy was wrestling with the shutter as if with an oiled snake.

  I said, ‘I understand, Guruji.’

  The laughing voice said, ‘You are wondering why Guruji is dribbling big words like spittle at this time of night. But you know, gurujis too have to fulfil their karma. Just remember, if you are not a holy man and not a fool, and your destiny is neither to forgive nor to laugh, then the men are not innocent. All of them have crossed the lines men draw among themselves, and one of them was cracking open heads like eggshells at an age when you were still cycling to school in your half-pants.’

  12

  HATHODA TYAGI

  i

  The Sprinting Master’s Journey

  His mother insisted he was benign of heart. It was just his head that was hot. His father, spitting a scattershot, a frayed datun poking out of his mouth, said that his head was not merely hot, it was in flames, and that one day the flames would char his heart, and perhaps everything else around him. His siblings said they loved him but needed protection from him. His friends at school said they loved him but needed protection from him. His teachers said they doubted they could teach him anything, especially the fundamentals of non-violence.

  The shastri—the astrologer-cum-pandit from the neighbouring village—who had made his birth-chart, peeled open the roll of yellow parchment and scratched his head. Going up and down the garish blue-and-red hexagons, pentagons and triangles with the blunt end of his pencil, he said slowly, ‘The boy’s chart is full of good signs. He is born under the sign of the ruler. He will have strength, and he will have power. Men will fear him, and men will follow him. He will never lack for food or for money. It will come to him whenever he wants it, and like a king he will give of it freely to others.’ He then stopped, and from over his thick black glasses, looked around the yard.

  These were people fallen on bad days. The dung-washed yard was clean but spare. At the far right end were tethered one milch buffalo and her thin-legged calf, and a little removed from them, two dirty-white oxen with starvation bones jutting out. A single rectangular mud trough, its edges crumbling, served them all. At the moment it was flecked with snatches of dry hay. On the left side of the yard was a clunky handpump with an unusual square mouth, and just behind it a small, screening mud wall, behind which the women of the house bathed. Draped over the wall he could see women’s clothes drying.

  The shastri, who lived two villages away, had been visiting this family for a lifetime. He bore witness to its gathering distress—the land disputes, the brutal face-offs, the police interventions, the resort to the courts, the ensuing impasse, and the shrinking fortunes.

  The house comprised one large room, made with rejected bricks—their nakedness displaying their defects. The solitary door was always open, letting in a shaft of sunlight during the day, and in the night, a shimmer of moon. The two windows, at opposite ends, were always closed, their sills loaded with chattel, the frames hung over with dusty old clothes. The floor was polished dung. Chinks of light burst into the room from the imperfect wall, the loose frames of the window, and the clumsy roof, which was always alive with the traffic of rodents.

  Two big iron trunks sat next to each other against the far wall, piled high with bedding—mattresses, pillows, quilts—all the same faded dirty brown. Both the trunks sported big locks. Inside them were secured everything of value the family possessed, most importantly wedding jewellery passed down the generations. Often years rolled by without either of the trunks ever being opened. Standing on their side, stacked into each other, were five rope charpoys with crudely carved legs. In the summer they were dragged out at night as the family slept under the stars, and in the winters laid out inside cheek-by-jowl till the room was a sheet of charpoys and everyone had to climb over each other to find their appointed place. In one corner stood two long spears, their bamboo torsos stout and strong, their iron heads blunt and rusted. A naked sword, its metal black with neglect, hung from a nail next to them. Heaped in the far corner were big brass utensils, some of them large enough to stir up meals for a hundred people.

  Gyanendra Tyagi had a handlebar moustache and big shoulders but only one good leg. His left knee had been shattered by an iron-tipped lathi six years ago during the last land-grab. Gyanendra had only fifty bighas of land left. One hundred bighas were in dispute, and hundred and twenty more had been wrested—over many invasions—by his older cousin Jogendar and his five strapping sons
.

