Children of Kali

Part travelogue, part history and part personal record, this book investigates this dark side of India. The author's quest takes him to prisons and gangster hideouts, probing the nature of crime and punishment in a country where the distinction between good and evil can be as murky as the Ganges.

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They murdered more than a million travellers without spilling a drop of blood. They were inspired by religious fanaticism, yet came from many faiths. Their weapon was the handkerchief, their sacrament sugar, and their goddess Kali. They were the thugs. He is responsible for more than a hundred murders. He lives in the deepest jungles left in India and avoids capture, his followers claim, by magical powers. Some say he is a freedom fighter, others that he is a vicious hoodlum. He is Veerappan, India's most wanted man, and the most famous member of the modern thug cult. This book investigates this dark side of India. The author's quest takes him to prisons and gangster hideouts, probing the nature of crime and punishment in a country where the distinction between good and evil can be as murky as the Ganges. Part travelogue, part history and part personal record, this book is a revelation too - the Devil of the title is not Kali, nor is it any of the thugs or other villains, but the demons that exist within a traveller's own mind.