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The Novel follows the story of Ameer Ali, who has turned approver to the british. He is narrating his life exploits to the author of the book.
I will not dwell much on the story itself because it is similar to what a hardened rowdy sheeter/psycopath would say if you ask him about his life. The character has no remorse about the number of people he has killed during his career, he repeatedly says it’s the path chosen by allah for him. The author himself seems to be a british bureaucrat who has in-depth knowledge of towns and cities at that period of time.
My interest in the book was because i was hoping that my family’s zamindari would be mentioned in the book. only place from our zamindari mentioned is Musalipatnam which is called machlipatnam now, which is my birth place. ameer ali comes close of musalipatnam following krishna river, but turns west towards bidar on karnataka border in one of his expeditions. One of my great great grandfathers living during first half of 1800’s used to ride a horse with a pickaxe in hand and hunt these thugs, in our zamindari there by providing protection to travellers. our zamindari used to come under nizam’s rule.
So ameer ali and his family is waylaid by a thug at a young age. the thug leader ismail ensures that the rest of the group does not kill the boy and adopts the kid as he does not have children. ismail is a legit merchant in his village during non-thug season, thug-season starts during dussera as per the book. nobody in the village suspects the thug life of the characters. ismail overhears his father and his gang discussing their profession, and gets interested. ali’s claim to fame is that he kills a tiger with a sword, which ensures he is easily accepted into thug gang. from there on the novel is about his exploits as a thug which covers almost 80% of the novel.
Thugs:
Thugs as per the book are a secretive group of people whose profession is to kill and rob travellers. They worship godess bhavani irrespective of their religion. Muslim gangmembers follow islam as a primary religion but also pray bhavani as a thug. These thug gangs can have people belonging to any strata of society, even some thugs are depicted as brahmins in the book.
They have a pre-determined hierarchy such a leader, scouts, stringers, grave diggers etc. preferred choice of weapon is a handkerchief to strangle the victim. The gangs go out as expeditions at a pre-determined time of a year. The strength of the gang can be anywhere between 10-150 people per gang. These people are very systematic with their pre-determined activities to entrap a victim and dispose of the bodies.
Thugs are shown giving a lot of importance to omens like animals, moon etc. Thugs won’t start an expedition is omens are not favourable. i have no reason to doubt this as i know about hunter’s omens, they are quite similar.
Killing is not described as a brutal act, but rather as a task even with women. bodies are disposed off in ravines and graves with their stomach cut open to avoid bloating.
Social structures mentioned in the novel:
Other than the usual Nawabs and kings the novel gives an idea about the social life of villages. Villages in those days is a microcosm of economy in those day, probably even self-sufficient to an extent. No christians are mentioned in the novel, but muslims and hindus are shown as living together well within the village. no where in the novel, muslims are depicted as having a soft spot for middle east etc.. at one instance ismail the father says that allah is angry with indian muslims for having come and settled here in india, i feel this is mentioned in the book because of prevailing opinions at that time.
discord between muslims and hindus are not depicted in the book but hindus are referred as kafirs by the main character even though his friends and gang members are hindus. the word slave is used often in the book, usually when a character is representing himself to a authority figure. i think the word slave is misinterpreted with the urdu word “Mulazim” or “Nazim” .
women as respected and are usually behind a purdah. There are only two or three instances of excessive violence against women in the entire novel.
Economy at that time:
Sahukars, traders, Traveller Inns, markets, types of goods being traded are described well in the book. amaravati in maharashtra and hyderabad are shown as rich cities at the time. crores are mentioned as denominations but lakhs are mentioned multiple times in the book, safe to assume that the revenues of kings and nawabs would run into crores at that time. ameer ali himself loots a total of anywhere between 10-15 lakh rupees during the course of the novel, which is quite a sum even by today’s standards.
one new thing i learnt is the word “hundee”, which is a form of demand draft. pay the money in one town or village , a certificate is given with a seal/signature. the certificate can be converted back to money at the different town minus an interest within a fixed time period.
Tax on trading and agriculture seems to be the revenue source for zamindars and rajahs.
Ecology of india at that time:
The travels undertaken by the characters in the book are between scindia kingdom, maratha kingdoms and south till nizam’s deccan. ecology is depicted as heavily forested just outside of villages and towns, i have no doubt that was the case just as how we see leopards and lions coming to villages and towns in uttarakhand and gujarat. one thing i found interesting is that characters in the book depend on water streams flowing on jungles to drink water, nowhere in the book any leather pouches to carry water are mentioned. kids of 70’s and 80’s would remember people who carried water in big leather bags used to be there is delhi, now they are gone.they would collect small money from cups of water from the bags .this is not mentioned in the book.
Places mentioned in the book:
as i mentioned the travels are between western part of india and deccan in south. amaravati,hyderabad ,secunderabad are depicted as rich cities. umerkhed, poona, nagpur , musalipatnam , raipur, bombay, malwa and many more places.
