Jamyang Norbu - The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes

Mr Holmes had his head out of the window and was looking down at something outside. After a littie while he pulled his head in and, settiing back in his seat, lit his pipe. I put my luggage away neatly on the overhead rack, and popped a paan into my mouth. Chewing it slowly I cast my mind over the events of the day. All of a sudden I remembered Ferret-Face.

'Something the matter, Hurree?' Holmes's calm voice broke into my reverie. 'You look like you've just swallowed a thrupenny bit.'

I told him about seeing Ferret-Face at the station.

'But I really could not be sure, Sir,' I said. 'It all happened so dashed quickly.'

'Hmm. Still, it would be imprudent not to regard it as a fortuitous warning. Moran now probably knows of our flight from Bombay.'

It was not a very comforting thought. To be subjected once again to murderous fauna and expanding bullets, especially within the narrow confines of a moving railway carriage, was a trifle rich for my blood. But Sherlock Holmes thankfully diverted my mind from such distressing cogitations by diverting the conversation to more comforting and scholastic directions.

'Ethnology being your metier, Huree,' said Holmes, 'could you kindly tell me whether the representation of an open hand has any symbolic meaning in this country?'

'An open hand? Well, it is a commonly known symbol of the goddess Kali.'

'Pray, enlighten me as to the details.'

'Well, Mr Holmes, Kali is certainly not your usual benign divinity. No indeed. She is the very fierce and terrifying aspect of Devi, the Supreme Goddess; probably the most virulent deity in the Hindu pantheon. She is depicted as a hideous hag smeared in blood, with bared teeth and a protruding tongue. Her four hands hold, variously, a sword, a shield, the severed hand of a giant, and a strangling noose. Her rites involve sacrificial killings – at one time, of humans. Kali is supposed to have… aah… developed her taste for human blood when she was called upon to kill the demon Raklavija.

'But it is all gross superstition and savagery, Mr Holmes, quite unsuitable for the scientific mentality. I, myself, am a Brahmo Somajist, [21] eschewing such barbarity and esteeming instead the noble principles of reason and humanism, as expressed in the Upanishads, which represents the true philosophic teachings of uncorrupted Hinduism.'

Taking his pipe out of his mouth, Sherlock Holmes leaned forward.

'Interesting,' said he, 'but does this fiend or the open hand symbol have any connection with something other than mythology – with crime, maybe?'

'Why, yes, Sir. She was worshipped by the Thugs.'

'Ahh… I remember reading about them a few years ago. Some kind of professional murderers – were they not?'

'Yes, Mr Holmes. They were members of a well-organised confederacy of assassins who travelled in gangs throughout India for more than three hundred years.'

'Pray, continue,' said Holmes, as he leaned back on his seat, placed his fingertips together and closed his eyes.

'The modus operandi of these dastardly murderers was to worm their way into the confidences of wayfarers and, when all was hail-fellow-well-met, strangle them from behind with a handkerchief that had knotted into one of its corners (to give it a better grip) a silver coin consecrated to Kali. All this was done according to certain ancient and rigidly prescribed forms and after the performance of special religious rites, in which the consecration of the pickaxe and the sacrifice of sugar formed a prominent part. Although their essential religious creed was worshipping Kali, there were traces of Islamic practices present in their rituals. The fraternity possessed a jargon of its own called Ramasi. They also had signs by which its members could recognise each other.'

'When did the authorities learn of the existence of this organisation?'

'Definite evidence of Thuggery was only secured when Lord William Bentinck was the Governor-General of India; that would be around the 1830s, at the time of the Company Bahadur – The Honourable East India Company. His Lordship appointed Captain Sleeman to do the needful regarding this outrageous defiance of British Law. Infiveyears no fewer than three thousand Thugs were caught and convicted; one of them admitting to no less than seven hundred and nineteen murders, with many others not too far behind this shocking tally. Over four hundred Thugs were eventually hanged and the rest transported, probably to the Andaman Islands.'

'So the whole brood was wiped out?'

'Well… that would be the position of things… ah… ex officio, but it is not exactly e concensu gentium!

'Some of them survived?'

'Not many, but enough to maintain the organisation. When young Captain Sleeman went after them, the Thugs were operating in Central India, mostly in rural areas and the jungles. Those who stuck to the outbacks were caught, sooner or later. Only the few who changed their habits and departed to the big cities like Calcutta or Bombay survived. That is why I wanted you to leave Bombay, Mr Holmes. They are there still, murderous as ever, ready to sell their services to the likes of Colonel Moran.'

Outside Bombay the train slowed down and stopped at a small station. Probably the tracks were not clear ahead and the points had to be changed. A harassed looking Eurasian ticket-collector entered our carriage, his sour face, under an uncomfortably large pith helmet, glistening with perspiration. He eyed me in a very unpleasant way. 'Hey you, Babu! What are you doing here? Nikal jao Jaldi!'

'This gentleman is travelling with me,' said Holmes quietly but firmly. 'We have taken the whole coupe. Here are our tickets.'

Wiping his face with a none too clean handkerchief, the ticket-collector pored over the damp sheaves of passenger lists on his clipboard, and at last grudgingly punched our tickets. Just as he was leaving Sherlock Holmes spoke. 'Excuse me, would you by any chance have a piece of chalk with you?'

The ticket-collector seemed rather surprised by Mr Holmes's request, but extracted a small stick of white chalk from the pocket of his faded blue uniform and proffered it to Holmes. Ticket-collectors and guards generally carried pieces of chalk with them to put temporary markings on the side of carriages for the purpose of identification.

'Thank you very much,' said Holmes as the ticket-collector tucked his clip-board under his arm and left. I also got out of the carriage to search for the dining-car. It was, thankfully, not too far away, and I was able to purchase some cold Murree beer for Mr Holmes and tonic water for myself. Clutching these I hurried back and I was just in time, for as soon as I reached our carriage the train started.

Mr Holmes was also outside the train, and he climbed in after me. As he reached for the door I noticed that his hands were covered with chalk dust. He then went into the toilet attached to our carriage. When he came out I noticed that he had washed his hands thoroughly.

As the train picked up speed and roared through the hot Indian night, Mr Holmes and I settled down to pur journey. Drinking the cold beer and tonic water, and eating Cabuli grapes and pistachio nuts I had earlier purchased at the Bhindi Bazaar, we discoursed amicably on matters of life, art and philosophy before finally turning in for the night.

Around three o'clock in the morning I was rudely woken from my slumbers by a tremendous commotion from the neighbouring carriage – even afire-arm being discharged. Probably the tommies had had too much to drink and were, as usual, being obstreperous and a disgrace to their uniforms. Someone also seemed to be yelling something, in Hindustani, but I could not be sure. After a while the uproar subsided and gentle Morpheus once more enfolded me into his embrace. But just before falling asleep I thought I heard Sherlock Holmes chuckling to himself in the darkness of the carriage.