12. WHITE SHAITAAN
WHITE SHAITAAN
Andhra Pradesh, India
Turning a street thief into a gentleman was no easy task. Not when one man wanted him to be a noble, the other one a savage.
A true bet, indeed.
Because of Clara’s death and the passing of her father shortly after of malaria, the two brothers now shared the luxury home with a large indoor courtyard, rosewood pillars, and live plants throughout its many spacious rooms and corridors.
Drasko lived with them. So did Alfred’s newborn daughter in the care of a maid.
Uriah’s efforts in raising Drasko were fueled by his spite toward his brother. He got Drasko tutors in all subjects imaginable.
“Knowledge is a weapon,” Uriah said, and by the time Drasko was thirteen, he spoke perfect English, was fluent in Hindi and French, could read and write in all three languages, and excelled in math.
Uriah took it upon himself to teach the boy the diamond trade, the gruesome work of the common laborers in the river delta as well as the intricate side of diamond importing.
He brought Drasko to business meetings, introduced him to Golconda’s diamond traders, took him on a voyage across the Far East.
Drasko was ambitious. Perhaps, it was due to his survival instinct from the streets, which only pleased Uriah.
None of the businesspeople, who saw young Drasko in a fancy English suit with immaculate table manners and so elegant at dancing, recognized him back at the Mawr mines, wearing the kurta pajama, often shirtless and barefoot, sitting with the locals near the riverbeds and rocky hills and eating rice, sabzi , and dahl with his fingers.
The workers loved him. Why, he was the only white lord who spent days in the dirt and mud with them, rain or shine, learning the underside of the mining business!
Drasko charmed the local girls and humbled the village elders.
He made friends with Elias Bayne, another British boy his age, and sailed with him and his father to Borneo for a month.
He learned how to shoot, carried a gun with him on business trips with Uriah, and once sorted out the Thuggees, who tried to rob them outside Golconda.
The only thing that reminded Drasko of England were bonfires, their pungent smell yanking him back in time to the cold winters and the meek fires they used to burn at night to stay warm on the streets.
He didn’t miss London but wondered what had become of his only friend, Zeph, a street thief just like him.
He wished Zeph were here, for they could build an empire together!
And then there was Alfred Mawr, angry at life, who wanted to break something, whether a face or a person’s life, indulging in drunkenness and women.
He didn’t like that Uriah had adopted the boy.
Alfred had his daughter, but she was a girl, not an heir and with little prospect of continuing in his steps.
So, Alfred drank his bitterness away and ground his teeth at the sight of young Drasko growing into an inquisitive and extremely intelligent adolescent—the bet Alfred was slowly losing.
One day, when Drasko was fourteen and Uriah was away for business, Alfred took the boy to a faraway village, to a fighting match, a place that didn’t like white men or tolerate weakness.
A small dusty field.
A stone fence with cemented glass shards on top.
A crowd of Thuggees, ruthless criminals known for very little compassion.
And Drasko against three boys, older than him, with scars, menacing scowls, and practiced fists.
Drasko was set up for failure. Or worse , Alfred hoped as he placed a bet with Siddharth, a man in charge of the local gang, then pushed Drasko toward his opponents.
“You think you can make it?” Alfred whispered to Drasko. “My brother turned you into a brat.”
Bets were placed. Dozens gathered to witness a white boy be pummeled to death.
And Alfred would remember for the rest of his not-so-long life the spiteful stare Drasko gave him before he turned toward the three boys who leisurely circled him, ready to attack.
Drasko proved that night that he still had it in him—the survival instinct that had helped him on the streets of London as a child.
Incredibly, he fought like a true savage. Whether it was to protect the life he’d been promised or to prove that he wasn’t a pampered foreigner who was given everything on a golden platter.
He saw the fight for what it was—a test. Three against one. Six fists against two smaller ones. And teeth, for Drasko used those too that night.
He was knocked down right away, then again, shock on his face at the sudden display of such violence. The onlookers spat chewed-up betel quid right at him, leaving red splatters on his skin mixed with his blood. Their laughter rang in Drasko’s ears as he was beaten.
But nothing made him more furious than the smirk on Alfred’s face.
So, Drasko kept rising from the ground, was kicked down, and rose again. He wiped the blood from under his nose with the back of his hand, and—the laughter quietened—angrily smiled back at the attackers, his own blood staining his teeth and dripping into his eyes, blurring his vision.
He roared then, charged at the opponents, threw vicious punches and kicks.
When he started losing strength, his teeth bit into the men’s flesh.
