Village Tinauli was located below the ridge across the valley from Gautam’s estate. Getting to it involved trekking for a total of about four hours: down to the valley floor, across the river, up the hill to the ridge line and down a short distance on the other side. The young people of the village had all moved away to the plains years ago; the village had ample water but it had neither school nor jobs, not even a motorable road – and the elders were left behind to make do with some remitted money and limited makeshift agriculture.
Then, about a decade ago, four Israelis had settled there – an elderly couple, Deborah and Reuben, and two much younger men, Yaakov and Ben. The young men soon found partners locally, and much to the astonishment of the few remaining villagers, settled down to quiet domesticity. The foreigners were very good agriculturists, and the almost abandoned village soon began yielding an excellent income from vegetables, fruit, poultry and dairy, not only for the foreigners, but also for the remaining villagers who leased their lands to them.
But the mountains didn’t remain peaceful for long. An attempt by a powerful drug cartel to set up opium poppy cultivation in abandoned villages like Tinauli had attracted Gautam’s attention, and the subsequent violent confrontation involved the Tinauli Israelis, who worked with him and his “official” partners against the Narcos.
Sanju’s call to Deborah, the alpha of the group, led to the two elders starting off early morning from Tinauli, two days after Gautam had returned. They took a detour to his place, skirting the village cluster of which his estate was formally a part.
Coffee was served, lunch ordered and the three sat down to talk.
“This Pandit fellow has a bad reputation, Gautam,” observed Deborah. “We made some enquiries and the reaction was uniformly negative. People know very little and say less – they are seriously afraid to talk. But we did get some data – after all we are locals with strong economic ties to people in the area.”
Gautam smiled and poured more coffee.
“He has several places where he and his teams hang out. The HQ is supposedly somewhere in the Bhimtal-Bhowali area – hiding in plain sight, perhaps – hangouts in the Berinag area, and establishments in the terai in the Ramnagar-Haldwani region. He runs much of the smuggling out of the interior via Ranikhet-Ramnagar, has abducted a couple of rich builders for ransom and yes, is believed to have gone into property dealing recently.”
Gautam nodded appreciatively. “For all your isolation, you have good sources of information.”
“The boys travel a lot and speak the local language fluently now, and that helps. I just sit around and listen to all their gossip,” Deborah replied. “I’ve sent Ben out to get more details – he’s the outgoing, social one with a hundred friends, from bus conductors to hotel owners. He’ll wander around and pick up snippets that we’ll weave a picture from. Meanwhile, I’ll have Yaakov do a recce of your area – see if they’ve set up watchers around here. Once we know where they are and how they work, it’ll be easy to take them out whenever we want.”
“I’m extremely grateful for all the trouble you people are taking. But please be careful – no point in calling attention to yourselves. These are nasty people obviously. Tell your boys not to get too close – it’s not worth the risk.”
Reuben laughed. “Things were getting a little too comfortable, Colonel. A shot of adrenalin will do us all good. And don’t worry, we don’t take unnecessary risks, but we do have to protect what we have built from people like this.”
The cook announced lunch and the conversation shifted to water conservation, poly-house construction and dairy farming. Soon after lunch, the Israeli couple left and Gautam went on a recee of his own in the forest that more or less surrounded his little estate.
Gautam had, over the years, familiarised himself with the myriad footpaths that threaded the forest and a detailed, careful reconnaissance showed that there were no strange and unwanted humans in the area as yet. A year ago, a female leopard had made her den in a shallow cave in the thick forest and had given birth to two cubs. Gautam’s staff had told him about it and for several months the area had been given a wide berth by everyone – nobody wanted to tackle a new mother bringing up her young! It was only when the boys reported that apparently the cat family had vacated the premises that grass cutting, wood-gathering and other routine tasks recommenced in the area. One or more leopards did occasionally visit the area – the dogs went ballistic when they did – and Gautam noticed some fresh pug marks when he did his walkabout.
“Scare any intruders away, guys,” said Gautam addressing the forest, which had flourished since Gautam’s grandfather had begun looking after it.
“Prevent indiscriminate tree felling, stop forest fires as soon as they start, and leave the jungle alone. Just do this and the forest will regenerate remarkably fast,” his grandfather had said, and the old man knew what he was talking about. He had turned a barren, almost treeless ridge into a flourishing oak forest in the thirty years he had spent in his Himalayan refuge and Gautam had every intention of continuing the tradition.
Gautam stopped near the ridge line, stepped up on a large rock that jutted out of the mountainside and looked downhill. A thin thread of smoke rose from his kitchen chimney, the only sign of human presence, as the trees hid the house completely from this particular location. The sunlight seeping through the tree cover dappled the greens with yellow and the only sound was that of a slight breeze ruffling the oak leaves. For a long moment Gautam savoured the silence; then he turned and made his way back down the mountainside.
Excerpted with permission from Himalayan Refuge, Amitabh Pandey, Speaking Tiger Books.