  For six years now, the shastri was aware, Gyanendra had held the peace, simmering in rage but scared to provoke another physical skirmish. The boy whose horoscope he had come to read was named Vikram and he was already two years old. Gyanendra had spawned him after a succession of girls. All hopes of levelling with his cousin rested on him.

  Weighing his words carefully, chewing on the pencil, the shastri said, ‘For his father he will be like a tangerine—sweet and sour at the same time. For his mother he will be like a guava—always tasty even when it has too many seeds. And for the world he will be like a pineapple—very thorny outside but full of juice inside.’

  To Gyanendra Tyagi, sitting cross-legged on the charpoy opposite the shastri, it all sounded good. His wife, squatting on the yard floor, veil pulled over her forehead asked, ‘Will his coming help end this endless land row? Will we have peace finally? And will there be enough once again?’

  The shastri rustled his parchment. Every damn parent hoped a new child would bring a change in fortune. In his experience all they did was add one more mouth to be fed. He had seen birthcharts like this before. They presaged a stormy life.

  He said, ‘Yes, he will be a warrior who strikes fear into his enemies. He will bring you material well-being, and he will bring you protection. But it will take a heavy toll of him.’

  In alarm the mother cried, ‘Shastriji, you are hiding something from us! What is wrong with my son? Is he ill-fated?’

  The astrologer, his grey hair thick over his ears but gone from the top of his head, said, ‘Oh, don’t start getting worked up. It’s just that, because of his work and his strength, he will have powerful foes. You do know, mataji, that only powerful men have powerful enemies! But it will not be easy to harm him. His stars are like Hrinyakashyap’s. He can only be harmed in a place that has both sunlight and shade; he can only be harmed when he is moving and not still; he can only be harmed when his belly is full; he can only be harmed when he is hidden from view; he can only be harmed by a slain enemy; and he can only be harmed when he is trapped between friends. For all these things to come together is a near impossibility. So you must not worry. Remember, to kill the evil Hrinyakashyap, Lord Vishnu had to appear himself and bend the elements. And as you know, the gods don’t descend into this country any more.’

  Despite the shastri’s reassuring odds, the mother could not stay her anxiety. And, sure enough, the signs of trouble surfaced early as the boy grew strong and tempestuous with every passing year. He talked little and never argued, but he was prone to sudden explosions of temper. It was impossible to tell what triggered the outbursts, but it was mostly something said, not something done or denied. It could be a casual remark by one of his sisters, his mother’s nagging, the sour undertone in his father’s voice, a farmhand’s jibe. When he was small it would result in him flinging things around—pots, pans, slippers, clothes, food, anything that his hands found. If an attempt was made to restrain him he would become a ball of fury, lashing out with his fists and feet and teeth.

  In a big city, in a rich house, he would have been taken to a counsellor. He would have been offered sweet words and coloured pills. In the village, in the one-room house amid the fields, the problem was first redressed with systematic thrashings. But soon it became clear that this was a medicine designed to aggravate the disease. The beating would scarcely be over than the ball of fury would erupt in a fresh round of destruction.

  One time, when the father had been particularly excessive, laying into him with the short bamboo stick they used to goad the cattle and then tying his hands together, the enraged boy—who never cried or begged for mercy—banged his head against the wall till his skin split and the blood ran into his mouth.

  The terrified family was forced to change tack. The best way to keep water still is to not stir it. In a declared—and oft-repeated—consensus, it was agreed, ‘Don’t say anything to him. Just let him be.’

  Very early then, he fell out of all conversation and emotional commerce with his sisters, and with his parents there arose a distance that would never be bridged. The boy did not seem to mind. He never sought anyone out—for company or assistance—and was quite happy to escape the family by plunging into the sugarcane forests that began, literally, from the edge of their yard, and lay all around them. It was not unusual for him to spend hours exploring and roaming them. He would peel and chew and peel and chew stalk after stalk of cane, as he picked his way through the crowded razor-leaves.

  Sometimes he would walk for so long that he would enter other men’s fields and lose his bearings. Then he would need to make an exit from the forest, locate his position—by a homestead, a tree, a tube well—and slowly saunter back over the bunds.

