The Story of My Assassins by Tarun J. Tejpal

Author:Tarun J. Tejpal [Tejpal, Tarun J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9781612191621
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2009-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

He spent the next decade of his life sailing in and out of jails. Soon there was no town in the region that had not felt his thieving fingers, and hardly a jail that had not seen his gentle shadow on its walls. Bareilly, Shahjahanpur, Rampur, Moradabad, Haldwani, Almora, Dehradun, Mussoorie, Agra, Meerut, Pilibhit, Ferozabad, Farrukhabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Amethi, Ayodhya, Gorakhpur, Barabanki.… There was no design to the wanderings: the desire to see a monument, a town; the urging of an acquaintance in a dhaba; the pursuit of an unseen film; the mere fact of a road, tarred and uncurling, and leading somewhere.

Through it all he stuck to the minor sin of chaarsobeesi—the trivial deceptions of theft and con. India was changing rapidly and every day new fancy cars were scorching the roads. Japanese cars, Korean cars, American cars, European cars. They had power steering, electronic locks, stereo players, push-button windows, parking lights. Their skins glistened, their horns sang, their hearts purred. They started instantly, sped like rabbits, and everyone was busy banging into everyone. In the denting-painting workshops of every town master keys were being manufactured by the day. The pockets of Kabir’s denim jacket were heavy with them.

Only two things propelled his capers: the search for something to do, and the necessity of finding food and a roof. He forged friendships that lasted a few days or a few weeks, at the end of which there was always a waiting car, a winding road, and happy incarceration. Not all jails were as benign as the first, but he discovered that each harboured a heart of deep wisdom; each had a tree that radiated calm; each a quiet corner where you could whittle the perfect chooza; and each a Baba Mootie who was in touch with eternal truths. Jailed men were free of things that free men could never be free of. Suffering men knew things ordinary men could never know.

Among the police force and the warders he developed a reputation for innocuousness. The small scarecrow-thin conman with big ears who never fussed when he was nabbed, and always gifted his captors lovely little wooden choozas for their children. Some of them knew that something had happened in a thana many years ago that had ensured he would never have any of his own ever.

In all those years he went back home only once, and found his father in a derelict state. Modernity had failed to embrace Ghulam with its promised enlightenments (it had in fact eluded his son too); and the religion he had rejected had kept from him its assurances. The magic of the dark theatre that had all his life absorbed his fears and given flesh to his dreams had also precipitously waned. The glory days of Minerva Talkies—of packed openings and new stars—were long over. Firdaus was dead—had been dead nine years—and his sons had moved on to Bombay and Delhi, mining new veins in advertising and trading. The hall was crumbling—the seats

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