Free The Thing About Thugs by Tabish Khair Page B

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