The Story of My Assassins (56 page)

From the start, Vishal Tyagi was such a man.

When they halted by the big banyan tree at the corner of the road, the morning mist was still lifting from the ditches and grass. The birdsong all around, like a manic Kishore Kumar yodel, was occasionally flattened by the plangent lowing of cattle that many affluent families kept in their compounds, pursuing the Indian obsession with pure milk. Ali dropped to his haunches and popped open the engine guard of his sweetly plump scooter, exposing its iron entrails and plastic veins. The area was often patrolled by the beat policemen.

All down the wide street, gate lights and veranda lights glowed weakly, about to be killed by daylight. The brightest by far, at the end of the street, was the contractor’s spotlight. A milkman went by, head bent low, humming a popular song to himself, his big steel canisters hanging on both sides of his cycle, clanging away. From his low crouch, Ali spat out a stream of red juice and whined, ‘A cup of tea! That’s all I wanted! A cup of tea! Even a man about to be hanged gets a cup of tea!’ A newspaper vendor rattled by on his cycle, the rolled-up rubber banded newspapers bunched in his front basket like cobs of corn. The first thud came soon after; then the thuds diminished quickly down the road. Ali whined, ‘Shall I continue to polish this engine till it becomes a diamond while you survey the battlefield, General Dyer?’ The boy thought, it’s a miracle this Ali is not already dead. He has way too many nerves; he talks too much.

The last smudgings of mist had blotted away, and now you could see clearly to the very end of the street. A gate opened down the left side and two young boys, shiny with privilege, pedalled out on
red cycles, wearing rich white cricket clothes, their bats in plastic sheaths slung across their shoulders like guns. They pedalled with their heels, keeping the studs of their cricket shoes clear. Moving in the blindness of their privilege they did not even register the two men crouched by the scooter and later could tell the police nothing.

Another gate opened on the left, and an old couple, wearing thick spectacles, white tennis shoes and stern expressions, the man with a short stick in his right hand and the woman in a green saree, walked out, looked left and right and then briskly set off—pumping their arms as if in a race—in the other direction. Later, they too could tell the police nothing.

Ali said, ‘Shall we go?’

Vishal said, ‘No.’

Ali said, ‘Shall I stand up?’

Vishal said, ‘No.’

Ali said, ‘Another five minutes and I’ll never be able to! My knees will be more jammed than my grandmother’s. Instead of Ali the killer, your partner will be Ali the frog! Graaon! Graaon!’

Vishal banged his knuckles on Ali’s head to stop his croaking. How had this man survived in the business?

Another gate opened at the end of the street and a lone figure staggered out with three dogs on leashes and began to walk towards them. The dark stringy servant boy was in someone’s hand-me-downs—loose khaki shorts and a frayed Saturday Night Fever tee shirt, John Travolta stretched like a bow, arm up, back curved, staying alive. The dogs, frisking away in front of him, pulling in different directions, were two golden-brown cocker spaniels and a precious white Pomeranian with a snub nose and a sharp yip. As they reached them the dogs converged towards Vishal’s feet, suddenly yanking the servant boy along. Ali shouted, ‘Saaley chutiye, take these bloody rats away!’ Vishal knuckled him on his head, and bent down to stroke the dogs, cooing to them. Later, the boy would give the police a precise description of the man who had stroked his dogs—a description
that would reverberate through the police stations of the state and set rolling the legend of Hathoda Tyagi.

When the servant and the dogs were gone, and the street was empty, Ali spat out a red stream and said, ‘Let’s go. Maybe he is bending the limbs of his old lady this morning. We’ve seen enough for today. Hopefully we’ll get a glimpse of him tomorrow.’

Vishal said, ‘Ten minutes more.’

Ali said, ‘If I bark like a dog, will you listen to me? Boww, bowww, bowwww!’ Vishal was just considering rapping him again when the gate he had been peering at opened and a man walked out stretching his arms and swivelling his shoulders. He was tall and well-built and dressed in a shiny blue track-suit, the top rakishly unzipped to his stomach, revealing a white polo-neck tee shirt with the collars pulled up. He stood outside the gate loosening his limbs: flexing his arms, lifting his knees high and crunching them in his interlaced hands, touching his toes.

