DEEP SECRET

1977 -- Bombay.

Deep in thought as he sipped his favourite whiskey lounging in his jacuzzi and Ghulam Ali’s ’Chupke Chupke Raat Din’ playing from the HMV’s gramophone player, Shamsher was back in the deep ravines of Chambal. 

The smell from the wisp of smoke from the 555 cigarettes dropping from his lips indicated that the cigarette was loaded with something more than tobacco.

The dim lighting built up the mood of the Italian marbled bathroom suite.

He was the uncrowned King, as a Mafia Don, in this booming metropole, Bombay. 

He was very similar to his grandfather and grandmother who were outlaws who committed robberies, kidnappings and murders in their time. They were dacoits. 

He felt the bloodline ran deep in him. Blood was thicker than water. After all, he was the grandson of Shikha daku and Gulabi Bai.

Today he too was a dacoit. Don of a Bombay Mafia gang, he was a sophisticated dacoit.

They had ruled the roost in the deep ravines of Chambal and he ruled the roost in the concrete jungle.

Housed in a penthouse in one of the most expensive skyscrapers of Bombay he was jerked back to an era he was told he had left behind with his so-called ancestors. 

He was not sure how true it was. It was word of mouth.

What he did not know, were the facts.

There was a secret hidden here. 

It was a DEEP SECRET.

                  

                      ------///------

1920 -- Chambal Valley

Shikha daku’s story is hidden in intrigue and folklore. He is the one who is terrorising the United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh) and had become a pain in the neck of the UP police.

Shikha was born in the Muslim bhantu clan of criminals. He was a dashing dacoit and operated on a code of honour. His love for women and horses were well known. There were stories of his affair with an English girl who madly fell in love with him.

These stories ran parallel with the news of his collection of wild horses with Arabian bloodlines.

Then......... there was the incident involving Padmini. She was a dancing girl and Shikha daku, during a raid on a village with his gang, abducted her. After a few days, remorse set in. Feeling pity for her, he returned her.

However, life would now take a U-turn. After she returned home, her family and villagers started giving her negative vibes. The law, also, tried to take advantage. It wanted to use her as a weapon in its war against the dacoits. The police started putting pressure on her and forced her to go back to the dacoit. They wanted her to act as an informant, Padmini went back to the dacoit. However, she was transforming. Because of all these circumstances, she was automatically drawn towards Shikha daku. She had ended up falling in love with him.

He also reciprocated and they ended tying wedding knots in a marital bond.

Year's passed and she bore him two children. Along with being a mother she also joined the gang, riding alongside her husband in their raids  

Padmini went on to become Gulabi Bai. 

Shikha daku was loved by the locals. 

He was their Robin Hood. His mantra was to loot the British and uplift the locals. There are stories of him looting the trains of the Raj and distributing the loot among the poor. On the other side of the spectrum, he was getting to be a pain in the side of the British. He was on the top of their target list.

He was finally captured by them and sentenced to hanging. 

Simon Smith was a young British officer in the regiment posted in this district at the time of his arrest. Shikha had developed a good relationship with this Britisher. Understanding his psyche of helping the poor Simon tried his hardest to have Shikha pardoned but to no avail. The dacoit then asked Simon to raise his son as a ‘sahib’; that would be redemption for him. 

Smith kept his word and sent one of the boy’s to England for his education. 

Shikha was sent to the gallows.

Back in the deep ravines politics was unfurling. When Shikha was killed by the authorities his second in command became the gang leader. Things were not the same with the gang. Deep resentment was growing and fissures were erupting. 

Gulabi Bai was not liking the way thing were progressing under the new leadership. She could not bear to see the deterioration in standards of what Shikha had set. She was vociferous and kept quarrelling with the man who had now taken charge.  One fine day things got out of hand and she shot him. She then became the leader of the gang herself. For three years she operated in the Chambal region and was wanted on several charges, including kidnapping, murder and looting.

She developed a relationship with another dacoit Kallu Dujja.

