Spent the weekend reading Confessions of A Thug by Meadows Taylor. I never thought a book existed on 19th century India that provided such vivid imagery of life then. Since I live in Indore, the fact that the Thuggee cult was most active in the Narmada (or Nerbudda) region seems unsettling. Apparently, Thugs used to take 40000 lives every year and continued with their practice of strangulation for close to 300 years. And to think that I have spent a good part of my life in the region that only about 150 years back was an extremely mature and deep rooted crime organization that did not spare many many travellers...god! I guess in such moments one must thank the British imperialists for "cleaning" up our society of so many ills. Lord Bentinck, in particular ("Cleaning" exercises are almost always synonymous with purges and witch-hunting, but sometimes are the only way one could uproot a deeprooted evil practice.).
The best part about the book however is the objective, un-racist and extremely lucid narration, unlike, say, A Passage To India (though, a bias against Hindus is clearly visible in Confessions...). Seems Queen Victoria asked for a copy of the book even when it was in a draft state - so much was its popularity then....
The rest of the weekend was spent helping my parents pack their bags and leave Bhopal for Delhi. It was a very sad time, leaving the house of 12 years...so many memories there...and leaving the graves of our pet dogs Jimmy, Conchie and Dimpy....its almost as if an entire chapter of our lives got closed....
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