By the time, they crossed the Ridge of Jut Mountains, Pandit and his eldest son, guarded by two rifle carrying men, and a driver heard a loud series of howls. Soon it was clear to them that it was not howl. It was crying.... wailing that reverberated through the forest to their south that engulfed the mountains after a certain stretch. Jut Mt. covered the entire north and east periphery of the town of Dumsarai, forming a semi-circular stretch of scenic apostrophe for the map of district of Dumsarai. The forest covered the rest, into which the mountains' both end disappeared.
The wailing continued to ring in their ears painfully, like every breath of happiness was sucked from them.
"It's them Guru Ji, the silent sisters," said the driver from his seat meekly.
"It could be anything Mohan. Just because your mother told you to believe in craps, doesn't mean the craps you hear are believable," said Bajrangi with a frown. They hit a bump on the mud road and Baj stirred in his seat opposite to his father.
"And what did your mother teach you, bastard?" said Pandit Ji disgustfully, as if Pandit abhorred the very existence of Baj.
"C'mon Pa, you seriously don't believe that that old hag would have it in her to actually train a hundred women to form a secret tribe of rebels?"
"I believe that that old hag had you stripped and flogged and tied you to a pole in middle of the town and had you left there for a spectacle," having said Pandit Ji dove into his pocket only to emerge with a little box of tobacco called, Khaini, that would need rubbing on the palms and eaten raw with a paste of edible lime.
Baj, embarrassed, looked away into distance. The mountains reared and threatened an end as the jeep broke on to a smooth road that allowed speed to the Jeep. They were still few tens of kilometres from the village of Jourpore, where the minister lived in his damn-glorious bungalow.
"Soot, you will take a survey tomorrow with your men around the town and send few of your men to Harsin, Jiran, and Gauripore to spread the news of Amma Ji's death. I want the whole district to know before her own family gathers in the Haveli," Pandit Ji ordered Soot, one of the armed men, who received the said words with quiet dignity. The names of villages that he took were major holders of the land mines - they alone contained fourteen out of seventeen land mines in the district - and the major population of that village were workers in those mines. The news of death was bound to stir the population as this would mean their insecurity of jobs. Amma Ji had refused several bills that pleaded the arrival of machines in Dumsarai but Amma Ji knew better than to agitate the people whose lives depended on the employment in those mines. She made the bills public, asking the populace to suggest whether to bring in the machines or not. She told them the condition the machines were thought for - for better and faster performance. Adjacently, she put forth the condition where she showed her affection for people and got them to promise hard and fast work that would be near equivalent to machines and the mine lords won't mind difference. She shot two birds with one stone with that stunt: she got the people to happily agree to better performance and saved herself the fortune expenditure on machines and ate the money in the name of that tender. Or at least, that's what Pandit believed. With every action that Amma Ji took, the lords and leaders were the ones that were fooled.
"And Matan, I want you to go around the ---"
Pandit Ji was cut off with a horrified grunt of cuss words. "What the fuck---?" Mohan put a sudden brake on the jeep. They had only just emerged from the road in the mountains into a little wood that stretched to evolve into a village called Jourpore.
What had shot Mohan into frezy was a pride of tigers blocking the road ahead. Even more disturbing was the way they all looked at the jeep in front of them. They were six in total and they stood as if they were waiting for the jeep to come. They shook their heads, let out occasional roars, cud, and flicked their shining eyes - from the jeep's head light - at the preys few meters before them, but none of them looked away. Their determination spooked the senses of out the Pandit's platoon.
"No, no, lower your guns," said Mohan from the driver's seat, looking at Soot who sat in the passenger seat beside Mohan. "We don't know how many of them are there. If we show any sign of threat they could charge from anywhere."
"Then switch off the ignition, what are you entertaining them for?" Baj broke into panic.
"No, Bade bhaiya, we stall the way we are. Any disturbance could set them off," Mohan said, his eyes fixed on the pride, calling Baj big brother.
"Mohan, take the jeep back," Pandit Ji's voice was choked. And then he started praying, "Hey Ram, get us through this today. We have always done right by your side, please do right by us." Mohan didn't know about Lord Ram but he could feel a shudder, a vibration on his shoulders and he refused his master's order of backing up.