Vishal hissed, ‘Move!’ Ali was up in an instant, slamming the engine guard shut, pushing the scooter off its stand, kicking it alive. Two men—one of whom they had seen the day before at the gate—now appeared behind the young contractor, single-barrel guns on their shoulders. The contractor went still, as if waiting for the starter’s gun, and then turning towards them began to walk briskly, moving his arms hard across his chest.

Ali said, ‘Fuck his sister! He’s coming this way! Let’s get out of here—we don’t want him to notice us yet!’

Vishal said, ‘No! Drive past him. I want to take a closer look.’

As the scooter jerked forward in second gear, Vishal hissed, ‘Right by him, Ali!’ The distance between them was less than hundred yards. Within seconds, jumping into third gear and being given full throttle by a nervous Ali, the scooter was on the contractor. The contractor, who was swinging his arms briskly and moving inside the unseeing cocoon of his privilege—like the cricket boys and the old couple—did not even notice the scooter and the speeding twosome
till almost the very moment that the hammerhead smashed through his nose and forehead, instantly turning off all his lights.

To Ali’s credit, he did not break the acceleration, and by the time the guards had taken the guns off their shoulders, the killers had turned the corner and vanished. Into the rushing wind, Ali wailed, ‘Fucking butcher, couldn’t you warn me! I could have pulled down my fucking cap! I was flaunting my face as if I was in a cold-cream advertisement! I am dead! By tomorrow every policeman in the state will know my face! I am dead! My wife is a widow! My children are orphans!’

When the guards came back to pick up their ward they found a long-stemmed hammer buried in his face in a pool of warm blood. The men did not panic or scream or run for help. They stood there looking at each other. The boss was dead, beyond all repair, and they were out of work.

With the killing of the contractor, his own name died too. No one called him Vishal ever again. He became Hathoda Tyagi for everyone—the police, the media, Donullia’s gang. Four skulls had cracked under his hammer now, and the state police placed a reward of fifty thousand rupees on any information leading to his arrest.

When he returned to the farm four days later, the old man said, ‘Son, you’re making many of the old gang members look bad. Some of them took ten years to hit fifty thousand.’

A few days later, early in the morning before the sun was up, a jeep pulled up at the farm in a cloud of dust. It was Gwalabhai, whom he had not seen in months, wearing a crisp white pajama-kurta, a thick gold necklace, and smelling sweet. He embraced him with the warmth of a father and called him his son. He said Guruji was thrilled with his work, and had said that after a long time they had found another worthy warrior of the people. He said in the
Bundelkhand area people were sending up prayers for him for saving them from the menace of the oppressive contractor. He said it was the blessings of the people that they all worked for, and it was what kept them safe and alive.

Sitting on the charpoy in the frontyard as his gunmen sauntered idly in the fields beyond, sipping the scalding tea the old man made, Gwalabhai said it was true the police was under huge pressure to find and nail him, but he mustn’t worry. In Chitrakoot, a few kilometres from the ravines and forests of Madhya Pradesh, they were very far from the fiefs of the contractor’s influential relatives. This was the realm of Bajpaisahib and of Donullia Gujjar, and nothing could happen here without their assent. Gwalabhai added that Bajpaisahib too was fully aware of his exemplary deed, and was full of praise for his courage and dedication. In fact, he had asked for the boy to be brought to him one of these days, when the heat had cooled somewhat.

Hathoda Tyagi sat humbly and quietly, caressing the dogs leaning into his lap with their front paws and nuzzling his feet. His mind was cool and still, and nothing Gwalabhai said held any real meaning for him. He had only one small inquiry—the same one he had had the last time Gwalabhai’s man had come to visit him. Was his family okay or was it still being harassed?

Gwalabhai said, ‘Let’s go to the tube well and wash our faces with fresh water.’

One glance from him ensured no one followed except the yipping, frisking dogs. Gwalabhai said, ‘Guruji also loves animals, especially dogs. He says, if a man likes dogs he’s a good man; and if dogs like a man he’s a good man.’ Nurse-white egrets took wing as they walked the narrow bunds between the fields. He went on, ‘He saw it that night. More than the gift of your finger, it was your love of the dogs that brought him to trust you. You must know it is almost impossible for Guruji to trust anybody. He has survived so many years only because he is fully awake even when he is asleep.’

