‘This letter is the key given to you by your thug to open The Book of Destruction. Just as the bodies of the destroyed are buried the instant they die, the pages of The Book of Destruction disappear the moment they are read. The questions you might wish to ask, arising out of this dialogue that you are privileged to be having, will not reach me for I am on the other side of death. Futuristic as the philosophy is, the questions have to travel from you to someone else, not back to me. This dialogue cannot be stopped by you — you are ordained to take it further.
‘After reading this letter you will not be able to write about anything else. What you will discuss with others after receiving this letter will not be the same as what you would have discussed in the event of not receiving it. At the same time, it will not be a relay race — one person passing on to another what he has received from someone else. I don’t need to tell you this because you are a fiction writer. You know that ideas are not inert material to be simply transferred from one person to another; they carry with them the giver’s fingerprints, his angst and his concerns, as they are passed on. So henceforth your works will contain the fears and concerns this letter has passed on to you. You will convey them to your victims, the readers, as I have conveyed them to you, my living victim. Like the storm I have unleashed in your mind, you too will unleash one in your readers’ minds. There will, however, be one difference. The secrecy I had maintained in my relationship with my victims, you will not keep with yours. That would, however, not take away the fear from your dialogue with them. Raise the fear, build it up systematically, that is the message of the time. I am sure in the coming years you will fulfil your obligations with alacrity.
‘And, mind you, I have not told you anything new in this letter of mine. I have not told you anything that does not exist or has not existed or, if I may say so, is not already known to everyone. You cannot say that you are unaware of the killing elements saturating the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you consume. Is it not happening with the knowledge and consent of all? Poison is as much a part of life now as it was before. Violence has become common, transparent and acceptable in every activity around you, whether it is politics, industry, trade, struggles, revolution, culture, art or literature. And that is the reason for my writing this letter to you. There is a growing transparency in the act of destruction in the world these days. This is a matter of concern to us thugs as the philosophy of thuggee does not allow transparency. It is this crisis faced by thuggee that has commissioned me to undertake this dialogue with you.
‘You have, of course, read in your history textbooks that at one time our cult was so widespread that even the remotest corner of the country was not free of us. Yet we used to be extremely esoteric in our practices, because of the circumstances. Saints and thinkers alike were bent upon painting the face of life in the colours of love and devotion, obscuring the violence and destruction that are deeply woven into it. The persistent distortion of reality and the propaganda against destruction made it difficult to practise our faith in the open. We had to hide behind masks, deny responsibility and even justify our actions with arguments we ourselves did not approve of. The foreign rulers who came to loot our country declared war upon us for their own reasons. We could not match their firepower and had to retreat entirely underground for survival. The belief that thuggee had been eliminated became prevalent.
‘An entirely new kind of violence has taken over the world in the last half century or so, since we left the Mehta Company, as you would not have failed to notice. Destruction, having left the larger arena of huge armies and nations at war, has passed into the hands of individuals and small, individualized groups. While the industry of weapons of mass destruction continues to thrive, the most noticeable acts of destruction today are being carried out by those with small arms, explosives, mines and booby traps. Intriguingly, these attacks planned and executed at the level of individuals are aimed at individuals who are not in any way relevant to the cause that is proclaimed. The faceless multitude in the streets is the new target. Destruction, while being executed by individuals, thus continues to remain uncontaminated by individual enmity and emotions, exhibiting the purity of mind and spirit our philosophy demands. Further, we see destruction turning into a continuous and endemic phenomenon, rather different from huge wars visiting only once in a while. Destruction has become an everyday and everywhere business, ever present in the streets, offices, factories and courtyards.
‘These are all certainly welcome signs, reflecting the true nature of the philosophy of destruction. This also adheres to the rules and methodology so dear to thuggee. But at one point we find it deviating from our principles, and that is in abandoning the esoteric nature of it. The perpetrators of destruction these days are coming out and making proclamations, claiming glory. They do not perform the act mandatory to us thugs, namely burying the dead bodies and erasing the evidence from the prying eyes of the public. Devi Bhavani also seems to have become lax about taking the responsibility upon herself, of disposing of the bodies in case of contingencies, like she used to.
‘On one hand, the modern thugs accept the purity of destruction. On the other, they deviate from the binding customs and rituals. Are they reforming thuggee, or polluting it with extraneous practices? Or, to take another view, does all this mean that mankind has finally begun to see clearly and has accepted the fundamental and basic role destruction plays in life — to the extent that secrecy has become superfluous? Does it mean that even while holding high the ideology, a change is being wrought in the methodology? Is Devi Bhavani, having seen the ascent of mankind, and being satisfied with it, leaving the field altogether, denying herself the offerings of devotees, and allowing them to enjoy and revel in their act on their own? I am passing on all these questions to you to ponder over.’
I sat frozen in my chair. This was a man who used to converse happily with plants and flowers, take part in all manner of mundane human activities positively and constructively, who could appreciate philosophy, art and literature — a simple Vaishnava Brahmin. Suddenly one day a shadow of suspicion falls over him. Four and a half decades pass. Then, breaking through the remaining shells of goodness, he emerges, shedding all pretences, to spread only horror and suspicion everywhere. He unveils himself and tells me that he was my failed murderer, without even a pretence of an apology. Assuming the guise of a samharamurty, he proclaims that lies, deception and destruction are the basic tenets and characteristics of mankind, even of the whole living world.
The first question I forced upon myself was: how much of what he had written in that letter was true? Was that letter itself a deception, a game? Why would he play such a game from the other side of death where he was unable to enjoy the results? Was this man who died today, the same old Seshadri at all? If not, who was he? A psychopath, a madman? Questions washed over me, one after the other, and the aftertaste they left was fear. Fear itself seemed to assume a tangible character, filling the room and crowding around my body from all sides.