He said, more Hindi less English with every exchange, ‘Some business and some politics. But I could be a carpenter or a barber. How does that matter? What I can do for you is what matters. My main profession is the making of friends. In our village we say, profits are good but true wealth is friends. Now see, in the waiting room in Muscat, I have suddenly become richer. I have made you my friend. So you must call me Iqbalmian, and I must do whatever I can for you.’
I said, ‘Iqbalmian, you are from Chitrakoot?’
‘Thereabouts. Wherever the gods are, Iqbalmian is. I know UP is the size of three countries, but all of it is ours. You know this boy, Hathoda Tyagi, he was dreaded like few men I have heard of in my life. He had no weaknesses and he had no fears. He broke men’s heads like you and I would break eggs, and he never failed. And he was loyal only to Donullia—he was like a son to him. They say when Donullia heard Hathoda had been arrested, he raged for days, slapping his men, demanding to know how it could have happened. Donullia may be a great dacoit, but he is only a Gujjar—a very cunning Gujjar, but nothing in the face of the cosmic wiliness of a Brahmin.’
I said, ‘I don’t understand.’ I felt I needed to immediately put Guruji, Sara, Hathi Ram, and the rodent on the speakaphone to make sense of this one. And the king penguin, Sethiji, to read out my legal rights.
He said, no longer smiling, ‘Bajpaisahib. The Chanakya of politics in our area is Bajpaisahib. For years Donullia and he were partners. Donullia ensured no one ever contemplated challenging Bajpaisahib’s political hold in our area; he ensured the votes fell as Bajpaisahib wanted. And Bajpaisahib ensured no police officer could keep his chair if he dared to set his sights on Donullia. They were also business partners. Donullia’s brother, Gwalabhai, was his front-man. Gwalabhai lives like a real seth while his brother sleeps under the stars and trees. For many years Bajpaisahib was aligned with the Yadav supremo of our state; and as the Yadav came to power and prospered so did Bajpaisahib and Donullia. The dacoit often sent his men to the Yadav’s aid in other parts of the state. Together, Bajpaisahib and Donullia were a lethal combination—political power, money, and the gun. But you know, while Allah gives men hope and paradise, he also gives them a chance to make a fool of themselves. Gwalabhai, sleeping on the soft beds made out of his brother’s hardships, woke up one morning and decided good food and a good life were not enough, he too wanted political power. Cars with red lights, government bungalows, his picture in the newspapers giving speeches and cutting ribbons, and the superintendent of police and the district magistrate jumping to his instructions. Why should Bajpaisahib alone have it all—especially since it was obtained on their muscle? Do you want more Coca-Cola?’
I said no.
He said, ‘I hate America but I love their Coca-Cola, and their movies. I have seen Rocky thirty times. Whenever I am depressed I slip the video in, and my depression lifts. When she wants something special from me, my wife calls me Rocky.’
The women in hijab had curled up in their chairs and gone to sleep. Two blobs of black ink, not a trace of skin or life visible. Even though I had said no, Rocky came back with two glasses of Coke. ‘It’s free,’ he said, handing me a glass and hitching up his salwar as he sat down.
I said, ‘So Gwalabhai got ambitious …’
He said, now talking almost exclusively in Hindi, ‘Nothing wrong with that. Even an insect must harbour an ambition of becoming a bigger insect. But no insect must make so much noise that someone is forced to swat it. When Bajpaisahib began to move away from the Yadav chieftain and began to get close to the low-caste leader, Gwalabhai saw an opportunity. He forced his brother to give up his lifelong allegiance to Bajpaisahib, and began to directly pay court to the Yadav.’
I was still with him. I said, ‘So Bajpaisahib moved away from the Yadav, but Gwalabhai and Donullia Gujjar did not. They established a direct link with the Yadav, and broke away from Bajpaisahib.’
