The Story of My Assassins

by Tarun J. Tejpal

  Trailing his bad leg, Bhura picked his way with his right foot, planting it by nudging aside the bodies. Every eye tracked him. Reaching the corner he bent low to the ear of a fat bibi with the face of a bulldog and rolls of flesh hanging off her arms. She heard him with a cupped left hand, and then began to whisper to her caboodle with a cupped right. There was a hushed exchange. Now the fat bibi had caught hold of the ear of a pretty young girl and was twisting it. The girl grimaced, pulled her face away, rose, and averting her eyes, minced her way through the crowd and out the door, squeezing past us with some difficulty. Even great pirs were daunted by the blood of a woman.

  The old mother’s face relaxed and she nodded at Bhura, who was now back at his station near the door. The lame retainer took up the chant with a loud roar. Guruji’s gyrations again picked up pace. His torso moved in full circles, his hair flew. The chanting intensified. Now his head began to rotate to a different rhythm, the neck supple rubber. In no time he became a blur, gyrating separately and swiftly at the waist and the neck. His lower limbs remained still as stone, grounded by his mother’s bony claw.

  Suddenly he whooped—a kind of strange preternatural sound emerging from the depths of his belly. The room froze in anticipation. Guruji’s neck swivelled like a top and his thick long hair whipped about his face at blinding speed, obscuring his face. An occasional glimpse revealed his eyes were closed tight and his features twisted. Many in the room clasped their hands in obeisance and in prayer. Guruji’s old mother bowed her head low to escape being lashed by his flying locks.

  There was another deep whoop, a rumble from some unknown place. In clenched excitement, the man next to me began to shake and mumble: ‘He’s coming! He’s coming! He’s coming!’ Many of the devotees were now trembling. One young man passed out with a quavering moan and was carried out—parcelled from hand to hand—without a fuss. I looked at my watch. Less than a minute left. In Delhi, Jai would be dancing in a strobe-shot room with his arms in the air and a conical hat on his head to some frantic Hindi-English-Punjabi medley, bumping his body joyously against Chutiya-Nandan-Pandey and their ilk. Sara would be in bed, in front of the TV, stoking her rage as the anti-war demonstrators of Gavras got beaten up. Someone would have to pay for it. Could well be me.

  Guruji was all flying hair now, moving to some celestial melody, tethered to earth only by his mother’s claw. There was a loud echoing rumble—much louder than the earlier whoops—like approaching thunder, like the roar of a tiger in a forest. It drowned out the chanting, smothered every breath; and when it had faded, Guruji was still, and every sound was dead. Guruji’s hair hung damp around his gaunt face as if drenched in water, and his face and torso shone with sweat. His eyes were still closed. But he wasn’t panting. From where I stood—no more than eight feet away—it didn’t even seem like he was breathing. Everyone waited, motionless.

  It was my first time, but there were people there who had seen it before. That didn’t diminish the awe; if anything, it seemed to heighten it.

  Moments later, when Guruji opened his eyes, they were not his eyes. His old mother immediately fell prostrate and touched her forehead on the floor before him. Then lifting her head, she said in a clear ringing voice, ‘Babaji di jai ho!’ Instantly Bhura shouted, ‘Babaji has come! Babaji di jai ho!’ And in one roar the devotees from every corner of the dera shouted, ‘Babaji di jai ho!’

  So did I. It was mind-bending.

  Babaji, the great Pir of Machela, who had once diverted Nadir Shah’s invading army away from the villages under his patronage by opening up, overnight, a protective ravine in the marauder’s path; whose very touch could drain carbuncles, dry abscesses, mend bones, ease pain and heal disease; who could tell the future and the past, and alter the present; who did not distinguish between Hindu and Muslim, and belonged to neither; whose blessings made the most barren of cattle and women fertile; whose munificence brought a bloom to the efforts of the married and the mercantile; who could summon rain when the land cracked and the sun when it drowned; who lived for a hundred years and did not die but entered his samadhi. This was the Babaji—the great Pir of Machela—who three hundred years later had chosen Guruji as his anointed disciple, and bestowed on him his transcendent powers. At no time were these powers more potent than on the night of the samadhi, every thirty-first of December, when Babaji entered the very body of Guruji and literally became him.