@dhananjay1 @LordOfTheUnderworlds @sthf @OneGrimPilgrim @Ancient Indian
I will not dwell much on the story itself because it is similar to what a hardened rowdy sheeter/psycopath would say if you ask him about his life. The character has no remorse about the number of people he has killed during his career, he repeatedly says it’s the path chosen by allah for him. The author himself seems to be a british bureaucrat who has in-depth knowledge of towns and cities at that period of time.
My interest in the book was because i was hoping that my family’s zamindari would be mentioned in the book. only place from our zamindari mentioned is Musalipatnam which is called machlipatnam now, which is my birth place. ameer ali comes close of musalipatnam following krishna river, but turns west towards bidar on karnataka border in one of his expeditions. One of my great great grandfathers living during first half of 1800’s used to ride a horse with a pickaxe in hand and hunt these thugs, in our zamindari there by providing protection to travellers. our zamindari used to come under nizam’s rule.
So ameer ali and his family is waylaid by a thug at a young age. the thug leader ismail ensures that the rest of the group does not kill the boy and adopts the kid as he does not have children. ismail is a legit merchant in his village during non-thug season, thug-season starts during dussera as per the book. nobody in the village suspects the thug life of the characters. ismail overhears his father and his gang discussing their profession, and gets interested. ali’s claim to fame is that he kills a tiger with a sword, which ensures he is easily accepted into thug gang. from there on the novel is about his exploits as a thug which covers almost 80% of the novel.
Thugs:
Thugs as per the book are a secretive group of people whose profession is to kill and rob travellers. They worship godess bhavani irrespective of their religion. Muslim gangmembers follow islam as a primary religion but also pray bhavani as a thug. These thug gangs can have people belonging to any strata of society, even some thugs are depicted as brahmins in the book.
They have a pre-determined hierarchy such a leader, scouts, stringers, grave diggers etc. preferred choice of weapon is a handkerchief to strangle the victim. The gangs go out as expeditions at a pre-determined time of a year. The strength of the gang can be anywhere between 10-150 people per gang. These people are very systematic with their pre-determined activities to entrap a victim and dispose of the bodies.
Thugs are shown giving a lot of importance to omens like animals, moon etc. Thugs won’t start an expedition is omens are not favourable. i have no reason to doubt this as i know about hunter’s omens, they are quite similar.
Killing is not described as a brutal act, but rather as a task even with women. bodies are disposed off in ravines and graves with their stomach cut open to avoid bloating.
Social structures mentioned in the novel:
Other than the usual Nawabs and kings the novel gives an idea about the social life of villages. Villages in those days is a microcosm of economy in those day, probably even self-sufficient to an extent. No christians are mentioned in the novel, but muslims and hindus are shown as living together well within the village. no where in the novel, muslims are depicted as having a soft spot for middle east etc.. at one instance ismail the father says that allah is angry with indian muslims for having come and settled here in india, i feel this is mentioned in the book because of prevailing opinions at that time.
discord between muslims and hindus are not depicted in the book but hindus are referred as kafirs by the main character even though his friends and gang members are hindus. the word slave is used often in the book, usually when a character is representing himself to a authority figure. i think the word slave is misinterpreted with the urdu word “Mulazim” or “Nazim” .
women as respected and are usually behind a purdah. There are only two or three instances of excessive violence against women in the entire novel.
Economy at that time:
Sahukars, traders, Traveller Inns, markets, types of goods being traded are described well in the book. amaravati in maharashtra and hyderabad are shown as rich cities at the time. crores are mentioned as denominations but lakhs are mentioned multiple times in the book, safe to assume that the revenues of kings and nawabs would run into crores at that time. ameer ali himself loots a total of anywhere between 10-15 lakh rupees during the course of the novel, which is quite a sum even by today’s standards.
one new thing i learnt is the word “hundee”, which is a form of demand draft. pay the money in one town or village , a certificate is given with a seal/signature. the certificate can be converted back to money at the different town minus an interest within a fixed time period.
Tax on trading and agriculture seems to be the revenue source for zamindars and rajahs.
Ecology of india at that time:
The travels undertaken by the characters in the book are between scindia kingdom, maratha kingdoms and south till nizam’s deccan. ecology is depicted as heavily forested just outside of villages and towns, i have no doubt that was the case just as how we see leopards and lions coming to villages and towns in uttarakhand and gujarat. one thing i found interesting is that characters in the book depend on water streams flowing on jungles to drink water, nowhere in the book any leather pouches to carry water are mentioned. kids of 70’s and 80’s would remember people who carried water in big leather bags used to be there is delhi, now they are gone.they would collect small money from cups of water from the bags .this is not mentioned in the book.
Places mentioned in the book:
as i mentioned the travels are between western part of india and deccan in south. amaravati,hyderabad ,secunderabad are depicted as rich cities. umerkhed, poona, nagpur , musalipatnam , raipur, bombay, malwa and many more places.
@dhananjay1 @LordOfTheUnderworlds @sthf @OneGrimPilgrim @Ancient Indian