He said, with relish, ‘Not cut and dried like an examination result; nothing in business and politics is like that; but yes, more or less. The brothers thought they did not need Bajpaisahib any more. They were big enough to run their own political circus. Of course they were fools—at least Gwalabhai was. Never ever imagine that you can outwit a brahmin. Are you a brahmin? No. Good. A brahmin’s brain is worse than a jalebi—impossible to know which thought leads where. Bajpaisahib had read the wind correctly. It was a bitterly contested election, as you know. And the low castes swept it. Now it was time for Bajpaisahib to neutralize Donullia and the foolish Gwalabhai. But as you know, a brahmin never attacks from the front. He poisons you slowly while warmly hosting you for dinners. Soon cases of income-tax and municipal violations began to be opened up against Gwalabhai. Then a tough superintendent of police arrived in the district. When the brothers petitioned Bajpaisahib for help, he promised to do whatever he could.’
I looked at my watch. I would have to board in less than five minutes. The ink blobs had woken, and gathering their black folds, had scurried off. I said, ‘And what does all this have to do with my killing?’
He said, ‘The man who was given the contract to kill you was the one man Bajpaisahib feared the most. He knew once the animus burst into the open, this man was capable of taking a shot at him. He knew Hathoda Tyagi was highly destructive and completely without fear, and that his loyalty to Donullia was complete. It was Bajpaisahib who arranged to have the contract for your killing given to Hathoda Tyagi—through Gwalabhai of course. Then he called his friends in Delhi who run the police, and waited for the action to unfurl.’
I said, ‘So it really had nothing to do with me and our exposé?’
He said, ‘Did it matter whether Saddam had nuclear weapons or not? Like Saddam, you were a pretext. Whether you were killed or not was of no consequence—the man for whom the entire operation was planned, the man to be killed, was Hathoda Tyagi.’
The decorously clad woman in charge of the lounge—her pretty face marred by layers of foundation, the stockings thick on her ankles—loudly informed me my flight was boarding. I stood up, my bladder bursting again with nerves and Coke. I said, ‘Then what went wrong? Why didn’t it happen?’
He said, ‘You have a wife?’
I said, ‘Yes.’
He said, ‘A pretty one?’
I said nothing.
He stood up too, a big man, and said, ‘You also have a dog? A lame one?’
I said, ‘Yes, there is a mongrel that lives in our lane.’
He said, ‘You are alive because of him.’
I said, ‘I don’t understand.’
He said, ‘In your Mahabharata, I have heard, the only companion Yudhishthira had on his last journey was a stray dog. And it turned out to be god himself—dharma, there to protect him. Well, you too are alive because of your dog. The day Hathoda Tyagi came with his men to first survey your house, he found your wife at the gate feeding and petting the lame dog. When they returned to their room in Ghaziabad, he began to make inquiries about you. He wanted to know why you were to be killed. No one could give him a good explanation. Heated arguments ensued between him and Gwalabhai, who had been tricked into accepting this contract by Bajpaisahib. Some days later, reluctantly, he led his men to your house again, and once more he found your wife sitting by the gate playing with the lame animal. He had brought along some meat for it, and it seems he even exchanged a few words about the dog with your wife. By now he had found out you were a journalist and had nothing to do with ISI or Pakistan. This time when he went back he exploded on the phone to Gwalabhai. The special cell was already tapping his line, waiting for him to make the hit so that they could gun him down. But now Tyagi told Gwalabhai he was not going ahead: clearly this was not a hit sanctioned by Guruji, that is Donullia: and the contract money should be returned. At this point someone—obviously Bajpaisahib through someone, most probably the all-powerful PA of a top cabinet minister, a man known as Mr Healthy—told the police it was time for them to move in. It seems Mr Healthy—whos
e privates they say are bigger than his leg—also wanted to get rid of one of his inconvenient men in this operation. It’s not true that Hathoda Tyagi and his men were picked up at the border. They were taken from a flat in Shahdara, in the middle of the night, two full days before they were shown as arrested. Not one of the five resisted, because they knew the cops were under orders to shoot. Of course the policemen who made the raid knew nothing. They thought they were busting a gang of genuine killers, with at least one of them a famous hitman.’
By now the lounge lady was grimacing as if her teeth were being pulled out. She was shuffling angrily and rubbing her hands. ‘Please sir, the aircraft doors will close in a few minutes!’ I had my bag on my shoulders, my visiting card extended in my right hand, and I had begun to move.
I said, walking backwards, ‘Iqbalmian, will you call me when you are back in India? How do you know all this? Is there more?’
He said, looking at my visiting card, ‘If you wish to know you can always get to know. And of course there is more. There is always more.’ Then he smiled like a corpse. ‘Till there is no more.’