Soon a neigh tore through the air and a silhouette of a human riding a horse emerged from the woods on the left of the road. Soon it came in front of the light, behind the tigers and its form came clear to them. The figure was so heavily and efficiently clad in black, it was hard to even tell if it was a man or a woman. Pandit's platoon went with assuming it was a man, for obvious reasons. The figure on the horse had an iron helmet on, that only had two openings, that too for the eyes. The semi-spherical helmet was stark brown, as if the iron was rusted that matched the colour of the horse.
The figure made the horse gallop once before pulling the sleek, long bow from its shoulders and a quick arrow form the quiver on its back. Knocking the arrow on the bow in the fraction of seconds, it shot the arrow that made the Pandit and his people duck for their lives in the Jeep.
But the arrow only hit the left head light of the Jeep, quickly blinding it. None of them dared use their guns. The figure stood for a succession of enormous seconds staring at them and suddenly as if bored, rode into the woods on the right of the road. The pride followed the figure playfully behind the horse and soon disappeared in the woods.
The stunned, unrecovered troupe reached the minister's bungalow with occasional muffled and confused speeches among themselves. None of them could offer another a precise consolation for what had just happened. They reached the front gates of minister's house and the grouchy guard there opened the gate for them. A well cobbled narrow path led to the bungalow, flanked by a series of highly manicured ornamental plants on the either side. Beyond the hedges that were ornamental plants the garden stretched into a dark, moonlit bed of grass on the both sides.
They drove to the bungalow, coming to circular cross right before the gate of the building. The circular cross was a fountain, well lit in multicolour lights focussed on a marble statue of Lord Shiva. The statue itself was a sight to sore eyes: well muscled god with a huge bun of hair from which erupted a fountain of water in every direction. The statue faced the building that tempted Baj into thinking what kind of personality minister is. Although he had met him quite a few times, this was the first time he was coming to his place.
They were welcomed by the household, a woman clad in stark white sari that draped her in most professional manner. Her hair was tied into a bun and she had a name tag on her perfectly plated sari. It read "Saroj Sushma".
"Wake minister Ji up, Saroj. I come with rather joyous news." Pandit said to the lady household.
And without a second delay, Minister appeared at the door beside Saroj.
"I know what you have come here for!" a sheepish smile ruled minister's contorted face. A smile that almost made it look like his gigantic moustache was going to fall off. Minister handed the black pickup-phone to Saroj that he was carrying in his hand, and flung the free end of his white dhoti to half the length of it and tucked it in his waist.
And that's how the night of celebration unfurled in the Minister's bungalow. Baj on the other hand kept prying for a certain someone the whole night. Minister's daughter. But she was nowhere to be seen. He even asked Saroj in between his talks about the tigers and the helmeted figure. Baj's continuous poke of conversation kept Saroj on her heels.
As the night of hideous politics and ambitious plans came to an end, the servants cleaned the table and poured more drinks for the minister and Pandit, who had sacrificed his chicken in his home to come here.
As Pandit and minister talked their drunken minds out, making promises they probably weren't going to remember the next day, a series of events took place in the bungalow.
Mohan, Soot and Matan, dining with minster's guards, got to hear news that scorched their hearts. One of minister's guards, Lakhan, had got a call from his uncle ten minutes ago who lived in the town of Dumsarai. Lakhan's uncle woke up with a series of gun fires in the Baniya's house, right next to his and when he got out inspecting what had happened, the whole house was on fire. A Jeep in the distance zoomed off, not clear in the dark. The most intriguing thing was that he couldn't hear any screaming from inside Baniya's house.
Inside the bungalow, drunken Baj crept up the stairs to the personal bedrooms of family members. He kept peeping through glass openings in the doors to the rooms to find which room was minister's daughters. He finally succeeded when he came to the last room on the floor, and he pushed open. Despite nobody's presence in the room, the posters on walls gave away to whom the room belonged to. He heard singing form the bathroom and he inched towards it. A young woman, with smooth, fair skin danced naked in the shower. Baj fished out his phone started recording the dance.
Saroj, having ordered her fellow households, disappeared in the storage. She picked up the receiver on an old dial phone and dialled a number. The other side answered, and Saroj spoke in English fluently, crisped with heavy Indian accent, "Sir, Devyani Thakur is dead. Raghu and Pandit are having a rendezvous here." Saroj informed the other side, taking minister's last name, Raghu. She heard intently for a second and agreed with few words and hung up.