Her daredevil exploits progressed along with time. She was settling in well as the leader and as a daredevil dacoit. 

Months passed and one fine day there was an incident with the people in the village of Datia. She suspected the villagers had informed the police about her. The police party had laid ambush and in that scuffle, she narrowly escaped with most of her gang. However, her other young son, Viren, became a victim of police fire.

In retaliation, she organised a raid on the village. There was a hell of a fight but she was resilient. That night she struck terror into people’s hearts when she killed eleven people, kidnapped seven and wounded five.

Her name in the wanted list of dacoits went up and she was hotly pursued.

Life became difficult and she kept moving continuously to stay abreast of the pursuit.

After a few weeks, she reached outside the village of Chati, around 150 miles south of New Delhi. Police got the scent of her presence and surrounded the area. 

She and her lover Kallu Dujja realised that they would have to make a run for it.

They tried to cross a river to escape from the police hunt. However, luck was not on her side. The police started firing incessantly as they realised the dacoits were in their crosshairs. 

The end came quickly. 

She was shot dead along with her lover. 

                       ------///------

Gurcharan, Shikha daku and Gulabi Bai’s eldest son, was brought up as a proper ’saheb’ by Simon Smith’s family.

After Shikha was hanged, Gurcharan his 10-year-old kid had been shipped to Simon Smith’s homeland England. 

A few months later, Simon also moved back. As years passed and the kid completed his education he continued serving on their sprawling estate in Surrey as a manager. 

Gurcharan knew the truth about his parents and felt ever indebted to Simon Smith for his generosity and for uplifting him. 

He worked hard. After a few years, a marital proposal to Durga a young Indian damsel working on the same estate resulted in matrimony.

A few years later his benefactor Simon Smith passed away. Two decades rolled by. 

As Gurcharan was growing old he wanted to return to his homeland.

The couple returned to India with their fifteen-year-old kid Shamsher. Bombay was a happening place so he decided to settle down in this city. 

Shamsher knew the history of his dad's parents. As a spoilt teenager, he got into the wrong company. Something egged him in the wrong direction. Leading a life of crime he started to build his niche. He was quickly climbing up on the ladder of city crime.

Durga was hurt by the way her son was turning out. Gurcharan also had no control over him. She cursed her bad luck and the weight of this took a toll on her health. One fine day she suffered a heart attack and left for her heavenly abode. The pain of separation could not be borne by Gurcharan and he followed her a few weeks later. 

In a few years, Shamsher reached the pinnacle of his career. He was now the uncrowned King.

Some time was stable. Then all hell broke loose. This was the beginning of the gang wars in Bombay. Other gangs were trying to gain supremacy.

                    ------///------

1977 -- Bombay.

Like the daydreaming milkmaid, Shamsher was trying to iron out the facts of the bloodline in his head. The stuff he was smoking also had a deep effect on his brain. He was in a state of ecstasy. He was proud that the dacoit blood in him was helping him reach a stature in modern crime land.

Unknown to him he had been targeted to be killed by the opposing gang members this evening. A team of two paid assassins armed with machine guns would break into his penthouse. After mowing down his bodyguards they would riddle him with bullets as he enjoyed the jacuzzi. 

As he heard the staccato of gunfire Shamsher tried to get up and reach for his gun lying beside the whiskey bottle.

He was too late. They had kicked in the bathroom door and had started firing at him. The hired killer's bullets zipped all around him many of them going through his flesh and bones. As his body jerked with the hits he finally limped back into the pool. The last thing he experienced was his blood flow into the whirlpool of the frothing jacuzzi and mix with it. His blood was as thin as the water around him.

He perished without getting to know the DEEP SECRET his parents and the world had kept hidden from him all these years. 

As Gurcharan was impotent, he and Durga never had any children. 

They had secretly adopted an orphaned Indian child in England.

Shamsher was an adopted child. 

There never was any dacoit bloodline in him.

It was a DEEP SECRET that remained a secret till the end.

Credits for inspiration on dacoits of Chambal valley and image --- Internet.