Some hours later, from a posh, prosaically appointed hotel room in Abu Dhabi, I called the rodent, Dubeyji, on his mobile phone. It was nearly a year since I had last spoken to him, and he took a moment to place me. In a hushed voice—so unlike him—he asked me to call back in an hour. He was with senior officers. The DIG.
I watched the clock and stared out at the expensive emptiness of the city. It looked as uninteresting from the ninth floor as it did from ground zero. Two minutes over the hour, I redialled. The rodent said cheerfully, speaking in Hindi, ‘It is an auspicious day. Rarely does anyone remember us once their work is done.’
I said, ‘Dubeyji, do you know a man called Iqbalmian?’
He said, and I could see him smile and his moustache bristle, ‘Which Iqbalmian? The world is full of Iqbalmians. UP and Bihar alone have enough Iqbalmians to create an army that could conquer Nepal.’
I said, ‘A man from Chitrakoot—or thereabouts. A politician, or businessman.’
He said, ‘All I know right now is about the case in front of me—a minister from Madhya Pradesh involved in an abduction and extortion case. There is no Iqbalmian involved here so far.’
I said, ‘Do you remember—in my case—a man called Hathoda Tyagi?’
He said, ‘Arre sahib, some characters you never forget. They are like Gabbar Singh in Sholay. Hathoda Tyagi—a killer of the highest order; north India’s best brain-curry man. Steady hand, stitched tongue. We could get nothing out of him.’
Great minds: work in silence.
I said, ‘Was he involved with a major dacoit called Donullia Gujjar, and a local politician called Bajpaisahib?’
He said, ‘I don’t remember the details of that case. I would have to check his file. But the file is pretty much closed now.’
I said, ‘Why? Has the case been dropped?’
He said, ‘Only his. The rest are in court. Surely you know what happened?’
Through the hotel window the sky was a dirty blue. Not one bird embroidered the air. Were there no birds in this world of oil and concrete?
I said, ‘No, I don’t. Tell me.’
He said, ‘Of course, I forgot. You are a big English paper man. You don’t read the Hindi newspapers. It’s a weird world when people don’t keep track of their lovers and killers.’ I waited. He said, ‘Everyone in our department knows about it; everyone in the state police knows about it. In our work we hear of strange things every day, but this one is the strangest of them all.’
I said, ‘Yes, Dubeyji?’
He said, ‘Two months ago Hathoda Tyagi had to be taken to Dehradun for a court appearance in another case of murder we had unearthed against him. Because of his reputation the guard had been enhanced. Three men of the Delhi Police, armed with rifles, were escorting him. All three were big men, known for their toughness. Tyagi had been roped to one of them. Their old Willys jeep broke down on the way and they were badly delayed. By the time they reached Saharanpur it was evening, and the sun was setting. Just outside the town the troop stopped at a dhaba for some tea and pakoras. They were sitting on charpoys out in the open and had just begun sipping their tea when two young men on a motorcycle stopped right beside them, pulled out pistols, and began to fire. All three policemen were instantly hit, and everybody else in the dhaba ran for cover. In a flash Hathoda Tyagi had yanked the rope off the fallen policeman, and jumped onto the motorcycle, between the two boys; and in a trice they were off, gunning the throttle. As they took off, one of the fallen policemen—a man called Pandey, Mangal Pandey—somehow managed to lift up his heavy 303 rifle and shoot off a round.’
The phone went silent. I thought the connection had snapped, but when I looked at the screen, he was still there. The rodent was telling too great a story to have no response from his audience. I said, ‘Astonishing. And then?’
He said, ‘It’s called the Enfield. It’s from the Second World War. It can kill an elephant from a mile. It stopped Hitler’s armies. Mangal Pandey’s single 303 bullet tore a hole through all the three men, going in through the back of one saviour and coming out the front of the other, passing through Hathoda Tyagi on its way. All three of them were killed instantly. By the time Mangal Pandey fell back with the rifle’s recoil, dead, Hathoda Tyagi and his two rescuers were fully dead too.’