  Now through this magical night, every problem of carbuncle, cattle, commerce and career, of pain, passion, property and progeny, everything that had vexed his followers all year, defying solution, would be addressed by the great Pir himself.

  The very first supplicant at his feet was the old lady, Guruji’s mother. She leaned forward, posed her problem, was answered, and then blessed. Next came Guruji’s father, tall and wizened, once a lowly contract tiller, working the plough all day to partake of another’s land, his inconsequential life transmuted by his fathering of the holy man. Then the dark low-caste, Bhura, Guruji’s most beloved disciple, maimed of leg and soaring of heart. Then Guruji’s wife, son, daughter. Each prostrating, asking, receiving blessings, and retreating—prostrating not to their father, not to their spouse, not to their son, but to the spiritual one, the ascended one, the most powerful one, who was now in their midst. It took nearly two hours for the room to clear, as each intimate got his annual moment.

  All the while Guruji-Babaji did not budge below the waist. He remained firmly seated on the maroon cushion, his feet over his thighs. As each supplicant brought forward his roster of woes, he cocked his gaunt head, listened patiently, asked, answered, asked, answered; and when it was done, took a coin from a huge glass jar by his side full of old ten-paisa and twenty-five-paisa coins, new fifty-paisa and one-rupee and two-rupee ones, and occasionally even a five-rupee one—and touching it to his forehead, concentrated for a moment, and then bestowed it on the seeker.

  The coin was talismanic. Protector, intuiter, connector.

  Bhura always said, with a grave laugh: ‘This is Guruji’s mobile phone system. Through it he can keep in touch with all his beloved.’

  The coin was meant to sit in a bowl of clean tap water in front of the house deity—whoever it was—through the day and put under one’s pillow at night. When one travelled and no holy image was available it was to be kept at the base of any tree or plant, even an indoor one as there was no difference between the energy of the gods and that of the natural world. One could always substitute for the other.

  It was past two o’clock by the time I fell at Guruji–Babaji’s feet. His old mother had left her white dupatta tied to his ankle, as a harness on his surging power. When it was all over, and Babaji had withdrawn, it would be untied and reclaimed by her. At the moment, the blood-red dhoti and the snow-white chiffon dupatta, flowing from the right side of Guruji’s waist where his left ankle rested, were like the beautiful plumes of some exotic bird of paradise. Guruji’s laughing eyes were today replaced by Babaji’s sombre ones. There was none of the special play with which he normally greeted me, calling me ‘Shehri sher’. A city lion.

  Even with the windows and door open, the room was clammy and heavy with body heat and body smells. Occasionally the thick perfume of the incense sticks caught the nose and drowned out the body odour. On the wall behind Guruji some of the tiny lights festooning the images had fused, leaving black holes in the garlands. The rest were twinkling away. Glowing oysters in their yellow, red, green, blue shells of rough and cracked plastic.

  I said, ‘Babaji–Guruji, am I doing the right thing?’

  He said, in a voice that was not his, ‘Be unafraid, son, you will know when you are not.’

  I said, ‘Will there be success in what I am planning to do?’

  He said, ‘Success is an illusion, my child. You know that. But, yes, you will get such success as you are seeking, and such as you deserve.’

  I said, ‘Can I trust those I am going to be doing this with? I have not yet met them, but Jai says they are
good people.’

  He said, in the other voice that was not his, ‘Be watchful. Always be watchful. The very rich and the very poor always deceive with their appearance—one flaunts how much he has, the other flaunts how little. You are dealing with people who only think about themselves. They have no concern for you. They have money but no morals. They will suck you dry and spit you out, like the stone of a mango. You must use them before they use you. Don’t be the mango; be the mouth that sucks. The mango is tasty, but never forget it is the mouth that feels the taste.’

  I said, still touching his motionless knees, ‘And Jai, my partner? Will it be okay with him?’

  Eyes half closed, Guruji–Babaji said, ‘Be watchful of him too. He also has no concern for you. When you brought him here once, I saw how he looked at me. With disrespect, with suspicion, with arrogance. Many men like him in the big cities think the truth can be found by working in big offices and by reading fat books. But the truth only comes to him who accepts a guru, who accepts one greater; and who in turn accepts another greater. Even the guru needs a guru. Even the very lords of the universe, Brahma–Vishnu–Mahesh, bow to each other in prayer when they confront a riddle whose answer they cannot find. Each day men must remove the apparel of pride if they wish to bathe in the waters of truth. Your friend wears too much pride, too much vanity—no truth can touch his skin. In fact, he was even afraid you were in my protection. You must use him too before he uses you. Suck him before he sucks you. Be the mouth; make him the mango.’