  Sometimes he would imagine that he was surrounded by armed dacoits, and he had to evade and slay them. He would then wreak havoc with the juicy weapon in his hand, thrusting it like a dagger and brandishing it like a sword.

  The sugarcane forests were alive with surprises other than the rustling dacoits. Snakes were not uncommon, nor were hares. Occasionally you could see a jackal slinking away, head low to the ground, and rarely, very rarely, a wild pig or a hulking nilgai. Once he found the neighbouring thakur’s son wrestling with a woman who worked in the fields. He had managed to get on top of her and was thrusting her hard into the ground. The boy watched—unseen—for some time, but when he thought the man was about to kill her he scuttled away. Somehow the woman survived. A few days later, he saw her squatting between the cabbage rows, diligently turning the soil.

  Another thing to watch out for in the cane forests were the defecating bottoms. The trick was to walk close to the heart of the thicket—the crappers seldom went in farther than three rows from the edge. Deep in there he discovered two things: the profound peace that lies at the heart of rustling nothingness, and a matchless hiding place. Both were to provide him solace in the years to come.

  He had another source of comfort. The cattle tethered in the yard. He liked stroking their heaving flanks—the buffalo’s fleshy but rough; the oxen’s spare but silky. It calmed him to rub down their bony heads, to grip their hard horns. Their startled stomping when he pulled and played with their ears and tails was the only thing that made him gurgle with amusement. And sometimes, when no one was watching, he slowly caressed his face with the hairy end of their frayed tails, making his nose tickle, giving himself shivery giggles and bouts of sneezing.

  Since everyone said his head was too hot, he also discovered an unusual way of cooling it. When the buffalo—called Shanti, peace—had settled on her side to ruminate, he would lie in front of her, head propped on his elbows, and offer her his severely cropped head (his father’s strategy for keeping it cool). Shanti would then proceed to systematically lick it with her thick wet tongue. He would move his head slowly under the lapping tongue and in no time his scalp would be drenched. The boy loved this massage and anytime he was sure no one was watching he would seek it out. Sometimes he would actually nod off to sleep as Shanti lapped his head.

  At his naming ceremony the shastri had pulled out the letter ‘V’. To begin with the family named him Vinod, after a couple of film actors of that name, one of them a macho Punjabi hero with a cleft chin. The boy’s pet name was, of course, Guddu; the formal Vinod was never used. Then, when he was six, and was taken to the local government school, the headmaster ran his hands down the boy’s shoulders and arms and said, ‘He looks too big to be six. Are you telling the truth about his age?’ Soon after, his father changed the boy’s name to Vishal—huge. And though he did not grow up to be unnaturally tall, he did develop the torso of a lifter of weights and the rolling gait of a professional boxer.

  In school they began to tease him early. He was big of size but not quick of wit. He spoke little and haltingly and had slow eyes, which in later years would turn into an unflinching gaze. The boys called him chacha, daddu, oonth, bhainsa, khachchar, mule. In every school skit he was given the role of the demon. Thick black moustache
s were painted under his nose and rolled over his cheeks, and he was he made to strut the makeshift stage with a wooden club, before being slain by Rama or Bhima or Shiva. His maths teacher called him Bakasura.

  When he was nine, and strong enough to be fourteen, he began to bang the heads of the teasing boys together. His behaviour was no different from what it had been when he was younger. He’d let the jibes slide for a long time, paying no heed, not responding, looking the other way, carrying on in his slow fashion, and then suddenly something would snap and he would grab whoever he could lay his hands on and hammer them till their wails for mercy filled the school.

  The headmaster took it up with his father more than once. Gyanendra Tyagi, exhausted by a lifetime’s legal and physical war with his cousins, sick of his son’s intransigence, simply said, ‘Why do you think we’ve sent him to you, masterji? What is the meaning of this big school in this small village if finally I am left to kick him into shape? You come and run my house and fields and I’ll run this fancy school of yours, if that’s what you want!’