Free The Thing About Thugs by Tabish Khair

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