  It was one of the great merits of Guruji. The practical heart pumping away in the body of spirituality. He understood that the two had to work as one coordinated entity to mean anything. I had seen him offer advice on how to outwit avaricious neighbours through subterfuge, how to sell a head of cattle before its deformities showed up, how to ensure your mother-in-law returned to her own house posthaste; how to bring recalcitrant children to heel through coercion and deceit. How to woo your boss into giving you a promotion; and how to seduce the bank into giving you the loan.

  As I leaned forward and spoke with my head bowed, the room behind me was becoming increasingly chaotic. For every disciple who took Guruji’s blessings and left, two others were trying to squeeze their way in. With the tension of the metamorphosis over, the crowd had ceased to be silent. There was a steady buzz of disciples whispering, inquiring, urging the one in front to get a move on. Bhura was using a slim, freshly skinned tree switch to chastise the more unruly. There was order only in the exact space in front of Guruji.

  I said, ‘Guruji–Babaji, is there anything in particular I need to do?’

  In the voice of the great Pir, he said, ‘Stitch your lips up. Find the strongest twine and use it to stitch your lips together. Talk can confuse the enemy but silence confuses even more. Let the enemy flaunt the abundance of his arrows; and let him keep guessing whether your quiver is empty or overfull.’ He closed his eyes, dipped his left hand into the glass jar and felt around among the coins. Then he took one out, placed it on his forehead while mouthing his benedictions, and put it in my palm. A heavy five-rupee coin. He placed his hand on my head and was done. I had to wrestle my way out of the heaving room.

  Guruji–Babaji would not move till five o’clock next evening, till every single disciple of his had been heard, advised and blessed with coin and hand. Then there were the rituals of return. The old mother would untie the white dupatta; Guruji would descend from Babaji’s maroon gaddi; his children would bathe him in a bucket of stored Gangajal; his long hair would be knotted once again, a saffron safa wound around it; and he would break his thirty-six-hour fast with a hot glass of milk, even as Bhura massaged his limbs.

  At the time I had still not met Chutiya-Nandan-Pandey, only heard about them from Jai.

  When I went back many weeks later—but before the signing of the shareholders’ agreement—and climbed up the straight stairs at the back to the roof, the acrid smoke of dung-cakes in my nostrils, Guruji was sitting cross-legged on a charpoy. Squatting on a rush mat on the floor, cocooned in dark blankets, were a few villagers. It was the second week of February and frost-cold out in the open, but Guruji was clad in only his thin white dhoti with a coarse brown shawl draped over his shoulders, his wiry torso naked and visible in the light of the hurricane lamp. He had wound his saffron safa on his head and he was bubbling his big hookah. The first thing he said to me was, ‘Haan, Sher Dilliwalla, have you had your dinner or not? Go and eat before you speak.’

  Twenty minutes later I was back on the roof, the gobhi-dal-roti warm in my belly. The blanketed figures were gone, only Bhura was with Guruji, pressing his calves.

  He said, ‘Have you done it?’

  I said, ‘No. No. Not yet. Would I, without your blessing?’ Then I explained the deal to him, my meetings with the investor trio. At one point when I was describing Frock Raja’s farmhouse, he guffawed and said, ‘That’s why they say—to those the gods wish to make into fools they give wealth in excess!’

  I finished, saying, ‘They are giving us much less than we had expected.’

  He was quiet. I could hear the occasional cry of a night bird, sometimes right overhead. I was cold even in my thick quilted jacket, and had pushed its hood up around my ears.

  Guruji said, ‘You are wrong.’

  I waited. Looking up, trying to spot the faint splash of the Milky Way. A shooting star singed a path. The dome of the sky was so large—so studded with stars—that only god could fill it.