They used their palms to slice a thin layer of water from the throbbing gush of the tube well and splashed their faces with it. When both had done so several times, Gwalabhai put his hand on the boy’s back and informed him that twenty-five thousand rupees in cash had been delivered to his parents. The man who had gone there had told them that the money had been sent by their son. He had left his mobile phone number with them and said they were to call him if they ever needed anything. He told them that he had also paid a visit to their relation, Joginder Tyagi. He had condoled with Joginder about the loss of his sons, and had talked about the world and the way in which men ought to conduct themselves. Gwalabhai’s man had assured Vishal’s family that Joginder would not be bothering them ever again.

When the boy said nothing, Gwalabhai turned him around and patting his shoulder said, ‘Is it insufficient? Do you want me to send some more?’

The boy said, ‘No. You have done too much already. I did it for Guruji—and for you—not for the money. I expected nothing.’

Gwalabhai said, ‘You are just as Guruji was when he was young. A true karmayogi. You know that is why Guruji worships Shiva—because the lord of snakes and djinns, of beasts and yogis, the all-powerful creator and destroyer of the world, has everything, and yet he lives like an ascetic. The most powerful men in the world, my son, like you, have no needs. They only live to give.’

Vishal Tyagi—hammerman, shotput champion, lover of animals—was deeply moved. As he looked down at his dusty sandalled feet, his eyes filled, and he felt a rush of love and kinship for Gwalabhai that he had not felt for anyone ever. Finally someone had intuited the man he truly was, recognized the beauty of his inner being. Yes, he was like Guruji. He had an asshole of iron; and he wanted nothing for himself. His great strength and courage were there to be used only for the protection of the weak and the oppressed. He experienced the peace of the lost wanderer who has suddenly found home.

In instinctive gratitude and happiness he bent down and touched Gwalabhai’s feet, and when he stood up the gentle don was holding out a gift for him. It was a beautiful stainless metal-frame Smith and Wesson 908 pistol. It had a black plastic grip, and was a prohibited bore, 9mm, with an eight-round magazine. It was sensuous. It demanded to be held, caressed, used. ‘Guruji has sent it for you. It is the finest he had. It is a token of his love. Now you are under Guruji’s immense umbrella. No one has been accepted by Guruji so quickly. Never betray him—in action or in word.’

Standing by the shuddering brick wall of the tube well, looking down at the first light of sun glancing off the pistol, the boy’s big muscular shoulders began to shake. Slowly, as if the strength had drained from his huge frame, he settled back on his haunches, put the pistol at his own feet, and cupped his head in his palms. The older man waited, consummate in the handling of emotions and servitors and loyalty. The boy finally said, in a choked voice, ‘Tell Guruji I will kill myself before betraying him.’

After Gwalabhai had left in a burst of dust, the old man fondled the shining 908 in his palms and said, ‘Hmmmm, they are readying you for bigger things. Well, certainly beats going around swinging a hammer. But I suppose it also gets you to the cremation ground that much faster.’

Yet, remarkably, month after month, year after year, Hathoda Tyagi kept licking the odds. His natural reticence; the absence of any avarice or driving temptations like booze, drugs and women; his sharp instinct for survival; and his unflinching loyalty to Donullia kept him alive. In that time he became, outside the home district of Chitrakoot, the very swordarm of the brigand. Periodically, information would reach the farm, of an oppressor and a tyrant who needed to be cured or crippled or killed. The courier would inform him he
had come directly from Guruji and would pass on the great man’s blessings. Each time, a great tide of warmth and affection and pride would surge through the warrior.

Calmly and meticulously, Hathoda Tyagi would make his plans. The explosion in the head, the avenging frenzy, he would trust to the moment. Sometimes he would work with an accomplice, or several, but most often he’d go it alone. Sometimes he would exercise the hammer—for old time’s sake, to create confusion—but most often he would wield the beautiful 908. Sometimes he would fail in the first attempt, but always he would succeed eventually.

His strike range was rare in its spread. Donullia had never had such a man at his command. Without too many questions, without any fuss, some days after the information had been delivered to the farm, Hathoda Tyagi would get into a car, or onto a bus, or hitch a ride on a truck, or climb onto a train and disappear. Some days, a week, some weeks later news would reach Donullia that the living names he had sent out to his man on the farm were now only obituaries.