Brush with dacoits

111212.1821

I first came across the word "dacoit" in the guidebook. The Indian penal code has a special provision dealing with these modern day "bandits", who often rule, with intimidation, fear, extortion and blackmail, where the reaches of law enforcement is weakest and more sporadic. And this is the case in the very regions of India (and also Nepal) I've been traveling in...

A friend of mine warned me to be very careful on my travels and not to venture on roads at night. He told me to avoid a particular train station, Mughal Sarai Junction, which is supposed to be rife with these kinds of people. I tried to imagine what they look like, and keep picturing rough looking men with tattoos and bandanas chewing paan (betel nut). Somehow, fate led me to stand on the platform and wait there for three hours... But I never encountered any criminal elements, at least not that I was aware of.

Until today.

I took a tour of the surrounding area around Lumbini, and hired a driver in search of the ruins which allegedly is the kingdom where Prince Siddharta grew up before he left in search of deathless and liberation from this world. I arrived at Kapilvatsu, some twenty kilometers away, and spent a pleasant afternoon wandering around ruins.

Close to four thirty, the driver said we should head back. I was disappointed, for there were two other sites we did not see. But he was in a great hurry to leave, an it was another forty-five minute drive back to the village I was staying at.

He drove at great speeds as the skies began to dim gradually. We sped through the countryside, vast fields with wandering cows and goats all around us that looked so tranquil and so tame. The driver kept on honking to warn slow bikers and cow-drawn carts laden with hay of our mad and speedy approach.

Then we had to slow down, for there was a large lorry and tractor parked in the middle of the road. In front of us was a fancy SUV, whereas I was in a beatup little Tata compact. A group of men, in their late twenties or so, some sporting fancy looking jackets, stood on the side of the road and were shouting. A crowd gathered. There was confusion and commotion. I sat in the back seat and watched this all from a safe distance, unsure what was happening, but intrigued. Two weeks on the road in India (and now Nepal...) and I wondered what other unexpected there is to expect.

The driver honked, but we sat there for a good ten minutes. He eventually got out of the car and went to see what was happening. He returned and closed the door behind him. He looked nervous, and I heard the doors lock. Things were happening so quickly and so randomly, I was lost.

The SUV in front of us nudged around the tractor that till now was parked in the middle of the road but was beginning to move a little out of the way. The driver took this cue and did the same, trying to nudge in between a small space that was opening up between the slow moving tractor and the still stationary lorry. As we advanced, the men who had been standing on the side of the road closed in on our car. They shouted something in Nepali I could not understand. I did understand that their tone were not very friendly, and they seemed to be demanding something.

"No money! No money!" the driver shouted back, "No money!" With those words, he quickly sped away, leaving the rabble, parked lorry and tractor that took up more than half the road, behind.

We sped for a few minutes before the driver turned back to me, and said on broken English: "Fighting!" He gestured with his fists. "Ask money! Money!"

Then it occurred to me. These men were not in uniform, so they couldn't be the police, who at times are just as bad and good at extorting money as good-for-nothing dacoits. These men were perhaps.... So I asked. "Dacoits?"

"Yes! Yes!" We sped along the road, swerving left and right to avoid hitting the ocassional wandering cow or school children biking home from school. Several times I thought we were going to flying off into the ditch or flip over.

"How much? One hundred? Two hundred?" I asked.

The driver wanted to say something but he did not know how, it seemed, in English. Then, with one hand on the wheel, the other reached for his mobile phone. He typed a figure. Two hundred, and three more zeros behind that. Two hundred thousand Nepali rupees, that's close to $2500, or ten times the average monthly wage...

As we sped further toward Lumbini, I looked out the window at the fields that before looked so tranquil and tame. It now looked so barren, desolate, dead. Fog was beginning to set in, and soon wolves can be heard howling in the dark as they do every night. There was still some light of day left, but soon, the road would be pitch dark. The kind of dark that is unimaginable because there simply are no lights, and even if there were lights, they would often just suddenly switch off because of the common plague of blackouts. Not even the stars and crescent moon can be seen, for they are normally eclipsed by the nightly onset of thick fog prone to these lower regions of the Himalayas.

It began to dawn on me what just happened, and how close I was to being in danger without even realising it. Thank goodness we quickly got away, otherwise how would we live up to the demand for that much money? Who has that much money in this region of one of the ten poorest countries in the world anyways?
What would they do to me, a foreign traveler in the middle of a backward region of Nepal? How would they react if they opened my bulky looking bag and found only three stuffed animals, some Buddhist prayer beads and a picture of my mum?

I felt nauseated, even more than before when it was just due to the side effects of the malaria pills I needed to take to stay safe in this region. The accumulated traveler's fatigue mingled with a creeping realisation of what could have happened ( but luckily did not...), and since I began this journey two weeks ago, I longed to go home...



I