Before boarding my flight I called Guruji, and told him everything I had gathered from the stranger in Muscat and from the rodent in the castle. I told him my chief assassin was now dead. Guruji was silent for a long time. Then he said, in a soft voice, ‘In the Bhagavad Gita, the great Lord Krishna tells Arjuna, the peerless scorcher of all foes: “Even when performed imperfectly, svadharma is superior to someone else’s dharma, performed well. Sin does not result if one’s natural action is undertaken. As nature ordained it. O son of Kunti! Natural action should not be discarded, even if it is tainted. Because all action is tainted, just as fire is shrouded by smoke.” ’
When I landed back in Delhi a late winter rain was falling. It was dark before the hour and the melee outside was worse than ever. My jacket was soaked by the time I corralled a cab. It was an old Ambassador with one door tied shut with a string. The old sardarji said, ‘But three work.’
The car’s engine was badly sick and it coughed and spat all the way, jerking through traffic snarls intensified by the unseasonal rain. The sardarji said, ‘I hope it doesn’t damage the wheat crop. As it is farmers have no future in this godforsaken country. Have you ever met anyone in your life who said they want their son to be a farmer? I tell you, today they work out of habit, not any commercial sense.’
I said, ‘It’ll all be okay. It’s a shower. It will stop.’
The colony lanes were empty, the lines of rain sharp and straight in the light of the street lamps. The big trees were pouring rivulets. I gave the sardarji an extra hundred rupees, and he said, ‘May your words come true.’
My perennial shadow was missing from under the awning but just behind his empty chair, a small silhouette lay curled up. It started at my heavy tread and tried to limp off into the rain. I stood in its way, and rang the bell. When I put my hand on its head, it shrank in fear and tentatively shook its curling tail. Its pelt was damp and coarse and warm, and I was still stroking it when Elizabeth opened the door. I asked her to bring out some milk and bread.
Inside, in our room, Dolly was sitting in bed watching television. She jumped up uncertainly when I walked in, tall and slim in her blue jeans and white shirt. I took off my wet jacket and said, ‘Do you want to go catch a film and get some dinner?’
Her eyes lit up as I had never seen them before.
Acknowledgements
Tehelka and its many public battles have ensured that my debts—of every kind—to a vast number of friends, colleagues, public warriors, lawyers and strangers, continually grow. Most of them have little to do with the writing of my books, but they have much to do with kee
ping me going.
Geetan, Tiya and Cara, my first readers, my first loves, the very coordinates of my life and peace.
Inderjit, Shakuntala and Minty, the original cocoon that I still turn to.
Shoma—among other things—for grace and courage in holding the line against crippling odds.
Sanjoy and Puneeta, fellow travellers without compare.
For love, friendship and support: Aditya; Nicku and Mike, Peali and Amit; Shammy; Priyanka and Raj; Manika, Gayatri, Yamini; Satya Sheel; Shobha and Govind, Sheela and Rajeev, Roma and Bilu, Bani and Niki, Nandini and Sumir, Preeti and Yuvi; Smita, Bindu, Varun; Mala and Tejbir; NJ; Renu and Pavan; Sunita Kohli; Sabeen and Zak, Dee and UD; Sunil Khilnani, Prasoon Joshi, Toliaji; Renu and Tibu; SM; Karan and Kabir; Gunjun, Chottu, Deepak; Adarsh; Nadira and Vidia Naipaul; Manish Tewari, Meet Malhotra, Doug Wilson; Tony and Ram Jethmalani; Rajeev C., Cyrus Guzder, Siddharth Kothari, MD, Jakes, Prashant Bhushan, Arundhati Roy; Prom and Kapil Sibal.
Susan, Ram, Ranbir and Ajay, for ironing out some of the crinkles in my day.
All my outstanding colleagues at Tehelka who consistently produce a journalism we can be proud of.
Ritu Sud who struggles to bring order to the chaos of my life.
Marc Parent for joyously embracing all my efforts.
Nandita for her excellent editing; and Karthika V.K. for her superb shepherding of the entire book.
Vera Michalski, Oliviero, Elisabetta, and David Godwin for gifting it their considerable skills and support.
My friend Vatsala, for her characteristic generosity in setting aside her many concerns to do a fine, final read.
Andy, as always, for intuiting the design.
And Bibek Debroy, for his translation of the Gita that I dipped into, among others.
The Story of My Assassins Page 51
