"I photographed everything I could find in the Morena district archive. Let me look."
He looked. Case 447, Morena district police records, 1992: a report on the investigation of three dead animals — cattle — found in the ravines near Bargawa with injuries consistent with a specific knife pattern. The investigating officer's note: Pattern consistent with dacoit-era slaughter method. Source unknown. No criminal group currently active in this area. Recommend surveillance of the Bargawa sector for persons with knowledge of old practices. Note: local intelligence suggests one elderly man, name unknown to informant, lives in the deep ravines seasonally. Believed harmless. No action taken.
"1992," Tanya said. "Thirty-two years ago. An old man then."
"He could be dead," Priya said.
"He could be ninety years old and still doing this," Tanya said.
"Or he taught someone," Kabir said. "The way his people were taught. The way knowledge is passed — not in books but in practice."
Aryan was looking at the camera in his hands. The camera that had been left behind deliberately. The camera that someone wanted kept rolling.
"He knows what we are," Aryan said.
"Dark tourists," Tanya said.
"People who come here for content. To take pictures of where they lived and how they died and put it on the internet for views." He looked at the camera for another moment. "We're here documenting their history as entertainment. And he's—"
"Returning the favour," Priya said.
The words sat in the ravine air like something dropped from a height.
Kabir said, quietly: "The old dacoit gangs — particularly in the Man Singh era — they were not simply criminals. Many of them were people who had been wronged by the landowning class, by the police, by the system. Phoolan Devi is the most famous example but there were hundreds. They went into the beehad not from choice but from necessity. Their history is a history of people who had no other option." He put the phone down. "And we came here to film that history as a backdrop for YouTube content."
"That's not—" Aryan started.
"The series is called 'Dark India,'" Kabir said. Not unkindly. Just accurately.
The ravine above them was silent. The rock walls held the heat and the silence in equal measure.
"We still need to get out," Priya said. Because someone had to say the practical thing.
"Three kilometres to the south exit," Kabir said. "Two more hours of walking."
"Then we walk," Priya said.
They walked.