  He said, finally, ‘What do we have? Nothing. Can we do what we want to do with nothing? No, we can’t. If our work flourishes do we gain? Yes, we do. If it fails, do we lose? No, we don’t. The wise traveller uses any horse to get to his destination. He doesn’t agonize about who owns the animal. He only thinks about the pleasure of riding it, about getting it to take him where he wishes to go.

  ‘We have goals, but no horse. We need a horse—even if it wears a woman’s frock. Let us ride the beast waiting outside our door. Later, if we find a better one, we can change it. Let us not be the fool who sits in his garden arguing about the journey; let us be the adventurer who embarks on it. When pestilence and pitfalls have to claim you, they will do so as readily in the house as on the road. Better, then, to meet them bravely in the open than cowering fearfully in your room.’

  I thought of Frock Raja and his leaking mermaids. Only Guruji could have construed something so elevating out of such poor material.

  As I left, Guruji told me to give two kilos of flour and two of rice to the poor every Monday outside a temple, and to float a burning diya on flowing water on the first day of every month. He said I should not eat meat or drink alcohol on Tuesdays, and if I could give them up all together the great Pir of Machela would be overjoyed.

  He also said I should sign the shareholders’ agreement between five-thirty and six-thirty in the evening, when the hour was neither dark nor light, neither day nor night, on the hour when the army of djinns who moved at his command were at their most powerful and would hover by my side, protecting my every interest. It is what I did, insisting on the time—without offering any explanation—letting them know that I would go as far as to step out of the deal if they did not comply.

  My set face kept Jai from launching into a counter harangue.

  We did it by the frock-shaped pool, with Kuchha King’s Mont Blanc pen, with the light dying delicately across the manicured trees, with Clayderman tinkling in the grass, and followed it up with a great deal of flesh slapping. A big green bottle of champagne was fired and frothed and I had to struggle with the sour taste. Then Mr Lincoln delivered a speech that made the hair stand and grown men weep.

  4

  PENGUINS AND KILLERS

  There was a moment—when I first saw them—that I experienced a fleeting rush of curiosity and distaste, but it was quickly gone, submerged in a profound indifference. All I wanted to do was to get out of that place as quickly as possible.

  The huge high-ceilinged room was packed. Ther
e was a continuous eddy of movement as bodies pushed in and out, talking to one another in whispers. The emotional registers all around were high: every face appeared marked by anxiety, fear, aggression, resentment, despondency. The only calm ones seemed to be the black coats dotting the landscape, penguins in their element, skating smoothly through the heartless glacier of organized justice.

  Within five minutes of entering the stately iron gates of the Patiala House courts I’d become aware that I was entering a zone of experience that would forever change the way I looked at the wonder that was India. Before the day was out I would know that no middle-class Indian, from any old st mary-john-mark school with trilling nuns and caning fathers, who twittered in the queen’s English and held forth on freedom and democracy, had any real idea of this country if he had not wandered through the frozen glaciers of its legal system. If he had not befriended a frisky penguin and been shown some chilling X-rays of the grand body of Indian law and order and justice.

  Outside the gates of the courts ran the wide stately roads of Lutyens’ Delhi, curving with an imperial assurance around the imposing edifices of the National Stadium, the National Gallery of Modern Art and the India Gate, then taking the high road to Raisina Hill where the monoliths of North and South Block continued to be metaphors for the imperiousness and inscrutability of the state, before finishing up inside the excessive sprawl of the presidential palace, an appropriate metaphor of shallow decorativeness. Patrolled by police jeeps, these were ceremonial roads, cocooning a space where the state could continually convince itself of its power and purpose. Any dwarf wearing the ensemble of the state could bring the tallest citizen of the country to his knees.

  But inside the high gates of the courts, the splendour of the state was in disarray. From the moment you entered the grounds you battled your way though parked scooters and bikes and cars, weaving through thick clusters of petitioners, penguins, policemen—weirdly, holding hands with their criminal wards as lovers would, since the Supreme Court had banned the handcuffing of small-time offenders. Everywhere was dirt and offal and loud voices, and random chain-link fences you had to hop over. The hum all around was of transactions. A brisk bazaar, where you could strike any deal you wanted as long as your attitude was unburdened and your wallet thick. Going around to the back of the building to meet my lawyer, I saw advocates’ kiosks that looked more like they dealt in minor merchandise—cigarettes, paan, biscuits, candy—than in the sombre questions of law.