When he couldn’t bite anymore, he threw handfuls of dirt into their faces.
When he was kicked senseless into the dirt, his weak hand found a stick on the ground, and he used it to stab at them, aiming for their faces.
And when the three of them, beaten and finally giving up, crawled away, Drasko rose on all fours—all he could manage—wobbling, his face swollen with bruises, his body broken.
Blood dripped from his face onto the dirt, but he raised his eyes at Alfred in triumph.
The crowd around went quiet, among them Alfred, cowardly trembling in shock.
Siddharth wiggled his head side to side, observing Drasko, and spat red quid at Alfred’s feet.
“ Bahadur. ” Brave , it meant. “ Bahadur lekin paagal ,” he said. Brave but crazy. And his men nodded at young Drasko with respect.
Alfred only sucked his teeth, disappointment at his failed experiment sweeping across his gaze.
No one inquired about Drasko’s broken nose and ribs, or the bruises all over his body.
Except Asha, who took care of Alfred’s daughter. That night, Drasko, barely alive, made his way to her bungalow. She made him chai and gave him cold compresses.
Drasko grunted, trying to sip the warm liquid with his broken lips.
“Slowly, slowly,” she muttered, tears in her eyes as she exchanged glances with her husband, Rupesh, a supervisor of one of the worker teams.
Rupesh studied Drasko grimly, shook his head, and prayed all night at his puja ghar .
Alfred’s daughter, only four years of age, crawled around Drasko with a naive smile that made his heart melt.
“They can’t win,” he whispered to her conspiratorially and smiled through pain.
The little one only grinned back and cooed as he tucked her under his arm.
This was the first fight of many. Until Drasko was old enough to know he didn’t need to prove himself anymore. Until the word spread across the villages to stay away from the white shaitaan , the devil.
“He is like Rakshasa,” some said.
A tiger terrorized the nearby villages. It attacked at night and had eaten many workers and a child. The mere sight of its giant paw prints on the ground by morning sent fear through the locals.
They called the tiger Rakshasa, like the evil god. Uncatchable, untraceable, and insatiable. And they compared Drasko to it.
“The path of a king is a solitary one,” Uriah said. “Do not fret over others’ insults. They are beneath you.”
Drasko didn’t care about being alone. But he despised the mockery and the envious rumors behind his back.
Rupesh had become his close friend by then. He didn’t care about diamonds or where Drasko had come from or what reputation he had but watched him closely.
One day, Rupesh sat Drasko down in his house, in front of a puja ghar .
“Your anger rules your mind,” he said, lighting the candles. “Learn to control it, before it starts ruling your heart.”
“One’s mind is a weapon,” Drasko scoffed. “A true king is not concerned about the matters of his heart.”
“Hmm. You do not have to be a king to be powerful,” Rupesh said. “There are many roads to power. A great captain learns the sea and holds the helm during storms. A warrior dares to charge at death. A beast has the strength to fight it. A wise man knows how to tame his inner demons.”
“Who has all of the above?” Drasko inquired, for Rupesh’s wisdom was different from Uriah’s.
“Oi, bhaiya , a god does.”
“Can one be like a god?”
“ Haan-ji ,” Rupesh agreed. “We all are.”
“Why would one want to be a king if he can be a god?”
“Because kings are mortal.”
“Exactly!”
“Exactly.” Rupesh smiled. “Death is the only thing a god can’t have. But who wants to be a god when all your loved ones die?”
In a few years, Drasko would get to know the dire meaning behind those words.
But as he grew older, he grew stronger, his fists tougher, and his mind sharper.
Women couldn’t stay away from Drasko. They always fancied things dark and devilish, especially with a dazzling smile and magnificent green eyes.
Nothing was stopping them from pursuing Drasko’s attention, much to the envy of the local men.
At last, Uriah caught a whiff of Alfred’s wasteful attempts to bring Drasko down.
“Street dogs never lose fangs. They always keep their guard and aren’t afraid to be alone,” Drasko overheard Uriah say once.
To which Alfred answered, “A dog is still a dog, no matter how you dress it.”
That was all Drasko was to the Mawrs—a bet.
He didn’t care. He had his own plans. He would become a powerful man, and not for Uriah’s sake of winning the bet. One day, Drasko promised himself, he would take Alfred’s little daughter away from these cruel people, give her a new life, and surround her with those who would love her.
But for that, he needed to go back to London.
He didn’t know yet that the two of them indeed would go to London one day, but only one would survive that trip.