“Is it like, hard-hitting?” In the club garden, escorting a group of my daughter’s friends for Sunday lunch, I’d been relegated to sitting by myself. Fortunately, I’d remembered to carry a book — Tarun Tejpal’s The Story of My Assassins — but it was too beautiful a day to spend in the company of the slumdogs of violence, so I’d put it down for a bit, when a woman at the next table asked if it was a “hard-hitting book”.
“I suppose,” I stuttered — whatever does hard-hitting mean? — and passed it for her to dip into. Soon enough, she was tittering, pointing out significant passages to her husband and their friends, and as the book went around the group, I could make out that they were raising their eyebrows at the full monty of sexual violence that peppers the story that Tejpal tells, starkly and with an understanding of the underbelly of crime in India that is as astonishing as it is credible.
If anything, Tejpal writes with a sense of compassion about those around us whom we do not ordinarily even see, yet who perpetrate the small and big crimes that our lives are constantly exposed to. It tells, in part — and not surprisingly — the story of a newspaper editor who is the target of a failed assassination attempt, and then the stories of those who have been arrested on account.
Echoes of the Tehelka sting echo in the book, but Tejpal’s Assassins is not about the sting operation, but instead, he uses it to explore the genesis of the criminal mind — of human wretchedness and degradation and, surprisingly, of the triumph of the human spirit even when it is debased enough to steal, threaten, kill, murder… Strangely, you feel like cheering when, despite the circumstances of their delinquency, the hopeless rise to triumph, even if it is on the crutches of felony.
The most endearing of these is a gang that steals and lives on the railway platforms of New Delhi station, and their story is told with almost lyrical felicity — of little boys who turn invisible in the crevices of the station, who sniff gum, exchange sexual favours, and move from smalltime heists to big-time trouble all the while conscious that the dangerous turns in their life could drop them dead any moment. Almost with as much detail, and without prejudice, Tejpal traces the stories of an impressive cast of crooks that include a prolific Rampuri chaakumaar (knife-wielder), an effete Muslim boy who is forced to a life of survival from within the sanctuary of jail walls, and a gentle giant who kills his victims first with a hammer, graduating to a twin-barrel as he is courted by powerful politicians. In almost every case, Tejpal takes you through a childhood, or adolescence, ripe with abuse, acting as the trigger to their misdemeanours.
In between, Tejpal interweaves the story of the two magazine partners, their financers who first pitch in the money and later pull the plug on them, as well as the story of the excesses of the pampered rich, something he has seen from close quarters, and here his anger and his resentment is palpable. Amusingly, his protagonist — the target of the assassins — has a mistress who more than lives up to that qualification, but ironically, and amusingly, turns up to protect those arrested for the botched-up assassination of her part-time lover, thereby bringing an interesting twist to their story. In the midst of this is Guruji, that symbol of spiritual India and the solace of much of south Delhi — cast here not as a figure of mockery but someone who offers sane council and remains above petty aspersions of right and wrong, a modern Krishna, if you will, who advices on the need to live your fate rather than battle it, and to choose your pleasures as they come your way.
If Tejpal is readable — and the book keeps you hooked — the ending is disappointing for being tamely structured, and though you’ve guessed the lay of the line by then, it seems that having dispensed with his cast of characters, Tejpal wants to hurry on to a conclusion, though who’d have thought you’d have a reformed rake at the end of it? As for being “hard-hitting”, Tejpal’s deft touch in exploring the lives of the disadvantaged criminal is commendable, but it’s the language you need to watch out for if you’re coy. It’s also the reason your teenager might want to take it off your hands.
THE STORY OF MY ASSASSINS
Tarun J Tejpal
Harper Collins
524 pages; Rs 495
